The Room —a low-budget indie melodrama about a love triangle between a “successful banker,” his “beautiful blonde fiance” and his “independent best friend” written, directed and starring aspiring filmmaker Tommy Wiseau — has been called everything from the worst film ever made to the Citizen Kaneof bad movies. I've yet to experience it, but the film’s trailer brings to mind an overripe episode of Guiding Lightwith the production values and acting prowess of a late-night Cinemax C movie. (Curious side note: On the film's poster, Wiseau looks strikingly similar to Gene Simmons. Coincidence, or kismet?)

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Unless you've understandably been stricken with Apocalyptic anxiety while hiding out in your basement since John Boehner was named Speaker of the House, you probably recall that area native/Hollywood bigwig George Clooney was in town earlier this year shooting his fourth directorial effort, a political drama called Ides of March.

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This week is a busy one for comic book movies. With The Avengers opening up today, all the attention has been on Marvel Comics. But, not to be outdone, DC Comics and Warner Bros. released a new trailer to The Dark Knight Rises. On top of that, it is Free Comic Book Day on Saturday.

The new trailer for the next Batman movie is two minutes of pure excitement for fans of the Christopher Nolan trilogy. The Dark Knight Rises will be the last in the Nolan trilogy, and by judging from how the stakes were continuously raised on Gotham City in his first two films, this one should be a beautiful ending to Bruce Wayne’s Batman. That is, until someone else gets a hold of the cash cow franchise.

[Read tt stern-enzi's take on The Avengers here.]

Despite releasing the trailer, DC is taking a back seat to Marvel. For years Marvel has had better movies than DC, with the exception of Nolan’s Batman, and recently the former has had a string of successful hits. This past year along saw Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, two widely popular characters that Marvel needed to establish before going ahead with The Avengers.

DC has tried to branch out from Batman and Superman, but most of their efforts have resulted in ridiculed movies. The last Superman movie was terrible, but a new one is still in the works. Last year Green Lantern came out to mixed emotions from fans. Ryan Reynolds was surprisingly good; it was everything else that fell short in the movie. Weak villains and missed opportunities were the downfall of Green Lantern, but that is a whole other story. I will say that it was a decent attempt to start the push toward a Justice League movie.

In a way, Marvel wins the movie race because they are the first to release a movie based on their group of high profile characters. According to MovieTickets.com the pre-sale ticket numbers suggest that this movie is going to be bigger than the two Iron Man movies, Thor and Captain America. With sequels in line for the Captain, Thor and Iron Man, Marvel is going to be sitting pretty for the next few years.

This summer is going to be a great one for comic book fans. Not only is The Avengers opening up the summer blockbuster season, but The Dark Knight Rises releases July 20 and The Amazing Spider-Man on July 3. The third Men in Black movie comes out in a few weeks on May 25.

David Lynch once called Nicolas Cage ''the jazz musician of actors.'' So what happened, Nic? A quick glance at your recent movies includes stuff like Bangkok Dangerous, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Next, Ghost Rider and Wicker Man. That’s like Charlie Parker deciding to do Kenny G covers.

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Lee Daniels’ Precious, which won audience awards at both the Sundance and Toronto film festivals, has drawn largely positive reviews for its unblinking look at a 16-year-old black female dealing with myriad challenges, including but certainly not limited to a serious weight problem, a monstrous mother, an incestuous father and an ineffective school system.

Yet Precious also has its detractors, none more vociferous than The New York Press’ Armond White, a critic who has never shied away from airing his contrarian views.

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I came across this picture of Joaquin Phoenix today, which triggered a memory of my lone interaction with him. I ran into Phoenix at a film festival party a few years ago. I remember thinking at the time that no one could possibly be less suited for the intense Hollywood glare than this guy.

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Cincinnati World Cinema continues its eclectic programing this week with The Perfect Host, a nasty little thriller featuring a gleefully perverse performance from David Hyde Pierce, which screens 7 p.m. today and tomorrow at the Carnegie in Covington.

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New Cincinnati Film Festival (CFF) Director of Programming Brandon Harris isn't shy about pimping the quality of his choices for this year's fest: “This represents the most ambitious and internationally acclaimed program of films ever screened in Cincinnati.”

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There was a time when Winona Ryder could do no wrong. Simultaneously intelligent, beautiful and creatively savvy, Ryder burst onto the scene with a series of late-1980s roles informed by a refreshingly offbeat sensibility best exemplified by her adorable goth-girl breakthrough in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice and her career-defining performance as Veronica in Heathers, a scathing black comedy that still holds up 20 years later.

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I was having lunch with a friend yesterday when the topic of my favorite movies of 2008 came up. She had read my Top 10 list in this week’s CityBeat and complained about the fact that I presented them in alphabetical order instead of ranking them from 1 to 10.

I tried to explain my reasons for doing so — something pretentious about how ranking art devalues it and the fact that the order could change based on my mood on any given day — but she wasn’t hearing it.

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