'Star Wars' sick day: May 19

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A long time ago, in a galaxy known as early "Saturday Night Live," Bill Murray played a lounge singer who crooned, " 'Star Wars,' nothing but 'Star Wars' ..."

And it will be nothing but "Star Wars" on May 19, when the sixth and final installment of George Lucas' space spectacular is released. This is his last chance to bridge "Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" with the original "Star Wars," released in 1977 and now fourth in the sequence. At one time, Lucas talked about doing nine movies, but he decided to quit at six.

In "Revenge of the Sith," Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is lured to the dark side, and the foundation must be laid for his wife, Amidala (Natalie Portman), to become pregnant with twins, known as Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker. After all, in "Episode V -- The Empire Strikes Back," Darth Vader shocks Luke (Mark Hamill) with the revelation: "I am your father."

This is the skinny from 20th Century Fox on the plot: After three years, the Clone Wars are nearly at an end. The Jedi Council dispatches Obi-Wan Kenobi to bring General Grievous, deadly leader of the Separatist droid army, to justice.

Back on Coruscant, Chancellor Palpatine has grown in power. He transforms the war-weary Republic into the mighty Galactic Empire. To his closest ally, Anakin Skywalker, he reveals the true nature of power and the promised secrets of the Force in an attempt to lure him to the dark side.

We know how that turns out.

Zombies, geishas and Pittsburghers, oh my

For zombie fans, the big news isn't "Star Wars" but "Land of the Dead," the fourth flick on the subject from Pittsburgher George Romero. Yes, it was filmed in Toronto instead of its rightful home of Pittsburgh ("Blame Canada," as the "South Park" song suggests), but Universal Pictures will release it Oct. 21.

The cast includes Simon Baker, who played glum lawyer Nick Fallin on "The Guardian" TV series, along with John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper and Asia Argento.

December will bring Rob Marshall's "Memoirs of a Geisha." Based on the Arthur Golden book, the story begins in the years before World War II when a penniless Japanese girl is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house. Despite a treacherous rival, she blossoms into a legendary geisha, played by Ziyi Zhang from "House of Flying Daggers."

The cast also includes Ken Watanabe from "The Last Samurai," along with Michelle Yeoh and Gong Li. Sophomore slump for the "Chicago" director? Seems unlikely.

Chills and thrills

Horror and Halloween once went hand in hand, but supernatural thrillers and scary movies can be released at almost any time of year, as the Jan. 7 launch of "White Noise" proved.

In "The Ring Two," Naomi Watts will find herself trapped in the same well as the malevolent Samara, while "The Amityville Horror" will revisit a Long Island home where mass murder took place.

"House of Wax" skews young with the story of friends who fall prey to a sinister plot while passing through a small town on their way to a college football game. Kate Hudson uses "The Skeleton Key" to explore a hidden attic room in a decrepit Louisiana mansion where she's working as a live-in nurse.

"Just Like Heaven" stars Mark Ruffalo as a San Franciscan who finds himself with an ethereal roomie played by Reese Witherspoon. "The Woods," starring Patricia Clarkson as the headmistress of a boarding school, harbors something spooky, while long-dead sailors killed in a shipwreck are back again, looking for revenge in "The Fog."

"The Exorcism of Emily Rose," inspired by true events but with names changed, stars Tom Wilkinson as a priest charged after a possessed girl dies. "The Saw" will spawn a sequel and meteorites bring an otherworldly infection and awaken the dead in "Undead." We want to be scared (nearly) to death by George Romero's "Land of the Dead." Let the lumbering begin.

From small to big screen

Some diehard fans of Jackie Gleason weren't thrilled with Brad Garrett playing the entertainer in a CBS movie. Wait until they see Cedric the Entertainer in Gleason's signature role in an update of "The Honeymooners," also starring Mike Epps, Gabrielle Union and Regina Hall.

Nicole Kidman will twitch her nose as an actress hired to play Samantha Stephens but who also happens to be a witch in "Bewitched." Will Ferrell will play the actor hired as her husband and Shirley MacLaine her mother, Endora. Kristin Chenoweth, who was Glinda the good witch when "Wicked" opened on Broadway, turns up, too.

Last year's update of "Starsky & Hutch" wouldn't have been the same without the flashy red Gran Torino. "The Dukes of Hazzard" is coming back, and it's bringing the 1969 orange Dodge Charger. The movie stars Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville as cousins Bo and Luke, Jessica Simpson as Daisy and Willie Nelson as moonshine-running Uncle Jesse. They try to save the family farm from corrupt Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds).

Also in the works: "Serenity," based on the canceled series "Firefly" from Joss Whedon; "Get Smart," with Steve Carell, the flummoxed anchor in "Bruce Almighty," as Maxwell Smart; and a live-action version of "Aeon Flux," starring Charlize Theron.

Equal opportunity comedy

The Honeymooners" isn't the only color-blind comedy. "Guess Who" is an update of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," but this time the parents and daughter are African-American and the boyfriend is white -- and played by Ashton Kutcher.

Bernie Mac is the father who checks out his daughter's boyfriend and likes what he sees on paper -- great job, solid investments, promising future. But when the taxicab pulls up to the house, Bernie Mac mistakes the cabbie for the boyfriend, the boyfriend for the cabbie and things go downhill from there.

Zoe Saldana is his daughter in this comedy pegged for March 25. William Rose, the Oscar-winning writer of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn movie, died in 1987 but gets screen credit for providing the bones of "Guess Who."

Family films

The title doesn't scream kids' movie but the combo of the description and DreamWorks does. Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith lend their voices to animated zoo animals who escape and accidentally end up in "Madagascar." Later in the year, "Wallace & Gromit" will star in their first feature-length film. Disney has bumped its Pixar picture "Cars" to 2006 but will roll out "Chicken Little" and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and hope that the sky won't fall.

Deal us in

Las Vegas will provide the backdrop for "Lucky You," starring Eric Bana as a professional poker player. He gets a lesson in life from a struggling singer as he collides with his estranged father at the World Series of Poker in Vegas.

Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey roll the dice on a sports betting story with "Two for the Money." Pacino heads a big sports consulting operation and McConaughey is a former college football star with an uncanny ability to predict the outcome games. Their close relationship eventually falters like Doug Brien's ability to get a football through the uprights.

War, what is it good for?

Adrien Brody has enough trouble in "The Jacket" for three or four movies. He's a Gulf War veteran recuperating from a gunshot wound to the head and suffering from amnesia. He returns to his native Vermont, where he is accused of murdering a police officer, committed to a mental institution and subjected to experimental treatment involving drugs, a straitjacket and being locked in a morgue drawer. He then sees the future, where he is about to die. Whoa.

Talk about a red-hot cast. Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx and Peter Sarsgaard star in an adaptation of Anthony Swofford's memoir, "Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles." Gyllenhaal portrays Swoff, a third-generation enlistee who saw action in Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

And "The Great Raid" is about the greatest generation. Set in the Philippines in 1945, it tells the true story of the 6th Ranger Battalion, under the command of Lt. Col. Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt), as it tries to liberate 500 Americans from a notorious POW camp. Cast includes James Franco, Joseph Fiennes, Mark Consuelos and Connie Nielsen.

Wedding watch

At least a couple of movies will make merry of marriage ceremonies.

Although it's hard to believe someone who looks like "Will & Grace" star Debra Messing would have trouble getting a date, her character needs to impress the guests and bridal party members in "The Wedding Date." She is invited to London for her younger sister's wedding, only to discover the best man is her former fiance, who dumped her two years earlier.

What to do? Hire an escort (Dermot Mulroney) to pose as your boyfriend. Guess what happens.

A determined mother in India is hoping for multiple marriages -- four, in fact -- in "Bride & Prejudice." It's got the director of "Bend It Like Beckham," Jane Austen's roots, a Bollywood spin and a mix of Bollywood and Hollywood actors.

Will Smith puts his considerable charm to use in "Hitch," a romantic comedy in which he's a "date doctor" who helps hapless suitors such as Kevin James. Hitch, however, finds a woman (Eva Mendes) impervious to his tricks.

Jennifer Aniston plays a New York Times obituary writer headed for her sister's wedding in "Rumor Has It." She's finally agreed to marry her boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) but meets an Internet millionaire (Kevin Costner) who unlocks some family secrets in the comedy also starring Shirley MacLaine and Mena Suvari.

Before "Meet the Fockers," Barbra Streisand had gone eight years without a movie. For Jane Fonda, it's been a 15-year hiatus between "Stanley & Iris" and "Monster-in-Law," in which she plays the mother of Michael Vartan and prospective mother-in-law of Jennifer Lopez. Let's just say she doesn't embrace her like a daughter.

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play "Wedding Crashers," divorce mediators who masquerade as invited wedding guests, work the angles and the room (and the church and the reception) and pick up chicks. The trouble is, one of them falls for the engaged daughter (Rachel McAdams) of an influential, eccentric politician. And nobody does eccentric better than Christopher Walken, who plays the politico.

Chick flicks

Sandra Bullock, William Shatner and Heather Burns are back in "Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous," but Benjamin Bratt is not, which may not bode well.

Curtis Hanson did wonders for Pittsburgh in "Wonder Boys," and now he's putting us "In Her Shoes," based on a Jennifer Weiner novel about two sisters with a history of conflict who reconcile with the help of a grandmother they never knew they had. It stars Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine.

Diane Lane bloomed "Under the Tuscan Sun" and soon will be seen in "Must Love Dogs," based on the Claire Cook novel about a newly divorced woman cautiously rediscovering romance.

"Prime" stars Uma Thurman as a recently divorced 37-year-old career woman from Manhattan and Bryan Greenberg as the 23-year-old painter from Brooklyn who falls for her. Imagine if the genders were reversed; oh, wait, that wouldn't be a movie, that would be real life.

Ripped from real life

Another flood of biopics is due this year, including "Walk the Line" and "Cinderella Man." In the former, Joaquin Phoenix tries to fill some very big boots -- of Johnny Cash. Russell Crowe, meanwhile, re-teams with director Ron Howard for the real-life story of boxer Jim Braddock.

"The New World," set during the founding of the Jamestown Settlement in 1607, was inspired by the legend of John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas. A couple of hundred years later, "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" is a 1950s housewife and mother of 10 who uses her resourcefulness and wit to win jingle contests and stretch the family income. Based on the book of the same name by Terry Ryan, the movie features Julianne Moore.

Philip Seymour Hoffman stars in "Capote," which follows Truman Capote as he travels to Holcomb, Kan., to research "In Cold Blood," his memorable account of a murdered family.

Synergy

Cute couples: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play married assassins in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith," not a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock movie of the same name. Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones reunite in "The Legend of Zorro" but Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz trump them all by starring in "The Fountain," a thousand-year love story.

A pair of Peter Pans: "Finding Neverland" co-stars Johnny Depp and Freddie Highmore are reunited in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Directors and stars: Ridley Scott casts Orlando Bloom in "Kingdom of Heaven" as a 12th-century commoner who finds himself thrust into a decades-long war. Christopher Nolan ("Memento") explores the origins of the caped crusader with the help of Christian Bale in "Batman Begins." Burton and Depp pull a double, with "Charlie ..." and the stop-motion animated feature called "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride."

Where there's a will ...

... there's a way to get Will Ferrell into a movie, and who could blame the directors and producers?

He plays a key role in Woody Allen's "Melinda and Melinda," the cutthroat coach of his 10-year-old son's soccer team in "Kicking & Screaming" and Darrin Stephens in "Bewitched." He also turns up in the summer comedy "The Wedding Crashers" and the year-end release, "The Producers," as Franz Liebkind, the neo-Nazi playwright, pigeon fancier and author of the worst play ever written.

Ferrell, this year's Jude Law in terms of number of roles, isn't alone in double- or triple-dipping.

Dakota Fanning must be one of the hardest-working children in show business. In "Hide and Seek," opposite Robert De Niro, she plays a dark-haired girl who either has a freaky imaginary friend or a malevolent real one. Dakota is a blonde again for "War of the Worlds," and she joins Kurt Russell in an untitled project about a father trying to save an injured racehorse and return it to glory.

Jessica Alba dives into the shark-infested and treasure-laden waters of the Bahamas in "Into the Blue," visits "Sin City" and plays Susan Storm/the Invisible Woman in "The Fantastic Four." Bruce Willis is in "Sin City," too, along with "Hostage," while Adrien Brody will spend time in "The Jacket" and with "King Kong," and Peter Sarsgaard turns up in "The Skeleton Key," "Jarhead," and "Flightplan."

And proving that there is still room for more mature performers, Shirley MacLaine will turn up in "In Her Shoes," "Rumor Has It" and "Bewitched."

Double takes ... remakes

Burt Reynolds starred in 1974's "The Longest Yard" as a former football player who lands in prison and leads the prisoners in a game against the guards. He's back, but Adam Sandler is the guy assembling the team with the help of Chris Rock, and Reynolds steps into the coaching role played by Michael Conrad in the original.

Audiences fell for "The Love Bug" in 1969 and Disney hopes modern moviegoers will show some love to "Herbie: Fully Loaded," starring Lindsay Lohan and featuring a NASCAR backdrop.

It was "Fun With Dick and Jane" and George Segal and Jane Fonda in 1977. It's still "Fun ..." but this time, the players are Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni. When Dick's company becomes embroiled in an Enron-like scandal and the couple face losing everything, they turn to theft.

"The Pink Panther" is back, with Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau, assigned to solve the murder of a soccer coach and recover a ring set with a stunning diamond, known as the Pink Panther. Joining Martin: Beyonce, Jean Reno and Kevin Kline.

"The Bad News Bears" return, with Billy Bob Thornton in the Walter Matthau role. And long before a zillion movies about hapless misfits, a lobby card for 1933's "King Kong" boasted the creature feature was "Unique! Thrilling! Startling!"

Director-writer Peter Jackson, the king of the 2004 Academy Awards with his final installment of "The Lord of the Rings," hopes his remake is all that and then some. He returned to his native New Zealand to film "King Kong" and is expanding on the part of the story that takes place in the jungles of Skull Island.

In addition to the big guy, who will owe his movements to Andy Serkis (Gollum in the "Rings" trilogy), the cast includes Brody, Naomi Watts and Jack Black.

H.G. Wells' sci-fi novel "The War of the Worlds" gets a fresh adaptation and set of Martian invaders, courtesy of director Steven Spielberg and star Tom Cruise. The year will close with another look at "The Producers," with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick back as a scheming theatrical producer and his mousy CPA who hope they've got a flop on their hands.

Page to picture

Books are, even more than usual, a rich source of movie material.

"Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner" by F.X. Toole was the inspiration for the Clint Eastwood movie "Million Dollar Baby," while a Ray Bradbury story spawned "A Sound of Thunder" and an Annie Proulx short story sparked "Brokeback Mountain," the story of 1960s cowboys (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) in love. The Ponderosa was never like this.

Head to the library or bookstore or dust off your copies, of:

"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" -- A pair of thrift-shop jeans becomes the glue that binds four friends together one summer in this movie based on Ann Brashares' novel.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" -- Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def and Zooey Deschanel star in an adaptation of Douglas Adams' novel.

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" -- Tim Burton and Johnny Depp put their delicious stamp on Roald Dahl's novel about five lucky children who will be allowed inside Willy Wonka's famous factory.

"Oliver Twist" -- The director and writer of "The Pianist" re-imagine Charles Dickens' novel, with Ben Kingsley as Fagin and a London schoolboy named Barney Clark as Oliver.

"Syriana" -- The Robert Baer book, "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism," is the basis for this Stephen Gaghan movie starring George Clooney.

Emma Thompson adapts the "Nurse Matilda" books by Christianna Brand and stars opposite Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury and Kelly Macdonald in "Nanny McPhee."

"Bee Season" is about how a "slow learner" suddenly finds herself a spelling bee winner and what that means for her family. Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche and Flora Cross star in the adaptation of Myla Goldberg's novel.

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" -- Mike Newell once directed a movie called "An Awfully Big Adventure," and here he goes again. The gang of three is back, and Ralph Fiennes turns up as the evil Lord Voldemort.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" -- Andrew Adamson, who co-directed "Shrek" and its sequel, turns his attention to the C.S. Lewis novels with a live-action version of the Pevensie siblings in an enchanted world.

"Zathura" -- Chris Van Allsburg ("The Polar Express," "Jumanji") wrote the book that inspired this movie about two brothers propelled into space while playing a mysterious game.

Move over, Erin Brockovich and Julia Roberts. Charlize Theron is starring in a still-untitled movie inspired by the book "Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case that Changed Sexual Harassment Law," about women who worked in Minnesota's iron mines.

"Memoirs of a Geisha" -- The Arthur Golden book becomes a movie, at the hands of director Rob Marshall and writers Ron Bass, Akiva Goldsman, Robin Swicord and Doug Wright.

"All the King's Men" --- Sean Penn as "Boss" Willie Stark, the charismatic Southern politician in Robert Penn Warren's book? Penn is invincible, and he's on the ticket with Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Patricia Clarkson, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Hopkins.

Steve Martin's novella titled "Shopgirl" is being turned into a movie starring Martin and Claire Danes.

Sounds like a bad idea

We will reserve judgment until seeing the movies, but these sound like bad ideas:

Vin Diesel passed on the "XXX" sequel but agreed to star in the kiddie comedy "The Pacifier," as a Navy SEAL who has to protect children in suburbia. He must drive a minivan, strap juiceboxes to his waist and dive into a pool of colored balls to retrieve ... a dirty diaper.

In "The Ringer," Johnny Knoxville plays a man who tries to fix the Special Olympics by pretending to be a person with mental disabilities.

Knoxville, again, stars in "The Dukes of Hazzard" which probably will be a big hit, given the success of other TV-to-movie conversions and the presence of Jessica Simpson in really short shorts.

"House of Wax." No Vincent Price, but Paris Hilton.

"Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo." Enough said?