>> The Dark Knight
>> Hellboy II: The Golden Army
>> WALL-E
>> Get Smart
>> The Incredible Hulk
>> Sex and the City
>> Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
>> Speed Racer
>> Iron Man
>> Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Opening 7.23.08
>> Boy A (Limited) (R) [trailer]

Opening 7.25.08
>> Step Brothers (R) [trailer]
>> The X-Files: I Want To Believe (PG-13) [trailer]
>> American Teen (Limited) (PG-13) [trailer]
>> Brideshead Revisited (Limited) (PG-13) [trailer]

Coming To DVD 7.22.08
>> 21 [buy]
>> Spaced: The Complete Series [buy]
>> Robot Chicken: Star Wars [buy]
>> Las Vegas: Season 5 [buy]
>> Kiss of the Spider Woman [buy]

Sunday. A favorite CineVegas event for me has always been the panel discussions. On Sunday afternoon at 1P.M. there was a 90-minute panel discussion called “Outlaw Cinema Panel” held at The Lounge at the Palms Hotel and Casino. The art of “dangerous” filmmaking was discussed by directors Gregg Araki (“Mysterious Skin”), the bored James Fotopoulos, Abel Ferrara (“Driller Killer” and the cult tour de force “Bad Lieutenant”), Bob Goldthwait (1992’s “Shakes the Clown” and his newest film “Stay”) and Nina Menkes. Bob Goldthwait? I wondered, is he a filmmaker?

I haven’t seen any of Bobcat’s (photo by Stephen Thorburn) work as a writer/director, but he was the most interesting and engaging filmmaker on the panel (and the most post-panel approachable). A performer, Bobcat (who wore a cowboy hat and drew on a Sharpie rakish mustache) knew right away that the rest of the panel had merely showed up for the free room and per diem. Why would Gregg Araki, James Fotopoulos and Nina Menkes agree to be on a panel discussion and then say nothing? It took Abel Ferrara one hour to decide to actually join the discussion. Once he got started, he did have something interesting to say. But by then it was too late.

Some attendees blamed the moderator who did nothing to steer the discussion in interesting directions. His questions were over-long monologues. Who cares what a moderator thinks? A good interviewer does not need journalist credentials. He needs to get the guests talking. People want insider-stuff and gossip about difficult movie stars with drug problems.

Trevor Groth, CineVegas Director of Programming, let me do the interrogating moderating next year!

I got on line an hour early and it took the staff a full hour to get the room ready. They did a lousy job. None of the mikes worked. It was very frustrating. While this was the “Outlaw Cinema Panel,” Bobcat was the most honest and forthcoming. He would gladly sell out (but he will not do another Police Academy movie – so he does have some scruples). He was charming, humorous, and the most talkative of the group. Thank God for Bobcat. If only CineVegas had just decided to have him and Abel as panelists we might have heard great stories about the real facts of “outlaw” filmmaking.

Someone should give Bobcat funds for his dream project he calls “Teen Jesus.” It’s about the early years when Jesus was just stubborn and contrary. Bobcat teased us by throwing out a bit of Jesus’ dialogue (Jesus screams at Joseph: “You’re not my real dad!”).

You know you want to see this movie.

Abel (pictured) urged everyone to see his movie “Mary.” I did not know it was about Mary Magdalene. I had read “The Gospel of Mary Magdalene” so I was familiar with the text that Ferrara used verbatim. I’d like to think that the character of Marie Palesi (Juliette Binoche), after playing Mary Magdalene in a movie directed by foul-mouthed Tony Childress (Matthew Modine), did not experience a religious conversion but what is now called “The Jerusalem Syndrome.”

“The Jerusalem Syndrome” is the phenomenon whereby a person who seems previously balanced and devoid of any signs of psychopathology becomes psychotic after arriving in Jerusalem (or starring in a religious movie as Jesus’ chief disciple). The psychosis is characterized by an intense religious fervor and typically resolves to full recovery after a few weeks, or after being removed from the area. Not treated, the person just wanders around The Holy City wrapped in a bed sheet.

Ted Younger (Forest Whitaker) is a TV talk show star who gets caught up in the film’s controversy while he is cheating on his beautiful pregnant wife, Elizabeth (Heather Graham). There is sin and then a tearful redemption.

I’m not sure what Ferrara wants to say with “Mary,” but he was more animated at the Q&A after his movie. He is upset with the male-dominated Christian religion. (I guess he hasn’t heard about The Blessed Virgin Mary rise in prominence within the Catholic Church and the movement to name her Co-Redeemer.) I’m not sure what was afflicting Abel. Either he is naturally hunched over and sleeps in his clothes or drunk (as a fellow critic opined). Perhaps he was just indulging his artistic right to be eccentric.

Even though I never drink or eat anything at VIP events, I read that the after-party at Mandalay Bay’s private club, The Foundation Room, would be a party without any Las Vegas-style celebrating. Temporary Members of Team Victoria decided against fighting Las Vegas Blvd. traffic (even though there are shuttle buses from The Palms to the parties) since tales of Caesar’s Palace Venus Pool party on Saturday night was still wafting through CineVegas ticket holder lines.

Monday. I attended a screening of “The 4th Dimension” directed by Tom Mattera & Dave Mazzoni. This highly stylized black and white film is a homage to David Lynch’s “Eraserhead.” If you liked “Eraserhead,” and it is one of my favorite creepy films, you must see “The 4th Dimension.” The film stars Louis Morabito as Jack Emitni a very disturbed genius-recluse. “The 4th Dimension” (pictured, which I have gone into many, many times through the spiritual use of entheogens) is a meditative examination into the mind of an introverted, clinically-depressed genius who obsesses to solve the complexity of time to alter his tragic childhood.

Later in the afternoon I attended a screening of “Full Grown Men” directed by David Munro and starring Matt McGrath, Judah Friedlander, Alan Cumming, Deborah Harry, Amy Sedaris, and Joie Lee. Alby (McGrath) is a man-child who suffers due to the fact – according to me – that he wasn’t breast-fed as an infant. Maybe he wasn’t even wanted. Alby, called in the CineVegas program “a selfish prick” – was ruined his marriage by being unemployed. He is a lousy father and has no friends. When his wife finally throws him out he goes to stay with his mother and looks up a school friend, Elias (Friedlander) he abused. Only Cumming’s cameo was worth seeing. Why are we to be interested in a man who intentionally is “a prick”?

There was a Monday late afternoon two-hour CineVegas reception at the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum at The Venetian Las Vegas. The Guggenheim is presenting “Rubens and His Age: Masterpieces from the Hermitage Museum” through July 31, 2006. The eighth exhibition to be opened at the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, “Rubens and His Age” contains a selection of more than 40 artworks – paintings and decorative objects – by Rubens and other acclaimed artists such as Anthony van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Jacob Van Oost the Elder, Adriaen van Utrecht, and Frans Snyders among others, most of whom were Rubens’ pupils or collaborators.

Monday night’s highlight was the appearance of Laurence Fishburne introducing his film “Five Fingers” and receiving CineVegas’s Half-Life Award. Fishburne plays Ahmat, a Moroccan terrorist leader, who abducts a Dutch pianist, Martijn (Ryan Philippe), there to start a food program for malnourished children.

At 11P.M. there was a special presentation at the Bellagio fountains celebrating “Wet Dreams.” Actress Rebecca Romijn and director Steve Willis decided to use their “clout” to choreograph a fountain show of their own. I happened to see Romijn on Jay Leno last year when she pleaded with Bellagio’s management to take her phone calls. Their documentary, “Wet Dreams” is premiering at CineVegas.