>> 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]

Thursday. The most anticipated screening was the film starring Jack Black called “Nacho Libre.” There were two promotional screenings in Las Vegas this past week as well as this one at CineVegas. All the screenings were filled to capacity. (I was told that at one promotional screening 300 people with tickets were turned away.) In fact, I stood in line for one hour to secure a seat. While I love Jack Black’s “School of Rock” and only his work in “High Fidelity,” and loved director Jared Hess’s last film “Napoleon Dynamite,” I did not think “Nacho Libre” was funny.

Nacho Jack Black is a half-Mexican, half-Scandinavian monastery cook from Oaxaca, Mexico (important to me since it is considered the Sacred Mushroom capital of the world) who is really meant to be a luchadore (a masked wrestler) instead of a celibate monk. Under his penitent robe, Nacho longs to wear stretchy pants and a mask so he can earn money to prepare salads for the orphans.

“Nacho Libre” probably had a $5 million dollar budget since it takes place in an outdoor orphanage in Mexico with Black starring alongside hooded wrestlers and some Mexican guy. The creative team will make a lot of money. This movie is critic-proof, just like “Superman Returns” will be.

June 15th was the CineVegas celebration of Dennis Hopper’s (pictured) Birthday with a party at the sensational Tao at The Venetian. Dennis Hopper (CineVegas Chairman), Seymour Cassel, Taylor Hackford and Helen Mirren were among the guests. The media had very limited access once inside Tao but Hopper was frequently walking around The Palms, inside CineVegas HQ, and attended many screenings. As I noticed, no one bothered him. Even walking around The Palms Food Court, fans respected Hooper’s privacy (or maybe it was because he was carrying his Frank Booth oxygen mask.)

Friday. A Taylor Hackford feast! The morning started off with the 11:30 am screening of Hackford’s 1987 documentary “Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll.” At 2:00 pm Taylor Hackford received the CineVegas Vanguard Director Award and participated in a lively and informative conversation before a screening of his film “The Idolmaker.”

At 6:00 pm, Dame Helen Mirren (pictured. I loved her in 2003’s “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone” with the under-appreciated sexy Olivier Martinez!) received the Marquee Award and introduced her 1999 film “The Passion of Ayn Rand.” Interviewed for an hour by The New York Times film critic Sharon Waxman, Mirren easily looked 20 years younger than she did as Ayn Rand.

The philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand (pictured) engaged in an affair with a psychologist 25 years her junior by the name of Nathaniel Branden, played in the film by Eric Stolz. Branden built up an institute to spread Rand's ideas, but the two had a nasty, quite public falling out.

The volatile story of their affair is based on the book by Branden's wife, Barbara, who, along with Rand’s cuckold of a husband, accepted the affair. As a wee teenager, I was Branden’s student. I was given a gift of a weekly course on Objectivism with Branden (before his break with Rand) in New York City. Rand, famous for "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," was my mother’s favorite author.

An early Russell Crowe would have been a much better Branden than Stolz, but Mirren was sensational.

“The Passion of Ayn Rand” began at 7 pm, which meant that I missed the 6:30 pm Red Carpet arrivals for the 7:00 pm screening of “Artie Lange’s Beer League.” Present on the Red Carpet were Artie Lange, Seymour Cassel, Jimmy Palumbo, Michael Deeg, Joe LoTruglio, and producer Anthony Mastromauro. “Beer League” was another hotly sought-after ticket since Lange has a huge fan base in Las Vegas. Lange is notorious in our city due to his famous ‘I didn’t know she was a prostitute’ hookup. He thought the lady was a Stern groupie. He had to give her $500 in the morning. Lange is rightly beloved as Howard Stern’s No. 2 sidekick. I faithfully listened to Howard when he was on “free” radio.

Unfortunately, scheduling prevented me from seeing a film I had hoped to see after “The Passion.” I was looking forward to seeing director Max Makowski’s “One Last Dance.” It sounded fantastic: An assassin, played by Francis Ng, is hired to kill the men responsible for kidnapping an important man’s son and with every death, the filler gets closer to the last kidnapper’s name…his own.

There was another Red Carpet photo op and then a Private Dinner and Awards Presentation hosted by “Access Hollywood’s” Maria Menounos at the Hard Rock Hotel Pool attended by honorees Helen Mirren, Taylor Hackford (pictured), Christina Ricci, and Dennis Hopper. Press, photographers and crews were not allowed access to the dinner and awards presentation, so all the honorees were probably drinking, swearing, and making “Lindsay Lohan” frequent visits to the bathroom. Later, at 10 pm, there was a CineVegas party at The Palms Rain Nightclub.