Movie Releases, 8/9 and 11

9/11 movie #2 arrives this Wednesday with Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. Early word on it is that it's a sensitive account of the day's events--this depicting police officers John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), among others, who embarked on a rescue mission before the towers collapsed, trapping them inside.

Then on Friday, we have another movie trying to sneak in on the dance craze, Step Up. How many TV shows and movies have been dedicated to dance, just in the past two years? In this, pretty boy rebel with a heart Channing Tatum does janitorial work at the Maryland School of the Arts, where extraordinarily hot Jenna Dewan does ballet. Looks like our boy Tatum has some wicked moves and becomes her dance partner, and eventually, he's allowed to touch her boobs. Almost certain to be predictable in every sense of the word, but movies like this can be good if it can create a certain vibe.

(UPDATE: This movie has been moved to August 18. Bitches.) Honorary Frat Pack member Justin Long is in yet another comedy, Accepted, marking the fifth straight week a comedy has been released. Here, he's a kid out of high school who has been denied at all the colleges in which he's applied, and thus he becomes the creator of a fake college that accepts anyone and has no real classes. Go ahead and brush off your jokes about particular schools of higher learning and their acceptance requirements. Here's one from Ned Flanders: Looks like Heaven is as easy to get into as Arizona State!

Tim Allen makes his second of three appearances this year with a special effects superhero comedy called Zoom. It looks like a mixture of Sky High, Men in Black, and Galaxy Quest as four extraordinary young people with untapped powers played by Ryan Newman, Spencer Breslin, Michael Cassidy, and the cute Kate Mara get trained to save the world.

And finally, the American remake of the Japanese horror favorite Pulse (Kairo) arrives. Trailers for this appeared late last year I believe, and release dates as diverse as March, July, and September have swirled around for this, probably because it sucks. Starring "Veronica Mars" leading lady Kristen Bell, this concerns, like most of the Japanese horror that has been imported here or been remade: ghosts in the machine. One of her friends commits suicide, then starts sending her e-mails, and then we find out that the evil dead are communicating via the internet, seeking life. Damn you Al Gore! Look for tons of those creepy frame-cutting character movements that have appeared in every horror movie since The Ring (or Ringu) and look for this to suck hard.