She's A Living Doll
"Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" (June 20) has got the biggest kid star of the moment, Little Miss Sunshine herself, in the lead

BY BOB STRAUSS >Film Critic



The highly successful American Girl doll line has generated TV movies and a very elaborate store at The Grove and other locations across the country.

But it hasn't had a feature film until now. And wouldn't you know, "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl" (June 20) has got the biggest kid star of the moment, Little Miss Sunshine herself, in the lead.

Good thing she was a fan.

"I love the dolls," 12-year-old Abigail Breslin says. "I have all of them! They're all from, like, a different time period. I like all of them, really."

Kit's a plucky 1930s teen who has to solve a mystery and save the family home in the movie.

"Kit's from the Great Depression," Breslin notes. "Her dad loses his job and goes to Chicago to find work. My family doesn't have enough money to pay for the house and everything, so we take in boarders and a lot of stuff happens."

Sounds, um, kind of grim. Shouldn't this be a fun summer movie for girls?

"One of the boarders is a magician, so there's magic in the movie," Breslin explains. "It's sort of about how you can still have fun in bad times."

Since her Oscar-nominated "Little Miss" performance two years ago, Breslin has been in high demand for movie and TV work (she's already had two other films, "Definitely, Maybe" and "Nim's Island," open this year, and is currently working on the drama "My Sister's Keeper"). No bad times in this American girl's career, obviously.

"I can't have a career until after college!" Breslin quickly corrects.

Um, OK. Then what do you call all this work you're doing?

"It's just fun."

>Bob Strauss

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A Scream Dream
Director M. Night Shyamalan hopes to see scared people

BY GLENN WHIPP >Film Critic



At first glance, "The Happening" seems like a retrenchment for filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan following the critical and commercial disaster of his last movie, "Lady in the Water."

But there's this: Even though "The Happening" shares the spooky nightmare vibe of "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs," both the action and atmosphere here are much more intense. It's Shyamalan's first R-rated feature, and judging from the way he's talking about it, it won't be his last.

"This is probably the most fun I've ever had making a movie,"

Shyamalan says. "It was great not pulling any punches."

The movie, which Shyamalan calls a cross between "The Birds" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," follows a high-school science teacher (Mark Wahlberg) trying to escape a "force beyond our understanding" that seems to be environmental in nature. (The movie's original title: "The Green Effect.")

As per usual, Shyamalan is reluctant to reveal much in the way of details about the film itself. As for the experience of watching the movie, he's more than happy to expound.

"People who have seen it have a physical reaction to the movie,"

Shyamalan says. "Muscles contract. People tell me, `Oh, my God, I'm sore,' when the lights go up."

Just don't expect buckets of blood. Shyamalan believes horror scenes are more effective when they're elegantly shot, juxtaposing form and content. He doesn't want to repulse you. He would like to instigate a nightmare or two.

"It's all about going through an experience that isn't safe, and coming out tattooed by that process," Shyamalan says. "To me, that R rating is an emblem of the film's intensity. There are plenty of PG-13 movies this summer. This movie, you're coming to see something visceral and intense, like the first `Alien.' It's not safe, nor should it be."

>Glenn Whipp

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Still Faithful
Carter waited years to make `X' sequel

BY GLENN WHIPP >Film Critic



When we last left Mulder and Scully six years ago, the FBI agents were sharing a hotel room in Roswell, N.M., talking about aliens and the afterlife while hiding from the authorities. Their fate - as well as that of several other characters - was left unresolved in the 2002 finale of the ninth and final season of "The X-Files."

Six years later, and a decade after the lone "X-Files" movie, series creator Chris Carter has brought the characters back in "The X-Files: I Want to Believe."

When asked if the film would resolve any of the many loose ends left hanging all those years ago, Carter couldn't resist a plug, replying cryptically, "I want to believe."

Truthfully, so do the (remaining) fans of the series. Carter had the idea for a second movie in hand five years ago, but legal entanglements with Fox prevented him from going ahead.

"Any time you have something with 10 years of history, you've got 10 years of negotiations that have to be gone through," Carter says.

"Call it sedimentary layers of negotiations. My only frustration was that Fox and I didn't see eye to eye on certain profit participation."

But Carter thinks the delay worked to the project's advantage, believing that the passing years have built an interest in seeing a new chapter in the series.

"It helped renew my appetite, I know that," Carter says. "Any more time, though, and it might have waned. Basically, for Fox, it was now or never."

Given that it has been 16 years since "The X-Files" first debuted, Carter won't be leaning heavily on the show's mythology in the new film.

Instead, the movie will feature a suspenseful, stand-alone story, taking place in present time and ... well, that's about all Carter will divulge about a plot he has gone to "devious" lengths to keep secret. How devious?

That set photo of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson kissing? Bogus.

"I'll share one thing: This won't be `When Mulder Met Scully,' " Carter says.

>Glenn Whipp

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He's Got the Beat
Rainn Wilson gets a chance to stick it to the man

BY GLENN WHIPP >Staff Writer



`The Rocker" has Rainn Wilson (above, right) banging the drum for two very different rock groups. Bounced from an '80s hair-metal band just before it made it big, Wilson's Robert "Fish" Fishman has been nursing a grudge for 20 years. A second chance for immortality arrives when his high-school nephew reluctantly offers him a gig in his emo band, A.D.D.

"Fish is a capable drummer, but his hair-metal excesses kind of get in the way sometimes," Wilson says, adding that the movie's PG-13 brand of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll is more akin to "Say Anything" than "Superbad."

Wilson ("The Office") did all his own drumming in the movie,` spending an intense few weeks learning the instrument before beginning the film.

"I'm pretty mediocre," Wilson brags. "Most of the lessons were just to get me to embody what a heavy-metal drummer does - filling the stage, connecting with the audience, getting that primal pulse down."

That said, Wilson now understands a little about what makes drummers tick.

"Drummers, I've come to realize, are just big monkeys," Wilson says.

"Big monkeys with sticks in their hands, pounding on things. It definitely takes a certain mentality sitting back in the corner and making loud noises. It's very cathartic."

Wilson made "The Rocker" while on hiatus from Dunder Mifflin. Prior film work included supporting turns in "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" and "Juno." Even if movie stardom isn't in the offing, he got one permanent benefit from "The Rocker" - the kick-ass drum kit he used in the film.

"It's in my garage," Wilson says. "I still bang away on it. So does my 3 1/2-year-old son. You can't believe how much sound it gets. My neighbors can attest to that."

>Glenn Whipp

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James Takes the High Road
Franco plays a pothead on the run in `Pineapple'

BY BOB STRAUSS >Film Writer



James Franco (above, left) is best-known for playing the "Spider-Man" movies' tormented Harry Osborn and the troubled James Dean in a well-known TV biopic.

So it'll be nice to watch him feeling no pain in "Pineapple Express." Well, until the bad guys get their hands on him, anyway.

The latest stoner special written by co-star Seth Rogen, "Pineapple" reunites television's "Freaks and Geeks" alumni as two potheads on the run from murderous crooked cops.

Asked if there was any, um, method acting on the set, the intense actor laughs.

"I smoked a lot of fake joints," Franco says. "All mine were fake, and all of Seth's were. But I don't know, that's all I can vouch for."

"Pineapple" marks Franco's first major role in one of "Freaks and Geeks" producer Judd Apatow's outrageous movie comedies. Re-upping with the guy behind "Superbad," "Knocked Up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" was "fantastic," Franco declares.

"I haven't done many comedy movies - maybe none! `Freaks and Geeks' was funny, but it wasn't completely out-there comedy. So it was great to get to do that. And it was great to work with Judd and Seth again."

Big dramas ("Milk," "Nights in Rodanthe") loom in Franco's future. And - who knows? - maybe "Spider-Man 4." That all made blowing off some steam - or nonintoxicating smoke, as it were - a sweet relief indeed.

"I had a great time on `Spider-Man,' but this is a completely different process," Franco joyfully reports. "So many things need to be planned out for effects and stunts on `Spider-Man' that it can, in some ways, feel rigid. Where, just because of the nature of Judd's productions, `Pineapple' felt so incredibly free. Most movies I know of just don't give you that kind of latitude to try things."

>Bob Strauss

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She Might As Well Jump
Amanda Seyfried did not want to jump off that cliff

BY BOB STRAUSS >Film Critic



"Everybody was scared," says the 22-year-old actress, referring to herself and co-stars Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard, who all play the possible father of Seyfried's bride-to-be in the screen version of the hit ABBA musical "Mamma Mia!"

They were all supposed to jump into the Aegean Sea from a rocky Greek island together for one of the film's montages. But as the carefully synchronized sunset shot neared, the "Mean Girls" and "Big Love" co-star could feel the apprehension grow.

"I was holding Colin's hand and Pierce's hand, and we all kind of stalled," Seyfried reports. "I thought, if Pierce isn't going, I'm not going. Then Colin felt me tense and he didn't go. And Stellan just flew off; he hated us, he called us all bad names."

The shot was eventually gotten, and Seyfried got to show off the singing and dancing talents that she developed as a child in Pennsylvania but hasn't displayed professionally since a teenage modeling career led her to acting.

Of course, "Mamma Mia!" raised that part of her game, too. Besides the three veteran actors, no less than Meryl Streep plays her movie mom, who isn't quite sure which of her former lovers hit the daddy jackpot.

Currently, Seyfried is putting in long nights shooting "Jennifer's Body," a teen horror comedy written by "Juno" Academy Award-winner Diablo Cody. Tough work, if maybe not as scary as jumping off a cliff.

But Seyfried seems to thrive on it - even when every fiber of her being screams not to.

"You know what was really challenging about `Mamma Mia!'?" she asks rhetorically. "Being on a beautiful Greek island, where all I wanted to do was hang out with my friends, and having to go to work. Which is something I normally love to do, but not there. They'd all be lounging around the pool and, like, `See ya later!' I was, `Nooo!' "

>Bob Strauss

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