Movie

If all goes as planned, sometime this morning a spacecraft will blast off from its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and ride a fiery plume of contrails upward through the pre-dawn darkness to begin a two-week journey to the International Space Station and back. But the flight won't be just another NASA resupply mission. Instead, the Falcon 9 rocket and its unmanned Dragon cargo capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation - SpaceX for short - will be the first commercially owned and operated vehicle ever to rendezvous with the station's orbiting astronauts.

You know those nightmare wedding scenarios in movies where the music gets louder and the actors are sweating a little and everyone is in disarray? And you're watching thinking , that would never happen ? (I'm looking at you, Jennifer Lopez's character in “The Wedding Planner”….) I am here to tell you that it  does  happen. This weekend my friend Laura got married, and I was a bridesmaid. Save for some varying degrees of hangover from the super-fun rehearsal dinner at Cinghiale, everything was going well and according to plan.

A city schoolteacher has been awarded $1.3 million by a federal jury in Baltimore that found that several Hollywood producers and production companies stole his story treatment in making the 1994 movie, "The Air Up There."Samuel A. Zervitz, a special education teacher at several Baltimore public schools who lives in Mount Washington, contended that Hollywood Pictures, Buena Vista Productions, Interscope and individual producers used a seven-page script synopsis he wrote called "Recruiting" to produce the movie starring Kevin Bacon.

Seven students from the private GreenMount School in Charles Village will travel Tuesday to Knoxville, Tenn., to compete in an international problem-solving competition. The team – dubbed Soul Seven – participates in Destination Imagination, a program that presents challenges to students, from kindergarten through college, and judges their solutions on effectiveness and creativity. The competition has six categories: technical, scientific, fine arts, improvisational, structural and community service.

Early reviews for "The Avengers" movie are in, and the adaptation of comic book super-heroes appears to promise non-stop action, surrounding sub-plots of intrugue. I always considered the Marvel grab bag as B-list superheroes, trailing well behind Batman and Superman. But the group, which includes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America, has developed into movie powerhouse. Here are excerpts from some reviews of the movie, which will be widely released Friday. -- Chicago Tribune: Seeing it in 2-D, the movie played well enough.

Grace Baptist Church, 17 Somerset Road in Pasadena, will hold a pancake supper and movie night Friday, beginning at 6 p.m. Free. Call 410-255-5616.

I got a chance yesterday to see Martin Scorcese's movie "Hugo," a delightful story based around the life of movie pioneer Georges Méliès. It was part of my New Year's resolution to see more literary adaptations, and I couldn't have picked a better place to start. The movie is based on Brian Selznick's Caldecott medal-winner "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," which weaves together the tales of Méliès and an orphaned boy who lives in a Paris train station. It has a fantasy-like feel, as the little boy traipses around early 20th Century Paris and learns about the men who made magic on the big screen.

Translating a popular book such as "The Hunger Games" into a movie is tough work. (And when there are more than 25 million copies in print, the stakes are even higher.) There's always the real possibility of disaster -- such as the adaptation of Frank Herbert's "Dune," which is one of my favorite books but also one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Early reviews of "The Hunger Games" movie have been very promising, and much of the credit goes to producer Nina Jacobson, who also handled adaptations such as "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid. " In an interview with Publishers Weekly, she described the challenge of moving Suzanne Collins' trilogy from page to screen.

Everyone knows there will be a movie made about the death of Osama bin Laden. But who will play whom? Conan O'Brien has the answers:  (Spoiler alert: Joe Biden will be played by Bob Barker.)   

A fourth movie screen is coming to Hampden's Rotunda Cinemas. The additional screen, which will accommodate an audience of just over 100, should be ready by early May, said Ira Miller, a veteran exhibitor who has been operating the theater since May 2009. He signed the agreement with the mall's owners, New Jersey-based Hekemian & Co., earlier this week, he said. "We finally made the deal and signed it," said Miller, who has been talking about adding a fourth screen for over a year.

now playing "Battleship" (PG-13). This sci-fi action movie pits a fleet of naval ships against an alien force that's attacking Earth. Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Liam Neeson, Rihanna, Brooklyn Decker and Tadanobu Asano. TownMall Cinemas (12:50, 1:20, 3:30, 4:20, 6:45, 7:30 p.m.) "Dark Shadows" (PG-13). In this comic takeoff from the 1970s daytime drama, vampire Barnabas Collins emerges from a long slumber to 1972 Maine. With Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Helena Bonham Carter.

The reviews are lukewarm at best for "What to Expect When You're Expecting," a movie loosely based on the hot-selling book series by Heidi Murkoff. Charming moms-to-be, including Anna Kendrick and Cameron Diaz, deal with the emotional and physical challenges of pregnancy, while their significant others, including Chris Rock, act boorish. Here are excerpts from reviews: -- Los Angeles Times: As Murkoff knew and mined so well, there is a lot of nature-made comedy to be found in the discomforts of distended bodies, raging hormones and altered relationships.

"Lovely Molly," the horrific tale of a woman either demonically possessed or tragically insane, may be the film that makes Eduardo Sanchez someone other than one of the guys responsible for 1999's "The Blair Witch Project. " Which would be fine with the Maryland-raised filmmaker, whose movie gets its local premiere tonight to cap the first day of the 14th Maryland Film Festival. "I love being one of the guys that did 'Blair Witch,' but I'm really proud of 'Lovely Molly,'" Sanchez, 44, said about the film he shot last fall in and around Hagerstown.

"Better Living Through Chemistry," an independent movie about a pharmacist's life unraveling after he starts an affair with a trophy-wife customer, will film for five weeks in Maryland starting this month, Governor Martin O'Malley announced Thursday. The cast includes Olivia Wilde, Michelle Monaghan and Sam Rockwell — TV and independent-film stars with wide mainstream-movie credits including blockbusters like "Tron: Legacy" (Wilde), "Mission: Impossible 3" (Monaghan), and "Iron Man 2" (Rockwell)

Early reviews for "The Avengers" movie are in, and the adaptation of comic book super-heroes appears to promise non-stop action, surrounding sub-plots of intrugue. I always considered the Marvel grab bag as B-list superheroes, trailing well behind Batman and Superman. But the group, which includes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America, has developed into movie powerhouse. Here are excerpts from some reviews of the movie, which will be widely released Friday. -- Chicago Tribune: Seeing it in 2-D, the movie played well enough.

Excitement is building for this weekend's release of "Marvel's The Avengers. " People definitely want to see the movie. But one Baltimore company is hoping people also want to smell like it. Fragrance manufacturer JADS International, a company that already makes perfumes based on "Star Wars" and "Star Trek," is selling seven Marvel-endorsed varieties of cologne, all inspired by the likes of Thor, Captain America, The Hulk and the rest of...

A cake was delivered to the Baltimore Sun's offices one day a few months back. It was a seven-layer cake from Caroline's Cakes in Annapolis. Gosh, was it good. I remember having posted about how good it was somewhere -- Twitter or Facebook or here? -- but now I can't find it. Anwyay, the same cake apparently makes an appeance in the new movie The Help , says Suzanne Loudermilk on Baltimore Magazine's In Good Taste blog. By most accounts, the cake gives a layered performance in the film.

I will admit to knowing little about the inner workings of the movie industry, from Hollywood to film distribution to the big screen complexes and smaller screen venues, such as Baltimore's much-loved Senator Theater . But I think I know what I want as a movie-goer. As I drove by the Senator last weekend, I noticed that it was closed for renovations. The new owners are planning three screens instead of just one, and a restaurant. That sounds nice. I can't wait to see what they do with the place.

As if the rivalry between Baltimore and Pittsburgh needed to be ratcheted up a few notches, the NFL is ratcheting away -- months before football season even starts. The football league has just released an intense, movie-style trailer for the November rematch between the Steelers and the Ravens as if the game is the season's cinematic blockbuster. Like any trailer worth its salt, the short film starts with the rating: "The following preview has been approved for all football fans by the national football league," is how it begins.