Photos by Warner Bros. Entertainment

Speed Racer stars Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci are better known for smaller independent movies than summer blockbusters.

Summertime, and the movies are easy. At least, that's the party line. Mindless entertainment, gobs of cash heaved at the screen, horserace-style box office obsession.

'I got tired of fumbling around for a flashlight when I needed one, so I built one into my hand. Makes it easier to bitch-slap someone in the dark.'

Assocaited Press

Today, Iron Man opens across America. And Robert Downey Jr.'s the main guy: As playboy industrialist Tony Stark, a billionaire inventor who transforms himself into an awesome armor-plated crimefighter, Downey puts the iron in irony. He's cool, he's tough, he's weird.

Michelle Monaghan (left) plays Hannah, the one that got away, and Patrick Dempsey is Tom, the hot best friend she asks to be in her wedding, in Made of Honor.

Columbia Pictures

In romantic comedies, a clear Hollywood hierarchy is at work. There's the guy who gets the girl. And there's the other guy, the one she abandons, often at the altar, for Mr. Right.

The USA Film Festival kicks off today with the knowledge that it's no longer the big-ticket item in town. That distinction now goes to AFI Dallas.

Jason Segel's career began in earnest when Judd Apatow cast him in Freaks and Geeks in 2000.

Associated Press

Hollywood has long portrayed sensitive men humbled at the feet of cold-hearted women.

The director told Jones not to take any acting lessons to preserve her naturalism.

Associated Press

Sitting in a Soho coffee shop, Norah Jones looked across the table at the elegant and mysterious Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai. "So Norah, do you want to act?"

Associated Press

Some corrupt-cop movies don't want you to know which officers are dirty until the last moment. Street Kings , an ultraviolent tale of living and dying in LA, saves much of the guesswork by assuming everyone is on some take or another.

Miramax

Known for his broad smile and his sex appeal, Dennis Quaid will be appearing tomorrow in a movie that required him to wear a full beard and a fat suit.

The Russian movie Mermaid won the Target Ten Filmmaker Award for best narrative feature.

AFI Dallas

Mermaid , the story of a girl with the ability to make others' dreams come true, was named the winner of the Target Ten Filmmaker Award for best narrative feature on Sunday by the AFI Dallas International Film Festival.

From left: Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Woods.

McClatchy-Tribune

In Martin Scorsese's new Rolling Stones concert documentary Shine a Light , the most durable millionaire rock band in the world turns on the juice, churns out the hits and turns on a crowd ripe for their charms.

ELIZABETH M. CLAFFEY/Special Contributor

In 2000, Richardson's David Gordon Green released his debut film, George Washington . Arty and elliptical, with an amorphous narrative, it featured Green's friends from the North Carolina School of the Arts in front of and behind the camera.

COURTNEY PERRY/DMN

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Robert De Niro, Elizabeth Taylor – they're all at the downtown Neiman Marcus, and not just them but many more of Hollywood's legendary and luminous stars.

Ryan Phillippe (left) and Channing Tatum star as two best friends trying to cope with civilian life.

Paramount Pictures

Kimberly Peirce knows she has a tough sell, promoting her new movie. Stop-Loss is about Iraq, specifically a young veteran from Texas (Ryan Phillippe) who rebels when he's stop-lossed, or ordered back overseas after his required tour is done.

Picturehouse

Simon Pegg showed with Shaun of the Dead he can kick the degrading butts of zombies with ease. He was just as believable as a die-hard cop in the dark comedy Hot Fuzz .

Photos courtesy of AFI Dallas

Billed as one of the largest film festivals in the Southwest, the AFI Dallas International Film Festival will feature more than 200 screenings of documentaries, short films and features.

Paramount Pictures

Writer/director/producer Judd Apatow has developed a Midas touch in films, with the uninterrupted successes of The 40-Year-Old Virgin , Knocked Up and Superbad .

IFC

Gus Van Sant was once content to make solidly earnest mainstream films ( Good Will Hunting , Finding Forrester ).

Associated Press and Blue Sky Studios

HOLLYWOOD – More than six decades after Dr. Seuss introduced his famously faithful elephant, Horton, to young readers, the beloved pachyderm is finally stampeding into movie theaters in the animated feature Horton Hears a Who!

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is one of several films that feature or explore the use of marijuana.

New Line Cinema

AUSTIN – Comedian Doug Benson stood before a packed Paramount Theatre at the opening night of the South by Southwest Film Festival on Friday to introduce his documentary Super High Me .

Jason Statham has been considered Britain's answer to Bruce Willis. Bald is totally in when it comes to action.

Photos by Lionsgate Films

Having starred in his share of action films, actor Jason Statham was looking forward to doing a comedy when he signed on to The Bank Job .

FILE 2007/AP

After winning an Oscar for her portrayal of country music legend June Carter Cash in 2005's Walk the Line , actress Reese Witherspoon was looking for other ways to challenge herself.

Associated Press

Funnyman Will Ferrell, 40, looks to have another comedy classic on his hands with Semi-Pro.

Associated Press Sidney Kimmel Entertainment

Jon Stewart is sitting in a cushy white chair in a small, windowless room known as Kodak Theatre's "Dressing Room 3."

In what looks to be an indie classic in the making, Anton Yelchin (standing) plays Charlie Bartlett, a student who gives psychological advice - and prescription drugs - to students in his high school.

Sidney Kimmel Entertainment

Anton Yelchin has quite a future ahead of him. The 18-year-old Russian-born actor landed the role of Chekov in the new Star Trek film

New Line Cinema

Not everyone takes the Academy Awards seriously. When Quick handed Will Ferrell and Will Arnett of the upcoming comedy Semi-Pro a list of Oscar nominees to get their prediction for the winners, the two instead engaged in the following banter.

Associated Press

The restoration of the Oscars after months of uncertainty has delighted those who revel in the fashion and foibles of the annual glitzfest. But the actual nominees might evoke a lot less pleasure for those who count studio dollars.

Associated Press

If Ellen Page is having trouble adjusting to being the latest It-girl, she doesn't show it.

Associated Press

The globe-trotting thriller Jumper leaped to a box office win with $27.2 million on a weekend when Hollywood offered something for everyone, with new films for action fans, teens, family audiences and the date-movie crowd.

The Weinstein Co.

In George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead , Romero returns authentically to the low-budget roots he used to established himself 40 years ago with the classic Night of the Living Dead .

WETA

With great power comes no responsibility in the high-concept science-fiction adventure Jumper , about a young man with the ability to teleport wherever he wishes.