my week at the movies: ‘Crank: High Voltage,’ ‘Tyson,’ ‘Sleep Dealer,’ ‘Is Anybody There?,’ ‘American Violet’

BUMPED UP: To note that I've added another screening this week: The Soloist (opens in the U.S. on April 24, and in the U.K. on September 11), the Jamie Foxx-Robert Downey Jr. movie about crazy musical genius. It's from director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) and screenwriter Susannah Grant (Catch and Release, Charlotte’s Web, and ho-lee crap, they let a woman write a movie that's not about weddings!), so, you know, awesome. Also: I was so afraid this screening was going to be on next Monday night, when I'm supposed to go hear a lecture by Phil "Bad Astronomy" Plait at the American Museum of Natural History here in NYC. Phil is cool, plus we were on a panel together at WorldCon in Los Angeles in 2006, plus his lecture is called "Death from the Skies!" (with an exclamation point), so I really didn't want to miss that.

Honestly, there’s something so deeply wrong about these Crank movies -- No. 2, Crank: High Voltage, opens on April 16 in the U.K. and on April 17 in the U.S. -- as if they were designed to push boundaries that no one ever even knew existed before and hasten the four horsemen of the cinemapocalypse in their journey. And yet, I kinda liked the first one, and I expect to get something of a kick out of the second one. Is that wrong? Voltage won’t screen for critics, but I’ll check it out on Friday, once it opens.

Tyson (now playing in the U.K.; opens April 24 in the U.S.) is James Toback’s documentary about the man who is perhaps the worst excuse for an athlete ever in the history of professional game-players. This is one of those movies that throws up the greatest barriers to my quest to remain as objective as possible, even while also being biast.