Summer. Coast to coast.

Long anticipated by Movie City News, the Los Angeles Times seems to have finally made a very smart move, namely, pulling its "Calendar Live" section out from behind the subscribers-only wall. There are still a few bugs in the system, but aren't there always.

Just guess-work here, but knocking down that wall seems to have been done in conjunction with the unveiling of the paper's "Summer Sneaks" extravaganza. And wouldn't you know, it also happens to be the same weekend that the New York Times rolls out its seasonal "Movies Special." But first, the LAT:

• Rachel Abramowitz visited the War of the Worlds set back during the shoot and has had quite some time since to set the liveliest anecdotes, the best Spielberg and Cruise quotes within the context of what this film's about. In short, as Spielberg puts it, "I think 9/11 reinformed everything I'm putting into War of the Worlds 2005." Lots of audio and video extras.

• James Greenberg tells the long hard story of Warner Brothers' struggle to get its wildly profitable Batman franchise on its feet again. A sign of their confidence that they've pulled it off: "[Christopher] Nolan and [co-writer David] Goyer have a rough idea where the next couple of films would go, and in fact the last scene of Batman Begins could be the first scene of the next film."

• Carina Chocano on why big studio movies "don't talk about life anymore, they talk about other movies and TV."

• Choire Sicha on Craig Bierko and his role in Cinderella Man. Also: How Mad Hot Ballroom played at Tribeca.

• Mark Olsen meets Steve Carell on the set of The 40 Year Old Virgin and likes what he sees: "The biggest surprise is not how funny the scenes are, but how tender and unexpectedly sweet, delivering an emotional tug one might not expect from a movie whose potentially raunchy premise is conveyed in the matter-of-fact title." Also: "Many writers toil away their entire career hoping for a shot at writing a summer action blockbuster. This year, Simon Kinberg has three."

• There's another unbylined piece on writers, this brief one on John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, "[n]ow known as the Bad Santa guys." Their latest screenplay: Richard Linklater's The Bad News Bears.

• Back to Olsen again: "Though still best known for her role in Real Women Have Curves, [America] Ferrera is here to talk about her part in the adaptation of the popular tweener novel The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." Also: Chatting up Arnauld Desplechin.

• Another set, another star: Robert Abele heads over to Culver Studios, where Rachel McAdams takes a break from The Family Stone.

• Geoff Boucher talks with Chris "Ludacris" Bridges about joining "the hip-hop wing of the Screen Actors Guild."

• Lisa Rosen on capturing that Henri Rousseau look for Madagascar.

• Chris Lee's opening line for his piece on Robert Rodriguez's The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D: "In the abstract, a special-effects-driven three-dimensional movie with a massive summer roll-out might have been the only appropriate outlet for a preteen superhero duo wearing candy-colored unitards and battling schoolyard bullies and evildoers on a planet called Drool."

• Nancy Ramsey previews the summer's docs.

• Kevin Crust and R Kinsey Lowe oversee the big list of summer movies, arranged by release date, just the facts and a few notes, along with a healthy handful of trailers.

To the NYT's "Summer Movies" special:

• AO Scott on the triumph of the superheroes: "Their ascendancy in Hollywood is a triumphal chapter in a 70-year epic during which comic books have moved from the disreputable, juvenile margins of pop culture to its center." In the accompanying audio slide show, Scott points out a few of his favorites.

• David Carr recounts the many hurdles Don Roos has overcome to find his own Happy Endings. (Did I just type that? Ew.)

• It's taken 13 years to bring Bewitched to the screen. Ed Leibowitz tells the tale, even explaining the inevitable why factor along the way.

• David Halbfinger talks to Ron Howard about the reasons Cinderella Man shouldn't work; turns out they're a lot like the reasons Apollo 13 shouldn't have.

• J Hoberman: "[Werner] Herzog may no longer be the art-house and film-festival star he was during the 1970s, at the height of the old New German Cinema. But as demonstrated in three recent features - The White Diamond, Wheel of Time and Grizzly Man, all opening over the next few months - Mr. Herzog has become one of the greatest and most original of documentary filmmakers."

• Carol Ames presents a blow-by-blow account of marketers jockeying for position in their "war for opening-day supremacy" this summer - and above all, steering clear of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Plus: a sidebar on ShoWest and a pop-up guide to Lucas's space cadets.

• Then, the regulars of these specials: Karen Durbin's "Five Actors to Watch" (Abbie Cornish, Simon Abkarian, Tony Leung Chiu-wai [hm, think this guy might have a career some day?], Elizabeth Banks and Natalie Press; plus a slide show); Stephanie Zacharek and Charles Taylor's guide to the season's most notable DVDs; and Dave Kehr's annotated theatrical release schedule, starting with May and continuing through June, July and August.

More summer previews: The Hollywood Reporter's month-by-month breakdown is similar to those of the two papers', but it's much, much more appealing to the eye than either. And MCN's David Poland reworks a few old taglines for this summer's batch: "After all, the kids won't know the difference..."

Posted by dwhudson at May 7, 2005 9:06 AM