With all due respect to my esteemed colleague Elisabeth Rappe, geeks are not the only ones who learned important lessons from watching movies this summer. Herewith is my personal, arthouse summer school summary.

Werner Herzog cast a disapproving eye on the ugliness he discovered at Antarctica's McMurdo Station ("they even have a yoga studio and an ATM!") and was skeptical about the sanity of some of the real-life characters he met, which is partly why Encounters at the End of the World was so entrancing. What I learned: Evidence for gay penguins is skimpy, but they have been known to have threesomes.

The Wackness (pictured) didn't became the breakout hit that some had hoped for, but it did showcase the talents of rising star Olivia Thirlby and director Jonathan Levine. What I learned: Never kiss Ben Kingsley in a telephone booth.

Nanette Burstein's filmmaking techniques were much more off-putting than her ultimately winning subjects in American Teen, another would-be smash that didn't live up to box office expectations. What I learned: Never break up with your girlfriend via text message, especially when a documentary filmmaker is interviewing her.

Unexpectedly, Tell No One became the breakout limited-release mystery thrill ride of the summer, and Man on Wire proved that impassioned high wire walkers can make dreams come true and enthrall audiences to boot. What I learned: It's good to be French.

Now it's your turn, all you indie-loving, doc-devoted, world cinema aficionados: what did you learn from the movies this summer?

As far as hustling movie producer archetypes go, I tend to prefer Joel Silver over Harvey Weinstein. Sure, Weinstein played a role in some of the great American independent films from the last decade of the twentieth century, but Silver's production credits have more spice to them -- The Matrix, Predator, 48 Hrs. -- hinting at the zany force behind their existence. The movies he has produced don't always please everyone (consider those last two Matrix movies), and sometimes his productions run into unforeseeable setbacks (Joss Whedon's troublesome Wonder Woman script). But now, Silver's trying a radical maneuver that reaffirms his maverick abilities: He's shopping around Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla, which tells the story of a drama surrounding a stolen painting and stars Gerard Butler, to other studios despite the plan to release it through Warner Bros. in October.

According to Patrick Goldstein in The Los Angeles Times, Silver said he showed the movie to Lionsgate and Sony Pictures to get some advice on how to market the film. However, when Goldstein asked Warner Bros.' top executive Alan Horn about the situation, Horn called the movie "very English," not "broadly commercial," and said the studio "might not be willing to spend the marketing money he wants us to." So it follows that Silver probably wants to sell the movie to somebody else.

This kind of thing has happened before. Jonathan Levine's teen horror flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane was set for a release through The Weinstein Company, but when it was determined that the distributor might not provide the best home for the film, it went to the more agreeable Senator Films (although Senator has yet to release it). What troubles me is Horn's assertion that RocknRolla is "very English." Yeah ... so?

As always, we seek to highlight indie films with this weekly post, so let's pause a moment and celebrate the success of a good, old-fashioned railroad movie. Brad Anderson's Transsiberian opened on two screens and earned a very tidy $17,600 at each, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. That has to be considered a triumph in the face of "The Bat Effect." Perhaps Transsiberian will get to a few more cities before its eventual landing on DVD shelves.

In a very welcome upturn of events, French thriller Tell No One expanded from 19 to 55 screens in its third week of release and averaged $9,725 per screen. More people will have a chance to catch this word-of-mouth success when it expands again this coming Friday.

Also in its third week out, The Wackness expanded by three theaters and kept a decent $4,441 per-screen average. It finally opened where I live and, while I loved Olivia Thirlby more than I should and was convinced that Jonathan Levine has good instincts as a filmmaker, I'm amazed it's done as well as it has, considering how drab so much of it feels. But that's just my minority opinion. I would still encourage you -- especially you 90s kids -- to consider checking it out when it expands wider this Friday.

Finally, Lou Reed's Berlin earned a per-screen average of $3,825 at the two theaters where it opened. Must be more Lou Reed fans out there than I thought.

This is turning into one long tease. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane debuted to generally good reaction at the Toronto film festival nearly two years ago. (James Rocchi called it "the best modern slasher flick since Scream.") Senator Entertainment picked up distribution rights after The Weinstein Co. / Dimension unexpectedly dumped it shortly before its scheduled release one year ago. Since then, we've been waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting.

In the meantime, director Jonathan Levine moved on to his next film, the well-received The Wackness, and Senator Entertainment surprised us by releasing ... a new poster. (OK, we take what we can get.) At some point they also made a new trailer, which you can view at the trailer website for Fantasia, Montreal's amazingly awesome genre festival. They have a good write-up on the film, too, and you'll see James' review quoted on the page. (Sorry, you've already missed the two screenings there.)

The Senator trailer doesn't look markedly different from The Weinstein Co. trailer, but, to its credit, it spells out even less than the previous one. The most irritating thing is probably where it promises to be out "This Spring." The poster promises "This Summer." Is that "This Year"? We do know that UK film lovers can buy it on DVD in just a few days; I'm not holding my breath much longer for this one.

[Thanks to Bloody Disgusting.]

What's the formula for success? Teens, drugs, Ben Kingsley kisses and 90s nostalgia, evidently. Jonathan Levine's The Wackness scored the best per-screen average of the weekend -- $24,166 -- at six theaters in New York and Los Angeles, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo.

On the other hand, French thriller Tell No One packed them in without any of those elements, earning $20,120 per-screen at eight theaters, according to Leonard Klady's estimates at Movie City News. As somebody once said: C'est la vie.

At the one theater in Los Angeles where it opened, the box office went Kabluey for the film with the same name ($7,900 in receipts) while Alex Gibney's entertaining, if schematic, doc, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, made $7,307 per screen at 26 theaters celebrating independence across the nation.

Not as many were interested in Holding Trevor ($3,400 per-screen at 2 theaters) and audiences declined interest in Diminished Capacity ($2,830 per-screen at 4 theaters). You can read more about all these releases in Indie Spotlight, the new column by Eric D. Snider.

Notable holdovers include Trumbo ($4,233 per-screen average, 6 theaters, 2nd week of release); Mongol ($3,490 per-screen, 253 theaters, 5th week); Brick Lane ($3,451 per-screen, 31 theaters, 3rd week); Roman de Gare ($2,400 per-screen, 37 theaters, 11th week), and The Visitor ($2,017 per-screen, 176 theaters, 13th week).

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl broke into the overall top 10, expanding to more than 1,800 theaters and drawing $1,953 per screen -- but that's a very disappointing figure after the gangbusters box office of its very limited first two weeks of release. The film has grossed more than $6.1 million so far.

I haven't seen Jonathan Levine's The Wackness yet (I know, I know), but I have seen his long-in-limbo All the Boys Love Mandy Lane -- almost a year and a half ago now, at SXSW 2007. It's a smart, expertly made horror film that's been mistreated in a way that Levine, who now has a career despite his debut's fate, should never forgive. As Sony Classics prepares The Wackness for a nationwide release, Levine has lined up two more projects that will take him through 2009.

The first, Positive, is a thriller about a young man who visits his fiancee's family in Martha's Vineyard but winds up being seduced by the woman's sister. The second, currently (though I'm guessing not for long) titled Echelon Vendetta, will be an adaptation of David Stone's spy novel about a CIA "cleaner" (think a superspy version of Michael Clayton) who investigates the death of a friend and colleague and stumbles upon something more nefarious. Levine, who wrote the screenplay for The Wackness but not Mandy Lane, will write both projects, and direct at least Positive. More at The Hollywood Reporter.

Horror, character comedy, romantic thriller, spy actioner... That'll be quite a resume. Now if he can actually convince -- who is it now? Senator Films? -- to put All the Boys Love Mandy Lane into at least a few theaters...

Believe it or not, the fight to bring All the Boys Love Mandy Lane to the big screen isn't over yet.

Almost two years ago, I watched the story of a good girl caught on a secluded ranch while people kept dying at TIFF's Midnight Madness. It got some good buzz (here's our review), but then it went into limbo -- one that's been stretching on for so long that director Jonathan Levine has already been wowing audiences with his next film, The Wackness.

But now ShockTillYouDrop has posted the U.S. one-sheet for the film (part of it is above -- go there to see the poster in its entirety). IMDb says it's hitting screens in August, but Shock says that there's no release news to share. However, there will, at the very least, be a screening of it in Chicago, as part of Horror Con (June 28).

Will we ever see Mandy Lane again? Or can we just resign ourselves to getting a new poster, teasing us, once a year?

Cinematical is absolutely stoked to have received this exclusive poster for The Wackness (click on the image to enlarge), which just enjoyed its New Yawk premiere at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival earlier this week. Directed by the very talented Jonathan Levine (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane), The Wackness centers on the relationship between a pot dealer with no friends (Josh Peck) and a therapist (Ben Kingsley) on the verge of a mid-life crisis. And did I mention that neither one is getting laid? Set in 1994 New York City, the film just oozes mid-nineties and definitely captures every ounce of what it was like to grow up during that particular time period. Olivia Thirlby, Famke Janssen and Mary-Kate Olsen also star (as the three lovely ladies our two heroes really want to get with).

I managed to catch The Wackness at a screening a few days ago with a young, hip New York crowd who absolutely devoured the flick. It's dope, it's mad funny and it brings just enough nostalgia to help you remember what it was like when you were unlucky and in love with not a clue what to do. Seriously, go see this one with a group of friends and have a blast. The Wackness arrives in theaters on July 3.

Known in some circles as "that movie where Sir Ben Kingsley hooks up with Mary-Kate Olsen," The Wackness premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival where it was met with an unbelievable online reception. Just about everyone I spoke to fell in love with this quirky drug-related dramedy from director Jonathan Levine (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane). While I didn't get the chance to see it (our own Scott Weinberg did), these good vibes have me all antsy to check out The Wackness when it hits the Tribeca Film Festival later this month.

Here's a bit from the synopsis: "... Luke (Josh Peck) is a socially uncomfortable teenage pot dealer with no friends, issues with his parents, and a whopping lack of confidence with girls. He trades weed for sessions with his therapist, Dr. Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley), whose much-younger wife (Famke Janssen) is slipping away from him. Squires, a drug-addled shrink with a hairline retreating to the back of his neck and a state of mind slouching back to adolescence, is an unlikely role model-but the two of them forge a friendship based on a mutual need: neither one is getting laid."

Check out both exclusive photos (including a larger version of the image above) from the film in the gallery below. The Wackness arrives in theaters on July 3rd. (And is it me, or does Kingsley have a little Keitel going on in that pic?)

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Here's one of the things you do a lot of at film festivals: Talk to people. In line while waiting for a movie, and then some more in the screening room, and then afterwards -- especially if you're a smoker. Like me. It was during one such chat session with James Rocchi and the lovely producer Jennifer Chikes that I noticed a semi-familiar figure standing not too far away. The young man waited until there was a lull in our conversation (and lulls don't occur all too often in conversations that I'm participating in), and then he stepped in to introduce himself.

"Hey, I thought I recognized the name. You're Scott Weinberg from Cinematical, right?"

"Yep!" (I shake the man's hand.)

"Hey, I'm John...."

And before he even got his last name out, I remembered his face. This was Jonathan Levine, director of the very cool horror film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. Unfortunately for me (or so I thought), Mr. Levine is also the director of a highly-buzzed film called The Wackness ... which (as you probably know by now) I didn't dig all that much.

I was pretty impressed with director John Levine's debut film, the retro-slasher horror throwback known as All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, and so logically I was looking forward to the filmmaker's follow-up project. Unfortunately, Mr. Levine chose to not only direct his sophomore effort, but write it too. And that's where most of the problems start. Based only on his first two films, it's pretty clear that Levine has a gift for the visual side of the equation -- but as far as the writing goes...

The Wackness (yes, that's the actual title, and wait till you hear the actual dialog that inspired the title) feels like something that was written by a bored 17-year-old during one lazy afternoon in detention. And while it's safe to assume that much of The Wackness is based on Levine's own experiences, the potential realism is consistently undone by the writer's affection for cliche, stereotype, and completely unrealistic behavior. A potentially poignant moment is followed by a really obvious drug gag, which is then followed by some small chunk of speech-making that never once sounds like something a human would say.

Ben Kingsley, Mary-Kate Olsen, and Method Man. For years, Hollywood has been trying to get these three in a picture together. It's a perfect fit -- Sir Ben Kingsley is one of the most respected actors in the game, a three-time Academy Award nominee and winner of the 1983 Best Actor Oscar for his legendary performance in Gandhi. Two-time Razzie Award nominee Mary-Kate Olsen lit up television screens with her gritty, uncompromising work in 1999's You're Invited to Mary-Kate and Ashley's Fashion Party. Method Man...smokes a lot of weed. And these three dynamos are joining forces, for what I think it's safe to say will be the one and only time, on a new movie called The Wackness.

So what in God's name is The Wackness? The comedy, currently filming in New York, takes place in 1994 (guess it's a period piece), and according to Variety the film will be about "a troubled teenage drug dealer and a drug-addled psychiatrist." The drug dealer trades marijuana for therapy sessions, falls in love with the psychiatrist's daughter, and you've got yourself a movie! I would imagine Kingsley plays the psychiatrist, but that's just speculation. Rounding out this bizarre cast are Josh Peck (star of Nickelodeon's Drake and Josh, as well as Mean Creek, which I loved), Famke Janssen (probably best known as Jean Grey in the X-Men series), and Olivia Thirlby (of United 93 and NBC's failed drama Kidnapped). The film was written and is being directed by Jonathan Levine, who got a lot of notice with his much-delayed horror flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (read James' positive review here). I don't even know what to expect with this cast, but I'm definitely intrigued.