A couple of days ago I wrote about news regarding the release dates of George Clooney's Ides of March, much of which was shot in and around Cincinnati. Now we have Ides' first trailer, which gives us a much better idea of the film's tone and focus.

Here's Ides' official synopsis, the contents of which are readily on display in the tension-laced trailer, which centers heavily on Ryan Gosling's campaign press secretary character:

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Unless you've understandably been stricken with Apocalyptic anxiety while hiding out in your basement since John Boehner was named Speaker of the House, you probably recall that area native/Hollywood bigwig George Clooney was in town earlier this year shooting his fourth directorial effort, a political drama called Ides of March.

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Summer is fully engaged! Multiple 90-plus-degree days in a row coupled with a broken air-conditioning unit on the editorial floor at CityBeatWorld Headquarters (karmic justice via the mind beams of Steve Chabot's scornful minions, or complete coincidence?) have visions of an ultra-cooled movie house dancing in my overheated head.

Ah, but what to see?

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The Harry Potter movie series comes to a close this week with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, which, if I'm not mistaken, represents the eighth movie adaptation of J.K. Rowling's wildly successful book series.

I confess: I've never watched a Harry Potter movie. I've caught a few minutes here and there on HBO or at a friend's or family member's house, but for some reason I've never been compelled enough to sit down and take in the entirety of even one of the series' movies.

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It's been a mixed-bag summer at the movie house.

Nowhere has that sentiment been more obvious than at the multiplex, where a smattering of offerings have been pretty solid (Bridesmaids, Fast Five, Kung Fu Panda 2, Super 8, X-Men: First Class) and a smorgasbord have been solidly (if not heinously) flawed (Bad Teacher, Cars 2, Green Lantern, The Hangover Part II, Larry Crowne, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Thor and Transformers: Dark of the Moon, to the pinpoint the most obvious culprits).

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Some say Michael Bay is the devil, the man responsible for the death of cinema as we know it.

It seems the director behind such crass mainstream entertainments as The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harborand the Transformers films — the third of which, subtitled Dark of the Moon, opens today — has no shame when it comes to his particular brand of slam-bam cinema. Bay specializes in disaster movies, the kind of stories where nothing less than the entirety of civilization hangs in the balance. His CGI-driven, ADD-addled films revel in big explosions, big visual flourishes and big emotions. Subtle he is not.

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Terrence Malick's The Tree of Lifeis finally here.

Like everything the acclaimed 68-year-old filmmaker does, Malick's latest — just his fifth film in 38 years — has gone through a mysterious gestation, changing release dates and distributors numerous times (it was originally slated for a Dec. 25, 2009, release), all the while simultaneously revealing little about its contents. The film finally surfaced last month at the Cannes Film Festival, where it earned cheers, boos and the coveted Palme d'Or.

Now it finds its way into U.S. theaters.

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Just wanted to give a heads up to those bicycling enthusiasts out there: Stephen Auerbach's Bicycle Dreams, a documentary about some badasses who bike across the U.S. in 10 days — essentially 300 miles a day — has its one-time local screening tonight at the Esquire Theatre in Clifton.

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It's hard to believe that 2011 is already halfway over. Looking back over the last six months is not exactly a heartwarming or nostalgic endeavor — at least when it comes to the movies that have been released in local theaters.

As is the case every year, the big studios use the first quarter as a dumping ground for its duds, movies that for one reason or another they think are unlikely to generate much interest in an audience whose expectations are already diminished. Still, this year's list of dumpster dwellers seems even more robust than usual. On the other end of the spectrum, I can think of only two studio films to this point that have transcended the mediocre: Paul Feig's Bridesmaids and Duncan Jones' Source Code, both of which tweak genre conventions in slightly unexpected ways.

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Who knew it would take a 75-year-old to make the best movie of the summer (so far)?

Woody Allen's 41st feature is his most engaging effort in years,a whimsical comedy that seamlessly melds moments of dreamy, nostalgic delight —its protagonist, played by Allen surrogate Owen Wilson, is somehow, each midnight, transported back to Paris' 1920s bohemian heyday where he hangs out with Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others — with the filmmaker's longstanding themes of acute self-loathing, romantic longing and the role of the artist in society.

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