PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR

Penguins of Madagascar opens with a sweeping overhead shot of an (animated) Antarctic expanse, which eventually lands on an orderly march of flightless waterfowl. This introduction is narrated by a documentarian voiced by Werner Herzog, who informs us, in the director's unmistakable German-accented English, that we're to witness penguins in all their natural glory - right before he orders a crew member to shove a few off a cliff, just to see what will happen. Between Herzog, the environmental-doc satire, and the sheer goofiness of it all, this prelude is such a fantastically funny way to start directors Eric Darnell's and Simon J. Smith's spin-off that it immediately leaves you anticipating a movie that'll be smart and hilarious throughout. Would you settle, though, for smart and moderately amusing?

ST. VINCENT

St. Vincent stars Bill Murray as the titular (if decidedly un-saintly) Vincent, a cranky, disheveled grump who may be the meanest man in Brooklyn, if not all of New York. He speaks in a honking regional dialect and guzzles brown liquor by the quart, and his only pals are a pair of fellow barflies and the local hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold. He's frequently seen chain-smoking in a porkpie hat with oversize sunglasses, and spends his days at the track making losing bets with his bookie. At his ramshackle home, he watches old Abbott & Costello movies on an ancient television and, when drunk, drives straight over his white picket fence. When a neighbor kid needs to use a pay phone, Vincent begrudgingly gives him a dime for the call. Given all this, in what year would you guess St. Vincent takes place? 1957? 1958?

Director Dustin Marcellino's The Identical is for anyone who ever wanted to see a fictionalized account of the birth of the Elvis-impersonator movement. Or anyone who'd enjoy Presley's songs more if their melodies weren't so complex and their lyrics weren't so depraved. Or anyone who's been yearning to see Ray Liotta play a devout evangelist who explains to his congregation why he just lit eight candles on a menorah, when, as we can see, he clearly lit nine.

Friday, August 8, 10 a.m.-ish: I'm at The Hundred-Foot Journey, and five minutes into this lighthearted foodie dramedy, I'm already regretting my decision to only have yogurt for breakfast. With director Lasse Hallström's camera slavering over the creation of steaming, succulent pots and grills of Indian cuisine, all of it enhanced by spices and oils whose aromas are practically wafting off the screen, this is not the movie to see if you're hungry. Considering screenwriter Steven Knight's T-shirt-ready dialogue - which features such pithy bromides as "Life has its own flavor," "We cook to make ghosts," and the grammatically vexing "Food is memories" - it's not really the movie to see if your brain is hungry, either.