When aliens -- and comedies -- attack

Summer, as far as movies are concerned, means basically one thing: It’s the end of the world.

The planet will bite the dust in high style in Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” (July 1.) I don’t know about you, but if Mars ever does attack, I want to be standing next to Tom Cruise. Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” (June 17), which stars Christian Bale, looks promisingly moody and potentially more interesting than the long-awaited movie version of Marvel’s “The Fantastic 4” (July 8). You can’t judge a movie by its logo, but this one looks as if it was peeled off the side of a news van. Of course, no matter what happens with any of these, we’ll always have “Sith,” (Episode III, Revenge of.)

Among the comedies, “Wedding Crashers” (July 15), starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, looks to be the Farrelliest of them all, though it’s directed by David Dobkin. As for romantic comedies, “Must Love Dogs” stars Diane Lane and John Cusack, who can do no wrong. (Well, barely any.)

I don’t usually go for remakes, but I’m making an exception for Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” (July 15) and Richard Linklater’s “Bad News Bears” (July 22), which has Billy Bob Thornton in the Walter Matthau role, so I’m crossing my fingers for a “Bad Santa” reprise.

Sometimes, you want your block busted, sometimes you don’t. Luckily, summer ’05 has yielded a nice of crop of indies and docs, which, thanks to the magic of film festivals, I can vouch for.

There’s Werner Herzog’s “Grizzly Man” (Aug. 5), the bizarre and fascinating true story of bear-whisperer turned bear victim Timothy Treadwell, as narrated by the legendarily saturnine German director; Don Roos’ “Happy Endings” (July 15), a smart, incisive comedy about intersecting modern relationships; Phil Morrison’s “Junebug” (Aug. 5), a deceptively simple story about what happens when a match made in a blue state spends a few weeks in a red one; “Rize” (June 24), David LaChappelle’s astonishing documentary about a group of inner-city youths who invented a form of dance to express the pain of life in South-Central; and artist Miranda July’s wonderfully offbeat and original romantic comedy “Me and You and Everyone We Know” (June 17), which would sound conventional if I tried to describe it in two words but is anything but.