“Crank”

Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

Jason Statham, with his bluntly smooth chrome-dome-ian manliness, battles the thugs who kidnapped his girlfriend and injected him with a drug that will kill him if his heart rate drops below butt-kicking levels.

Will Ferrell is working on a similar movie in which he’s injected with a drug that will kill him unless he’s continuously naked. It’s the natural next step in his career. (R)

“The Wicker Man”

Directed by Neil LaBute

I can’t wait to see what cruel, misanthropic slant filmmaker Neil LaBute gave this remake of the 1972 cult-classic in which a sheriff (Nicolas Cage) investigates a little girl’s disappearance on an island of pagans.

In the original, the sheriff was an orthodox Christian virgin. In the remake, Cage is simply allergic to bees.

Oh, LaBute, you edgy instigator, you. Bee-sympathizers the world over will swarm you with angry letters. (PG-13)

“Crossover”

Directed by Preston A. Whitmore II

A basketball prodigy (Wesley Jonathan) must choose-and choose wisely-between a career in professional sports and the pursuit of higher education.

Gee, do you think he sort of finds a way to do both? And stay true to his crew as well?

Wayne Brady plays an assertive sports agent-until someone pushes a buzzer and suddenly he’s a Spanish soap opera star making fun of Colin’s baldness. (PG-13)

“The Illusionist”

Directed by Neil Burger

Edward Norton stars as a turn-of-the-century magician whose magic woos the ladies (Jessica Biel, not in a tight, white T-shirt-drat!) and pisses off the royalty (Rufus Sewell, mired again in a pompous, dastardly pit of Sewell-ness).

Norton trained with a real magician to learn some authentic magic tricks, including the standard saw-the-woman-in-half bit. He brutally mutilated several actresses before Biel climbed out of her box and said, “Screw this. I was safer with Leatherface.” (PG-13)

“Lassie”

Directed by Charles Sturridge

2006 marks the return of not one, but two, of the squarest fictional characters ever-first, Superman, and now, Lassie.

Maybe they can join forces and solve crimes with the Hardy Boys! (PG)

“The Motel”

Directed by Michael Kang

It’s either a horror film in which tenants “check in, but they don’t check out!” or it’s a coming-of-age story about a pudgy, bespectacled Korean-American boy who lives in and operates a seedy motel with his family.

A crusty old man, a curious girl and a complex bully shape the boy’s pre-pubescence into something thematically pleasing and inevitably quirky. (NR)

MIDNIGHT MADNESS AT THE TOWER THEATRE!

“Harold and Maude”

Directed by Hal Ashby

A morbid, mock-suicidal young man falls in love with a woman born during the Roosevelt administration-the Theodore Roosevelt administration.

That means she’s old-in case you aren’t up on your American history.

Catch some hot, dinosaur lovin’ at the Tower Theatre this weekend. Bring your sexed-up, geriatric floozy and get cozy! (PG)