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Two months ago, we guided you through the first 60 days of the summer blockbuster season, with prescient comments on everything from Star Trek (“the re-booted Trek franchise should live long and prosper at the multiplex”) to Transformers (“whatever speck of joy the first film contained will have been thoroughly stamped out”).

This week, we’re following Hollywood’s lead, and presenting a sequel, getting you caught up on what’s hitting the Hollywood 20 every week till fall comes. The lineup features heavyweights like Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt, Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler. Can they improve on what we’ve already seen this summer? We’ll see…

JULY 10
Box Office Gold: Brüno
Worth seeing? For his last big-screen outing, 2006’s Borat, British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen laid waste to George W. Bush’s America — hilariously ruining rodeos, business conferences and a Pam Anderson book signing in the process. Cohen has gone back to the Ali G Show wellspring from which Borat emerged to find his next character, flaming gay Austrian fashionista Brüno. Early buzz has Cohen replicating his Borat schtick, sending Brüno to interact with unsuspecting bystanders who aren’t in on the joke. This time around, that means talking Sex and the City and tent-snuggling with homophobic rednecks, crashing the catwalk at actual runway shows and even dropping trou in front of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. If it’s all half as funny as Borat, the producers will laugh all the way to the bank.

Counter-programming: Mountains of man-ass and potty jokes a turn off? Instead, see I Love You, Beth Cooper. The latest from director Chris Columbus (the first few Harry Potter flicks), Cooper stars Paul Rust as a nerdy kid who declares his love for the hottest girl in school (Hayden Panettiere) during his valedictory speech. The speech works, and hottie Beth soon decides to show her dorky suitor the night of his life. Ah, fantasy.

JULY 15

Box Office Gold: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Worth seeing? It doesn’t matter. At this point you’ve spent so much time reading the books and seeing the other movies that not catching Half-Blood Prince is akin to letting yourself down. This entry into the Potter series (the sixth of seven) was originally slated for a November 2008 release by Warner Bros., but after the studio hit the jackpot with The Dark Knight, the bean-counters decided to push the lucrative boy wizard onto 2009’s balance sheet. Fans of the series can expect a mostly faithful adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s book, though they apparently mucked with the ending a bit. The Internet is abuzz with reports that about 25 minutes of the film will be in 3D IMAX, though at press time that was unconfirmed. No matter. They could have shot Half-Blood Prince in 1D and it would still be the favorite to claim the summer box-office crown.

Counter-programming: The wizard Harry is so powerful that no other film dare challenge him.

JULY 24
Box Office Gold: The Ugly Truth
Worth seeing? Probably. Truth stars TV diva Katherine Heigl as a morning show producer who is terrible at dating. (In the previews, she whips out a background check on a guy during their first date.) Back at work, a new correspondent (Gerard Butler) joins the team; too bad he’s an insufferable pig of a man who drives Heigl nuts. The pair strike a deal: If Butler’s crass advice about what men want can’t help Heigl land her dream guy, he’ll quit the show. Thus begins a strange take on Cyrano De Bergerac, where Butler’s ugliness is all in his personality. Robert Luketic (Legally Blond, Monster-In-Law) directs.

Counter-programming: I read over a hundred film synopses in putting together this summer movie preview, but none made me smile quite like the IMDB.com write-up on G-Force: “A specially trained squad of guinea pigs is dispatched to stop a diabolical billionaire from taking over the world.” I should point out that G-Force is animated and features the vocal stylings of Nicolas Cage, Will Arnett, Penélope Cruz and Tracy Morgan (among others).

JULY 31
Box Office Gold: Funny People
Worth seeing? A new Judd Apatow-directed flick is an event. The guy has his name on so many projects as a producer it’s easy to forget that Funny People is only the third film he’s personally directed. So, expectations are high for this one — which is to be expected when your first two films are as good as The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Funny People stars Adam Sandler as an experienced comedian who finds out he’s got a terminal disease. In the face of his own mortality, the comedian decides to take a newbie (Seth Rogen) under his wing and impart some some wisdom. Comedians Sarah Silverman, Andy Dick and Dave Attell play themselves.

Counter-programming: If a dying comedian doesn’t sound like a rollicking good time at the movies, try the more kid-friendly They Came from Upstairs. Starring Ashley Tisdale (High School Musical), and SNL alums Tim Meadows and Kevin Nealon, Upstairs features a marauding band of animated aliens tormenting the inhabitants of a summer home in Maine. Upstairs is directed by John Schultz (The Honeymooners) and written by Wallace & Gromit funnyman Mark Burton, meaning the aliens will probably turn out more clever than man-eating.

AUGUST 7
Box Office Gold: G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra
Worth seeing? Only if you were a fan of the animated ’80s TV version, and even then it’s questionable. The long-awaited film adaptation took a huge hit in the geek-cred department when it was revealed that “real American hero” Joe would be re-booted as some kind of NATO-esque international fighting force and arch-enemy Cobra would become an organized crime syndicate led by a Scottish arms dealer. Lame! The film is reported to have undergone substantial revisions since those early details leaked out, but let’s be honest; if G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra worked as a big-budget summer blockbuster, it would have been released in June or July. August is where big-budget actioners go to die.

Counter-programming: Possibly the best counter-programming of the summer, Julie & Julia stars Meryl Streep (great in everything!) as famed TV chef Julia Child and Amy Adams as a present-day amateur chef who attempts to cook every single recipe in Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. If Streep’s presence alone isn’t enough to sway you, note the film was written and directed by Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle) and the Child segments are based on her own memoir, My Life in France, which she penned with grand nephew Alex Prud’homme.

AUGUST 14
Box Office Gold: The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
Worth seeing? That depends: Did you get your Will Ferrell fix from Land of the Lost or are you hungry for more? For The Goods, Ferrell stars as a used-car salesman called in by a failing dealership to turn their Fourth of July sale into a cash bonanza. The film is the directing debut of Neal Brennan, who has worked for years as Dave Chappelle’s main collaborator, co-writing Half-Baked and directing about a dozen episodes of the stellar Chappelle Show. And hey, Jeremy Piven even laid off the sushi long enough to costar.

Counter-programming: Director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) explores American cultural mythology with Taking Woodstock, an adaption of Elliot Tiber’s memoir about being a key (if unexpected) player in the events that led to the staging of 1969’s Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. Comedy Central funny-man Demetri Martin stars.

AUGUST 21
Box Office Gold: Inglourious Basterds
Worth seeing? Pretty much the only big August release worth marking your calendar for, Inglourious Basterds stars Brad Pitt as the leader of a squad of Jewish-American soldiers in WWII-occupied France tasked with the sole mission of scalping as many Nazis as they can get their bloody hands on. Interesting premise on its face, but add writer/director Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill) to the mix and this graduates to must-see programming. Rumors are the film is long, gory, profane and has a (gasp!) female as the main character. Basterds is in competition at Cannes, and if Tarantino takes home his second Palme d’Or, expect the hype to go off the charts.

Counter-programming: Though there is only a slim chance this next film will open in the Bay area on Aug. 21, I still have to hip you to It Might Get Loud, a documentary about the electric guitar that centers on three amazing players: Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge and The White Stripes’ Jack White. Not your average summer programming, but if you’re not sick of car chases and explosions by this point, there may be no hope for you anyway.

AUGUST 28
Box Office Gold: H2: Halloween 2
Worth seeing? With October 31 still two months away, isn’t H2 launching a bit prematurely? The hype here is that series villain Michael Myers will spend the majority of the film sans mask, a marked departure for a series that made a William Shatner Halloween costume painted white into a horror movie icon. But isn’t trouble around the corner when the most interesting thing about a flick is the main character’s lack of a costume?

Counter-programming: Go outside, run around, maybe go for a swim. Anything but see another movie. Repeat for the next few weeks. You’re going to need the rest. After all, the jam-packed fall/holiday movie season is right around the corner.

All release dates subject to change. The author used many sources in compiling this list, but leaned most heavily on movieweb.com and IMDb.com for dates/information.

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