Summer Raises Its IQ

Can films about hard subjects find an audience in the hot months? Depends on how good they are

In any movie theater any summer, you can practically hear the atrophying of brain cells. Summer pictures don't insult the audience's intelligence so much as they ignore it, playing instead to the mass-market inner child. But with most big films serving as a form of pop-cultural potty training, there's a grand void to be filled for viewers who have not sent their brains to summer camp--who want the occasional film to speak to their inner grownup.

Miramax Films to the rescue. Counterprogramming with a vengeance, the distributor offers a trio of summer movies with nary a beach, a bimbo or a...

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