It's the Fourth of July weekend, and to many Americans that means cookouts and fireworks and sandy beaches. Unfortunately, it also means that it's as hot as balls. And so bright! It seems like we get closer and closer to the sun every year! This year, why not draw all the blinds, turn on the air conditioner, sit in the dark and watch movies that convey all the fun of the holiday, but without the annoying sunburns, sandy crevices and botulism risks? We've hand-picked the following movies for the complete 4th of July experience, or a reasonable facsimile.

I don't know if it's simply the cyclical nature of the DVD market or something more sinister at work, but there are more exciting TV shows coming out today than there are movies, including two of my favorite shows of all time. The first one is pictured at left. Can you guess which the other one is? (Hint: It's British, and it's about nerds.) Good luck!

Not being a fan of the first Transformers movie (likely due to my impossibly high expectations), I expected more of the same from the second one. I read every negative review, I followed every racism story and I hung on every testicle reaction, and through all of this, I managed to lower my expectations to a level that I had until now thought impossible. Then I actually saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And, having accepted that the plot would make no sense, and that most of the robots would not be given personalities, and that I was going to have to spend a lot of time at college with Shia LaBeouf, I actually found myself kinda enjoying it. Transformers movie defenders have always told me "you have to turn your brain off," but the closest I managed to get was to give my brain a set of pre-existing conditions -- in this case, that Transformers movies are usually horrible. With this in mind, I was able to sit back and relax, and I can now objectively tell you the ten things that made Transformers: ROTFL better than its predecessor. Warning, spoilers abound!

America, or at least the Americans who cover the film industry, were stunned by the out-of-the-blue announcement that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would be expanding the number of Best Picture nominees next year, from five to ten. The last time there were ten Best Picture nominees was 1943; apparently, winning the war gave Americans less desire to praise movies? Anyway, some people are crying foul, saying that crummy movies will now get nominated, and that's just dumb. We think this is a great idea, and we've got five reasons why in the last five years' worth of great films that didn't make the cut. Of course, in honor of the we also have a list of five other things that the Oscars still need to fix.

While the late, great Michael Jackson is most famous for his music, the man loved to make movies about himself and his songs, and as a megastar he had his pick of some of the most respected directors of our time. Granted, not all of the films were very good, and most were simply long-form music videos, but all were jam-packed full of enough ideas to make a feature-length movie out of. In honor of the man, what say we get today's hottest directors to remake his films? (We'll leave the challenge of recasting the Jackson role to more talented casting directors than ourselves.)

While Christian adores the Minuet, the Ballet Russe and fucking professionalism, our Johnny loves to rock and roll; a Tim Burton project makes him lose control. What a wild duet! But they're co-stars, less-than-identical co-stars in Michael Mann's new shoot-em-up, and their approaches to acting couldn't be more different. Check out their personal set diaries from the Public Enemies here!

So, you heard about this Facebook movie they're making, right? About the social networking site's rocky, apparently scandalous path to becoming the greatest thing since sliced bread? Well, apparently acclaimed director David Fincher is circling the project, which makes it sound a lot more interesting to us. Still, it's about the development and sale of a Website. Doesn't that sound kinda, I dunno, boring? Not like Flash of Genius "I invented the windshield wiper" boring, but maybe The Late Shift "who will host this TV show?" boring? Considering Fincher's body of work, there are a bunch more Facebook-related movie ideas we'd love to see him apply his talents to. Here are five.

Chris Columbus has given us a mixed bag. On the one hand, he did the first two Home Alone movies and the first two Harry Potters, and they were all pretty good. On the other hand, he also did Mrs. Doubtfire and Bicentennial Man. Shudder. Well, now he's channeling John Hughes for a teenage romp through the night after graduation, after a nerd declares his love for a hot chick, and the hot chick turns out to actually be kinda cool about it. Pablo and Omar Gallaga are skeptical of the whole affair, as evidenced by the latest installment of their vlog, "Trailers Without Pity." See what they have to say about the ILYBC trailer and Hayden Panettiere's cleavage below, or click here!

What do you think of Beth Cooper? Yeah, that's what we thought.

While all of the attention is on Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen right now, this August will see another 1980s toy property come to the big screen: G.I. Joe. Sadly, you may not recognize anything but the name, because visually it seems to have very little in common with the most popular version of its mythos, and unsubstantiated rumors have been circulating that the director, Stephen Sommers, has been pulled from editing the film. How did this happen? How did G.I. Joe, one of the most basic, straightforward concepts in 1980s children's television, become such a nightmare?

When you go to the Fandango page for Jack Black and Michael Cera's Year One there's a small box where they list "Similar Movies You Might Like." Now, this box assumes that you like the movie whose page you're on. Considering that most people who go to Fandango haven't even seen the movie they're looking up yet, it's a strange feature. In this context, they're more like recommendations for movies you should stay home and watch instead of the movie you're about to buy tickets for. Dear God, how I wish I'd taken that little box's advice.