Spring movie preview

There's something in the air...

The Oscars are behind us and the movie year is already off to a hot start at the box office with surprise hits like "Taken" and "Paul Blart: Mall Cop." Now it's on to spring, that short window before Hollywood launches "summer" a month early in May.

This year, spring is a time for a comicbook movie ("Watchmen") hoping to succeed where a little comicbook movie called "300" succeeded in the past, a fourth installment ("Fast & Furious") in a franchise that's going back to the beginning, a return from a screen icon (Julia Roberts in "Duplicity") who took a few years off from leading lady-dom and...another mall cop movie (Seth Rogen in "Observe and Report"). Yes, in Hollywood the seasons change but the movie concepts stay the same... —Geoff Berkshire, Metromix