Gary Thompson

WELL THAT'S over with. The empty-calorie summer, with its frivolous robot fights and cowboys and aliens and smurfs and sequels and remakes and romcoms and doomed teens reaching their final decapitated destinations. Now, finally, it's on to autumn, with its substantive roster of weighty prestige motion pictures. Films such as "Shark Night 3D. " And "Piranha 3DD. " The extra D makes all the difference. Yes, weighty prestigious films, full of erudition, and Oscarness.

MICHAEL RAPAPORT has received some terrific reviews for his new documentary about A Tribe Called Quest, but not from all the guys in Tribe. Phife Dawg has praised the film, "Beat Rhymes & Life," but Quest frontman Q-Tip has attacked it, and called Rapaport many unflattering names. Other members have boycotted screenings. "At this point, dealing with the group and the stuff that happened with Q-Tip, I don't really give a s--- because I didn't make the movie for them," Rapaport said.

THE ANSWER to your question is no, Charlie Day does not scream when he talks. Thanks to the FX hit "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," Day is known for his full-throated, raspy falsetto, also for eating cat food and spooning with Danny DeVito. In person, though, he's thoughtful, quiet and barely audible. He has none of his character's insecurity, and why would he? He's in a posh hotel suite talking about his long-running TV show, his new movie "Horrible Bosses" (he plays opposite Jennifer Aniston)

IF YOU'VE been waiting for yet another DVD configuration of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, this is your week. "Rings" has a new "definitive" package comprising 15(!) discs with enough behind-the-scenes material to keep fans busy until Peter Jackson finishes "The Hobbit," prompting yet another DVD package. Elsewhere, there is "Sucker Punch," Zack Snyder's superindulgent fantasy about female psych-ward inmates who imagine themselves to be Nazi-fighting strippers, or something.

ED HELMS' "Hangover 2" made 40 times as much money and was about half as funny as his indie comedy "Cedar Rapids," released a few months earlier, now on DVD. Helms stars as an impossibly square guy who attends a regional insurance convention, where he's hazed and ultimately helped by fellow delegates (John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock Jr.). The movie is offbeat and has a good heart - it's unusually generous to its Midwestern characters, and resolves itself in surprising ways.

GOSPEL'S ROOTS go deep in Philadelphia, where many of the genre's great artists came to live and perform during the heyday of the 1940s and 1950s. Many are featured in the new history-of-gospel documentary "Rejoice and Shout," although some local disciples will be disappointed that the film makes no mention of Philadelphian Charles Albert Tindley, considered by many to be a father of gospel, if not the father. "Rejoice" assigns that honor to converted bluesman Thomas Dorsey, although writer and historian Bill Carpenter, featured in the movie and author of the gospel history "Uncloudy Days," gives Tindley his due. "Tindley was writing gospel songs - successful ones - long before the world heard of Thomas A. Dorsey.

ACTION, comedy and unintentional comedy are in this week's DVD bin. There is "Battle: Los Angeles," a routine alien invasion that vaguely mimics "District 9" without the narrative dimension and interesting subtext. The aliens are strictly impersonal CGI, and not very bright, as they make the mistake of attacking Michelle Rodriguez. Have these aliens never seen an Earth action movie? For laughs there is a minor Farrelly brothers comedy, "Hall Pass," about a couple of married guys (Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis)

THE BRITISH aren't coming. The British aren't coming. So says Richard Ayoade, writer-director of the well-reviewed new comedy "Submarine," which follows Joe Wright's "Hanna," Kenneth Branagh's "Thor," Matthew Vaughn's "X-Men: First Class," and arrives the same day as Martin Campbell's "Green Lantern. " I also cited Edgar Wright, of "Sean of the Dead," who produced "Attack the Block," which opens here in September, as evidence that the British are suddenly very busy on colonial screens.

THE JOKE about the three stages of an actress in Hollywood - babe, district attorney, "Driving Miss Daisy" - is so good, we repeat it even if it isn't true anymore. The truth is the business is getting to be much friendlier to "older" actresses, especially if you factor in television. Norristown's Maria Bello is now forty-something, she's mother of a 10-year-old boy, and she's busier than ever - a new movie ("Beautiful Boy") opens today, she has two more in the hopper, and she's about to embark on the American version of the venerated Helen Mirren BBC series "Prime Suspect," the quintessential plum role.

SOME GOOD movies in the bin this week, starting with the Coen brothers' Oscar-nominated "True Grit. " It's their more grounded-in-reality take on the iconic John Wayne classic, with Jeff Bridges as the U.S. marshal who helps a girl (Hailee Steinfeld) find the man (Josh Brolin) who killed her father. Superb support from Matt Damon, though I fear this movie will suffer in a small-screen downsizing. There's a featurette on "True Grit" novelist Charles Portis - it's a great book, well worth a read.