This weekend At the Movies marks the official beginning of summer. Don't bother checking your calendars, Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers says with X-Men Origins: Wolverine hitting theaters on May 1st, Hollywood's Summer Movie Season has officially began. And it starts off with a yawn. Hugh Jackman's Wolverine was the best part of the original X-Men trilogy, but here the most personable actor on Earth grimaces his way through a action film that gets too repetitive after its stunning, century-spanning opening sequence. Plus, it didn't help the potential box office when the entire workprint of the film leaked out onto the Internet more than a month before its release date. Thanks to Liev Schreiber's performance as Wolverine's mutant brother Victor/Sabretooth, the film avoids the Scum Bucket. Wolverine is okay, Travers says, and simply "starts the summer in a nice popcorn way."

And then there's the deplorable Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, starring the newly crowned King of the Rom-Coms, Matthew McConaughey.

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Photo: Brother/FilmMagic

Tom Hanks got gussied up last night in Manhattan to play guest of honor at the annual gala tribute put on by the chichi Film Society of Lincoln Center. Hanks, 52, bravely survived the brutal assault of compliments from the likes of Julia Roberts, Bruce Springsteen, Mike Nichols and Steven Spielberg, and is now resting comfortably. As ever in the career of Nice Guy Tom, the speakers emphasized his niceness. "Everybody fuckin’ likes you,” said Roberts, finally expressing how irritating that is. OK, Hanks is nice, but within reason.

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The latest No. 1 movie (a huge $28 million opening weekend) to stink like rancid cheese is Obsessed, a ripoff of Fatal Attraction that will disappear next week in the flames of Wolverine. So why not let it die peacefully without my beating it with a stick? Beyoncé Knowles, that's why. Reviews have been pretty tough on her. Here's one: "When the world’s most overexposed woman finally realizes that she can’t act, the planet will be a better place." Ouch! Some critics claim she ruined the movie. Oh No She Didn't (an earlier and better title for the movie). The screenwriter and director did that. Beyoncé is the least of the problems possessed by Obsessed.

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This weekend you'll get your first chance to see the documentary that Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers calls one of the best films he's seen this year. The picture is Tyson, and it tells the riveting story of Mike Tyson in the boxer's own words. Like this King of the Ring used to do to his opponent, the film is sure to knock you out. The doc explores the embattled boxer's entire life, from his violent childhood to his first matches to his marriage to Robin Givens to the rape that put Tyson behind bars for three years and nearly killed him. The whole story, straight from Tyson's "schizophrenic" mind out his helium-voiced mouth. Directed by James Toback, a friend of Tyson's for nearly 20 years, the film is a must-see and earned three and a half stars from Travers in his RS review.

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Photo: Lovekin/Getty

The Tribeca Film Festival opens tonight with Woody Allen’s Whatever Works starring Larry David as a cranky New York Jew very much like Woody and Larry. These days cranky is good. Robert De Niro, along with his producing partner Jane Rosenthal and her husband Craig Hatkoff, cooked up the festival in 2002 to help rebuild their New York neighborhood after the physical and spiritual devastation of 9/11. Since then Tribeca has invariably been bullied by the big boys — Sundance, Toronto, Cannes, SXSW, and the snob-appeal New York Film Festival that traditionally opens the fall film season uptown. Tribeca 2009, running through May 3rd, has made Woody and Larry their public face this year. Is that idea strong enough to sell tickets? That remains to be seen. But there's no doubt that the festival has developed some real steal.

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The Queen is dead! Long live the King! Zac Efron has just killed Miley Cyrus! At the box office, I mean. Efron's 17 Again, a comedy devoid of comedy and originality (hello, Big!), hit No. 1 this weekend with a hefty take of $24 million. Zac zapped Miley's climb with Hannah Montana: The Movie, which tumbled 61 percent in its second weekend with $12 million and a fourth place finish. No smiles for Smiley Miley. Allow me to note that State of Play, a savvy political thriller which was predicted to tank on its debut, scored 2nd place with a respectable $14 million. Dare I hope for the future? Nah. I know it's a freak thing.

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Despite the fact that it's been slashed down from a six-hour British miniseries to a two-hour Hollywood suspense film, Peter Travers recommends moviegoers check out the "gripping" State of Play this week. The film stars Russell Crowe as a reporter investigating the suspicious death of his best friend's mistress (the pal is a politician played by Ben Affleck). "From this sex scandal unravels every kind of possible conniving horror that could go on in the world we all live in," Travers says. Directed by The Last King of Scotland helmer Kevin MacDonald, Travers also liked how the film is "a movie in love with the newspaper business."

And then there's the Scum Bucket: Peter Travers doesn't hate Zac Efron, it's movies starring Zac Efron that Travers can't stand, and that includes all three of the High School Musicals.

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Rock is alive and rolling like thunder in Next To Normal. It’s the best musical of the season by a mile (take that Billy Elliot), an emotional powerhouse with a fire in its soul and a wicked wit that burns just as fiercely. Composer Tom Kitt and writer-lyricist Brian Yorkey have broken the shackles of tired Broadway tradition, pushing it in new directions. OK, sometimes push comes to shove. But the effect is never less than mesmerizing.

Like Spring Awakening, Next To Normal shakes up old forms. It’s the ultimate dysfunctional family musical. The opening number, “Just Another Day,” is deceptively conventional. After quickie sex with her surprised husband Dan (J. Robert Spencer), mom Diana (Alice Ripley) sends her teen children, Gabe (Aaron Tveit) and Natalie (Jennifer Damiano), off to school. But there’s a jangle in the song, even a hint of threat. For good reason. Diana is a bipolar manic-depressive who has kept her family off balance for years. The reasons are revealed in time, and they won’t be given away here. Just know this:

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Even with Quentin Tarantino acting as mentor — and the dude knows his music! — the American Idol Movie Song Night struck more sour notes than Britney singing live. Don't get me wrong, dawgs, I'm picking Adam Lambert for the Big Win on confetti night. But Adam was coasting on past triumphs with "Mad World" and "Tracks of My Tears" when he tore into Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" like a show queen trying to pass as rough trade. It was fun, but unpersuasive. And, dammit to hell, it's not a song written for a movie. It's a song that got used in movie — Easy Rider to be specific. There's a difference.

(Check out photos from the current season of American Idol)

What happened to integrity of the concept? Only Kris Allen, singing "Falling Slowly" from the romantic musical Once, stayed true to the form and delivered — for me (if not for judge Randy Jackson) —the performance of the night. Judge Kara DioGuardi called the song "obscure," though it charted at No. 2 and won the Oscar as Best Original Song of 2007. Bette Midler's "The Rose" is a solid tune, but Lil Rounds sang it in the key of karaoke. The other contestants just showed bad song and/or bad movie taste.

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The ink-dark comedy Observe and Report is a movie designed to push buttons. But one scene in particular seems to be pushing too hard. The scene involves Seth Rogen's character, delusional mall cop Ronnie Barnhardt, in bed with the women on his dirty dreams, Brandi (Anna Faris), the blondie at the makeup counter on whom Ronnie has focused his freaky lust. At dinner, Ronni had plied his date with Valium washed down with tequila shots to the point where she pukes and passes out. But there's Ronnie on top of Brandi in bed, grunting away over her dead-to-the-world body.

(Watch Peter Travers' video review of Observe and Report)

Ew? You bet. Definite date rape. But wait. Brandi wakes up to slur the line, “Did I tell you to stop, motherfucker?"

Does that make the sex consensual and therefore OK? In interviews, Rogen has indicated that he thinks so. Others disagree."It's a date rape scene, no ifs, ands and buts," Jennifer Storm, a rape survivor and educator in Harrisburg, Pa., told ABCNews.com. "If you mumble an acknowledgment while blacked out, that is not informed consent."

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