WATERLOO - It sure doesn't feel like spring outside, and for most of the upcoming movie season, the theater isn't much warmer. Even a flick called "Sunshine" is pretty dreary. Horror flicks ("Hannibal Rising," "The Hills Have Eyes II" and "Wind Chill") make it look like October all spring, and even funny men Adam Sandler ("Reign Over Me") and Jim Carrey ("The Number 23") explore their dark sides.

Every cloud has a silver lining, though, and this one is provided by romantic comedies ("Music and Lyrics," "The Nanny Diaries"), family-friendly flicks ("Are We Done Yet?" "Bridge to Terabithia") and cartoons ("Meet the Robinsons," "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles").

MCT Direct contributed to this story.

Contact Kelsey Holm at (319) 291-1464 or kelsey.holm@wcfcourier.com.

Feb. 9

"Hannibal Rising"

Starring: Gaspard Ulliel, Rhys Ifans

Director: Peter Webber

Summary: Hannibal Lecter's early years in the mountains of Eastern Europe shape the serial killer he becomes.

"Norbit"

Starring: Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton

Director: Brian Robbins

Summary: Murphy's latest multi-role comedy has him playing both a wimpy husband and his obese and horny wife, as well as the Chinese man who adopted him after he was thrown from a moving car as a baby.

Feb. 14

"Music and Lyrics"

Starring: Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore

Director: Marc Lawrence

Summary: A washed-up '80s pop star (Grant) is given a chance to write a song for a teen sensation, but he only writes music. Good thing Barrymore's character is a natural lyric machine.

Feb. 16

"Ghost Rider"

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes

Director: Mark Steven Johnson

Summary: In yet another Marvel adaptation, Cage stars as Johnny Blaze, a stunt motorcyclist whose soul is taken over at night by a flaming skulled vigilante named Ghost Rider. This flick's kryptonite might be Johnson, who also helmed "Daredevil."

"Bridge to Terabithia"

Starring: Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb

Director: Gabor Csupo

Summary: Adapted from Katherine Patterson's award-winning 1977 Newbury book winner, this live-action/CGI Disney movie tells the story of the bond that develops between a boy and girl who create their own magic kingdom in the woods.

"Breach"

Starring: Chris Cooper, Ryan Phillippe

Director: Billy Ray

Summary: Phillippe is an FBI agent given the assignment of spying on his own boss, Robert Hanssen (Cooper), the real-life FBI counter-spy convicted of selling U.S. government secrets to the Russians.

"Daddy's Little Girls"

Starring: Gabrielle Union, Idris Elba

Director: Tyler Perry

Summary: The romance between an attorney (Union) and blue collar worker (Elba) is tested by her father and his ex-wife.

Feb. 23

"The Number 23"

Starring: Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen

Director: Joel Schumacher

Summary: A psychological thriller about a man (Carrey) who becomes obsessed with a book titled "The Number 23" and with the number itself, which he believes is leading him to some fated act of violence.

"Reno 911!: Miami"

Starring: Thomas Lennon, Ben Garant

Director: Ben Garant

Summary: The movie from the Comedy Central show about goofball cops in Reno takes place at a police convention that's disrupted by springbreakers and terrorists.

"Black Snake Moan"

Starring: Christina Ricci, Samuel L. Jackson

Director: Craig Brewer

Summary: A Southern bluesman (Jackson) finds a young woman (Ricci) on the road and chains her up in an attempt to drive the sins out of her.

"The Astronaut Farmer"

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen

Director: Michael Polish

Summary: A former NASA astronaut (Thornton) takes time from being a farmer to build a rocket ship in his barn.

"Gray Matters"

Starring: Heather Graham, Thomas Cavanagh

Director: Sue Kramer

Summary: Two siblings (Graham and Cavanagh) battle over the same woman (Bridget Moynahan).

"The Abandoned"

Starring: Anastasia Hille, Karel Roden

Director: Nacho Cerda

Summary: An adopted woman returns to Russia, where she unravels a dark family secret on the farm she never knew existed.

March 2

"Wild Hogs"

Starring: John Travolta, Tim Allen

Director: Walt Becker

Summary: Four suburban buddies (Travolta, Allen, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy) get themselves some leather jackets and Harleys and hit the road. Complications ensue when they cross a real biker gang.

"Zodiac"

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr.

Director: David Fincher

Summary: This dark and moody material - about the still uncaught San Francisco serial killer - is right up Fincher's alley.

"Full of It"

Starring: Ryan Pinkston, Kate Mara

Director: Christian Charles

Summary: In a bid for attention and popularity, a high-school kid tells some spectacular lies. When the lies start to come true, he's popular, and in trouble.

March 9

"300"

Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey

Director: Zack Snyder

Summary: Adapted from Frank Miller's graphic novel about the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, where a relative handful of Greeks blocked a mountain pass and delayed the invasion of a million Persian troops.

"The Ex"

Starring: Zach Braff, Amanda Peet

Director: Jesse Peretz

Summary: An advertising exec's (Braff) satisfying work and happy marriage are threatened by his wife's (Peet) competitive, wheelchair-bound childhood friend (Jason Bateman).

"The Namesake"

Starring: Kal Penn, Irfan Khan

Director: Mira Nair

Summary: The actor best known as Kumar (Penn) gets serious in Nair's adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's novel about the generation gap between a hip, pot-smoking young Indian-American and his conservative parents (Khan and Tabu).

March 16

"Sunshine"

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne

Director: Danny Boyle

Summary: Fifty years in the future, a space crew races toward the dying sun to deliver a payload of energy into its core, rekindle its power and save the solar system.

"Shooter"

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Michael Pena

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Summary: A former Army sniper (Wahlberg) is framed for an assassination attempt on the president.

"Premonition"

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Julian McMahon

Director: Mennan Yapo

Summary: This psychological drama stars Bullock as a woman who keeps reliving her husband's (McMahon) death in a car crash due to his reappearances.

"I Think I Love My Wife"

Starring: Chris Rock, Kerry Washington

Director: Chris Rock

Summary: A happy but bored married man (Rock) starts to question his reasons for fidelity when he gets a visit from a sexy ex (Washington).

March 21

"Superhero!"

Starring: Greg Giraldo, Eric Christian Olsen

Director: David Zucker

Summary: Zucker ("Airplane!" "Scary Movie") strikes again with a spoof of superhero flicks including "Spider-Man" and "Fantastic Four."

March 23

"Reign Over Me"

Starring: Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle

Director: Mike Binder

Summary: A man (Sandler) who's lost his family to a tragedy runs into his college roommate (Cheadle), and clings to him like a life vest.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"

Starring: Patrick Stewart, Chris Evans

Director: Kevin Munroe

Summary: Kids loved the clumsy heroics of the turtles on TV. Here they'll be computer-animated and more kick-butt than ever.

"The Hills Have Eyes II"

Starring: Daniella Alonso, Jacob Vargas

Director: Martin Weisz

Summary: National Guard trainees are attacked by mutants during a training mission in the New Mexico desert.

"Pride"

Starring: Terrence Howard, Bernie Mac

Director: Sunu Gonera

Summary: A Philadelphia coach (Howard) turns a group of troubled teens into one of the best swim teams in the United States.

"The Comebacks"

Starring: David Koechner, Robert Ri'chard

Director: Tom Brady

Summary: A college football coach (Koechner) with a lousy win-loss record and a mismatched bunch of recruits vows to turn the program around.

"Dead Silence"

Starring: Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta

Director: James Wan

Summary: A man goes home to investigate his wife's murder, and finds the city has turned into a ghost town.

"The Last Mimzy"

Starring: Joely Richardson, Rainn Wilson

Director: Robert Shaye

Summary: Adapted from sci-fi writer Lewis Padgett's short story, this fable tells the story of two suburban kids who discover a box of educational toys that were made in the future and sent back in time.

March 30

"Meet the Robinsons"

Starring: Voices of Daniel Hansen, Wesley Singerman

Director: Stephen J. Anderson

Summary: A young science whiz travels into the future, where he meets a family that needs him desperately.

"Blades of Glory"

Starring: Will Ferrell, Jon Heder

Directors: Josh Gordon, Will Speck

Summary: Ferrell and Heder are rival figure skaters who, after being banned from singles competition for brawling during a world-championship event, decide to make their way back into the sport as a pairs team.

"The Reaping"

Starring: Hilary Swank, David Morrissey

Director: Stephen Hopkins

Summary: A missionary (Swank) travels to the swamps of Louisiana to quash rumors of supernatural phenomena and is soon convinced they are a repeat of the Old Testament's 10 plagues.

"Rescue Dawn"

Starring: Christian Bale, Steve Zahn

Director: Werner Herzog

Summary: Bale is Dieter Dengler, a German-American pilot who, after being shot down and captured during the Vietnam War, led a POW escape.

April 4

"Firehouse Dog"

Starring: Josh Hutcherson, Bruce Greenwood

Director: Todd Holland

Summary: Hollywood dog star Rexxx gets lost, then adopted into a rundown firehouse, where he and a young boy (Hutcherson) work to get the station back to its former glory.

April 6

"Grindhouse"

Starring: Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan

Directors: Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino

Summary: This double feature pays homage to the days when exploitation films knew what they were doing. Tarantino wrote and directed "Death Proof," starring Kurt Russell as a serial-killer stunt man; Rodriguez wrote and directed "Planet Terror," in which a babe with a machine gun for a leg helps defeat an army of zombies.

"Are We Done Yet?"

Starring: Nia Long, Ice Cube

Director: Steve Carr

Summary: In this sequel to the 2005 hit "Are We There Yet?", newlyweds Ice Cube and Long move their combined family to a large Victorian house in the country.

"The Hoax"

Starring: Richard Gere, Alfred Molina

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Summary: A comedic treatment of Clifford Irving's spectacular scheme to peddle an "authorized biography" of Howard Hughes in the 1970s - while Hughes was still alive and in no mood to cooperate.

"The Pleasure of Your Company"

Starring: Jason Biggs, Isla Fisher

Director: Michael Ian Black

Summary: The comedic genius of Black may be enough to make Biggs funny in this tale about a lovelorn loser (Biggs) who impulsively proposes to a waitress (Fisher).

April 13

"Perfect Stranger"

Starring: Halle Berry, Bruce Willis

Director: James Foley

Summary: An investigative reporter goes undercover to unearth an advertising executive's (Willis) darkest secrets.

"Spring Breakdown"

Starring: Amy Poehler, Parker Posey

Director: Ryan Shiraki

Summary: Three thirtysomething women are sent to a spring break hot spot when they're entrusted as chaperones to the daughter of a powerful senator.

"Disturbia"

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, David Morse

Director: D.J. Caruso

Summary: While under house arrest, a teenager (LaBeouf) becomes convinced that his neighbor (Morse) is a serial killer.

"Year of the Dog"

Starring: Molly Shannon, John C. Reilly

Director: Mike White

Summary: After her beloved dog dies, a happy go-lucky receptionist (Shannon) goes through a life change in acclaimed writer White's directorial debut.

April 20

"Pathfinder"

Starring: Karl Urban, Moon Bloodgood

Director: Marcus Nispel

Summary: After his clan battles a Native American tribe, a Viking boy is left behind to be raised by the enemy, eventually becoming the savior to his adopted people.

"The Kingdom"

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper

Director: Peter Berg

Summary: A team of FBI agents travel to a little-visited area of the Middle East to capture those responsible for a bombing that killed American workers.

"The Nanny Diaries"

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney

Directors: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Summary: A college student working as a nanny for a rich family juggles their dysfunction and their child.

"Vacancy"

Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson

Director: Nimrod Antal

Summary: A married couple (Beckinsale, Wilson) trapped in a hotel room discover they are the target of someone trying to make a snuff film.

April 27

"The Invisible"

Starring: Justin Chatwin, Marcia Gay Harden

Director: David S. Goyer

Summary: A man in limbo between the living and the dead must find a way to solve his murder and communicate with the living.

"Next"

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore

Director: Lee Tamahori

Summary: A man (Cage) who can foresee the future works grudgingly with the FBI to prevent a terrorist attack.

"Balls of Fury"

Starring: Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken

Director: Ben Garant

Summary: A former ping-pong champion (Fogler) is recruited by the FBI to take down the crime boss (Walken) running an underground tournament.

"Fracture"

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling

Director: Gregory Hoblit

Summary: An assistant district attorney (Gosling) tries to bring down the man (Hopkins) who murdered his wife, but got away with it due to a series of technicalities.

"The Last Legion"

Starring: Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley

Director: Doug Lefler

Summary: After a soldier escapes the Roman empire, he goes on an adventure to try and save the emperor.

"The Condemned"

Starring: Steve Austin, Vinnie Jones

Director: Scott Wiper

Summary: The man known as Stone Cold (Austin) plays a prisoner awaiting execution - until he is bought by a TV producer and taken to a remote island to take part in a fight-to-the-death battle between 10 men.

"Wind Chill"

Starring: Emily Blunt, Ashton Holmes

Director: Gregory Jacobs

Summary: When two college students (Blunt, Holmes) break down on their way home for the holidays, they are tortured by the ghosts of those who have died on the lonely stretch of road.

"Death at a Funeral"

Starring: Matthew Macfadyen, Peter Dinklage

Director: Frank Oz

Summary: As a family gathers to mourn the patriarch's passing, two brothers try to stop their father's secrets from being exposed.

May 4

"Spider-Man 3"

Starring: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst

Director: Sam Raimi

Summary: Peter Parker (Maguire) faces two more foes - Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) and Venom (Topher Grace).

"Lucky You"

Starring: Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore

Director: Curtis Hanson

Summary: A compulsive gambler (Bana) and social wreck tries to get himself under control for a high-stakes Las Vegas game of Texas Hold 'Em in which he'll have to face the best player in the game - his father (Robert Duvall).