Three films probably deserving less type than we're giving them

Ah, fall! The films that roll into theaters in autumn tend to be quieter, more serious and are frequently the first appearances of the year's big award winners. So let's welcome the highly anticipated. ...

Oh, wait! That speech is on hold for at least two weeks. This weekend the studios are rolling out their fire-sale merchandise, since everybody will be away from home for Labor Day anyway. Call these movies dreck, schlock, junk, rejects or what have you, these are the dregs of the exhibition schedule. These movies weren't released, they broke free and ran amok!

Not surprisingly, they weren't screened in time for review.

But we're not going to let that stop us.

First, there's "Babylon A.D" (rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language and sexuality), marking Vin Diesel's long-awaited return to the screen. (That ka-bang you just heard was our irony gauge exploding.) In what sounds like a cheesy ripoff of the magnificent "Children of Men," Mr. D plays a bodyguard shepherding a young girl through a war-torn near-future. Art-film icon Charlotte Rampling heads a religious cult desperate to grab the girl; Hong Kong action star Michelle Yeoh plays a warrior woman protecting her.

It sounds uninspired, but according to the film's director, it out-and-out stinks.

"It's pure violence and stupidity," admitted Matthieu Kassovitz, "like a bad episode of '24.' " Unhappy with the micromanagers at Fox recutting his film, the dejected filmmaker groaned, "I don't see how people who went through all these amazing blockbusters like 'The Dark Knight' and 'Iron Man' this summer will take it." That's good enough for us.

Then there's "College" (rated R for pervasive crude and sexual content, nudity, language, drug and alcohol abuse), reaching out to us with a poster that shows a limp-bodied student with his head lodged in a toilet. Following the fat dork/skinny dork/uber-dork recipe of "Superbad," it gives us three high-schoolers who spend a wild weekend on campus. Body shots! Strippers! Makes you wonder if theaters would relax their "no outside beverages" policy to let us bring in a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

And we can't forget "Disaster Movie" (rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language, drug references and comic violence). With parodies of "Juno" and "Enchanted" and an Amy Winehouse lookalike, the film looks like the Beijing Olympics of stupidity.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)