A couple who is expecting their first child travel around the U.S. in order to find a perfect place to start their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover “home” on their own terms for the first time.

Four words I never thought I’d use in the same sentence: Sam Mendes summer comedy. With a screenplay by the marvelous husband-and-wife duo Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, I feel like Mendes will make the shift away from heavyweight dramas with his love for important themes intact. May his process make Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski actual-real movie stars, too. Why am I already seeing Eggers and Vida on awards podiums, spreading the 826 Valencia gospel?

Rated R for language and some sexual content.

Director: Sam Mendes
Stars: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Allison Janney
Studio: Focus Features
Release Date: 25 June 2009 (Greece)
Genre: Comedy, Drama

A Las Vegas-set comedy centered around three groomsmen who lose their about-to-be-wed buddy during their drunken misadventures, then must retrace their steps in order to find him.

Hmm, did Ashton and Cameron’s success in Vegas influence director Todd Phillips to finally pick his first project since the woefully misguided School for Scoundrels remake? Whatever the case, Phillips and Warner Bros. are keeping it low budget here, with a B-list cast (at best) that should keep this comedy in the black.

Rated R for pervasive language, sexual content including nudity, and some drug material.

Director: Todd Phillips
Stars: Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Justin Bartha
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: 5 June 2009 (USA)
Genre: Comedy

A travel guide (Vardalos) rediscovers her romantic side, with a very unlikely match, as she whisks a group of tourists around Greece.

Everybody needs love and affection, and the likeable, relatable Nia Vardalos also deserves a career reboot — it’s totally not her fault that a million copycats lusted after her My Big Fat Greek Wedding success, quickly squeezing the life (and viability) out of indie film. Also needing a certain amount of resuscitation is director Donald Petrie, who rode high earlier this decade but quickly retired to Blandsville. A note Fox Searchlight: Nice counterprogramming here.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content.

Director: Donald Petrie
Stars: Nia Vardalos, Richard Dreyfuss, Rachel Dratch
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release Date: 5 June 2009 (USA)
Genre: Comedy

By tying thousands of balloon to his home, 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. Right after lifting off, however, he learns he isn’t alone on his journey, since Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years his junior, has inadvertently become a stowaway on the trip.

Pixar takes to the skies again, this time with buddy-story specialists Pete Docter and Bob Peterson bringing the charm to us in 3D (in “select” theaters, anyway). These days, I support anything that strips away my senses of irony and sarcasm, and Up’s teaser trailer (located above) is wonderfully restorative. At Comic-Con last year, Docter described how the movie was influenced by an unreachable range of Venezuelan mountains, and a septuagenarian ’s wish to fulfill the dreams he made with his now-departed wife when he was a younger man. I got misty. Plus, Docter went on to say that his movie will have some easter eggs for upcoming Pixar projects. More news as Pixar/Disney leaks it.

Rated PG for some peril and action.

Director: Pete Docter Bob Peterson
Stars: Edward Asner, Jordan Nagai, John Ratzenberger
Studio: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: 29 May 2009 (USA)
Genre: Animation, Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family

A loan officer ordered to evict an old woman from her home finds herself the recipient of a supernatural curse, which turns her life into a living hell. Desperate, she turns to a seer to try and save her soul, while evil forces work to push her to a breaking point.

Foreclosure would be a kinda scary title, too … Check out Sam Raimi, returning to the horror genre before travels back to Gotham City for a couple more Spider-Man movies. With a tip of the hat to George A. Romero, Raimi has found a way to comment on the housing crisis, and I can imagine his tones will be bitter, wicked, and (hopefully) subtle. No offense to Ellen Page, but I am relieved she opted out of the movie, making room for Lohman, who is starting to take on more mainstream roles, albeit ones that are offbeat and, like, interesting.

But what is the film going to look like? And will it be funny? Here’s proof that the answer to both questions is YES!

And a quote from this year’s South by Southwest festival: “Any inkling that Raimi’s soul might have been irretrievably chewed up by the Hollywood studio machinery — a well-founded concern after the disappointing Spider-Man 3 — quickly evaporates once the story gets underway.”

Rated PG-13 for sequences of horror violence, terror, disturbing images and language.

Director: Sam Raimi
Stars: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Ruth Livier
Studio: Universal Pictures
Release Date: 29 May 2009 (USA)
Genre: Horror, Thriller