Disney, the media and theme park giant responsible for franchising all manner of things real and animated, announced today an expansion of its media offerings on its Xtreme Digital (XD) online network. In conjunction with its 2008 summer movie broadcast schedule for its ABC television network, Disney has introduced a staged rollout of full-length movie streams to Web viewers following their original showing on the Wonderful World of Disney on Saturday nights.

The company is currently displaying “Finding Nemo,” with “Monsters Inc.,” “Haunted Mansion,” “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen,” “Princess Diaries 2,” “Freaky Friday,” and “Peter Pan” to follow on successive weeks. While ABC networks are said to only show movies on Saturday nights, visitors to the XD website will be given the opportunity to view the abovementioned weekly picks on demand the full week after they’re aired, Monday through Friday.

Disney XD, part of the Disney Online division, has, since its debut last May, been conditioned rather well to provide a sizable amount of entertainment for its users. It hosts everything from video clips to games to kid-friendly networking. And this week’s debut of free film streams will likely only add to its allure for the increasingly Web-connected Disney fan club.(The company is also well invested in Club Penguin, a child-oriented virtual networking environment which it purchased in 2007 to the tune of $700 million.)

With young children up to teen age spending more and more time online, building digital characters, playing virtual house, and spending a good amount of parental dollars, there’s definite reason to build greater value into its website. And with movies making up a substantial segment of Disney’s annual revenue stream, it seems only sensible that the company introduce its catalogue to Web viewers, particularly in an environment which packs so many additional functions and services as XD. Movies are just one more piece of the puzzle to get and maintain hold of visitors’ attention.

Of course, Disney isn’t making available with one-click access all of its DVD lineup. It’s only presenting a single movie per week, which is replaced by another as each Monday of the season-specific Wonderful World of Disney event rolls around. But the company’s attempt to fix its release of content to the Web to a schedule may allow XD to maintain a sort of consistency throughout the summer that it can keep long past the departure of WWD broadcasts.

Many stars have their own sites for fans, but Cruise’s belated entry to the Internet is of particular interest.

Few stars have seen themselves pilloried more on the Web than Cruise, who has watched numerous embarrassing moments ricochet around the Internet at warp speed. Who can forget watching the clips of Cruise appear on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” way back in June 2005, in the early days of Web 2.0?

The event _ the beginning of Cruise’s publicity crisis _ is alluded to on the new site, which links to his recent interview with Winfrey. Sitting at his Telluride, Colo., home, the talk show host refers to it as “the sofa incident.”

More than that, though, videos of Cruise speaking passionately about Scientology became viral hits earlier this year, prompting many parodies, including one by actor Jerry O’Connell.

So it makes sense that Cruise might want to protect his brand a little bit by using the great powers of the Internet. The site is in many ways standard for a celebrity. Among the features are a “message from Tom,” a glowing biography and handsome photographs.

The actor explains: “I created this site as a thank you, to you, for sharing the journey with me and to invite you to continue to explore what the future will bring.”

The occasion for his reflection is the 25th anniversary of “Risky Business,” his first starring role and the one that immediately made him a star. Posted for streaming is a video edited by the Museum of the Moving Image looking back on Cruise’s career.

“My hope with this site is to bring you in and share with you the fun I experience every day during the filmmaking process, from working with the script, to the making of the film through to what we finally see when we settle in our seats and the lights go down,” writes Cruise.

If Cruise really does this _ if he uses his Web site like a filmmaking journal _ it could be a delightful and illuminating perspective on what it’s like for a true megastar to make a movie. More likely, though, is infrequent postings and a less intimate perspective.

After all, even Cruise himself says he’s now more guarded after so much criticism over his religion and personal beliefs.

“When I’m dealing with my humanitarian issues, I’ll talk about my humanitarian issues,” Cruise told Winfrey. “And when I’m promoting a film, I’m just going to promote the film. And that’s just the way it’s going to be.”

His next starring role is as a World War II German officer in “Valkyrie.” Its release was recently pushed back four months until Feb. 13, 2009, which many read as a bad sign for the film. The buzz has been much better for a cameo he makes in the upcoming Ben Stiller comedy “Tropic Thunder.”

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Harrison Ford returns as the iconic adventurer who picks up a new sidekick (Shia La Beouf) and an old flame (Karen Allen) for this ride.

Status Upcoming (wide)

Genre(s) Action/Adventure

Release Date May 22, 2008

THE DARK KNIGHT FACTS

Gotham City is under siege once again and it’s time for Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) to put on his bat-costume and do battle with two evil enemies: the nefarious Joker (Heath Ledger) and district-attorney-turned-villain Two Face (Aaron Eckhart).

Status Upcoming (wide)

Genre(s) Action/Adventure

Release Date July 18, 2008

IRON MAN FACTS

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a billionaire industrialist whose forte is building weapons of mass destruction. When he’s severely injured while testing one of those weapons in Afghanistan, he’s kidnapped by insurgents and has to build a suit of iron armor to escape his captors. After returning to the U.S., Stark refines his iron creation and transforms himself into a flying metallic repulsor-ray-firing superhero. When his biggest business rival, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), gets his hands on Stark’s original plans, he creates an even bigger iron adversary to defeat Stark once and for all.

Status In theaters (wide)

Genre(s) Action/Adventure

Release Date May 2, 2008

Running Time 126 minutes

MPAA Rating PG-13 - for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content

by Dave White

Who’s in It: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard

The Basics: A conscience-free war profiteer (Mr. Downey Jr. — think a younger, hornier, more quick-witted Dick Cheney) realizes the error of his ways after getting a taste of his own brutality and develops a supersuit that will restore justice and peace to the world. Of course, there are people who want to stop him …

What’s the Deal? You probably know that, last summer, I was really into Transformers and how post-talented Michael Bay was and that it didn’t matter that nothing made sense and who cared anyway because it was about giant fighting robots. And I still feel that way. But this film, about a giant fighting guy dressed up in a superpowered robot suit, is better, faster and stronger than that other one because he’s someone you’re genuinely pulling for instead of just cheering on the destruction of it all. That probably marks me as sentimental and weak, but whatever.

Walking the Line: Superhero movies often seem to take place in eras that are out of their time or too much in their time. Some things will appear modern, some things won’t, Tobey Maguire will speak in this odd, gee-whiz manner, Jack Nicholson’s Joker will be very self-consciously ’80s-cool and wind up looking dated. This one’s modern and funny — “now” but not frozen-in-2008 hip. It gets its tone just right.

Casting Wins: Well first, the great news is that Downey Jr. is perfect and seems to be playing a version of himself (talented smartass gets his life pulverized only to rise from the ashes), and Bridges has the perfect shaved head for a bad guy. Only Paltrow continues to annoy. At first, she seems more steel-spined than you’ve ever seen her. And then she wilts. I want about 15 pounds more Barbara Stanwyck in that woman and soon.

SPEED RACER FACTS

Based on the classic children’s cartoon, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is a young hotshot race-car driver who has a good support team behind him, including his mom (Susan Sarandon), dad (John Goodman) and girlfriend, Trixie (Christina Ricci). With his powerful race-winning Mach 5 vehicle, Speed angers a ruthless mogul (Roger Allam) who is out to control the world of professional racing by “fixing” the competitions. Teaming up with the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox), Speed attempts to win the Crucible cross-country rally and keep the sport he loves honest.

by Dave White

Who’s in It: Emile Hirsh, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox

The Basics: Speed Racer battles capitalism and a huge gang of race-car-driving total cheaters when he takes on the meanest, richest racing tycoon alive and defends the honor of his father, his dead older brother, Rex Racer, and all of the sport of racing by vrooming to the finish line first in the world’s biggest vroom-fest. There’s also a chimp.

What’s the Deal? You know what’s great about being assigned a review of this movie? I could just write “OOGA-BOOGA, OOGA-BOOGA, YOW-YOW-YOW, TRIXIE!” over and over and people would go see this anyway. The other great thing about writing “OOGA-BOOGA, OOGA-BOOGA, YOW-YOW-YOW, TRIXIE!” over and over again is that it would actually be a meaningful analysis of the movie, which is brilliantly, manically, brain-meltingly bizarre, the coolest nonsense you’ll see all year. It’s a win-win for the critic and the audience.

Favorite Part: There’s a big fight scene — and I mean, this is the big fight scene of the whole movie — and the entire thing is accomplished with people leaping into the air and freezing that way in action poses. Seriously. It’s like being art-pranked by someone saying, “OK, this is the idea of fighting. I’m commenting on fighting.” And even though you kind of admire the prank player for his nerve, you still want to punch him in the face.

Other Favorite Parts, Besides All the Scenes With the Chimp, Which Are Usually Automatically My Favorite Part of Any Movie Awesome Enough to Include a Chimp: When the characters are allowed to bend time, leaping from one subplot to another. At other moments, they experience the future in fast-forwardy sequences before returning to the “real” action. Or maybe that future action is really happening in some other dimension? I don’t know.

Net Effect on Your Consciousness: As though you had just drowned in a huge tilt-a-whirling bowl of psychedelic pudding.