Berkshire County daughter Elizabeth Banks is set to star in “What To Expect When You’re Expecting,” a film adaptation of the popular book.

Banks (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “W”) has been cast alongside Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Brooklyn Decker and Anna Kendrick in the film, which is expected to begin shooting mid-Summer and will be in theaters everywhere on May 11, 2012.

Banks’ character is baby-crazy- the author of a children’s book about breast feeding and owner of The Breast Choice boutique, she is militant in her beliefs about what makes a good mother until she gets pregnant for the first time.

The film will be directed by Kirk Jones (“Waking Ned Devine”). The book, written by Heidi Murkoff, has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 10 years, with more than 16 million copies in print.

There is so much potential in “Bad Teacher”, a raunchy comedy starring Cameron Diaz as a gold-digging alcoholic who manages to worm her way into a job as a middle-school English teacher. It has a terrific cast, including Justin Timberlake as an effete substitute with family money, Lucy Punch as Elizabeth’s competent nemesis, and Jason Segel as a mensch gym teacher. It has Diaz playing off-type, as an unlikable, unpleasant and irredeemable bitch. It’s writers cut their teeth writing for “The Office”. It has all the makings of a good summer comedy.

Which is why it’s so frustrating that through the entire two hours the movie never reaches its own potential.

Most of the jokes in “Bad Teacher” are just expected enough and just off their rhythm enough to be dead in the water. And every time the movie seizes on something that works (like a study session in which Diaz’s character throws dodge balls at students when they answer a question incorrectly) it cuts off too early or veers away to a much less funny bit involving Timberlake dry-humping in jeans. In some cases it’s impossible to explain why the joke isn’t funny- at a couple points I almost began to laugh because I knew I should, before realizing that I didn’t actually want to.

Not that the cast doesn’t try. If you had told me in the 1998 that Justin Timberlake was going to become one of the most interesting, original and slyly funny entertainers in Hollywood I would have told you to throw out your N’Sync album and get your head together. Timberlake does his best in this, stripping his character of all humor and self-awareness until he is just a pleasant cipher in a Polo sweater-vest. And British comedian Punch exudes a quiet malevolence- the yin to Diaz’s zany, foul-mouthed yang. But their efforts fall victim to the sub-par writing, and general tone of malaise. While the actors appear to have shown up to work, the director and editor seem to be phoning it in.

My first thoughts after leaving the film was it wasn’t that bad. Worth the $10 at least. But it had the potential for so much more than the vague, forgettable thing it became. I would love to see a movie with Cameron Diaz as a filthy, manipulative sociopath who drives a middle school staff to madness. I just don’t really want to see this one again.

Actress Cameron Diaz revealed that she was Snoop Dogg’s high school classmate and she was buying pot from the rapper on “Lopez Tonight” Wednesday.

She said, “He was very tall and skinny, wore lots of ponytails in his hair. And I’m pretty sure I bought weed from him. I had to have.”

Also, she said her high school time “was pretty rough” and there were frequent fights between students.

She commented, “I used to get into fights with boys more than girls. For some reason, guys liked to fight me. I don’t know why.”

Who is SALT? This is the question you’ll undoubtedly find yourself asking throughout the entire movie, should you decide to go. But at the end, see if you’re don’t come to the same conclusion that I do — who really cares?

Angelina Jolie stars in this action flick as (purported) russian spy Evelyn Salt. She’s a brilliant replacement for the original actor, Tom Cruise, who was to play Evan Salt. But while Cruise is currently fighting it up with Cameron Diaz in “Knight and Day,” Jolie slips back into the familiar ruthless killer role that made us love her in “Tomb Raider” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”

The plot is this — Salt, who works for the CIA, heads for the hills when a Russian defector claims she’s planning to kill the Russian president at the American vice president’s funeral. She claims to be innocent, that she’s only running to protect her husband. The plot thickens when her husband is brutally murdered by the Russian who ratted her out. Truly pissed off now, Salt goes on a killing spree that ends with her in control of American nuclear weapons.

Now who wouldn’t be interested in that plot? Certainly, this reviewer was. But as the audience vacillates back and forth (Is she innocent? Is she really a spy? Was her husband a cover?), a more accurate thermometer for the potential popularity of this movie becomes clear — it’s really fun to watch Angelina Jolie display creative new ways to kill people.

So who cares if she’s a spy or not? The plot is a thinly-veiled reason for Jolie to leap from the tops of fast-moving trucks on freeways without getting a scratch. Her stunning killer-face is firmly in place as she yanks a motorcycle right out from under a guy with one hand. In possibly the most breathtaking action sequence in the film, she leaps into the center of a stairwell and dangles by a chain wrapped around a guy’s neck.

Sure, we never really know who Salt is — because she never speaks. Jolie’s only lines are “I’m innocent” repeated over and over again with varying levels of urgency as she moves from one killing sequence to the next. But who’s complaining? Well, maybe me, but just a little. The only weakness of the movie is that we get little real acting from a very good actress (remember “Girl, Interrupted”?). But, in part, that gets made up for with some good acting from Liev Schreiber, who plays her CIA buddy.

In the end, if you want to see some acting, go see “Inception.” But for a good old summertime romp with Russian spies and car chases, “SALT” is your movie.

I have to admit these kind of movies kind of annoy me. The whole mock spy story has been played over and over again, until now record has warped and melted to the turntable, the remnant spinning pointlessly on its axis while a producer bathes in a pool of money in the other room.

I’m bored with the whole genre. Add in Peter Sarsgaard slumming and a romance plot with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz (because “Vanilla Sky” was such a great movie!) and I’m ready to give this whole enterprise the red card. For God’s sake another mock spy movie was just released last month!

But I must judge each overplayed storyline according to its own merits, and much to my surprise “Knight and Day”, about a woman who accidentally falls in with an international spy, has some pretty delightful, and even outright hilarious moments.

The plot involves Roy Miller, a spy who meets June Havers, who’s on her way home to Boston to go to her sister’s wedding. He’s been protecting a young scientist (a sweet, mustachioed Paul Dano) who’s being hunted for his newest invention. Roy’s partner (Peter Sarsgaard, doing his very best sleazy Southern accent) has gone rogue and is attempting to steal the boy’s invention and sell it on the black market.

Cruise especially seems to have a gotten a second wind as a comedic actor, since his truly inspired role in “Tropic Thunder”. Instead of smooth entrances and coy double entendres Roy’s character relies on simple good-guy charm to seduce us. At one point he lands sprawling on top of a car containing June that’s speeding through a tunnel and being shot at. But instead of a great action line a la James Bond, he simply looks up and brightly says, “Hey June! Open the door for me?”

Unfortunately then there’s Diaz, who’s just a hot mess if there ever was one. Due to what I can only guess is some brutal Botoxing, Diaz’s face looks haggard and unhappy. Watching her trip over things adorably and scrunch up her nose while she prattles her lines manically is not cute anymore; it’s undignified. Diaz can be a serviceable actress when she’s allowed to be, but director James Mongold has committed the usual sin of relegating her to the tough/vulnerable hot chick who just needs a man.

That said there is a pretty kickass scene where she’s outrunning bad guys in a GTO.

Mangold has a spotty record: he’s directed both “Girl, Interrupted” and “Walk the Line,” but also the snoozer epic “Kate and Leopold.” “Knight and Day” falls somewhere in the middle. The action scenes are expertly choreographed and the music is truly wonderful (a Latin-infused medley by John Powell). But Mangold cuts a lot of corners and leaves a lot of holes to be filled in. In a film named “Knight and Day,” would it kill you to name the female protagonist June Day? (Miller’s real name is Knight, so at least that makes a little sense.) June’s sturdy firefighter ex-boyfriend Rodney (Mike Blucas) is introduced and then dropped about two scenes later, never to be heard from again, along with June’s sister. He has an inspired scene involving an action montage viewed through a drug-induced haze, but then lapses into the cliched romantic play fight/sexual tension scene.

It has a satisfying ending, centering on that fabulous GTO, and that counts for a lot. But so much of the middle grazes the surface of parody without actually taking a dive. The jokes just aren’t funny enough. “Knight and Day,” was a surprise, but it’s not enough of one to pay $10 at the cineplex. Wait for it on DVD. It’s charms will still be fully visible.

I went to see “My Sister’s Keeper” the other day, and I still can’t get the taste of earnestness out of my mouth.

From the first over-exposed shot of beaches, scrapbooks and poor, doomed Katie Fitzgerald (Sofia Vassilieva) you can tell you’re in for a classic Cassavettes uber-weeper (he also directed “The Notebook”). The Fitzgerald family is completely geared towards fighting for the life of young Katie, who has cancer, so much that the parents (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) actually have another child (Abigail Breslin) for the express purpose of using her to help keep her sister alive. The girl, Anna, sues her parents for the rights to her own body, so she doesn’t have to give her sister a kidney when she goes into renal failure.

The novel upon which the film is based was written by Jodi Picoult, the Queen of Child Misery, and Cassavettes in many ways is the perfect director to adapt it. Which would be perfectly fine, except for the fact that every moment from the first opening credit to the bitter, bitter end is narrated: every movement, sound, sigh and hiccup is deciphered by omniscient cast members; whenever a true emotion or poignant moment threatens to break the surface the voice-over is there to tamp it back down into its Lifetime movie box. Then it’s mixed with the predictable soft lighting and the near constant slow-motion, just to emphasize that what’s happening is SERIOUS and IMPORTANT and that this is a movie about life and love and family and death, in case you didn’t realize it before.

While focusing completely on Katie’s illness, both Anna and brother Jesse fall to the wayside. Jesse is left to his own devices, which apparently consists of his walking around some vaguely seedy downtown area and watching streetwalkers while gnawing on a Slurpee straw “" would that all neglected youth were so clean-cut.

Also, Alec Baldwin’s in it.

What, you’re surprised? He plays the TV lawyer that Anna hires to sue her parents. He’s basically playing Alec Baldwin, which is hilarious and delightful, but he’s doing it in a movie about a dying teenager, which is perplexing and weird. Joan Cusack is much better cast as a grieving judge; her usual slightly twitchy nature is beautifully translated into a woman just barely holding on to her sanity.

I was crying by the end of “My Sister’s Keeper.” But every moment of the film is so manipulated and twisted to achieve that end, I’d be shocked if anyone could sit through that film without getting at least a little choked up. But whatever Cassavettes thinks, crocodile tears aren’t based on anything real.

Research from security firm McAfee shows that some celebrities are just dangerous to Google and search for around the web because of the litany of fake websites out there that try to infect your computer with viruses and malicious code as you innocently seek out wallpaper and screensavers of your favs.

Brad Pitt leads the pack on a list that includes Jessica Alba and‚ Katherine Heigl.

“Fans searching for “Brad Pitt,” “Brad Pitt downloads,” and Brad Pitt wallpaper, screen savers and pictures have an 18% chance of having their PCs infected with online threats, such as spyware, spam, phishing, adware, viruses and other malware,” McAfee said. “Cybercriminals are using A-listers’ names and images, like Beyoncƒ© and Justin Timberlake, to lure Internet users who surf the Web for the latest gossip, screen savers and ringtones to “fake” Web sites that look legitimate.”

The list includes:

1. Brad Pitt – When “Brad Pitt screensavers” was searched, more than half of the resulting Web sites were identified as containing malicious downloads with spyware, adware and potential viruses.

2. Beyoncƒ© – Inputting “Beyoncƒ© ringtones” into a search engine yields risky Web sites that promote misleading offers to gather consumers’ personal information.

3. Justin Timberlake – Interest in his high-profile relationships makes him an easy target for spammers and hackers. When searching for “Justin Timberlake downloads” one Web site advertised free music downloads that were flagged as directly leading to spam, spyware and adware.

4. Heidi Montag – “The Hills” star is a popular search term when it comes to searching for wallpaper. A host of wallpaper Web sites contained hundreds of malware-laden downloads.

5. Mariah Carey – Spammers and hackers are using Mariah Carey screen saver Web sites to link to other sites proven to contain spyware, adware and other threatening downloads.

6. Jessica Alba – Red-ranked risky sites were identified when searching for “Jessica Alba” and “Jessica Alba downloads.” The sites contained hundreds of malicious downloads, links to other bad sites, misleading offers to gather information, and a high number of spam emails when an email address was provided.

7. Lindsay Lohan – This young Hollywood starlet is as dangerous to search online as she is famous. Searching for “Lindsay Lohan downloads” resulted in several dangerous Web sites laden with hidden adware.

8. Cameron Diaz – Cybercriminals use download Web sites related to Cameron Diaz’s image to link to other harmful sites containing spyware.

9. George Clooney, Rihanna – The technology found one Web site embedded with hundreds of dangerous wallpaper and photo downloads after inputting “George Clooney downloads.” “Rihanna pictures” was also a risky search term, as McAfee identified a site that spammed its test email address.

11. Angelina Jolie – When “Angelina Jolie downloads” was searched, the software highlighted a risky site with 978 hidden malware-infected wallpaper and photo downloads, as well as links to other potentially dangerous URLs.

12. Fergie – A Fergie screen saver site was flagged as offering 111 risky downloads that could seriously compromise a PC’s privacy with unwanted spyware and adware.

13. David Beckham, Katie Holmes – The “David Beckham” search term generated a great deal of wallpaper and screen saver downloads veiled with malware. Consumers should also exercise caution when searching for “Katie Holmes” online – one download site advertised free screen savers that, if downloaded, would infect your computer with malicious programs like spyware.

15. Katherine Heigl – Hollywood’s big headliner in recent years is now susceptible to Internet lurkers too. “Katherine Heigl” was searched and a site was identified containing hundreds of malware-infected pictures.

‚ ”Cybercriminals employ numerous methods, yet one of the simplest but most effective ways is to trick consumers into infecting themselves by capitalizing on Americans’ interest in celebrity gossip,” said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee’s Product Development and Avert Labs. “Tapping into current events, pop culture or commonly browsed sites is an easy way to achieve this. And because of Americans’ obsession with following celebrities’ lifestyles, they are an obvious target. We have to take precautions in casually navigating the Web since many subtle sites may be rife with malware for consumers’ computers.”

The list was compiled using McAfee SiteAdvisor, which can be downloaded for free at‚ www.mcafee.com/siteadvisor.