Folks, you have no idea how tired I am as I write this. Therefore, while we have four new wide releases this weekend, all interesting in their own way, I’m be keeping it as short as possible tonight/this morning.
Jolly Carl DiOrio expects the weekend winner to be the Emma Stone comedy vehicle, “Easy A.” I, an adult male, personally found the trailer and premise for this movie about a girl using a false reputation for promiscuity to various ends, which is supposed to appeal primarily to female teens, pretty amusing. Moreover, it’s getting unusually good — if slightly muted — reviews for a teen film.
Though M. Night Shymalan’s name is hard-to-spell-and-pronounce version of “mud” with hardcore fans, the PG-13 scare-suspenser, “Devil” — which Shymalan did not direct but produced and wrote the story (with a twist, no doubt) — is expected to do relatively well. It is being carefully protected from bloodthirsty critics.
The movie I’m most looking forward to is actor-writer-director Ben Affleck’s crime thrilller, “The Town,” co-starring Jeremy Renner and marking the big-screen semi-starring debut of “Mad Men” star and Mercedes pitchman Jon Hamm. Never a critic’s darling as an actor, Affleck is turning into one critically liked auteur and the highly positive reviews are making me anxious to see this one.
The movie I doubt I’ll ever see — and which is expected to make a shockingly low amount for a 3-D animated family film is “Alpha and Omega.” The cheaply made and critically unloved animation should at least should help some kids learn what are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.
UPDATE: One quick thought I meant to include last night. Jolly Carl said there might be a slightly depressive effect on the box office this weekend because Friday night and Saturday until sundown is Yom Kippur, the holiest holiday on the Jewish calendar. The interesting part of this is that we Jews are only 2% of the population — though if you live in New York or L.A. you’d never know it and some of us almost completely ignore these things. Are we that overrepresented as moviegoers that our impact is felt beyond places like NYC, L.A., and Chicago?
