OK, so you made it through last week (with nothing more than The Hitcher) without your weekly review roundup, but I'm back from Sundance and just itchin' to get through this newest batch of ... January ... releases. Ugh, I can't even feign excitement with movies this lame. But wait ... is one of 'em actually good? Let's sift through those pros and cons.

Blood and Chocolate (2 positive / 21 negative reviews at RottenTomatoes.com)

Pro: "There's something refreshingly low-tech about (this) werewolf romance." -- John Larsen, LarsenOnFilm.com

Con: "The dialogue ranges from cliches to lines that are so impossibly ridiculous that it must be intentional." -- Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle

Pro: "Better than it has any right to be." -- Josh Tyler, CinemaBlend.com

Con: "A neutered Underworld without the vampires, action, and heavy CGI." -- Staci Layne Wilson, Horror.com

Bonus! "At least it's not yet another remake filled with the same old tricks." -- Jeffrey M. Anderson, Cinematical

Catch and Release (17 positive / 60 negative at RT.com)

Pro: "A romantic dramedy that gets it exactly right, gives us people who live and breathe and are as absolutely convincingly real as people you know." -- MaryAnn Johanson, The Flick Filosopher

Con: "The story is essentially ridiculous, and the directing debut of Erin Brockovich screenwriter Susannah Grant is a crashing failure." -- Bill Muller, The Arizona Republic

Pro: "You laugh and you cry, as the cliche goes. You get involved." -- Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun

Con: "The dull script is mostly to blame. We just never get a sense of who these people are." -- Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail

Bonus! "The best thing Catch and Release has going for it is a dialogue-heavy script that Grant obviously labored over." -- Jette Kernion, Cinematical

Epic Movie (Did not screen for press: 0 positive / 8 negative at RT.com)

Pro: NONE!

Con: "Almost nothing sticks. There's barely a laugh in this thing." -- Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

Pro: NADA!

Con: "A miserably scattershot, heavy-wheezing, comedically-challenged waste of time." -- Brian Orndorf, eFilmCritic.com

Bonus! "If all a movie can give you is a small handful of stray and listless chuckles, well, I don't really think that's a movie worthy of your eight dollars." -- Scott Weinberg, Cinematical

It's been crazy this past week, what with Sundance (where I chatted with Ginnifer Goodwin about high school reunions and salad on a stick) and Oscar nominations (I wasn't shocked at the Dreamgirls snub, but the exclusion of Guillermo del Toro for Best Director broke my heart). On top of all that, there are a few medium-size movies opening this weekend, making for one of the toughest box office predictions yet.

Epic Movie: From the writers of the Scary Movie series and Date Movie comes another spoof, this one tackling such sacred cows as Pirates of the Caribbean and The Chronicles of Narnia. Let's see, the Scary Movie films have made a gazillion dollars (yes, that's a real number), and Date Movie earned $19 million over last year's three-day President's Day weekend, finishing second to Disney's Eight Below. Clearly audiences have a taste for this kind of movie, and it should do pretty well. Hey, mindless entertainment makes the world go 'round. I've logged countless hours slack-jawed in front of my TV to prove it.
Watch the trailer | Get showtimes & tix | Read synopsis | See photos

Catch and Release: Jennifer Garner stars as a woman whose fiancé dies on the eve of their wedding; Timothy Olyphant (Seth Bullock on HBO's Deadwood) is the hottie who heals her pain. All hail the chick flick! This marks the solo directorial debut of Susannah Grant, who co-directed Charlotte's Web and wrote Erin Brockovich and In Her Shoes. Reviews are middling (49 out of 100 is pretty much exactly in the middle, no?), but this sort of film, like Epic Movie, is review-proof. I still want to see it, and I'll probably wind up watching it 15 times on cable, just like I get sucked in whenever Garner's 13 Going on 30 airs. Hmm, I may be revealing a bit too much about my TV-watching habits in this post ...
Watch the trailer | Get showtimes & tix | See photos | See rising TV stars

Smokin' Aces: Forget what I said about hailing the chick flick. All hail The Piven is what I really meant. That would be Jeremy Piven, aka Ari Gold on HBO's (again with the HB and O!) Entourage. Piven stars as a two-bit hustler in Vegas who pisses off the wrong mobster and finds himself on the run when the kingpin takes out a contract on his life. We've got violence, we've got yooge stars (Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Common, and Alicia Keys in her big-screen debut), we've got a flick that appeals to young men and has little competition. Could go either way, but never forget the appeal of violence and Vegas, baby! Vegas!
Watch the trailer | Get showtimes & tix | See Piven & Common chat

Also opening wide: Werewolf flick Blood and Chocolate, The Departed (studio is re-releasing)

Anything could happen this week, folks; may as well post the movies up on a wall and throw a dart at it. Go on and take your best shot -- by noon Saturday, please. My picks:

1. Epic Movie
2. Smokin' Aces
3. Dreamgirls
4. Catch and Release
5. Night at the Museum

POST: What's your weekend top five prediction?

POST: What do you think of these movies?