Beerfest -- Those oh-so-wacky knuckleheads who brought you Super Troopers (yaaaay) and Club Dread (boooo) are back with a beer-soaked semi-sports comedy that celebrates the irreprressable beauty of yeast, malt, barley and fermented hops. (At least I think that's what beer is made of.) Haven't seen the flick yet, but I'm told it's actually pretty darn funny. Extras include two audio commentaries, a handful of featurettes and more than 20 deleted scenes.

How to Eat Fried Worms -- Yet another kid's book turned into a movie that nobody really cared to see. Then again, home video is where titles like this one make their bread and butter anyway. Extras include a director/kid actor commentary, a gag reel ("gag," get it? cuz it's about the eating of worms!), and a handful of featurettes.

Idlewild -- Kim was pretty surprised by how much she liked this flick, but going only by the box office numbers it seems she was most definitely in the minority. The "Outkast musical" was lauded by some and derided by others, but most seem to agree that it sure is ... different! Extras are pretty slim: two deleted scenes and a pair of music videos.

Miami Vice -- I think it's one of the worst movies of the year. Honest. But hey, if your idea of fun is 140 minutes of two preening actors wandering through a plotless and a stunningly generic plot construct, have a ball. Yeah, Michael Mann knows how to swing a camera around the room, but this flick's about as deep and edgy as an episode of Murder She Wrote. (Rant over. Sorry.) Extras include a director's commentary, six featurettes and a 15-minute-longer Director's Cut.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest -- I can be pretty critical of the Disney output from time to time, but where the Pirates movies are concerned, I'm little more than a hyperactive 8-year-old screaming "Yay, yippee, more!!" And the 2-disc release of DMC is an absolute treasure chest of digital awesomeness. The movie looks and sounds great, the screenwriter's commentary is quite illuminating, and there's more supplemental material to choke a Kraken: Blooper reels, documentaries, featurettes and yes: at least five hidden goodies!

Pulse -- The remake nobody asked for became the movie nobody went to see. I paid to see it only because of my Kristen Bell crush, and while it's certainly not a GOOD movie, I don't think it's as worthless as most PG-13 horror flicks I've seen lately. Extras include two commentaries, three featurettes, some deleted stuff and (of course) an "unrated" cut.

Rocky Anthology -- I'm pretty sure that all the sequels in this new collection are the same DVDs as before, but the original Rocky is given a rather swanky new digital release that should thrill anyone who loves the flick as much as I do. (Available separately) the Rocky 2-disc Collector's Edition comes with three audio commentaries, a half-dozen featurettes / mini-docos and some old-school archival footage that's never been released before. Yo, MGM! Thanks!

After Disney and Mark Wahlberg ran off with the top numbers at the box office last weekend, Invincible managed to snag the top spot yet again, taking in an estimated $15.2 million -- lifting the film to an 11-day total of $37.8 million. Jason Statham's adrenalin-fueled Crank managed to out-duel Nic Cage's remake of The Wicker Man by sliding into the weekend's second spot with $13 million, while the latter picked up $11.7 million to round out the top three.

Little Miss Sunshine continued to live up to its name as "the little summer indie that could" by finishing fourth with $9.7 million, bringing its total to $35.8 million. However, Talladega Nights:The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (last week's number two film) ran smack into a slew of Labor Day traffic, forcing the Will Ferrell laffer to fall way down into the sixth spot with $7.7 million. Crossover ($4.5 million) and Outcast's Idlewild ($2.9 million) failed to find an audience this weekend, as well as a comfy spot in the top ten. Oh, and those damn snakes have officially left the building. Thank God.

Full numbers after the jump.

It seems like just a few days ago that we offered you the opportunity to answer a few questions about Idlewild for a chance to win some spectacular Idlewild swag. Actually, it was just a few days ago, but who's counting? The questions -- this time with their answers, were:

• 1) Idlewild was sold to Universal after OutKast's 2003 double-album became a smash success. What was that album called? Speakerboxxx/The Love Below

• 2) The film features some rousing dance numbers. What is the signature dance style created by choreographer Hinton Battle for the film called? Swop

• 3) What is on the flask that Rooster always carries with him? A talking rooster (rooster was also an acceptable answer)

• 4) What does Percival's father do for a living? Mortician (undertaker, funeral home director, etc, were also fine)

• 5) What is the ironic name of the speakeasy where Rooster and Percival perform? The Church

• 6) What was director Bryan Barber best known for prior to directing Idlewild? Music videos

• 7) Barber drew inspiration for Idlewild from which period musical by Vincente Minnelli? Cabin in the Sky

• 8) One of the songs on the soundtrack is titled "Chronomentrophobia". Chronomentrophobia is the fear of what? Clocks

Eight Cinematical readers submitted correct answers to all eight questions. Their names went into a hat (a pink University of Oklahoma hat, if you must know), and the winner is ... Dale! Yes, reader Dale wins the fantabulous Idlewild swag pack, which includes a very cool t-shirt, mini-poster AND a CD of the amazing soundtrack. Congratulations, Dale! We'll be in touch to get your address, and your swag will be on its way! If you didn't win, don't fret. You still have until 5PM EDT Thursday to enter the Caption This contest for some very nice This Film Is Not Yet Rated swag.

On a quiet box office weekend, Mark Wahlberg and his Invincible co-stars effortlessly outdistanced the competition: The film earned about $17 million over three days, while nothing else even broke the $10 million mark. In its fourth week in release, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby took in $8 million, good enough for the second spot; finishing third was Fox Searchlight's indie dreamboat Little Miss Sunshine which, after doubling its exposure to just over 1400 screens, made about $7.5 million, pushing its total earnings to $23 million. Though we still don't know exactly how much Fox spent on the rights to the movie, it's hard to believe they're not extremely please with its success so far -- only the craziest suit could possibly have dream of something like this.

Among the films making their debuts this week, Invincible was really the only success. Beerfest opened on more screens (just short of 3000), but did disappointing business -- the Broken Lizard flick made only $6.5 million, the weekend's fourth highest total (since their stuff tends to blow up on DVD, though, they're probably not going to have to sell the house or anything). In more limited exposure, Idlewild found itself in sixth with $5.9 million, but its average of $6055/screening was easily the best in the top ten. (Oh and yeah, Snakes on a Plane stumbled badly: It dropped almost 60% to $6.4 million from a massive 3555 screens.)

Full numbers are after the jump.

Time to check in with some film blogs:

• Nistagmus, submitted to me a while back, is based in Argentina. Unfortunately for those of you who don't speak Spanish, that's the language it's in. It's a nicely-designed site, and co-administrator of the site, Martin, who submitted it to me, describes it thusly: "We just blog about the kind of movies we love, and we love "geek" films. I mean, is it a strip/cartoon/graphic novel/comic book based feature? Is an asian pop-culture weird film? It´s a 20k slacker garage film? It is a surprisingly buzzy indie horror film from middle east? We may be interested... It´s the next Brangelina of J-Lo Housewives-targeted flop? We probably don´t want to hear about it... Well I think you get the point.". I can muddle my way through just enough Spanish to figure out that if I was really fluent in Spanish, this site would be a regular read. You folks out there who do speak the language, check it out.
• Over in England, Matt Grover runs The Matte Reviews, "Film reviews by Englishmen who watch films (if only we'd get paid for it!)." Most recently, Matt has written up reviews (from a "regular guy" viewpoint, not a film critic one) on Japanese flick Haze ("I just didn't know what was going on by the end"), Spielberg's Munich ("ok, film, long but good performances and some good sequences"), and a low-budget UK flick called Crooked Features (which he highly recommends). Nice versatility -- if you want a Brit point of view on film, this is a good site to peruse.

Idlewild -- the oft-delayed, much-anticipated musical from best-selling Atlanta hip-hop duo Outkast -- is, as they often say, a very movie movie. There's about 12 different films swimming around in it: Purple Rain, The Cotton Club, Chicago, Under the Cherry Moon, 42nd Street, Harlem Nights -- but it's also got nods to everything from Busby Berkeley musicals to '70s Black gangster films, art cinema to Some Like it Hot. Idlewild isn't coherent -- and it doesn't have a lot to say on the rare occasions it does make sense -- but it's also exuberant and wildly stylish. There's a question of who Idlewild is for -- the older audience who could appreciate its dance numbers and retro-style might be put off by the hip-hop elements; the kids who like hip-hop might be confused about why two of the most modern rappers in the game have set their big-screen debut in the 1930s. But that, frankly, just means more fun for those of us eager to take a chance on something different.

Deep in the heart of Prohibition-era Georgia, the small town of Idlewild is sleepy -- except at The Church, the raucous nightclub-and-cabaret owned by Ace (Faizon Love) and supplied by Spats (Ving Rhames). The entertainment at The Church is a pretty wild affair -- there's a full band, anchored by singer Rooster (Antwan A. Patton, a.k.a. Big Boi) and pianist Percival (André Benjamin, a.k.a. Andre3000). Spats is retiring, though, and wants to enjoy the good life -- including handing control of the local illegal booze empire to his right-hand man, Trumpy (Terrence Howard). Just as Trumpy is acting to ensure that the succession goes his way, noted singer Angel Daveport (Paula Patton) arrives from back East to play an extended engagement at The Church. Rooster must find a way to take control of The Church, even as he's trying to be a man to his wife and children; Percival has to summon up the courage to stop living in the shadow of his mortician father (Ben Vereen) and strike out as an artist.

Let me get right to the point: Idlewild (better known, perhaps, as "that OutKast movie") is a fantastically creative film that could -- and should -- garner a bevy of Oscar nominations. I don't know why there hasn't been bigger hooplah about this film leading up to its release date this weekend; given the media frenzy surrounding the campy Snakes on a Plane, you might think that a film like Idlewild could stir up at least a moderate buzzing sound.

Though there were times we thought it would never come, the release of Outkast's Idlewild is just over a week away and, in celebration, Universal is pulling out all the internet stops when it comes to promoting the film -- and for once that doesn't mean a MySpace page. Instead, the studio has enhanced the movie's very nicely designed -- and fast-loading -- official page with not one, not two, not three, but eight clips from the movie. The content of the clips ranges from Acting, With a Hint of Romance to Big Boi Doing His Thing (During the 1930s), and should please those of you who, like me, have been waiting for this damn thing for almost a year now. Plus, there's some new music from Outkast in there (you may recall that one of the many release delays was supposedly due to the duo's desire to get the movie's soundtrack 100% perfect) -- what's not to like?

At long (long, long) last, Idlewild will hit theaters August 25 (so they tell us, anyway).

Ok, this is good -- really, really good. There's an article in Sunday's New York Times by Roni Sarig that's a Bryan Barber profile combined with a look at the development of Idlewild (for those of you new on the Cinematical scene, Idlewild is the Outkast movie that I talk about all the time, and Barber is its director), and the end result is very encouraging. Get this: Sarig actually compares Barber to Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze, suggesting that he's following in their footsteps as he "translate[s] the eccentricity of [his] ... videos into iconoclastic features." Can I get an amen?

The history of Idlewild, as detailed in the article, is fascinating -- it was originally envisioned as one of an HBO series of six "low-budget urban movies" with budgets of about $1 million each, but as the project (first titled Speakerbox) grew, it eventually swallowed up the entire series, and grew too big for the TV screen. After years in development and production (and then on the shelf while Outkast finished the music), and despite the fact that Barber and producer Charles Roven apparently "did not see eye to eye on probably 98 percent of the picture," the director insists that the final product reflects his original awesome, weird-ass vision.

We'll all get to see for ourselves in just a matter of months now: Idlewild hits screens (supposedly 2500 of them, but I'll believe that when I see it) at the end of August.

This is my fifth, increasingly desperate post about the state of Idlewild, AKA The Outkast Movie. The pattern of the posts is pretty much as follows: I get all excited about the fact that the movie has a release date, and then it disappears off the face of the earth. And then the cycle happens again -- the current date, August 25, is its third in the past six months, and I've finally learned not going to celebrate until I actually see it on a marquee somewhere. Though the constant delays theoretically have to do with a desire on the part of Big Boi and Andre 3000 to get the music completely perfect (rather than a desperate need to rescue their movie from total suckage), I'm sure I'm not the only one who is both eagerly looking forward to this one and very, very worried about its quality. I mean, it's a prohibition musical, for God's sake -- there's a lot of room for failure there.

Just to get us even more excited about it movie, though, Chris Lee of the Los Angeles Times spoke with Idlewild director Bryan Barber last week, as well as the ubiquitous Terrence Howard, who appears in the film in a supporting role. Not surprisingly Barber, whose directing experience was limited to music videos (including the one for Outkast's Hey Ya!) prior to taking on this project, faced serious opposition from studio heads in getting the movie made. Not only was he a neophyte director and writer, but he was also trying to make a period, African-American musical. And his stars, best known as a team, would appear in only a handful of scenes together -- one can understand why studios were a little worried about sinking money into the project. By either a deal with the devil or insane luck, though, Barber got $27 million and a deal with Universal -- and, if all goes well, we'll get to see the result in August. Fingers and toes crossed.

[via GreenCine Daily]