More than once in recent weeks, I've found myself subjected to the bonanza of pre-show 'entertainment' at a local multiplex, the arguable best portion of which has been a fake trailer for a new Sprint phone, a spot unabashedly proud of both spoofing the nature of product placement and succumbing to it.

So when I first heard of a film called Text - about killer text messages - I assumed it was likewise a joke, a hoax, a ruse, a cunning attempt to trick me. I mean, doesn't that sound like the one faux trailer that didn't make it into Grindhouse? Alas, if Fangoria is to be believed, it's no joke...

When evaluating new movies, sometimes a critic will try to envision their staying power. It goes without saying that most movies have no shelf life; they're designed for one opening weekend, or perhaps a few months of buzz leading to an award, but that's it. A year from now, people will be ignoring them on airplanes and then they'll be on sale in the DVD bargain bin. Only a very few titles enter into the general zeitgeist forever, becoming a "cult film." A cult film can be a resurrected flop, something like The Wizard of Oz or Donnie Darko, or it can be a beloved hit, such as Casablanca or the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings films. The only constant is that it's impossible to predict. When I first reviewed Joel and Ethan Coen's The Big Lebowski (1998), I thought it suffered in comparison to Fargo, but now it has become a cult classic even bigger than its predecessor. Regardless, I thought I'd look at some of the movies currently playing on less than 400 screens and guess their fates.

I'll start with an easy one: Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd (316 screens). This is Burton and Johnny Depp's sixth film together, and they bring out the very best instincts in one another. They remind me of no less than Tod Browning and Lon Chaney's sinister collaborations during the silent era. (Their 1927 film The Unknown needs to be seen by everyone.) Depp gets to indulge in his taste for disguise (and funny voices) while Burton taps into his childlike nightmares for new images and ideas. Sure, they will probably never really make a grown-up movie, but several of their collaborations have already stood the test of time, and at least two: Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Ed Wood (1994) have cracked the edges of cult status. In fact, I'd go so far as to add Burton's Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Depp's Dead Man and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to make a great cult film festival.

Expanding to nearly 2,500 theaters, Juno slowed down only incrementally as it maintained its hold at the top of the indie box office chart, based on estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City Indie. Raking in $13.7 million over the weekend, good enough to place it #3 overall, the returns translated into $5,600 per screen. The weekly gross is down just 13% from the previous week; so far, the film has made $71 million for distributor Fox Searchlight and is galloping toward smashing the $100 million mark.

Period romantic drama (and perennial indie box office bridesmaid) Atonement continued its very nice performance, earning $4,410 per screen at 950 theaters for a weekend total of $4.2 million. Its cumulative total of $25.1 million for Focus Features would be making more noise were it not for the runaway mainstream success of Juno.

Distributor Freestyle Releasing opened Uwe Boll's fantasy action pic In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale wide on more than 1,600 screens and barely eked out $1,740 per screen. Frankly, Scott Weinberg's review is far more entertaining than the movie.

Likewise, Picturehouse moved Spanish-language The Orphanage out across America and the results were mixed. At $3,090 per screen at 638 locations, it out performed the other ghost story in the marketplace (the tepid One Missed Call in its second week), but doesn't appear to have caught fire yet. Word of mouth may help in the coming days.

Epic oil drama There Will Be Blood may be gaining traction; Paramount Vantage increased its theater count to 129 and, according to Box Office Mojo, its per-screen average ($15,038) was the highest of the weekend. I'm also seeing some TV advertising. Very quietly, the animated Persepolis is creeping out into the public consciousness; it earned an average of $10,833 per screen at 18 theaters for Sony Classics.

Asian monster flick D-War tore up the box office in its native South Korea this past summer. Slightly retitled to Dragon Wars by distributor Freestyle Releasing, the film did surprisingly well in the US, grossing more than $10 million, making it the most successful Korean picture released in America. (Total worldwide box office was $66 million, according to Box Office Mojo). It didn't screen for critics, but I saw it anyway, propelled by a childhood love for Godzilla and his monstrous friends.

Director Shim Hyung-Rae's film is incredibly cheesy and nonsensical, but strangely satisfying if you're a fan of monster movies in general and keep your expectations just barely above zero. Unfortunately, the lead characters, played by Jason Behr and Amanda Brooks, are wan and colorless, in part because their roles are so thinly written. Happily, B-movie greats Robert Forster and Chris Mulkey are on hand to juice things up. Most of the production budget was evidently spent on the special effects, which would have been state of the art ten years ago. It's the kind of movie that made me roll my eyes and mutter to myself throughout. Yet days later I found myself quoting some of the more outrageous lines and scenes to others. The DVD includes a featurette entitled "5,000 Years in the Making," storyboard to screen "animatics" and conceptual art gallery.

Japanese auteur Takashi Miike has made dozens of films in almost every conceivable genre (the remake of his horror flick One Missed Call was just released this weekend), but Big Bang Love -- Juvenile A is, I believe, his first foray into the homoerotic prison drama genre. Mark Schilling of The Japan Times noted that it "differs from much of his previous work (especially his recent commercial outings) in its theatrically stylized sets, complex narrative strategies and basic tone." The DVD includes an interview with Miike, "behind the scenes special," an image gallery, trailers and program notes.

It seems like an odd choice to hire a Frenchman to remake a film by Japanese master Takashi Miike. I've only seen half a dozen Miike features to date, which isn't many considering that he makes at least that number in any given year. But I can say that his style ranges from utterly insane to completely cracked, and few French filmmakers -- who generally specialize in intelligence and austerity -- could match him. But director Eric Valette brings something interesting to the new remake of One Missed Call. Most horror remakes come complete with an undisguised sense of callousness, and almost flat-out disdain, for their intended customers. But One Missed Call has a kind of effective low-key tone. Perhaps it was confusion or sheer laziness, but it worked for me far better than some other junky remakes I've seen.

Sure, the story is unbelievably stupid, and the film doesn't do much to justify its silly logic. Both this and Miike's film were adapted from a novel by Yasushi Akimoto, and I'd like to believe that the novel made a far better argument for its plot. A med student, Shelley (Meagan Good), dies after receiving a mysterious phone call. After her death, her phone mysteriously dials a friend, and that friend dies. And so on. The calls come in dated and timed to some point in the near future, and the recipient of the call hears his or her own voice at the moment of their death. So they know exactly what day and time they're going to die and they know what they're going to say, but that information can't help some of the dumber characters from saving their own lives. One character sits at a café with only one minute to go to his impending death. Instead of sitting there safe one minute longer, he decides to get up and cross a busy street.

Welcome to the first official Insert Caption of 2008! Last week we asked for your best caption from the film Charlie Wilson's War, and received more than a few submissions with creepy sexual undertones. What gives? Does Tom Hanks really look a guy who has sex constantly on the mind? How about we don't answer that. Here were the three winners, all of which were awarded with a sweet Charlie Wilson's War prize package (Charlie Wilson himself not included).

1. "Houston, we've found a bra strap." -- Andrew W.

2 "Scene from the scrapped James Bond project "From Oscar with Love" -- Kurt P.

3. "Remember the good 'ole days when you were a prostitute chasing the fairy tale, and I was a simpleton who didn't know much, but knew what love was..." -- Jason A.

See full image and all captions

And now, in honor of this week's only wide release, we're giving you a chance to give us your best captions for the photo below from the new J-horror remake One Missed Call. If you thought those voicemail messages from your ex were borderline maniacal, well what if you received a voicemail from your future self ... with the date, time and details of your future death? Um, how do you say "I'd like to officially cancel my service ASAP" in Japanese? The three winners of our favorite captions will walk away with a One Missed Call t-shirt and poster ... for those times when you need to be reminded of that one call you desperately wanted to miss. Sound off below ...

Read the official rules for this contest

For the last weekend of 2007 National Treasure: Book of Secrets held onto the number one spot for the second week in a row. Juno is quickly proving to be the little film that could. The film expanded into a modest 998 theaters last week (and will venture further into 1,880 theaters this week) and managed to out gross all of last week's new releases, all of which were playing on a considerably greater number of screens and none of which ended up in the top five. Here's the final tally:

1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets: $35.6 million.
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: $30 million.
3. I Am Legend: $27.5 million
4. Charlie Wilson's War: $11.8 million.
5. Juno: $10.3 million.

In the wake of the holiday season, Hollywood appears to be taking a breather with only one new film -- a J-horror remake -- going into wide release this Friday.

One Missed Call
What's It All About: Boy, you think your cell phone plan sucks. In this remake of a Takashi Miike's 2003 film Chakushin Ari, college students are dropping left and right after they receive voice mail messages -- seemingly from the future -- in which they hear themselves being murdered.
Why It Might Do Well: This is the only new wide release this week, so if you're dying to see something new, this is pretty much it.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Plot-wise, if you swap a VHS tape for the cell phones this sounds a lot like The Ring.
Number of Theaters: 2,200
Prediction: $8 million

Obviously next week's top five won't be a huge shake up. Taking into consideration the one new release and Juno's expansion into more theaters, I think it will look like this.
1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks
3. Juno
4. I Am Legend
5. One Missed Call

Participation was down last week for our weekly box office prediction competition, though I'm confident our regulars will be returning. Here's how it went:

1. Bubba8193: 13
1. Mjd: 13
2. Anna07: 11
2. Gregory Rubinstein: 11
3. Ray: 6
3. ABIRD0006: 6
4. Matt: 5

This is your big chance. Make it your New Year's resolution to participate in our friendly little competition. Post your predictions in the comments section below before 5:00PM on Saturday. One point for every top five movie correctly named, two points for every correct placement, and one extra point for the top movie.

Last week's big winner at the box office was Rob Zombie's Halloween, so horror flicks are definitely on my mind. It's Scary Stuff week on Trailer Park.

Hatchet
While this is definitely an old school style horror flick, it's not a remake. In fact the poster proudly proclaims "It's not a remake. It's not a sequel. And it's definitely not based on a Japanese one." If it weren't for the modern production values, you could imagine this one playing drive-in theaters back in the early 80's. A child narrates, telling the story of Victor Crowley, a deformed boy who died in a fire set by a nasty bunch of kids. Now people are disappearing in the local woods, and it looks like Victor is the one doing them in. Kane Hodder, who wore the iconic goalie mask in three of the Friday the 13th films, stars as Victor Crowley, and horror vets Robert Englund and Tony Todd are in there too, as is Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Mercedes McNab. Looks like a decent modern take on the classic slasher formula, with an eye toward casting that will keep horror buffs happy. The movie opens today but only in 78 theaters, so if this movie does manage to find an audience it will be on DVD. Additionally, you can check out Scott's interview with Hatchet director Adam Green.

Saw IV
Like the trailer says, "If it's Halloween, it must be Saw." The franchise rears its gore-spattered head every Halloween with a new installment, with each film raking in some serious cash, so don't expect the trend to end anytime soon. Are there really four of these things now? The teaser trailer shows some brief snippets of the film being projected on what looks like a grimy warehouse wall, with shrieks of agony and people begging for mercy in the background. More of the same, so if you liked the previous installments you'll probably enjoy this one. Have a look for yourself:

I really dig Shannyn Sossamon. At least, I did with her first three features -- she was my kind of alterna-mainstream girl. She hit it out of the park with A Knight's Tale, and then she started moaning from an orchid in 40 Days and 40 Nights before bringing to life Ellis dysfunction with The Rules of Attraction. After that, not so much. I'm still itching to see her in Wristcutters: A Love Story, but I'm not to keen on her turn to horror. The latest is called One Missed Call, and it co-stars Edward Burns (The Holiday). The horror flick is supposed to get released next year, and now we can finally check out the trailer on Yahoo.

At first I was a little intrigued -- Azura Skye kicked arse on her too-short stint on Buffy, as a girl who knew her death was coming, but the scenario just doesn't seem so cool this time around -- probably because it looks like Final Destination with cell phones, not to mention the fact that we're drowning in Asian horror remakes. The trailer covers the basic plot -- with or without batteries, these cell phones keep ringing and letting the person hear the last few moments of their life. They get paranoid and scared, and then succumb to the death the mobile predicted. However, Kevin Kelly saw some clips at ComicCon and said they were "extremely spooky," so maybe it ain't all bad. Heck, I might see it just for Ray Wise, Laura Palmer's troubled pop from Twin Peaks. The movie will hit theaters on January 4, 2008.

I sat down with Ed Burns to talk about his role in the upcoming One Missed Call, and he candidly spoke about the horror movie experience and what he views as the death of small films, at least in the sense of people going to the theater to watch them.

He says he hasn't been in sci-fi before, so I hope that he's managed to excise A Sound of Thunder from his brain, because it's about one of the worst films I've ever seen. He's fine in it, and proves that he could carry an action film, but the look and feel of the film is terrible beyond belief.

Click on Ed to hear the audio, and listen to things like:

• He feels that Purple Violets is the best film he's ever made, but he admits it has "absolutely no audience," theatrically.
• Purple Violets will possibly be the first film ever released exclusively on iTunes. Starting October 9th, the film will be available for four weeks on iTunes, and they'll see how the numbers are after that.
• On coming to Comic-Con, "I'm not really the guy ... we just had a little clip reel, I've never done a horror film or sci-fi. I don't know how many McMullen fans were in the audience. They weren't giving it up for the Irish guys from Queens."
• He thinks the current appeal of horror movies vs. small independent films, is that people want that communal experience during a "big" film, but they want to watch the art house types of films at home.
• "Watching a movie on an iPod, for someone my age, is ... insane. However, you have to embrace it. Digital cinema is coming at us head-on."
• "Making small talking movies ... that business is a dead business.
• "He's working on a comic book (and writing the screenplay for it) with Virgin Comics called "Dock Walloper" ... New York City, Irish-American gangsters, that's kind of my milieu."
• He compares what is happening with music (digital distribution) to what is happening in movies. "You have to fall out of love with the old, y'know?"