It's a slow, post-Easter release week...

The Reader
Older woman meets much younger man. They have an affair, years go by, and then they meet again when she's brought to court with Nazi war crime charges. The film earned Kate Winslet an Academy Award for her performance while also grabbing four other nominations. But is The Reader worth it? In her review, Jette said that the "structure of The Reader is rambling and hard to follow," but "like many end-of-year films, the performances are what makes the film most worth watching." Rent it.

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The Spirit
It whipped up enough buzz, but unfortunately, the eager excitement just wasn't there -- both before and after release. As Scott said: "The Spirit is simply an empty vessel. It's a bunch of cool-looking visuals that should be looking for a half-decent plot, but are just too damn happy being cool-looking visuals." Need you hear more unhappiness? Skip it. Also on Blu-ray.

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Also out: Bled, Splinter, Irreconcilable Differences, Decameron '69, Hiding Out

Those of us who run in the dangerous online South Park circles (where the air is thin and the lifelines are even thinner) already knew that last night's episode was going to spoof the influx of comic book/graphic novel adaptations on the big screen. The early previews appeared as if they were going to go the Watchmen route, but if you tuned in last night you'd know they covered a host of different films from The Dark Knight to The Spirit. It was funny, too, because at times you didn't know if Cartman (aka The Coon) was imitating Batman or Rorschach with his low growl.

What we do know is that last night's episode was set in an alternate 2009 where the economy is in the crapper and everyone hates Obama for not bringing the change he promised. Oh wait ... nevermind. In an effort to keep the streets safe, Eric Cartman becomes a masked vigilante known only as The Coon. But when another masked hero takes to the streets -- and wins more recognition from the town -- The Coon looks to shut his act down. Check out the opening below, and watch the entire episode over here.

Thanks to advancements in movie-going technology over the years, all one needs to view tomorrow's slasher remake, My Bloody Valentine, in three dimensions is a special pair of glasses. And according to Lionsgate's marketing department, all one needs in order to see the film in four dimensions is a set of beer goggles.

The above picture is of an online ad that I just came across while watching a video on YouTube. (Whether or not said video was a RickRoll, I'll neither confirm nor deny.) Apparently, the studio is so confident in the quality of their film that they hope young viewers over the age of 21 will stumble up to the ticket window before tossing their cookies mid-movie in an effort to create an interactive "splash zone" of sorts for some lucky viewers.

We tend to feature a lot of movie poster photoshopping contests on Cinematical because a) they're tons of fun, and b) they promote creativity and imagination. This latest one is close to being one of my favorites -- over at SomethingAwful.com, as part of their Photoshop Phriday, they asked folks to create public service announcements out of movie posters (or, as they say, "rehabilitated them to be educational, informative, and inspirational"). So, for example, the classic Jaws movie poster suddenly turns into an advertisement to join the Amity Island High Swim Team, and The Spirit poster featuring Sarah Paulson turns into a PSA against germs. One of my personal favorites, although a tad fuzzy, takes the famous Fight Club poster and transforms it into a PSA for fighting infections. Some very funny and unique creations to be found, for sure.

Check out the ones mentioned above and a couple other favorites in the gallery below, then hop on over to SomethingAwful.com to see the rest.



[via Superpunch]

Christmas fell on a Thursday this year, leading to a very lucrative four-day weekend for all but one of the Christmas Day openers.

The pattern has always been to open one, maybe two big films around Christmas. This year we got five. Marley & Me was the best family option, and led the pack with $51.7 million over the long weekend, setting a Christmas Day record in the process. Good word-of-mouth is likely -- the audience reaction at the showing I saw can only be described as "epic." I think I may have actually caught some inanimate objects crying toward the end. Scarves, handbags, etc.

Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories was next, underperforming slightly with $38.6 million. Sandler is somewhat untested in the PG family film arena, but I had expected Bedtime Stories to land somewhere in the vicinity of Click, which grossed $40 million on a three-day weekend in June. Bedtime Stories' $28 million three-day is the lowest for a film headlined by Sandler since Eight Crazy Nights in 2002, or if you think that doesn't count, since Little Nicky in 2000. Of course since Bedtime Stories opened on a Thursday, using the three-day number isn't quite fair. In any event, the fact that Marley took off certainly didn't help.

The third-place, $39 million finish for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a draw. That the heady, nearly three-hour drama was able to compete in this marketplace is surely a relief to Paramount, but the movie is so expensive ($150 million) that people were probably hoping for more. On the other hand, $30 million for Valkyrie -- which people had written off as a stinker after some release date shuffling and an upswing in general Tom Cruise negativity -- is cause for some high-fiving at MGM/UA.

With all due respect to the monumentally talented Frank Miller, I'm just going to lay it out clear: I don't think the man is cut out to direct movies. At all. I've always suspected that Mr. Miller earned a co-director credit on Sin City because A) it's his baby, B) having Miller involved helps the film come release time, and C) Robert Rodriguez is a classy dude. But have you ever wondered what Sin City would look like if Rodriguez was out of the picture? Wonder no more, comic fans: Frank Miller has directed a film all by himself ... and it really isn't good.

Looking for slick-looking white-on-black panorama shots of a square-jawed hero as he leaps across the city rooftops? Anxious to get a lot of hot young actresses into sexy outfits? Into highly-stylized pulp dialog that sounds like outtakes from a Dick Tracy comic? Then apparently Frank Miller is your man. Taken as a series of unrelated sequences that sure LOOK cool, The Spirit might just float your boat. If, however, you like your films to include stuff like good sense, character development, internal logic, and a smooth-flowing story ... well, all I can say is that someone should have gotten Robert Rodriguez on the phone.

The pre-Christmas weekend was good to Jim Carrey, Will Smith and an animated mouse. The rest of the top five was filled out by holdovers from previous weeks, including Four Christmases in its fourth week of release. Here's the top five:

1. Yes Man: $18.2 million
2. Seven Pounds: $14.8 million
3. The Tale of Despereaux: $10.1 million
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still: $9.9 million
5. Four Christmases: $7.7 million

Santa is leaving five presents under the tree for movie fans. Whether they contain coal or a GI Joe with Kung Fu Grip remains to be seen. All five of these are opening on Thursday, Christmas day, rather than the usual Friday.

Bedtime Stories
What's It All About: Adam Sandler stars in this comedy about a man who realizes that the fanciful tales he's telling his niece and nephew are coming true.
Why It Might Do Well: This seems tailor-made for people who liked Sandler's 2006 film Click which had a $40 million opening weekend and went on to earn $237 million worldwide.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Rottentomatoes.com is currently rating the film 21% rotten.
Number of Theaters: 3,500
Prediction: $36 million

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
What's It All About: Brad Pitt stars in a film based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story about a man who is born at the age of 80 and ages in reverse.
Why It Might Do Well: Mr. Pitt carries some serious box office clout, the trailer looks intriguing and Rottentomatoes.com give the film 78%.
Why It Might Not Do Well: It is to laugh.
Number of Theaters: 2,900
Prediction: $22 million

You really expect a movie headlined by Will Smith -- the consensus Biggest Movie Star in the World -- to at least break $20 million in its opening weekend. You'd have to go back to 2001's Ali to find one that didn't. Instead, Seven Pounds -- poorly reviewed and marketed to emphasize the central mystery in a way that turned out mystifying -- played second fiddle to Jim Carrey's Yes Man, pulling in $16 million to Yes Man's $18.1 million.

The Seven Pounds result is actually not terribly surprising, even given the Will Smith factor -- the movie is a morose downer, with none of the uplifting, holiday-appropriate draw of 2006's affable The Pursuit of Happyness (another Smith-Gabriele Muccino collaboration), and the people looking for that sort of thing have a lot to choose from this time of year, most of it carrying more cred. I'm a bit more taken aback by Yes Man's relatively weak opening. For a high-concept Jim Carrey comedy, opening a good three weeks after the last big light-hearted offering, $18 million is uninspiring. It's in the same ballpark as Fun with Dick and Jane, opening around the same time three years ago, but that one went up against three other comedies opening the same weekend, and was harder to market. I wonder if Jim Carrey's draw might be waning a bit.

Cinematical has received three (count 'em three!) exclusive Christmas-related TV spots for The Spirit, directed by Frank Miller (300, Sin City), and starring a whole crop of pretty faces like Gabriel Macht, Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Paulson, Jaime King and Samuel L. Jackson. Each of these TV spots look the same, except a different character is featured. One puts Sand Sarif (Mendes) front and center, one focuses more on The Octopus (Jackson), and one teases us with a little Ellen Doran (Paulson). Check out the first spot below, and the other two after the jump.

The Spirit slides its way down your chimney on Christmas Day.