If you're a Watchmen fan, you surely know that the slick Director's Cut will be hitting shelves on July 21 in all of its beautiful, retro-crime fighting wonder. I'm already trying to decide if I can finally budget for a Blu-ray player because let's face it -- this is the sort of film that's meant for the highest definition possible.

But for some lucky folks, July won't only mean Watchmen on the small screen. While talking to Collider, Zack Snyder revealed that the film will indeed be re-released in theaters -- but only in selected cities, for one weekend (the weekend before Comic-Con), and one theater. The lucky locales: Los Angeles and New York (of course), plus Dallas and Minneapolis.

Considering the fact that the movie wasn't exactly a box office smash, I get not having a huge re-release. But come on! FOUR screens?? Talk about teasing the rest of the masses, who will have to deal with the 27 minutes of extra violence and sexiness on our modest, small screens. At the very least, it could've been some sort of pre-sale traveling tour. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to see the Director's Cut on the big screen without impromptu travel. How about you?

Blimey! Will the Brits get to watch more Watchmen than the rest of us? A two-disc Special Edition Blu-ray will be released in the UK by Paramount Home Entertainment, featuring a stack of content that will not be available in the edition coming from Warner Home Video, according to The Blu-Ray Blog.

Even before the theatrical release in March, Zack Snyder was teasing fans about the director's cut he had prepared, which he said would run 190 minutes -- 27 minutes longer than the theatrical version -- and be "considerably more violent ... and sexier." The North American edition will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 21, featuring the director's cut, two featurettes, and two BD-exclusive features, along with a digital copy of the theatrical version. A single-disc DVD edition will also be available, without all the features.

The UK edition releases on July 27, evidently with only the theatrical cut, plus two featurettes (one of which is a BD-exclusive on the North American edition), plus 11 video journals (webisodes) and four viral videos. As The Blu-Ray Blog points out, neither of these editions includes the rumored "final complete cut," which would presumably feature the 25-minute animated Tales of the Black Freighter. Also, neither has the 37-minute, live-action / interview piece Under the Hood. For now, the only way to see Black Freighter and Hood is to buy the separate DVD or Blu-ray. Here in the States, you can also buy a pretty cool Blu-ray Nite Owl Ship Edition exclusively through Amazon (see images below).

Based on my feelings about the film, I'm inclined to play the waiting game. No doubt a complete collector's edition will be announced eventually ... right after you finally break down and buy all these separate editions.

It is of course impossible to say whether the much-discussed work print leak damaged Wolverine's box office take, nor whether Fox's cockamamie strategy of tacking on different mid-credits codas to different prints of the film helped matters. All we can conclude is that if piracy hurt, it didn't hurt that much (which really has been the refrain for the movie industry all along), since I don't think too many people will be unhappy with an $87 million first weekend. For those keeping score, that's well ahead of X-Men, marginally ahead of Bryan Singer's X2, and roughly $15 million behind Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand. Wolverine is not likely to hold up well, but it's hard to imagine a scenario where it doesn't get to $200 million domestic. And after all the angst, that's a victory.

One thing to consider is what this means for the straight action model of the comic book movie. I didn't dislike Wolverine like a lot of people did, but it undoubtedly did away with the nuance, intricacy and character focus that we've gotten used to seeing in major comic book adaptations. I bet it's much easier to make a Wolverine than a Iron Man or an X2 or a Watchmen, and it seems not to be much less financially rewarding.

I very much enjoyed not watching Ghosts of Girlfriends Past this weekend, and it seems so did a bunch of other people. The Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy picked up $15.3 million, which isn't bad, but puts the film way behind the last three identical Matthew McConaughey romantic comedies. And the 3D-animated Battle for Terra, while not a Delgo-level bust, couldn't break the top 10 and ended up with just over $1 million on around 1,200 screens. It's tough out there for animated features not bankrolled and marketed by huge studios.

The weekend's top 10 after the jump.

Back when Watchmen came out, we decided to introduce a new 1-10 Poll instead of simply asking for your opinion on a film in the comments section. We felt this added a new element to the whole post-blockbuster experience, and promised to bring it back for summer movie season if you folks played along. And since a whopping 5,000 of you participated in that Watchmen poll, the 1-10 is officially back ... and looking for a little love.

Since we can't launch these for every single summer movie, we're going to stick with the bigger blockbusters -- the films most likely to win their opening weekend by a mile. As with most questions on a 1-10 scale, 1 will be the absolute worst and 10 pretty much knocked your socks off. After all was said and done on Watchmen, folks settled in on an 8. Will any summer movie beat that? Which summer flick will come in the lowest? Highest? Once we hit Labor Day, we'll tally it all up and see who's getting a sequel and who's, well, looking for other work.

Our Summer 2009 1-10 Polls begin with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Sound off below ...

Earlier this week, fellow Cinematical scribe Scott Weinberg pointed me to a cool little video that I watched twice and then forgot. He reminded me again and the pattern was repeated -- or so I thought. Because that weird little piece of wild visual magic keeps popping up in my mind. I can't let it go. You can allow it to infect your brain by watching Carousel at Stink Digital (or down below). That's the same company that helped create the commercials in which 8 Mile and Die Hard were reimagined as 50s French classics.

So, going in, you know that Carousel is an advertisement, in this case for a technology product I can't possibly afford right now (a new model of television), though, again, it's not a hard sell. Of course, some of the most creative and jaw-dropping works are made as part of advertising campaigns. Just think back to Ridley Scott's startling 1984 ad for the Apple Macintosh: I don't remember anything about the Super Bowl game that surrounded the ad, but I definitely remember that woman tossing her hammer at Big Brother.

Directed by Adam Berg, Carousel inevitably brings to mind the amazing Bullet Time scenes in The Matrix, as applied to the opening title sequence of Watchmen, with a tip of the hat to The Dark Knight. The viewer is invited to take a "frozen moment" tour of a crime scene filled with guns, broken glass, and general carnage. I found it haunting and strangely beautiful.


Philips : Carousel from Sawacs on Vimeo.

(Thanks to @wlmager.)

Have you ever dismissed a movie as an unmitigated piece of junk, and then seen it a second time and thought, "That wasn't so bad"? Xan Brooks in The Guardian raises the question: "Who's at fault if a film fails on a first viewing and succeeds on the second? The viewer, the film-maker, or the tangled, criss-crossing dialogue between the two?"

He notes the turn-around he experienced with the Chilean drama Tony Manero, which is due for US release shortly. and admits that he is "nagged by the suspicion that there may be many other films in need of hasty reappraisal." The influential film critic Pauline Kael famously said she never watched a movie more than once, but Newsweek film critic Joe Morgenstern completed changed his mind about Bonnie and Clyde after describing it as a "squalid shoot-em-up for the moron trade." His mea culpa read in part: "I am sorry to say I consider that review grossly unfair and regrettably inaccurate."

I'm not suggesting that every bad movie will suddenly blossom into a classic with a second viewing. Our own Scott Weinberg recently watched Howard the Duck again, and that sucker is still a "$40 million dollar poop-nugget." On the other hand, my estimation of the original Friday the 13th rose with a recent reviewing, and Peter Bogdanovich's films have been rising in stock for me lately after falling through the floor for a period of my critical life.

What about you? Have repeat viewings changed your mind, perhaps after a period of years, either for good or for bad? Are you now convinced that Citizen Kane isn't so bad after all, or ready to give Watchmen a second chance when it hits DVD?

In the latest of what feels like a flurry of unfortunate movie theater incidents, a 24-year-old man in Eugene, Oregon shot himself in the head while taking in a late-night Watchmen screening at a Regal Cinemas. According to a story over KMTR.com -- which was passed to us by Cinematical reader Ian G. -- it was about halfway through the film when theatergoers heard a "popping" noise, and it was shortly after that when the man was discovered in the back of the theater with a gunshot wound to the head. The closest audience member was two rows away, and there were about ten folks total in attendance.

Currently there's no word on why the man chose to bring a gun to the screening of Watchmen and decide to shoot himself halfway through. Was it a completely random decision on his part? Did it have anything to do with the film itself, which spends most of its time dealing with a potential nuclear war? Did a particular shot or scene prove too much for the man, or were his suicidal issues completely separate from the film itself? If any of these questions are answered at a later date, we'll update this post. In the meantime, our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

With shootings inside movie theaters becoming more frequent, should metal detectors be added to all theaters or is that taking it too far?

Quantum of Solace
Daniel Craig's second outing as James Bond, this time under the direction of Marc Forster, was a straight-ahead revenge drama, with rough edges intact, missing many of the character touches that we've come to expect from 007. That made it feel too much like an anonymous, overly-caffeinated action thriller for my taste, but there are enough dynamic, high-powered sequences to justify a rental. Olga Kuylenko is pretty easy on the eyes, too. Available in one and two-disk DVD editions, as well as Blu-ray. Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue. | Buy at Amazon.

Bolt
"An entertaining movie for kids," our own Jette Kernion opined. "However, there's not much here for grownups to enjoy ... apart from watching the kids get a kick out of the film." Sounds like it was made for home viewing. John Travolta and Miley Cyrus voice key roles. Available in one and two-disk DVD editions, as well as Blu-ray. Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue. | Buy at Amazon.

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter & Under the Hood
Two vital components of the original Watchmen graphic novel that didn't make the theatrical cut; pirate saga Tales of the Black Freighter is brought to life as a 2-D animated mini-feature and features the voice of Gerard Butler, while Under the Hood uses live-action and CGI to spin a faux-autobiography of the original Nite Owl. Both may be included in a forthcoming Director's Cut of Watchmen, but if you just can't wait any longer ... Also on Blu-ray. Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue. | Buy at Amazon.

After the jump: Indies on DVD, more Blu-ray picks, and Collector's Corner

Nic Cage-heavy advertising propelled Knowing to the top of the box office and a decent $24 million opening weekend, though we'll see what happens once audiences get a load of what this exceedingly weird movie is actually about. The arrival of Monsters vs. Aliens won't help either. I expect at least a 50% drop-off next week.

What's interesting about the $18 million bow for I Love You, Man is that I'm pretty sure the movie got an assist from the Judd Apatow brand even though Judd Apatow didn't have a damn thing to do with it. It's Paul Rudd + Jason Segel + tone. People love these clever, raunchy male-fantasy movies, and there's no end in sight. On the other hand, Duplicity may have come off as too smart for the room, as pervasive marketing, Clive Owen and Julia Roberts didn't amount to more than $14 million for Tony Gilroy's film. That's more than Gilroy's Michael Clayton ever made in a weekend, but that movie was platformed.

Watchmen's looking like $115 million at the end of the day. Other holdovers are looking more impressive: Coraline and Madea Goes to Jail are still bumming around the top 10 after seven and five weeks, respectively; the latter is by far Tyler Perry's highest-grossing film, while the former has parlayed a $16 million opening to what will be an $80 million finish.

The full top 10 after the jump.

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.