Opening This Weekend: Julia vs. The Titans & the Fight For Who Can Be Closest to Never Being #1

Out with the New, in with the Old ... ?

This weekend Julia Roberts will square off with the Titans in a fantasy-genre battle for second place behind Katniss and the other tributes.  The early critical word for Ms. Roberts’ return to the big screen is pretty sour.  No matter, she’ll manage to weather this before she walks the awards circuit in the next couple of years thanks to the Tony-nominated/winning roles of Barbara Weston and Emma Brookner.  These roles she has managed to parlay herself into just because of her connections and the fumes of her still existent name recognition.  Oh, yeah, and as much as she has revealed herself to be a supercunt, she's still a fucking star.  When you’ve won the biggest prize and have multiple $100M-grossers that you’ve headlined, it doesn’t matter that they were all over a decade ago.  Your perch, the highest of them all, still allows for a long, gradual and comfortable fall.  Julia may not cash the big paychecks (or maybe she still does; that info isn't the easiest to unearth) like she used to, but she's still the unofficial (figurehead) queen of the box-office.

Anyway, who will appear on top (or in this case, the #2 position)?  Mirror Mirror or Wrath of the Titans?  For Rosamund Pike's (is that her?) sake, I'm hoping the latter.  I guess it all depends on how desperate parents are to take their kids to a family film based on a popular fairy tale.  People harped on Sam Woodenacting’s last Titans, but they certainly lined up to see it. 

What else is hitting the screen?

Sean William Scott plays a Goon whose violent nature gets him on a hockey team where he’s able to search for the meaning of his life.  There are plenty of Canadian accents (or Midwest), as well an Italian-American Mafioso type from the dependably bad, but inexplicably respected Liev Schreiber.  There’s a host of other recognizable faces, including some geared to the American Pie audience.

Intruders has Clive Owen defending his family from a supernatural beast.  I don't think he'll have much luck deflecting the bad reviews, at any rate.  

A rock musical about blood-suckers has gotten a low-budget film treatment in I Kissed a Vampire.  It looks like something from the 80's with a cast that was born in the 2000's.

[Update]
Added at the last minute, Halle Berry's Dark Tide rolls into town, so it can quickly sink beneath the surface to become shark chum.  It opens with Halle Berry delivering the voice-over line, "My father once told me to be careful of the things you love most in the world.  Because if you're not careful, that very thing can destroy you."  Did Berry's father ever talk to her about money, perhaps?  Because that's the only reason she did this movie, no?  Berry's much talked-about personal life as of late can't even draw interest into this film.  The studio has so little faith in the $25M project, it didn't even bother with a website.  Exterior shots were filmed in South Africa two years ago, right after she separated from her baby's daddy.  I keep forgetting that Berry has always had a checkered past.  A string of failed relationships and two hit and run accidents for which she got a slap on the wrist, she still managed to cash in her career choices for an Oscar.  But, it seems in the late 90s/early 00s, a clean repute wasn't exactly high on the list of the AMPAS.  

Foreign Language

I just have to say that I kind of love the trailer for Turn Me On, Damnit! a Scandinavian sex comedy about a group of teenagers popping their cherry.  I don't know what I love more: the fact that it's about girls coming of age or that in the course of 90 minutes, we watch a young woman getting caught in the solo act by her dog, another sniff her clothed boyfriend's armpit or all of the girls flipping the bird to roadsigns as they leave their town.  And, because it's not in English, all of this is masterfully, awesomely set to music.  If you only watch one of the trailers I've linked to in this post, please watch this one.  

Love in the Buff, a film about modern relationships in Cantonese and Mandarin.  

Documentary

Also, dependable marketer Harvey Weinstein drummed up plenty of publicity over the last couple weeks fighting with the MPAA on its rating for Bully, a documentary that appears to take a page out of Michael Moore’s book on emotional manipulation.  Weinstein also appears to be trying to capitalize on the recent attention bullying has received in the press over the last year—primarily gay youth—particularly due to its connection with resulting in suicide.  

Hollywood's current fascination with the sex and drug-fueled intellectualism of the late 50's extends to a documentary about The Beat Hotel Rue Gît-le-Cœur in Paris.  

Another documentary serves as global-warming propaganda about the sinking island nation of The Maldives.  

Kurt Cameron gives us a history lesson in Monumental: In Search of America's National Treasure.  My gut instinct tells me that Nicolas Cage (or Andy Samberg for that matter) won't be making an action-infused cameo.  While I don't discount the possibility that Cameron offers something educational and thought-provoking, I cringe at the limited prism he shares his information about "our morally bankrupt" nation that can still be saved.  Cameron ends the second trailer with, "My family is worth fighting for.  And so is yours."  Well, if the two head-of-households are of the opposite gender ... anyway.  Just sayin'.  Considering how well his backward-thinking views got people talking about him in the press, you'd think that he's been getting tips from Harvey Weinstein.  

Will you be seeing anything this weekend?  I'm pondering checking out Bully.