MOVIES FOR THE WEEKEND

Sadly, I'm probably not gonna get to the theaters this weekend. SPEED RACER is the big new opener, and I was never all that interested in it, and I am less interested in it now that it's been utterly destroyed by almost every critic. Currently, it's at 35% overall at Rottentomatoes, with a 27% rating from the cream of the crop. Box office is likely to be weak as well; I think it will be one of the summer's bigger underpreformers amongst the big-budget entries.

The dreadful looking rom-com WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS, starring ass-clown extraordinaire Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz, opens this weeked as well. To semi-quote from Tony Scott's THE FAN, I'd rather nail my penis to a burning building than watch WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS; the ads are beyond shrill and ugly looking, and I hope it completely flops with audiences as it has with critics (27% overall at Rottentomatoes with a 31% cream of the crop.) If you want a good Friday laugh, read Manohla Dargis' review at the New York Times:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/05/09/movies/09vega.html?ref=movies


The only film opening this weekend that holds any interest for me is David Mamet's typically well-reviewed martial-arts thriller RED BELT, which has a 69% overall rating at Rottentomatoes, with a 76% cream of the crop rating. I am a big Mamet fan and even though I have no use for MMA (mixed martial arts), I will still check out this new flick, if not in the theaters, then certainly on DVD.

From Netflix I will have HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE; I have only seen the film once and wanted to check it out again. I missed the sequel, which was released at the end of this past April, and I look forward to catching up with it on DVD in a few months.

I imagine that IRON MAN will take the box office crown once again. Here are my estimates:

1. IRON MAN $51 million
2. SPEED RACER $29 million
3. WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS $18 million
4. MADE OF HONOR $9 million
5. BABY MAMA $6 million
6. HAROLD & KUMAR 2 $4 million
7. FORGETTING SARA MARSHALL $4 million