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You'd...you'd tell me if those Underworld movies were crap, wouldn't you?

I'm not particularly overwhelmed by the choices on offer this weekend, but at least Contraband was pretty OK. It's nothing special, mind you, but it's a perfectly adequate piece of tense fluff for a cold winter's evening. We'll have a review for it later today.

I'm more interested in seeing precisely how much The Devil Inside falls off from its first weekend, percentage-wise. I'm hoping for a record! I can't see many people actually telling their friends to go see the movie, so theoretically it's going to make much, much less money than it did last weekend. (It has just a 25% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, one of the lowest I've ever seen. Even Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever barely beats it at 24%.)

Apart from that, we have Joyful Noise, which your grandmother would no doubt like you to take her to see, thank you very much, and Beauty And The Beast 3D. Beauty And The Beast was a smash when it came out, but it doesn't seem to be talked about very much nowadays. I'm curious how many families will bother to see it in 3D. I sincerely doubt that it'll get anywhere near The Lion King's 94 million bucks in this re-release, but then, whatever it does make is essentially free money to Disney, so good on them for milking the cow before it dies.

	1. Beauty and the Beast The latest in Disney's assault on our collective childhoods comes as Beauty and the Beast comes back to theaters in 3D. As one of their first traditionally-animated films to benefit from computer aids (in the ballroom dancing scene especially, apparently), I guess...I don't really have a point I want to make here. It's a charming film, so enjoy it, if you're into such things.
	2. Contraband This is a remake of a Icelandic film from 2008. No reason to point that out except that it seems rather germane. Oddly enough, the remake is being directed by one of the stars of the original film, even though he didn't actually direct the original. So maybe next up Marky Mark can direct the next remake, in the language of Boston.
	3. Joyful Noise This is getting surprisingly better reviews than I would've anticipated, given the horrible trailer that came out for it. A 40% Rotten Tomatoes meter isn't going to get you laid, but it's still better than the teens I would've predicted it for.
	4. Don't Go in the Woods Vincent D'Onofrio directed and wrote the story for this movie about an indie band going into the woods to write new songs, only to find themselves tormented by a killer. Has a trip into the woods ever worked out for anyone in any movie, ever? This is only playing on a couple of screens, so you probably won't be able to find out this weekend.
	5. Loosies I don't know that any of the Cullens from the Twilight movies will ever wind up doing anything better than they're doing now, but at least the Dad Cullen is writing and starring in his own movies, even if this one is debuting on a single screen and seems unlikely to branch out much further.
	6. The Iron Lady After My Week With Marilyn, I think I'm a little famous-lady-biopic'ed out at the moment, and for a theoretical Oscar contender, you'd think this would at least get a "fresh" RT rating. I guess it's more about Meryl Streep gunning for another Oscar than it is being a fantastic movie, though, or at least that's what I've heard. This opened a week or two ago, but is expanding to around 800 screens this weekend.

Going to take my mother out to see Beauty and the Beast even though she's owns it on DVD already. It's a great movie even if it's going to be in 3D.

If you like it brutal, The Divide opened in limited release today as well.

That Marky Mark movie looks like an ok movie to rent.

My parents saw Contraband on Wednesday through a big promotional thing, and they said it was a good film (and they said it in a "this film is competent" sort of tone)

You guys, Joyful Noise was hilarious. I don't know if it was intentional, but I laughed the entire way through.

@PatVB said:

You guys, Joyful Noise was hilarious. I don't know if it was intentional, but I laughed the entire way through.

Ok, this is just more proof after my "Bump it?" topic that you're a woman (and a grandmother at that). Don't refute it this time!

You would be surprised at how many of my aunts and female friends think Joyful Noise looks fun and funny....i never got what they were smoking

@wrecks said:

If you like it brutal, The Divide opened in limited release today as well.

Should I watch this to see Peter Petrelli degrade in appearance over the course of the film?

The make-up artists must have had a lot of fun.

@wrecks said:

If you like it brutal, The Divide opened in limited release today as well.

Hmm, I didn't see that on my release list. I'll see if I can find it. The Rotten Tomatoes meter is really low for it, but the Aint It Cool guys seemed to like it.

Iron Lady is trash. Don't waste your time.

@Rorie: 14% critics 76% audience. That's a pretty big assed gap.