9/30 – 10/2 It’ll be an interesting weekend at the box office, pretty much all about Serenity. Unless people choose to hit themselves in the head with Paul Walker, Serenity should be an easy pick to nail number one. But how much interest is there for it out there really? Taking the number one spot with only $16 million is still a failure for a movie like this. Can Serenity pull in the kind of broad audience necessary to kick off a new Star Trek-like franchise? The potential is there, but read on to see if you should support it.

Here’s my usual look at what’s opening in theaters nationwide this weekend:

Sneak Preview (Previewing in 500+ theaters.)
In Her Shoes is sneak previewing again. They ran it around in theaters for a single showing last weekend to try and drum up support for Cameron Diaz’s new bag lady image, and now they’re shoving it out there for another run in 500 theaters, for a single showing on Saturday. At what point does it stop being a sneak preview and simply become a weekly engagement? If you avoided seeing this last weekend, good luck doing so again. Men, don’t let your wives get wind of this.

Expanding Nationwide
Several single theater Indies are expanding this week… but only into a dozen theaters. I’m not sure that counts as an expansion. The real expanders this weekend are Polanski’s Oliver Twist and Cronenberg’s A History of Violence. Violence is an interesting movie, but one I found ultimately flawed. It’s widening out into a 1,340 theater release, which means it ought to be easily available to just about anyone and everyone. Polanki’s Twist is pulling into a 779 theater release, so if you aren’t satisfied with the other two-dozen times this material has already been adapted, I guess you can have another go at it. I don’t really know why you would.

Misc. Limited Releases (Opening in fewer than 500 theaters.)
The weird, disturbed, and possibly touching telling of the life of Truman Capote arrives for the first time this Friday in a meager 12 theaters. Capote is getting phenomenal buzz, due in no small part to the typically brilliant work of Philip Seymour Hoffman. But the limited release I’m most excited about, and the one I’ll be fighting my way into downtown Dallas to see, is the Jim Henson Company flick MirrorMask. It hasn’t exactly gotten raves so far, but Henson Company is like crack to me. This was to be their first attempt at doing slightly more adult, more artsy filmmaking. Though it sounds like they’ve already given up and plan to go right back to being family friendly with a Fraggle movie, it’ll be interesting to see exactly what they’ve come up with in this surreal, alternate-reality story.

The Greatest Game Ever Played (Opens in 1,014 theaters.)
I saw this well over a month ago, and very shortly afterwards realized I’d wasted two hours of my time. Not because the movie is horrible, it’s just mildly bad, but because there’s absolutely no interest in it. My review of The Greatest Game may go down as my most unread review of the year. No one cares, and I can’t say I really blame them. Shia LaBeauf, talented though he may be, is no star and this film looks every bit as boring and bland as it actually is. In fact, you’ve probably never even heard of it. You’re not missing anything. It’s a great movie if you’re looking for something to take your eighty-year-old grandparents to. Otherwise, consider watching the drying of paint. After the greatness of Frailty Bill Paxton briefly fooled a few of us into thinking he had directorial talent. We were wrong. He doesn’t.

Into the Blue (Opens in 2,789 theaters.)
If you intentionally see a movie starring both Paul Walker and Jessica Alba, you know what you’re getting into. Great eye-candy, horrible, brain-dead acting. Into the Blue is from the director of Blue Crush, an incredibly gorgeous movie about surfing. Into the Blue has just as much beauty, but offsets that by being a little bit more stupid. Dumber than a movie about hot-chicks surfing? Yep, pretty much. Walker and Alba play incredibly hot treasure hunters diving into beautiful blue water and then stopping to have meaningful conversations where they overuse the word “bro”. If you see it, I forgive you. It really does look gorgeous. Consider bringing some ear-plugs in with you though, ok?

Serenity (Opens in 2,188 theaters.)
In case you hadn’t noticed from the dozens of ads screaming it at you as if it’s some sort of badge of honor, Serenity is from the fanboy’s new messiah, writer/director Joss Whedon… who also gave us Alien Resurrection (It was an accident! I swear!) and that television show “Buffy” which some people like, and some people don’t. Don’t let Joss’s rabid, overly serious, seriously obsessed fans turn you off from seeing it. You’ll be missing out on something special. Joss is, and always has been a fairly talented writer, though some of his work has been just… well… silly. But think of this as his coming out party, only less phallic. Everyone’s saying it, and it’s absolutely true. Serenity's crew is the heir apparent to Han Solo and the crew of the Millennium Falcon. It’s a great piece of science fiction work, old fashioned filmmaking in an exciting new package. Give it a chance. It’s one of the best movies of the year.


STILL IN THEATERS AND WORTH YOUR TIME: The 40-Year Old Virgin, Just Like Heaven, Lord of War