The holidays are over and a new year is upon us.  Gifts have been opened, marveled at, and promptly forgotten about.  Resolutions have been considered, announced and also promptly forgotten about.  And, we've got a long 2011 laying out in front of us.  But fear not, after a much-needed holiday hiatus, This Rotten Week is here to set you straight on all the new movies while educating you on all things Tomatometer. 

This is a slow week with only Nicholas Cage heading back to 14th century England to battle a witch.  Let's take a look at what This Rotten Week has to offer.

Season of the Witch It appears Nicholas Cage has a mild case of  Kevin-Costner-itis.  This affliction is given to those actors who outright refuse to take on any kind of accent even though they are starring in a film which takes place somewhere it seems people should speak in a very different way.  In this case, Cage uses his Ghost Rider voice for a movie set in 14th century Europe.  This is especially odd for Cage, considering he handled one of the all-time worst movie accents in his portrayal of Cameron Poe for Con Air.  Actually, maybe he just learned his lesson.  It's better to stick with the Cage-voice come hell or high water. Nic's newest flick has him as a knight returning from the Crusades (grew his hair out for believability, I suppose) tasked with transporting a witch to someplace in order to kill her, I guess.   Not really sure about that part of it, which I'm fine with because we're all probably better off not knowing about this idiotic mess.   This mess is brought to us by director Dominic Sena.  Sena's critical track record reads much like the dialogue in Season of the Witch's trailer: painful.  He's got Whiteout (7%), Swordfish (26%) and Gone in Sixty Seconds (25%). That I found two out of those three flicks, fun if not stupid, is besides the point.  His newest is sure to scrape the bottom of the critical barrel right along with everything else he's done.  The Rotten Watch for Season of the Witch is 21%.

Poll Where do you think Season of the Witch will score on the Tomatometer? 85 - 100% 66 - 85% 46 - 65% 31 - 45% 16 - 30% 0 - 15%   Results

Recapping a few weeks ago:

The sweet smell of the holidays wasn't enough to hide the stink emanating from some predictions I made prior to our holiday break.  True Grit (Predicted 92%, Actual 95%) was fine but I had a head start on that one, so no self-congratulations there.  Gulliver's Travels (Predicted 46%, Actual 22%) and Little Fockers (Predicted 36% Actual 10%) were off for the simple fact that I've been shy about going extremely low with predictions as of late, even when the film obviously deserved it.  Call it a case of  PTSD:  Piranha 3D Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  Won't be making that mistake in 2011.  If it looks bad (see movie above), the Rotten Watch prediction will reflect it. 

Next week, Seth Rogan straps on a superhero mask, Vince Vaughn catches a cheater, and a bunch of doctors take a look inside their own hearts. It's going to be a Rotten Week!