Also opening in moderate release is the family mystery movie Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour (Freestyle), but with no star power or marketing, this one is likely to be joining the list of fall bombs that are given too wide a release and end up outside the Top 10, this one with under a million.

Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3D (Walt Disney) will reopen in roughly 500 theatres where it should gross around $3 million, maybe a little more, and after earning nearly $4 million in limited release, Sean Penn's adventure Into the Wild (Paramount Vantage), starring Emile Hirsch, is slated to expand wide this weekend. Although it might be hurt by the number of competing dramas opening this weekend, there's a good chance it can end up in the top 10 if it adds more than 500 theatres. Likewise, if Julie Taymor's Across the Universe continues to expand, it might hold its position at the bottom of the Top 10, although this weekend is a bit of a mess with way too many movies. No news there.

Apparently a late addition to the weekend, Promenade Pictures is set to release the first in their animated series "The Epic Stories of the Bible", The Ten Commandments featuring the voices of Alfred Molina and Christian Slater, into 830 theatres, and if it's getting any kind of support among the church community, it could make $2 to 3 million itself, maybe falling just outside the Top 10.

On top of all that, the Peter Hedges romantic dramedy Dan in Real Life (Touchstone), starring Steve Carell and Juliet Binoche, will get sneak previews in 400 theatres on Saturday night.

This Week's Predictions -

1. 30 Days of Night (Sony) - $20.7 million N/A

2. Why Did I Get Married? (Lionsgate) - $10.8 million -49%

3. The Comebacks (Fox Atomic) - $9.2 million N/A

4. Rendition (New Line) - $8.5 million N/A

5. The Game Plan (Disney) - $7.2 million -33%

6. Gone Baby Gone (Miramax) - $6.8 million N/A

7. Michael Clayton (Warner Bros.) – $6.0 million -43%

8. We Own the Night (Sony) - $5.8 million - 46%

9. The Heartbreak Kid (DreamWorks) - $3.9 million -45%

10. Things We Lost in the Fire (DreamWorks) - $3.6 million N/A

11. Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Universal) - $3.5 million -44%

12. Across the Universe (Sony) - $3.4 million -11%

Last year, Christopher Nolan's period thriller The Prestige, pitting Christian Bale against Hugh Jackman, opened at the top of the heap with $14.8 million. Clint Eastwood's WWII drama Flags of Our Fathers (DreamWorks) didn't do nearly as well as expected, grossing less than $11 million in its moderate release, while the Fox update of the horse drama Flicka grossed a weak $7.7 million despite opening in 600 more theatres than The Prestige. (This could be a sign of how The Comebacks may fare.) Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette opened in 8th place with $5.4 million in roughly 800 theatres. With the top 10 making less than $82 million, there's a good chance that this weekend's offerings might show the first weekend-to-weekend increase of the month, especially if 30 Days of Night does as well or better than expected.

30 Days of Night (Sony/Ghost House Pictures)
Starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster, Mark Boone Junior
Directed by David Slade (Hard Candy); Written by Steve Niles (original creator of the comic book), Stuart Beattie (Derailed, Collateral), Brian Nelson (Hard Candy)
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Action, Graphic Novel
Rated R
Plot Summary: Every year, the town of Barrow, Alaska experiences a month without sunlight, and this year, a band of savage vampires show up to feed on everyone, forcing the town's sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett), his estranged wife Stella (Melissa George) and the townspeople to fight back.

Interview with David Slade

Review

Since it's October, it must mean it's time for some horror movies and surprisingly, this new one from Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures is the first one released this month, giving it a strong chance at seeing some of the success of their 2003 horror movie The Grudge. Raimi hand-picked David Slade, the director of last year's overlooked thriller Hard Candy, to helm this adaptation of the best-selling comic series from Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, and it stars Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, the former being the bigger draw in terms of having a box office record, though his last movie Resurrecting the Champ with Samuel L. Jackson tanked, and other movies like Lucky Number Slevin and Wicker Park only made around $7 million their opening weekends. George has a bit more experience in the horror genre, having starred in the hit remake of The Amityville Horror three years ago and in the less successful torture porn flick Turistas last year, but she still doesn't have much clout. The duo are joined by eccentric character actor Ben Foster, who's been making waves with his roles in Alpha Dog and 3:10 to Yuma, and Danny Huston, son of the late great Jon Huston, who appeared in movies like The Constant Gardener and Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, though this role is more along the lines of his part in the Nick Cave penned Aussie Western The Proposition.

Although Slade has a decent cast, the movie will probably be marketed more on the fact that it's a gory vampire movie, a genre that has done very well going back to the original Dracula movie, through Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 remake and the movies based on Anne Rice's bestselling novels, Interview with the Vampire starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and the less successful follow-up Queen of the Damned. Since then, vampires have mainly been seen in action franchises like the "Blade" movies and the two "Underworld" flicks, both which proved that there's a strong audience for violent and gory vampire movies. 30 Days is darker and more set in the real world ala Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later in that it tries to reinvent the genre a bit, something which could prove to be a strong selling point.

In that sense, the ads for the movie have been simple and effective, proclaiming the movie as a new vision of vampires, but more importantly, the ads are playing up the graphic novel angle as well in hopes that it will interest moviegoers in the same way that Zack Snyder's 300 did earlier this year. Considering the fanaticism for the vampire genre despite the lack of quality material in recent years and the huge fanbase for the comic book, this should be an easy home run, and the R-rating shouldn't be too detrimental, as it didn't hurt the harder sells of Constantine and V For Vendetta. Then again, the R-rating might keep it from doing the level of business as The Grudge, which was greatly helped by its PG-13 rating, and it will probably skew more male than the normal vampire movie, being more of a violent action movie than the glamorous and romantic vampires that tend to attract women.

Why I Should See It: If you like vampires, this offers some savage bloodthirsty ones like you've never seen before.
Why Not: They might be too unconventional for those looking for vampires along the lines of any of the Draculas over the years.
Projections: $19 to 22 million opening weekend and $55 million total

COMPARISONS

The Comebacks (Fox Atomic)
Starring David Koechner, Carl Weathers, Matthew Lawrence, Brooke Nevin, Jackie Long, Jesse Garcia
Directed by Tom Brady (The Hot Chick, upcoming Welcome Back Kotter); Written by Ed Yeager (writer of "Roseanne", "Dharma & Greg", "Still Standing"), Joey Guttierez (writer "Still Standing")
Genre: Sports, Comedy
Rated PG-13
Tagline: "Keep your eye on the ball."
Plot Summary: A spoof movie of inspirational sports dramas. What more do you need to know?

Even though October started off with a major comedy bomb, Fox Atomic is trying again with a formula that has worked well for their bigger brother who found minor success spoofing romantic comedies with 2006's Date Movie and fantasy blockbusters with this year's Epic Movie. This movie sets its target on sports dramas and comedies, a genre that should be fairly easy to spoof, because they're so filled with cliches and obvious jokes, but the big difference is that this movie is being released by the yet-to-prove-itself genre imprint Fox Atomic. The choice of subject matter might keep this from doing the numbers of the Scary Movies which tend to pick well-known blockbusters. Sports movies have a spottier history at the box office, especially among the teens who might not have seen any of the movies being spoofed (like Radio). Still, the success of spoof movies is more based on dumb physical comedy than intelligent jokes, and they're surprisingly easy to make on the cheap, especially when you cast people like David Koechner (Anchorman) and Carl Weathers (Predator and the "Rocky" movies) who will work cheap and/or do anything for money. The cast isn't particularly appealing, but it won't really matter, because the film's PG-13 rating will make this an easy choice for the teen audience, something that greatly helped the Scary Movies when they switched to the lower rating with the last two movies. (And of course, any 13 to 15 year olds who want to see the R-rated vampire movie could in theory buy tickets to this and then sneak into 30 Days.)

Like Date Movie and Epic Movie, this hasn't been screened for critics, but it will be relying on those younger audiences looking for comedy this weekend, and they'll likely know some of the original source material being spoofed like Dodgeball. The commercials make this look even dumber than other recent spoof movies, if that's humanly possible, though there's obviously an audience for this sort of thing, even if not calling it "Sports Movie" might prove to be the biggest mistake in marketing.

Why I Should See It: There's a lot of things worth making fun of in one of the most cliché-driven genres of moviemaking, the sports drama.
Why Not: But who says that the people who made The Comebacks are the ones to do it? Early word is that this one is even dumber than Epic Movie.
Projections: $8 to 10 million opening weekend and $23 million total

COMPARISONS

Rendition (New Line)
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Alan Arkin, Peter Saarsgard, Meryl Streep
Directed by Gavin Hood (Tsotsi); Written by Kelley Sane
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "What if someone you love… just disappeared?"
Plot Summary: Isabel El-Ibrahimi (Reese Witherspoon) doesn't know what to do when her Egyptian husband Anwar (Omar Metwally) mysteriously disappears from his return flight home, not knowing that he's been taken by a CIA operative (Jake Gyllenhaal) who thinks that Anwar had something to do with the suicide bombing that killed his partner.

Interview with Gavin Hood

Interview with Screenwriter Kelley Sane (Coming Soon!)

My Thoughts from TIFF

"Rendition" is one of the weekend's anomalies, since it's not exactly what it might seem to be. It looks like a traditional missing persons thriller ala Gone Baby Gone (see below), but in fact, it's a politically-charged film ripped from today's headlines that will be relying heavily on its star power to win over audiences who seem uninterested in films based on the real world events, if the poor showing for Peter Berg's The Kingdom has anything to prove. It's helmed by Gavin Hood, the director of the Oscar-winning South African drama Tsotsi, and he's working with an amazing all-star cast including Reese Witherspoon, appearing in her first drama since winning the Oscar for the musical biopic Walk the Line and Jake Gyllenhaal, who continues his run of strong dramas after starring in the Oscar-nominated Brokeback Mountain and critically-acclaimed films like Sam Mendes' Jarhead in '05 and David Fincher's Zodiac earlier this year. The cast also includes Alan Arkin, straight after his Oscar win, the always great Peter Sarsgaard who has appeared in popular thrillers like Flightplan and The Skeleton Key, and an actress you may have heard of, maybe from her record for Oscar-nominated performances, Meryl Streep. Oddly, they've only started mentioning this cast in recent commercials compared to early ones which only gave glimpses of Witherspoon and Gyllenhaal, although this isn't the type of movie or role that might normally appeal to fans of Witherspoon's "Legally Blonde" or her hit rom-com Sweet Home Alabama. On the other hand, having such a strong cast will allow for New Line to have the stars doing the talk show rounds that can only help awareness.

As mentioned above, New Line has been marketing the movie by playing down the movie's world politics and making it look more like an intelligent missing persons thriller, although the type of older moviegoers that might be interested in this movie would probably be smart enough to do a bit of research about the movie before choosing to see it. The killer for the movie might end up being the title because very few people will know what a "rendition" is and it's not the type of title that immediately screams out "See this movie!" when someone sees it in a newspaper ad or on the ticket office billboard. It really will be a movie that people will have to choose to go out and see and it's the type of movie that tends to do better when it opens in limited release and then expands based on word-of-mouth. Presumably, New Line doesn't think that the word-of-mouth will be strong enough to warrant that sort of release and expansion.

Why I Should See It: Gavin Hood, Kelley Sane and their cast take an intriguing look at the world of government politics and intrigue dealing with real-world terror that's ripped straight from the headlines.
Why Not: Who wants to have politics shoved down their throat when they go to the movies?
Projections: $7 to 9 million opening weekend and $25 million total.

COMPARISONS

Gone Baby Gone (Miramax)
Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris
Directed by Ben Affleck (debut); Written by Ben Affleck, Aaron Stockard
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "Everyone Wants the Truth… Until They Find It."
Plot Summary: Private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Genarro (Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan) are hired to investigate the case of a little girl who has disappeared, forcing the two to risk everything in order to find the truth behind her disappearance and why the police investigating the case don't seem to be telling them the whole truth.

Mini-Review: A powerful filmmaking debut from Ben Affleck, who does a fantastic job bringing realism to the Boston setting which he knows so well, and making it abundantly clear how truly forced Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River" really was. There are a few similar themes in this adaptation of Lehane's fourth book about the private detective couple from Boston, and though there's a danger at times of it turning into a big screen version of "Law & Order: SVU" or even worse "Hart to Hart," there are enough unexpected twists and red herrings to keep people on the edge of their seats while trying to guess what happens next. More importantly, it offers a fascinating examination into the grey area between right and wrong with a number of strong performances, particularly from the younger Affleck, who doesn't seem tough enough to be credible as someone who might originally have come from the tougher side of Boston at first, but over the course of the story, delivers a stirring well-rounded performance. Likewise, Ed Harris is typically terrific as a complex corrupted police officer and Amy Ryan gives a breakthrough performance as the drug-addicted mother of the missing child. The obscenity-laced script by Affleck and high school buddy Aaron Stockard offers the realistic edgy dialogue one would expect from the characters, and it keeps things entertaining. While the ending might leave one with too many mixed messages, it also allows for plenty of healthy discussion on Lehane's themes. Plenty of experienced filmmakers could have done far worse with the subject matter, but this riveting thriller may prove to be one of the most surprising debuts in a lucrative new filmmking career for Ben Affleck. Rating: 8/10

Ben Affleck's career as an actor might have hit a downturn a few years ago, but now he's putting on a new hat, directing his first feature film, an ambitious movie based on the novel by Denis Lehane, who also wrote "Mystic River," which Clint Eastwood turned into an Oscar-nominated film four years ago. This one is based on the characters of Patrick Kenzie and Angie Genarro, a pair of private detectives who have become a couple by the fourth book in the series, on which this is based. For his debut set in his Boston hometown, Ben Affleck brought his younger brother Casey along for the ride to star as Kenzie in the movie that's released less than a month after the younger Affleck's critical raves for his starring role opposite Brad Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The movie hasn't done that much business in limited release, and the only success Casey has had was starring opposite Scott Caan as the Malloy Brothers in Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean" movies. This time, he teams with the beautiful and talented Michelle Monaghan who has had equally dismal success at the box office with movies like Shane Black's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and Ben Stiller's recent comedy bomb The Heartbreak Kid. Fortunately, they're joined by Morgan Freeman, who's usually a strong box office draw though somewhat erratic (as seen with the recent flop Feast of Love) and Ed Harris, who has given solid supporting performances in many great movies including Apollo 13, The Truman Show and David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. The real focus of the movie will be on the Affleck boys, especially Ben's amazing comeback following his performance in last year's Hollywoodland, which was sorely neglected at Oscar season. (Ironically, Affleck won an acting award at the Venice Film Festival, but this year, his younger brother was overlooked when the same award was given to Brad Pitt for his role in Assassination.) Ben's return to form is a big story in the media to the point where the New York Times gave the movie a featured article this past Sunday, which will certainly help the movie gain more interest among older moviegoers.

This is the first movie from Miramax this year to open in wide release without platforming first—the last one being 2006's The Night Listener which only made $8 million—and one might question whether they're able to open a movie like this without having the marketing experience of the Weinsteins era of Miramax. They'll be giving this a moderate release but their choice of dates might pose problems, because it will be facing tough competition in Rendition and the other dramas of the weekend. It's likely that this will skew younger and will give the New Line thriller a run for its money with a stronger premise and stronger reviews across the board.

Why I Should See It: It should be interesting to see what the Affleck Brothers do while collaborating on this type of thriller.
Why Not: It looks a bit too much like something we've seen many times before.
Projections: $6 to 8 million opening weekend and $22 million total.

COMPARISONS

Things We Lost in the Fire (DreamWorks/Paramount) is this week's CHOSEN ONE and is listed below.

Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour (Freestyle Releasing)
Starring Rissa Walters
Directed by Lisa Comrie (debut); Written by John and Lisa Comrie
Genre: Family, Mystery, Thriller
Rated PG
Tagline: "What will happen between midnight and 1AM?" (I don't know about Sarah Landon, but I'll be sleeping.)
Plot Summary: In the small town of Pine Valley, a 17-year-old girl has mysterious encounters with the paranormal.

Just a week after the Yari Group had a major bomb with their family-friendly baseball drama The Final Season, Freestyle Releasing is getting into the game with their second wide release in the past two months following the Korean monster movie Dragon Wars, which grossed an impressive $10.8 million. This fantasy mystery which threatens to be the "first in a series" of "Sarah Landon Mysteries", looks to be an update on the Nancy Drew Mysteries blended with a bit of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", set within a girl-friendly atmosphere. Starring as the title character is newcomer Rissa Walters, and no, I have no idea who she is either. Who knows if the movie is any good but without very much money to promote it and no sellable cast, it's probably going to suffer the same fate as other recent movies that have been released far too wide way too fast. After all, this isn't a character from a book or TV show or something that already has a built-in audience. All it has are a bunch of ads claiming it as "the perfect Halloween movie" except that it's going to have to try to stay in theatres long enough to be seen on Halloween, which is hard when it's being distributed independently since theatres won't want to waste screens on a movie that's not bringing in business. Otherwise, it doesn't really have much to bring in its intended audience of young girls, because there's nothing in the ads that might make it appealing and there just isn't very much information about this movie out there, which means awareness is minimal.

Why I Should See It: Curiosity about the enigmatic title?
Why Not: Because most people who haven't read this column (and that's a LOT of people) won't know a thing about this movie's existence.
Projections: Less than a million opening weekend but it could make close to $3 million total if it's able to stick around until Halloween.

THE CHOSEN ONE:

Things We Lost in the Fire (DreamWorks/Paramount)
Starring Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny, Alison Lohman
Directed by Susanne Bier (Brothers, Open Hearts, After the Wedding); Written by Allan Loeb (debut)
Genre: Drama
Rated R
Tagline: "Hope comes with letting go."
Plot Summary: After the death of her husband (David Duchovny) in a tragic accident, Audrey Burke (Halle Berry) looks for her husband's childhood friend Jerry (Benicio Del Toro) and has him stay at their house so that she can help Jerry overcome the heroin addiction that's destroyed his life.

Being a rare "Chosen One" in wide release, we'll do our normal analysis for its box office prospects, but sadly, me loving this movie and picking it as my "Chosen One" doesn't mean that the world will feel the same way. Check out Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain" last year for proof of that. This is the first American studio movie made by Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, the woman behind intense dramas like Open Hearts and the recent Oscar-nominated After the Wedding, both starring Mads Mikkelsen from Casino Royale. For this one, she has a cast to die for in Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro, both young Oscar winners. Berry is making her first straight drama since winning her Oscar for Monster's Ball and Del Toro returns to the genre after having been nominated for his role in Alejandro González Innaritu's second movie 21 Grams, which came just three years after winning an Oscar for Steven Soderbergh's Traffic. Those who've already seen the film might feel that Del Toro is due for a third Oscar nomination for his role as a down-on-his-luck drug addict who must cope with the loss of his best and only friend. Personally, I feel that Halle Berry also gives the best performance of her career, even better than the one that got her the Oscar in Monster's Ball, although her career has hit a bit of a down-turn since then with poor choices like Catwoman and this year's thriller flop Perfect Stranger. Even so, if there is Oscar and awards consideration for the movie, it's not likely to come until well after it's out of theatres.

This kind of movie would normally be opened in limited release ala this week's Reservation Road (see below) and then expand wider once it finds an audience, but DreamWorks is trying to open it moderately wide release (1,000 theatres) right off the bat, which doesn't give it much of a chance to build its audience from word-of-mouth. It's very much the underdog of the weekend in that sense, because it's likely to get good reviews but people might be put off by the subject matter and its rather esoteric title. It doesn't help that it's going up against far stronger dramas across the board, and with that in mind, this will be making a play for the bottom of the Top 10.

Why I Should See It:

Because Things We Lost in the Fire is also this week's Chosen One, I'll expand upon this beyond the normal sentence, although I do want to save some stuff for my upcoming dual review with Reservation Road (which I'm very late on writing). This highly dramatic American debut from Susanne Bier really pulls you in because Bier tends to go for realism in the portrayal of real people experiencing true tragedy rather than something that feels forced or staged. She certainly has managed to get two amazing performances from Benicio Del Toro and Halle Berry, not too surprising for Del Toro, but Berry proves with this that she was worthy of her Oscar for Monster's Ball, though again, she's better in this. Movies about those getting over the loss of a loved one aren't too uncommon, but Jerry's drug addiction brings a new layer to the storytelling in a similar way to last year's overlooked Sherrybaby or Half Nelson, but sadly, movies about drug addiction tend to be hard sells and the people who might truly appreciate or respect it won't find it until it's released on DVD or if it does get awards nominations in December and January.

Why Not: A heavy drama about loss and addiction won't be everyone's cup of tea.
Projections: $3 to 5 million opening weekend; $15 million total.

COMPARISONS

Movies in Limited Release:

O Jerusalem (Samuel Goldwyn Films) - A drama set amidst the struggle surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948 centering around two friends, one Jewish and one Arab, and based on historical accounts of the war over Jerusalem in Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre's novel. It opens in New York on Wednesday.

Black White + Gray - James Crump's documentary that looks at the relationship between the mostly unknown art curator and collector Sam Wagstaff and the controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe opens at the Cinema Village in New York.

Meeting Resistance (Big Picture Group) - This documentary looks at the insurgency in Iraq from a different angle than the recent "No End in Sight" by interviewing Iraqis who are a part of the struggle. It opens in New York at the Cinema Village and in Washington, DC.

Out of the Blue (IFC First Take) - Robert Sarkies' drama based on the New Zealand rampage by unemployed gun collector Robert Gray that killed 13 people over the course of two days in 1990.

Reservation Road (Focus Features) - Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly and Mira Sorvino stars in Terry (Hotel Rwanda) George's adaptation of John Burnham Schwartz's novel about two families dealing with the hit and run death of a boy. Phoenix plays Ethan, whose son was accidentally killed by Ruffalo's Dwight, who drives off and tries to deny the accident despite the many connections between the two families. It will open in select cities this weekend.
Interview with Mark Ruffalo

My Dual Review with "Things We Lost in the Fire" (Coming Soon!)

Klimt (Outsider Pictures) - Actor John Malkovich takes on the role of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt in filmmaker Raoul Ruiz's drama about the artist best known for the art nouveau movement of the late 19th Century.

Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3D (Walt Disney) - The Disney Digital 3D version of Tim Burton's classic stop motion animation is re-released in the weeks leading up to Halloween in order to try to replicate the success it had last year, except this year, there's over 500 theatres equipped to show the film, so it should be seen by a larger audience.

Wristcutters: A Love Story (Autonomous Films/After Dark) - Goran Dukic's dark indie dramedy based on Etgar Keret's short story "Kneller's Happy Campers" stars Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) as Zia, a young man who slashes his wrists and winds up in a bizarre after-life reserved for suicides. There, he falls for the beautiful Mikal (Shannyn Sossamon), who has gotten there by accident, and they go on a road trip, him to find his ex-girlfriend, her to try to get back to the living world. After winning a number of awards at various festivals, it opens in select cities.

Mini-Review: To say that this low-fi indie movie is strange would be doing a disservice to quirky movies that thrive on their strangeness, rather than just being strange for the sake of spicing things up. It's too bad, because this dark comedy about suicide starts out with an interesting premise but quickly squanders as it turns into an oddball road movie that's fairly common with the exception maybe of the black hole living in the car's floorboards. Things get even stranger when Tom Waits shows up as Kneller, the leader of a strange cult rebelling against Will Arnett's pseudo-evangelist king, but there aren't many surprises as it gets into the crux of the story following Zia's quest to find his ex-girlfriend who killed herself after learning about his suicide. It's pretty obvious that he'll ultimately fall for Mikal while helping her to find whoever's in charge because she claims to be there by mistake. Otherwise, this dark comedy tends to be marred by weak writing and over-acting and even the obvious nod to Gogol Bordello singer Eugene Hutz, bolstered by healthy doses of the band's music, fails to enervate this generally silly and nonsensical film that offers very little long-term satisfaction. Rating: 6/10

Next week, the month of October closes as it does every year with another "Saw" movie appropriately called Saw IV (Lionsgate) and Steve Carell stars in the romantic dramedy Dan in Real LIfe (Touchstone Pictures).