(If you have anything to say about anything written in this column, feedback and Email is always welcome, and almost always responded to.)

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THE BATTLE CRY!

I’ve decided not to trust critics anymore. No, this isn’t my New Year’s Resolution, just something I’ve decided after being burnt one too many times. The reason I’ve come to this decision was that I became interested in the 1969 Jean-Pierre Melville film Army of Shadows, which finally received a U.S. theatrical release last year, after many New York critics raved about the movie. Since I missed the press screenings of it earlier in the year, I was excited to hear that the Film Forum in New York was giving it another limited run. I went there last Wednesday, shelled out my $10 plus (something I rarely do these days), and sat there waiting for it to start as I looked over the latest edition of New York’s weekly paper, the Village Voice, where no less than four of their critics made it their #1 choice for the year.

The movie, to say the least, was underwhelming. I have nothing against French films or old films, but it was long, slow, boring and kind of confusing. Really, it was like The Good Shepherd, only in French. Sure, the movie looked beautiful and it had some great moments, but I didn’t even stick around to the end… um… because I had to get to the press screening of Code Name: The Cleaner of all things, and after two hours of tedium, I was more excited for some dumb humor.

The funny thing is that before I started writing about movies, I never or hardly ever read reviews. I just didn’t have any interest in them, nor did I need to know that much about a movie before making my decision to go see it or not. As I’ve worked “in the biz” and started writing my own reviews, I’ve gotten more into reading reviews by others (after I’ve seen a movie myself) in order to try to improve my own critical writing. There have more than a few times where I’ve vehemently disagreed with the majority of critics, and more than that where moviegoers vehemently disagreed with me.

Not that critics aren’t wonderful people or anything. Some of my best friends are critics, and I can think of at least one or two who I’d sleep with, if given the chance. (That is, if I wasn’t too nervous about my performance being over-analyzed.) It does put me in a strange position, since I’m part of a prominent local online critics group, and I generally like critics as people. They’re an intelligent breed, for the most part, and they share one of my main interests i.e. quality films, but it’s surprising to me how often I disagree with even some of the critics I consider my closest friends. And yet, I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting what my fellow critics will love or hate, with a better accuracy even than my box office or Oscar predictions, because yes Virginia, even critics are that predictable. It’s a bit disheartening at times knowing that there’s such a collective group think among many of them, in terms of what to push and what to trash. Still, I’m thrilled that the critics group I’m part of is probably one of the more eclectic ones, made up of different ways of thinking and critiquing films.

Then again, critics aren’t completely bad and they do have their uses, like when they recommend some movie you may never have heard of otherwise or when they save you money that could be used to see a better movie. For instance, I personally feel bad for the 400 ­ 500,000 who went to see Code Name: The Cleaner last weekend, rather than Children of Men, but I also wouldn’t have believed the critical raves for the latter if I hadn’t seen it myself beforehand either.

Anyway, I’ve learned with Army of Shadows (and movies like David Lynch’s Inland Empire) that not every person is going to appreciate movies the same way the most snobbish film school graduate critics out there will appreciate them. Frankly, I hope that even those who read my own reviews know to think for themselves and decide to go see the movies they want to see, rather than let anyone tell them what is worthwhile viewing or not.

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THE WEEKEND PREDICTIONS: (Four-day predictions - final update 1.11.07)

TW	LW	Title	Weekend (in millions)	Change	# Of Theaters	Average	Week
1	1	Night at the Museum	$19.0	-21%	3,612	$5,260	4
2	New	Stomp the Yard	$15.5	N/A	2,051	$7,557	1
3	5	Dreamgirls	$11.5	33%	1,907	$6,030	3
4	New	Arthur and the Invisibles	$11.0	N/A	2,247	$4,895	1
5	2	The Pursuit of Happyness	$10.7	-18%	3,169	$3,376	5
6	4	Freedom Writers	$9.8	4%	2,060	$4,757	2
7	3	Children of Men	$8.0	-22%	1,510	$5,298	3
8	New	Primeval	$7.3	N/A	2,444	$2,987	1
9	New	Alpha Dog	$6.5	N/A	1,286	$5,054	1
10	7	Charlotte's Web	$5.5	-18%	2,513	$2,189	5
			Est. Weekend Total $104.80	Est. Avg. Drop-Off -7%		Est. Average PTA $4,310

It’s the long four-day Martin Luther King Jr. weekend with many schools and government officials off work to celebrate the birth of one of the country’s greatest civil rights leaders. Will this be the weekend that Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum gets knocked out of the top spot after three weeks there or will it be the first movie in three years to be #1 for four weeks in a row?

Probably the latter, although Screen Gems’ hopes to replicate the success of their 2004 release You Got Served with Stomp the Yard, another dance movie targeted towards African-American audiences, might have trouble this weekend with competition in the form of Paramount’s expansions of Dreamgirls and Freedom Writers. Being the only new movie in some urban areas, Stomp the Yard stands a good chance at winning on Friday, but will probably be KO’d over the weekend by the unstoppable family film.

The Weinstein Company and MGM release Luc Besson’s Arthur and the Invisibles, starring Freddie (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) Highmore, which should benefit from the lack of school on Monday, but it’s also likely to be splitting business with other family films like Happily N’Ever After and Charlotte’s Web. Being a fresh and cute-looking addition to the market should help it, though it’s not likely to hit the numbers of last year’s Hoodwinked.

There are a couple of potential dogs this weekend, including Touchstone Pictures’ Primeval, which may be hurt by its last minute move to this weekend, while Universal’s crime drama Alpha Dog gets an even more moderate release after over a year of delays. The latter stars Emile Hirsch, Anton Yelchin, Ben Foster and yes, Justin Timberlake, in a true story about the murder of a teen by a group of older boys. Even with the benefits of an extended weekend, it’s likely to wind up outside the Top 10 against the stronger releases in theatres. (UPDATE: Okay, I've flinched on Alpha Dog and believe that there is enough interest to get it into the lower half of the Top 10 as it juggles for position with Primeval.)

Zhang Yimou’s latest martial arts epic Curse of the Golden Flower expands wide into over 1,200 theatres, though it's unlikely to make much of an impact over the holiday weekend, ending up with around $2 million or so.

Last Martin Luther King Jr. weekend had four new movies, three of which made more than $15 million over the four-day weekend with Disney’s basketball drama Glory Road eeking out a win over the Weinstein Company’s animated family film Hoodwinked with Queen Latifah’s Last Holiday pulling in a close third, also with over $15 million. The Ridley and Tony Scott produced epic Tristan & Isolde wound up with just under $8 million and the Top 10 made around $120 million in four days.

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THE CHOSEN ONE(S)

ABDUCTION: THE MEGUMI YOKOTA STORY (Safari Media Films)
Directed by Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim
Genre: Documentary

Only two weeks into the new year and I’m already returning to my doc-lovin’ ways with this from-out-of-nowhere low-key documentary that’s really amazing in the way it covers the search for Megumi Yokota, a 13-year-old girl who was abducted from Japan in 1977, whose parents spent years trying to find out what happened to her. Almost twenty years later, they learn from a North Korean defector that the country had agents kidnapping young men and women in Japan in order to teach the language and culture to spies, and Megumi’s story turns into a huge political issue with her parents on the forefront of the search for what happened to the abducted people. It’s an amazing story, not only due to the perseverance and dedication Megumi’s parents take to find out the truth about their daughter, but also to its fascinating look at the relationship between Japan and North Korea, something we haven’t actually seen much in this country. After the Japanese Prime Minister travels to North Korea to negotiate for the release of the abducted Japanese citizens, the domino effect and fall-out is pretty amazing. The story of Megumi and the other abductees is fairly heartbreaking, particularly with the number of twists in the story, something rarely expected from a documentary, but I’m glad I received a screener of this or else I’d have been bawling my eyes out in front of all those other tough-hearted critics. This is an effective and brilliantly-crafted documentary that is very likely to make it through the year to be in my Top 10. It opens at the Cinema Village in New York on Friday.

GOD GREW TIRED OF US (Newmarket Films)
Directed by Christopher Quinn and Tommy Walker
Genre: Documentary

God Grew Tired of Us is a very different type of documentary from Abduction, following three of the “Lost Boys of Sudan”--John, Daniel and Panther--after being flown to the U.S. by the State Department, and then left to fend for themselves. Just the story of how tens of thousands of young boys walked for thousands of miles to escape war-torn Sudan, only to spend many more years living in a cramped refugee camp in Ethiopia is interesting in itself, but the movie really gets going when three of the boys arrive in America, and we see them adjusting to everyday things that most of us take for granted. After all, they’d never been out of their country, never even used electricity, and suddenly, they’re required to earn a living while still trying to find their families back home. Imagine the amusing charm of “The Gods Must Be Crazy” with more serious underpinnings due to their background of war, death and famine, and you have an intriguing look at a different culture in a way that hasn’t really been seen before. It’s also an interesting look at our own country through the eyes and words of these fascinating young men. It will open in New York and L.A. on Friday, and should open in other cities in the coming months. (Oh, and it’s narrated by Nicole Kidman, if that means anything.)

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ALPHA DOG (Universal)
Starring Ben Foster, Shawn Hatosy, Emile Hirsch, Christopher Marquette, Sharon Stone, Justin Timberlake, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Willis
Written and directed by Nick Cassavetes (director John Q, The Notebook; writer Blow)
Genre: Crime, Drama
Rated R
Tagline: “One crime. 3 days. 38 witnesses.” and “Inspired by a True Story” (ho hum)
Plot Summary: When L.A.’s most ambitious young drug dealer Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch) gets into a feud by his hotheaded double-crossing business partner Jake (Ben Foster), Johnny has his stooges kidnap Jake’s younger brother Zack (Anton Yelchin) and hold him until Jake pays up. Little does anyone how wrong that plan would go.
Of Note: Nick Cassavetes takes on the true story of Jesse James Hollywood--name changed to protect the yet-to-be-charged--with an all-star cast of hot young actors… oh, and Justin Timberlake, too.
REVIEW

Pros: There’s an interesting story behind the making of this true crime story from Nick Cassavetes, son of the late great indie filmmaker John Cassavetes. Having written the screenplay for the 2001 Johnny Depp crime drama Blow, Cassavetes became interested in the story of L.A. drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood, who at 20 years old, became the youngest person to appear on the FBI’s Top 10 most wanted fugitive list for kidnapping and killing the teen brother of a drug client who owed him money. It probably sounded like a good idea for a movie, so Cassavetes hired the case’s Santa Barbara deputy district attorney as a consultant on the movie, except that while he was making the movie, the real Hollywood was found and captured in Brazil, and suddenly, the movie was considered evidence in the case that might affect a juror’s judgment. Jesse James Hollywood’s attorneys have been trying to block the film’s release for over a year now even though it screened at the Sundance Film Festival, and though a federal judge has allowed Universal to release it this weekend, there’s an appeal in effect that might put a stop to it.

Having already directed Denzel Washington’s John Q and the hit romance drama The Notebook, Cassavetes decided to direct this one himself, assembling an impressive cast of young actors including Leonardo DiCaprio stand-in Emile Hirsch as “Johnny Truelove.” Hirsch has yet to star in a movie that has made more than $15 million domestically, and his last movie Lords of Dogtown, which had a similar vibe, only ended up with just over $11 million. To play Jake Mazursky, the guy who feuds with Truelove, Cassavetes hired Ben Foster, best known from his role as Angel in the recent X-Men: The Last Stand, and Anton Yelchin plays his kidnapped brother, though he also hasn’t been in much, his most prominent role being the David Duchovny directed House of D, which didn’t make much. It also stars Christopher Marquette, who co-starred with Hirsch in the 2004 bomb The Girl Next Door and in the 2005 bomb Just Friends (see where this is going yet?) To try to offset the lack of box office draw of the young cast, Cassavetes has the likes of Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone in small parts as parents of the kids, though neither has enough of a role to be included in the trailers or commercials.

The possible good news is that the movie also stars former N’Sync lead singer and pop megastar Justin Timberlake, who is being prominently featured in trailers and commercials rather than Hirsch or any of the others. Since N’Sync went on hiatus in 2001, Timberlake has two multi-platinum records that have been worldwide hits, his first record receiving 2 Grammies, and his most recent record “Future Sex/Love Sounds” being #1 on both UK and US charts and been nominated for 4 Grammys. He obviously has a lot of fans, some who might be interested in seeing how he does as an actor, and they’ll certainly have their chance this year as Timberlake is making the move to full-blown movie star, first with this, and then with a small role in Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan in a few months and providing his voice in what’s likely to be a huge summer hit, Shrek the Third.

Alpha Dog had a bit of buzz after its Sundance screening last year and it’s likely to have some interest due to the ongoing court case of Jesse James Hollywood, but really, that’s old news and most people have moved onto other things since the last time he was mentioned in the news. Universal may have missed their chance to strike while the iron was hot on this one.

Cons: It’s never good when a movie is delayed, and Alpha Dog has been shelved a number of times, mainly due to the ongoing case against Hollywood and the similarities between the movie and the case, which might bias jurors. The movie played at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2006, but now it’s almost a year later, and it’s finally getting a release, and not even into a lot of theatres (roughly 1,200) which shows there isn’t much interest.

None of the young cast have much history in terms of box office and most of them are not likely to be very known. Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone probably won’t be very much interest to the film’s demographic, though both of their parts are so small that they can’t sell the movie based on their appearances. Even Justin Timberlake, who Universal thought would be a good selling point, hasn’t had very much luck with his first movie Edison going straight-to-video and his other film Southland Tales having been delayed for literally years. Timberlake’s former bandmates haven’t had much luck with Lance Bass starring in the stinker On the Line, though Joey Fatone had a bit more success with his next movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Fortunately, Timberlake is cooler and more popular than both of them, but really, does anyone have any interest in seeing more singers trying to act?

The movie’s likely to be targeted towards the older teen males who might be just as apt to see a movie like Children of Men or Stomp the Yard, and the younger females that might be into seeing it for Timberlake or the other cute male actors won’t be as interested in the subject matter, nor will they be able to get into the movie due to the R-Rating. One shouldn’t expect anyone over 25 to be very interested in the movie either.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: Justin Timberlake!!!!! (SCREAM!!!!!)
Why Not: Justin’s not good enough an actor to sell this movie, and though there are quite a few better actors here, the material just isn’t as interesting as it might seem.
Projections: $5 to 7 million (4-day) opening weekend; $15 million total. ARTHUR AND THE INVISIBLES (MGM/The Weinstein Company)
Starring Freddie Highmore, Mia Farrow (voices of) Robert De Niro, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, David Bowie, Harvey Keitel, Anthony Anderson, Chazz Palminteri, Jason Bateman, Jimmy Fallon
Written and directed by Luc Besson (The Professional, La Femme Nikita)
Genre: Animated, Family
Rated PG
Tagline: “Adventures awaits in your own backyard.”
Plot Summary: A young boy named Arthur (Freddie Highmore)
Of Note: Legendary French action filmmaker Luc Besson makes his first family film, half animated and half live-action, with an impressive cast in both parts.
Pros: Luc Besson, the French director behind some of the most violent action-packed movies of the last twenty years (The Professional, La Femme Nikita) suddenly decided to shift gears a few years ago, writing a children’s book while at the same time making a family animated movie based on the characters, using cutting edge computer animation mixed with live action. It’s a very different film for Besson, who at one point announced that it will be his last movie as a director, but it was recently confirmed that two sequels are in the works pointing to thought that the first movie will be a success.

Wisely, Besson hired young Freddie Highmore to play the role of Arthur, the boy having already played Charlie in Tim Burton’s hit family film based on Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, his second film with Johnny Depp after starring with him in the biopic Finding Neverland. Highmore also starred in Two Brothers, another popular family film, so he’ll already be known both to parents and even kids. Highmore is joined by the legendary Mia Farrow playing Arthur’s kindly grandmother, a bit of a change from her role as a killer nurse in last year’s remake of The Omen.

For the animated part of the movie, Besson has assembled an amazing voice cast that includes Madonna, Snoop Dog, Robert De Niro (!), Chaz Palminteri and Harvey Keitel, Jimmy Fallon, Jason Bateman and none other than David Bowie voicing the bad guy, who is almost a throwback to his character in Labyrinth. It’s pretty impressive and definitely a selling point for the movie compared to other animated films, since it’ll get parents interested in seeing it along with their young kids.

Martin Luther King Jr. weekend is a great time to release a family film, as seen by the success of Racing Stripes in 2005 and Disney’s Snow Dogs in 2002, but the most important one to think about came out last year, as the Weinstein Company broke into the computer animated family market with Hoodwinked, which made over $16 million over the four-day weekend using a similar marketing approach as Arthur and the Invisibles, though the latter is closer to the 2005 film Racing Stripes in that it combines live action and computer animation. (Racing Stripes made over $18 million on this holiday weekend.) This is a little bit stranger and it’s going to be geared mainly towards younger kids, but there are plenty of them out there, and most of them will already have tired of Charlotte’s Web and Night at the Museum, both have been playing for four weeks.

The movie is already a minor hit in France having opened a few weeks ago, though as we saw recently with Perfume ­ The Story of a Murderer, that rarely means anything here.

Cons: There’s already a lot of family films in theatres and though Night at the Museum and Charlotte’s Web may be played out, they still seem to be bringing in a lot of repeat business the longer they play. Both of them should get a nice bump from the holiday weekend and the lack of school on Monday.

The Invisibles (called “Minimoys” in Besson’s books) are kind of creepy-looking, like smiley gnomes, and one has to wonder if parents, the ones who will have to be convinced to bring younger kids, will be as enamored by the film’s fantasy-tinged trailer as kids might be. The movie certainly doesn’t seem to be that much funnier than last week’s Happily N’Ever After, and since it’s an original piece, based on a series of books that aren’t as well known here, it doesn’t have the immediate draw of the fairy tale based Hoodwinked.

The movie was given an Oscar consideration run back in December, but it was recently disqualified for the animated category (maybe because so much of it is live action), and early reviews have not been very good (18% on Rotten Tomatoes, yikes!) something that might affect parents’ decision to see this one. It doesn’t help that the very premise of the movie makes it look a bit like The Ant Bully, the recent Tom Hanks’ produced computer-animated movie released over the summer by Warner Bros. that bombed badly.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: The premise and characters are kind of cute.
Why Not: How can anyone possibly tolerate a Luc Besson movie that doesn’t have a few car chases and shootouts? It’s unfathomable!
Projections: $10 to 12 million (four-day) on its way to $35 million total.PRIMEVAL (Disney/Touchstone)
Starring Dominic Purcell, Orlando Jones, Brooke Langton, Jurgen Prochnow
Directed by Michael Katleman (veteran TV director, first feature film); Written by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Catwoman, upcoming: Terminator 4)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: “The hunt begins soon.”
Plot Summary: A news team travels down to Africa to investigate some of the most horrific mass killings only to discover an even more horrific discovery that puts their lives in extreme (you might even say horrific) danger.
Of Note: Dominic Purcell of “Prison Break” stars in this new movie from the writers of Terminator 3 …and Catwoman.
REVIEW

POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING!

Pros: Let’s just get this out of the way… this is a movie about a giant 25-foot alligator eating people in Africa, having gotten the taste for human flesh after feasting on the bodies in a mass Rwandan grave. How cool is that idea? Pretty cool if you ask me, but for whatever reason, Touchstone PIctures is trying to keep the premise of the movie a secret, rather than just letting people know it’s about a 25-foot alligator. Oh, wait. I guess that should be one of the “cons” because more than anything else, that might be what hurts this movie. Just looking at movies like Anaconda and Lake Placid and Deep Blue Sea, there is an audience for movies about giant reptiles, Snakes on a Plane being a strange exception by having more hype and awareness before opening but not getting people into theatres. Disney are trying to be more mysterious with commercials and trailers that make it seem like it’s about a serial killer who has killed hundreds and keeping the premise kind of vague, possibly in hopes of generating interest in a similar fashion as Artisan Films did with The Blair Witch Project.

Then again, the commercials are also keeping it on the down low that the movie stars Dominic Purcell, the star of the popular Fox drama “Prison Break,” something which could interest fans of that show and his previous one, “John Doe.” As we’ve seen way too many times, casting rarely matters when it comes to horror films, and it's really the intriguing commercials and trailers that might get people interested without knowing about Purcell or the film’s antagonist.

Oddly, the last minute hype of non-stop commercials may be having some effect with the online crowd, as Primeval recently appeared in the Yahoo Buzzmeter at #2, which shows that awareness is increasing fairly fast, though Snakes on a Plane was high up there on that list as well.

Another double-edged sword is the rating. Being rated R means that there could be the type of graphic violence and gore that horror fans will expect from this kind of movie, but it also means it won’t be able to bring in the 13 to 16 year old crowd that might go to horror movies as a group, something that’s helped recent PG-13 thrillers.

Cons: The movie’s premise doesn’t look bad, but it’s come from out of nowhere having been moved to this weekend at the last minute, maybe to try to get out before Rogue, the new movie from Wolf Creek’s Greg McLean, also about a killer croc, which was scheduled for next month. Up until the beginning of the year, Primeval was scheduled to come out in April, but then suddenly, Disney decided to get it out before the other movie, which makes you wonder how they think they can raise awareness to the point it needs to be to get already-skeptical horror fans interested. (Ironically, McLean’s film was just taken off Dimension Films’ release schedule, with the presence of the Touchstone movie.)

Dominic Purcell isn’t a known quantity at the box office, and to put it lightly, Orlando Jones is not exactly the mark of quality for a movie. It’s not that the movies starring the former “7-Up Guy” have done badly, except maybe Evolution, but let’s face it, The Time Machine could have been better without him, and really, the only movie he’s been in that hasn’t had problems was the marching band movie Drumline.

The movie isn’t being screened for critics, which usually doesn’t say much about the studio’s confidence in it getting decent reviews. With a movie like this that’s already being dumped, getting bad reviews won’t help. Primeval could end up being a really cool guilty pleasure ala Snakes or it could be a complete mess where the main CGI-generated antagonist looks laughably bad. No one, including critics, will know until they shell out their bucks to see it. Disney took the same approach with last year’s Hollywood Pictures release Stay Alive, which also came from out of nowhere with no commercials or trailer until a few weeks before opening, and yet, it still made nearly $11 million in the same number of theatres (and not over a holiday weekend). Obviously, they know they can get through to the younger crowd with intense marketing, although as mentioned above, this is rated R rather than PG-13.

Also, that's a terrible name for a movie even if it does get the point across.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: Killer Crocs Rule!
Why Not: The way this movie is being dumped into this weekend at the last minute with no screenings for critics, this movie may really be a crock… but of a different kind.
Projections: $6 to 8 million (four-day) opening weekend; $15 million total. STOMP THE YARD (Sony/Screen Gems)
Starring Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Ne-Yo (Shaffer Smith), Darrin Henson, Brian White, Laz Alonso, Valarie Pettiford, Harry Lennix, Chris Brow
Directed by Sylvain White (Quiet, Trois 3: The Escort, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer; Written by Robert Adetuyi (last week’s Code Name: The Cleaner), Gregory Anderson (Trois 3: The Escort)
Genre: Dance, Drama
Rated PG-13
Tagline: “He will challenge their traditions. Their traditions will change his life.” (Ookay, not too high-falutin’ there.)
Plot Summary: After the death of his brother, DJ (Columbus Short), a troubled L.A. youth, goes to university in Atlanta where he discovers the art of “steppin’”--the dance style of local African-American fraternities. His talent and dance moves quickly starts a rivalry between two of the fraternities leading to the annual stepping championships where all scores can be settled.

Of Note: The studio behind You Got Served gets back into the dance movie craze with a new movie from the creative team of Trois 3: The Escort (No, I never heard of it either).

Pros: The history of the dance movie is a long one dating back to the classics during the MGM era of movie musicals and leading into ‘80s hits like Dirty Dancing and Footloose, and yet, it took School Daze, Spike Lee’s 1988 follow-up to Do the Right Thing, where a movie looked at the African-American fraternity tradition known as “steppin’.” More recently, MTV found a formula to get teens and kids into the theatres with movies that focused on different styles of modern urban dance, starting with the 2001 movie Save the Last Dance from MTV Films, which did huge business on this weekend five years ago. That film’s success led to others being greenlit including You Got Served, which pulled off a surprise #1 opening two years ago with its cast made up of hot R ‘n’ B stars. That film was more specifically targeted towards African-American audiences, but movies like Jessica Alba’s Honey--which came out before Served--were able to find a whiter teen female audience, which has blossomed into a full-on genre. Last year, movies like Antonio Banderas’ Take the Lead tried to capitalize on the dance craze, but it wasn’t nearly as successful as the summer hit Step Up, which used a strong MySpace campaign to get kids into theatres.

Originally called Steppin’ until it changed names to avoid confusion, Stomp the Yard opens five years to the date after the release of Save the Last Dance, and it features two of the cast of You Got Served, including Meagan Good, who has done a pretty decent job for herself on the urban film scene with those movies and the likes of Deliver Us From Evil and Tyrese’s 2006 hit Waist Deep. The movie stars Columbus Short, who appeared in Save the Last Dance and danced in You Got Served (seeing the connections here?), though these days, he’s best known as Darius from the NBC show “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” It also stars R ‘n’ B singer/songwriter Ne-Yo who appeared in the straight-to-video Save the Last Dance 2; I’m sure his fans are thrilled. The lack of real star power won’t matter much because most people who see this will be going to see the flashy dance choreography, possibly to learn a thing or two when they hit the dance floor.

As with You Got Served, Screen Gems is giving the film a very focused campaign, which should allow it to do better in places like Atlanta and other Southern cities, something seen recently with movies like ATL. It’s one of the few movies this weekend that could have a wider spread appeal among African-American audiences of different ages and genders than something like Dreamgirls, which would target older female audiences. Either way, the film will be helped greatly by the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, which has proven to be very strong for Afrocentric films like Coach Carter and even Queen Latifah’s comedy Last Holiday.

Cons: Even though it features Short and Good, neither of them really have any proven track record at the box office in terms of them being a draw for the film, though as mentioned above, it won’t matter, since it’s all about the dancing.

One of the reasons You Got Served was such a huge surprise hit was that no one expected it to make that much or be #1, but it opened against much weaker movies in The Perfect Score and The Big Bounce whereas Stomp the Yard has a lot of competition for African-American audiences in two hugely successful movies, Dreamgirls and Will Smith’s The Pursuit of Happyness. Granted, both have been playing in many areas for weeks, but Dreamgirls is going to have a huge expansion this weekend into many of the same areas where Stomp the Yard is opening, as will Freedom Writers, both very strong word-of-mouth films. By comparison. Stomp the Yard is an unknown commodity without nearly as much marketing dollars behind it.

Unlike Save the Last Dance, Step Up and Honey, this is not as likely to have much interest among young white suburban teen girls, which might keep it from having the type of huge per-theatre averages we’ve seen as the business is targetted mainly towards African-American audiences in urban areas and the South. It might lose some of that audience to Alpha Dog and Primeval, but those will probably target college age males more than anything else.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: You want to see lots of dancing.
Why Not: You’re sick of seeing lots of dancing.
Projections: $14 to 16 million (four-day) opening weekend; $36 million total.

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OTHER LIMITED RELEASES:

GURU (Adlab Films) ­ The latest from Bollywood’s most respected directors, Mani Ratnam, stars Abhishek Bachchan as a man from a small village who tries to start a business in Bombay, while having to deal with a frustrated wife, played by Aishwarya Rai. It opens in 40 theatres in select cities.
TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER (Magnolia Pictures) ­ After languishing for years at the old Miramax, Wisit Sansanatieng’s debut film, made in 1999, gets a US release. The Thai quasi-Western, about a love triangle involving the daughter of a governor, an outlaw and a soldier, opens in select cities. REVIEW (Coming Soon!)
VERDICT ON AUSCHWITZ (First Run Features) ­ Rolf Bickel and Dietrich Wagner’s documentary chronicles the 20-month war trial of those who ran the Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII. It opens at New York’s Quad Cinema on Friday.

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Next week, a quieter week with just one new wide release, the remake of the horror classic, The Hitcher!

Copyright 2007 Edward Douglas


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