Horror tale, romantic comedy to arrive in theaters this weekend
A horror tale (“Blood & Chocolate”), a romantic comedy (“Catch and Release”), a broad spoof (“Epic Movie”) and a gritty thriller (“Smokin’ Aces”) are the top titles arriving in theaters on this last weekend of January. The new films (with all dates subject to change) opening at a theater near you include:
– “Blood & Chocolate,” with Agnes Bruckner (“Murder by Numbers”) as a young woman who is transformed into a werewolf while visiting the remote mountains of Colorado and then moves to Bucharest, where she feels she can better hide her life as a shape-shifting creature. In the PG-13 chiller, the young woman manages to live in the shadows until love comes into her life in the form of an artist (Hugh Dancy of “King Arthur”).
– “Catch and Release,” with Jennifer Garner (“13 Going on 30”) in a bittersweet PG-13 romantic comedy about a woman who must rebuild her life after her fianc? dies the day before their wedding. Timothy Olyphant (TV’s “Deadwood”) and actor/filmmaker Kevin Smith (“Clerks II”) co-star, and Susannah Grant, who wrote the screenplay for “Erin Brockovich,” makes her directing debut.
– “Epic Movie,” with Kal Penn (“National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj”), Jennifer Coolidge (“Best in Show”), Crispin Glover (“Back to the Future”) and Fred Willard (“Anchorman”) in a broad and gross spoof – a la “Date Movie” and “Scary Movie” – of big-budget hits. The titles lampooned during the PG-13 comedy include “X-Men,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Superman Returns,” “Borat,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “The Da Vinci Code.”
– “Smokin’ Aces,” with Jeremy Piven (HBO’s “Entourage”), Ryan Reynolds (“Just Friends”), Ben Affleck (“Hollywoodland”), Andy Garcia (“Ocean’s Eleven”) and Ray Liotta (“GoodFellas”) in an R-rated action comedy about a Lake Tahoe magician who also works as a mob informant. After the local gangsters find out the magician is a snitch, they dispatch numerous hit men to make him disappear. Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys makes her acting debut, and Joe Carnahan (“Narc”) directed.
At the buck$ office
Teen viewers across the country are still hot to “Stomp.”
For the second week in a row, “Stomp the Yard,” a youth picture about college students making all the right dance moves, took the top spot at the box office.
It grossed an impressive $13.3 million.
According to the Associated Press, the top-10 movies last weekend were:
1. “Stomp the Yard” ($13.3 million)
2. “Night at the Museum” ($13 million)
3. “Dreamgirls” ($8.7 million)
4. “The Hitcher” ($8.2 million)
5. “The Pursuit of Happyness” ($6.7 million)
6. “Freedom Writers” ($5.6 million)
7. “Pan’s Labyrinth” ($4.7 million)
8. “Children of Men” ($3.7 million)
9. “The Queen” ($3.7 million)
10. “Arthur and the Invisibles” ($3.1 million)