'Nanny,' 'Pirahna,' 'Lottery Ticket' and 'Vampires' crowd the box office

By Sarah Sluis

Emma Thompson's "snaggle-toothed, uni-browed, wart-ridden" version of Mary Poppins makes a second appearance in Nanny McPhee Returns (2,783 theatres). Our critic David Noh was unimpressed with the

movie's jokes about farm animal excrement and "unending, chaotic chase scenes," which leave the audience with a "noisome and numbing" effect. As the only new offering for kid audiences, the movie may open well, but it's unlikely to approach the must-see status that drew such large audiences to the animated crowd-pleasers of the summer.

Expanding into the largest amount of locations this weekend, Vampires Suck (3,233 theatres)

opened on Wednesday to $4 million, a surprisingly high number for a movie that, judging by the number of the times its name and release date were changed, didn't inspired much confidence among the folks at 20th Century Fox. However, making fun of Twilight and the glitter content of vampire heartthrob Edward's body has become a favorite topic for young males, so this spoof may prove popular among that set. It comes from the creators of genre parodies Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie and its ilk, so viewers will be in store for some stupid fun that, just maybe, offers them a few laughs, especially if you still have a -teen suffix at the end of your age.

Lottery Ticket (1,973 theatres) is expected to draw in largely black audiences to the tale of a boy from the projects who wins the jackpot right before the

long Fourth of July weekend, leading everyone from his grandma to a rogue preacher to try to snag the ticket from him. First-time director Erik White is "unable to blend broad comedy with the uncomfortable ghetto realities," according to THR critic Kirk Honeycutt, leading to a stereotypical presentation of life for poor blacks. Its first weekend will be the test, since black-oriented comedies, including Tyler Perry's, tend to open big and fade quickly.

Oh, look! It's Jennifer Aniston in another romantic comedy, The Switch (2,012 theatres). In this one, she stars opposite Jason Bateman as a

woman who decides to become a mother with the help of a sperm donor of her choosing, except Bateman replaces his sperm and becomes the father of the kid. It's pretty average, and apparently isn't tracking well. This movie will have to contend with Eat Pray Love, as the two will be battling for some of the same audiences.

A remake of a lowest-common-denominator horror film and Jaws spoof, Piranha 3D (2,470 theatres) adds another dimension to the equation, releasing almost exclusively in 3D (2,220 out of 2,470 theatres in 3D). With just a limited amount of critics seeing the movie, it's currently tracking at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes--what?? As long as you're evaluating it as a low-brow, cheesy exploitation horror movie, it's a "pitch-perfect, guilty-pleasure serving of late-summer schlock that handily nails the tongue-in-cheek spirit of the Roger Corman original," according to THR critic Michael Rechtshaffen.

Releasing with an R rating, despite the filmmakers' protestations, the documentary The Tillman Story (NY/LA; 4 theatres) tells the story of NFL player-turned-Army Ranger Pat Tillman who died in Afghanistan in what was spun as an act of heroism but was later determined to be a friendly fire incident. Talented director Amir Bar-Lev (My Kid Could Paint That) elicits both heartbreak and outrage with his story. For something lighter, there's the story of a restaurant owner (Adam Bousdoukos) with a struggling business, Soul Kitchen (NY; 2 theatres). Despite an "awful run of bad luck," the owner's "constantly changing fortunes are the good-natured joke in this disarmingly loose and energetic comedy," according to critic Kevin Lally. Based on a true story of a Chinese ballet dancer who goes to Texas as part of an exchange program, only to abandon his homeland for America, Mao's Last Dancer (29 theatres) is a "conventionally told biopic," according to Lally, that "follows a pretty basic path of contrasting Western freedom with the rigid totalitarianism of Li's [Cunxin, the dancer] upbringing." The ballet sequences and true story help make this movie a crowd-pleaser, according to Lally.

On Monday, we'll see where each of these new releases fell in the top ten, and if returning releases The Expendables and Eat Pray Love continue to hold on to their sizeable audiences. The summer movie season is coming to an end, and this may be the last week any film has even a chance of breaking $100 million. Then we'll be on to the September slump. Though many of next month's films aren't expected to be huge winners at the box office, there should be some entertaining ones in the bunch.