'The Other Guys' set to unseat 'Inception'

By Sarah Sluis

It's time for The Other Guys to have a turn. Inception has been at the top spot at the box office for three weeks running, which should end once the Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg cop comedy hits 3,651

theatres today. Last June, Ferrell took a nosedive with Land of the Lost, a huge bomb that also happened to release the same weekend as the surprise comedy hit of the summer, The Hangover. With The Other Guys, Ferrell will have a shot at redemption. The movie's currently posting a 78% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and FJI critic Frank Lovece called the comedy a "surprisingly witty satire of buddy-cop movies" that "punctures the testosterone bags of a zillion buddy and even lone-wolf cop movies."

Kind of like an urban, older version of High School Musical with frenetically paced professional dancing, Step Up 3D steps into 2,435 theatres this weekend. The "dynamite" dancing, according to critic Maitland McDonagh, also includes a sequence

with two characters dancing through the New York City streets, staged using "a series of extended long shots," "incorporating taxis, brownstone steps and various props," and taking a little bit of inspiration from the 1949 Gene Kelly/Frank Sinatra musical On the Town. Bet that'll sell the movie to today's teenagers.

Opening in 252 theatres, Middle Men stars Luke Wilson as a good guy caught in the sordid side of the Internet boom days. For all the crimes that take place in the movie, however, "the film is no more salacious than an average Lady Gaga video," according to critic Daniel Eagan. Director George Gallo's focus on the "remorse and repentance side" of the "combustible premise," instead of using it for satire, left him cold.

Kind of like a feature-length version of "Gossip Girl" (as if teens needed anything more than that to rush to the theatres), Twelve debuts in 300 theatres. Chace Crawford (a "Gossip Girl" heartbreaker) stars in the tale of glamorous rich kids getting tied up in drugs, violence, and sex. Director Joel Schumacher (age 70) turns out to be handy at the job, to a point, according to critic Kirk Honeycutt, "[giving] enough texture to the tale that one might overlook its soap-opera aspects until the film implodes in the end from an excess of

overheated elements." It's not clear how well this film was marketed, so its success may come down to its ability to get the word out among teenage audiences.

Rob Reiner, who last directed senior-friendly The Bucket List, will hit the same demographic with Flipped. Set in the 1960s, the movie centers on a cute tale of young love that will be sure to inspire nostalgia. Rated just PG, this suburban-set movie looks like an extended version of "The Wonder Years," and is releasing in 45 theatres--but not New York City, which may be too hardened to appreciate the tale.

There's an unusually high number of well-regarded specialty films coming out this weekend, so there's

room to put a few on your to-see list. The highly praised Lebanon, which will make you never, ever want to go to war, much less be confined in a tank, opens in NYC and LA. The war drama is so unlike the usual American approach, free of the patriotism, bravado, and never-let-you-downs that appear in U.S. war movies, even anti-war ones. Pretend you're climbing Everest in the documentary The Wildest Dream (12 theatres), a "gorgeous adventure film" and "suspenseful quest" according to critic Erica Abeel. To see a romance set in the Arab world that's not Sex and the City 2, seek Cairo Time (5 theatres), which drew raves at the Tribeca Film Festival this year. Or, if you're in the mood for some English-accented intrigue, there's The Disappearance of Alice Creed (12 theatres), a "nifty little Brit thriller" that centers on a kidnapping.

On Monday, I'll assess Will Ferrell's market value and the performance of The Other Guys, see if teenage audiences were wowed by Step Up 3D or Twelve, and see which of the specialty releases did well enough to warrant a broad expansion.

'Inception' stays at the head of the table, with 'Dinner for Schmucks' close behind

By Sarah Sluis

For the third week in a row, Inception led the pack at the box office. The dreamy sci-fi movie dipped just 35% to $27.3 million, for a total of $193 million. That means the movie will cross the $200 million mark within the next few days. If it continues to drop around 30% for the rest of its run, it will finish just shy of $300 million.

Debuting in second place, the Steve Carell-led Dinner for Schmucks rang up $23.3 million. Based on the French comedy Le Dner des Cons, the remake received mixed reviews (averaging 51% on Rotten Tomatoes). The question here is if the movie will end up with a run similar to Carell's April release Date Night, which opened to $25 million but finished with a figure four times its opening weekend. The tamer PG-13 Date Night, which also co-starred a woman, has more of a mass-market appeal, but Schmucks features Carell as an oblivious buffoon somewhat similar to his Michael Scott character on "The Office," which could draw in audiences.

The idea of pet movies as box-office gold suffered a setback with the $12.5 million debut weekend of Cats & Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. The first Cats & Dogs, which released ages ago in 2001,

opened to $21.7 million. With all the original fans of the series now in their teen years, it's no wonder the sequel failed to generate significant buzz.

Zac Efron was able to secure a $12.1 million opening for his romantic drama Charlie St. Cloud, playing a sensitive young man overwrought with guilt over the death of his younger brother. Awareness and intent to see was high among teen girls, but for the movie to open higher it needed to

appeal to broader audience. Efron can enjoy the fact that his weepie romantic movie played better than that of the competition. Twilighter Robert Pattinson's Remember Me opened to just $8 million in March.

On the specialty front, The Kids Are All Right expanded yet again, going from 201 to 847 theatres and bringing in $3.4 million for a total that's now hovering just under the $10 million mark.

Get Low, starring Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Billy Murray, had an equally starry debut in four theatres with a per-screen average of $22,700. The Weinstein Co.'s The Concert averaged $10,000 per screen on two screens, and the documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, Rebel earned $10,000 on one screen.

This Friday, Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell take on the buddy cop comedy in The Other Guys, and Step Up 3D brings urban dancing to theatres everywhere.