Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or curiously aromatic at the movies. This week, Kevin Smith goes for hire and duels a legend for first place, a horror remake surprises and a scrappy underdog emerges in the art house. And much more! (Actually, not that much more, but admit you're riveted and click through already.)
WHAT'S NEW: We all know what Rex Reed thinks, but now it's America's turn to decide how it will receive Cop Out, Kevin Smith's first film as a hired directorial gun. Depending on whom you ask, the Bruce Willis/Tracy Morgan teaming is either a wry buddy-cop-film send-up or some harbinger of the end of civilization; Warner Bros. is promoting it as the former, and it might very well surpass Shutter Island's second-week take by a narrow margin of $2 million or less. The infinite loop of snow and ice crushing the Northeast will likely keep both films in the low 20s. Let's just call Cop Out's $22.5 million to Shutter Island's $21 million, give or take a few bucks for weather.
And look out for the dark horse sprinting up behind them: The Crazies, director Breck Eisner's remake of the George Romero cult classic about survivors of a psycho-making viral outbreak attempting to get out of town alive. Word on this is mixed but way better than Cop Out, and distributor Overture Films has done some viral work of its own pushing this through social media, phone apps and other Paranormal Activity-esque means. There's nothing to really compete against it genre-wise, but on about 20 percent fewer screens than this week's other wide release, and also R-rated, it should hit a ceiling around $16.5 million.
Also opening in limited release: The Oscar-nominated prison drama A Prophet; the Louisiana romantic drama The Yellow Handkerchief; the transgender/family reunion documentary Prodigal Sons; the international-intrigue thriller (with James Van Der Beek!) Formosa Betrayed; the terrific, troubling art-world documentary The Art of the Steal (NYC/Philadelphia only); the lacrosse-team racism drama Toe to Toe (NYC only); the Woody Harrelson underdog-superhero satire Defendor (in L.A. only); and also in Los Angeles for one weekend only, rock vocalist Maynard James Keenan's oenophile documentary (no, seriously) Blood Into Wine.
THE BIG LOSER: None of this week's new releases should underachieve enough to be classified here, and anyway, it's really all about how much farther the Blockbuster Trash entries Valentine's Day and The Wolfman can plunge in their third weeks of release. Another 55 percent? Sixty percent? Sixty-five percent? Who knows? Like, a lot! Make your own guess in the comments; there are no prizes for the closest estimate but bragging rights are pretty potent stuff around here.
THE UNDERDOG: Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez's feature debut Easier With Practice is quite the piece of mindfuck-y work, featuring Brian Geraghty (The Hurt Locker) as a brooding young novelist whose random phone-sex experience one night on the road turns into an affair of unforeseen -- like really unforeseen -- consequences. The less you know about the actual narrative, the better (it's adapted from Davy Rothbart's true story published in GQ), which speaks in large part to Alvarez's taste and Geraghty's restraint in handling some racy material that turns on one dime after another. This went to a zillion festivals -- and won at several of them -- for a reason; Alvarez is also nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards (wish him luck!). So if you're in L.A. or New York this weekend and hope to do better than Cop Out, I'd definitely start here. Everywhere else, ask for it by name.
FOR SHUT-INS: Speaking of New York and anywhere else under God's Eternal Cloud of Snowy Doom, new DVD releases for the housebound include the outstanding Michael Sheen soccer biopic The Damned United, the nutso Richard Kelly sci-fi effort The Box; the Steven Soderbergh/Matt Damon curio The Informant!; the anemic Robert De Niro family drama Everybody's Fine; the complete first season of Nurse Jackie and the third complete season of Night Court.