Attractions: It's Good vs. Bad vs. Ugly at the Box Office

Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or bloated beyond reason. Another packed summer week delivers a would-be blockbuster, an accomplished chick flick and a wild card of counter-counterprogramming that might just find the niche it's looking for. And this week's underdog is one for the ages.

WHAT'S NEW: We'll get to Robin Hood in a second, but let's start on a more heartening note: The swoony, better-than-you-think Amanda Seyfried/Vanessa Redgrave drama Letters to Juliet is probably going to surprise some folks this weekend -- maybe not the way Seyfried's Dear John stunned everyone in February (including James Cameron, whose Avatar it knocked from from No. 1), but it could very easily crack $20 million as the conventional lady-courting counterprogramming option for the weekend. And then there's Just Wright -- the other lady-courting counterprogramming option with the sports-themed tinge and ethnic reach. Fox Searchlight has pretty high hopes for this one on 1,831 screens; they aren't patronizing the film or treating it like a "crossover" at all, and as such, they may be rewarded with a base viewership worth $12 million. And that number has legs for the month ahead.

Meanwhile, the art house is a friggin' mess. Hardly anything really stands out: There's the underwhelming Hawaiian historical drama Princess Kaiulani on 33 screens, and a glut of films in NYC. They include the Miller brothers' autobiographical family drama Touching Home (it works best as a supplement to the back story chronicled in their extraordinary book Either You're In or You're in the Way); the Safdie brothers' autobiographical family drama Daddy Longlegs; Ken Loach's sort-of-whimsical Looking For Eric; the sci-fi-ish romcom TIMER; the immigrant-mother drama Entre Nos; the Iranian import Women Without Men, the low-key Belgrade/NYC relationship flick Here and There; the enjoyable Troll 2 saga Best Worst Movie; and the documentary glimpse at Japan's obsession with insects, Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo.

Meanwhile, L.A., you get the expansions of Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers, Michel Gondry's Thorn in the Heart, the coming-of-age commune drama Happiness Runs and the emo-romantic hand grenade Everyone Else, while the unsolved-crime doc A Nightmare in Las Cruces makes its debut as well. And The Human Centipede expands to 17 more cities! Get excited, Shreveport!

THE BIG LOSER: Right up until the moment its swollen carcass washed up on the Riviera, Robin Hood had suspended a lot of cynics' disbelief that it could be anything but dead on arrival. Oh well. In mini-retrospect, the $237 million-budget bombshell probably shouldn't have influenced perception as severely as it did, but there you have it: The roughly $30 million duo Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett floundering in the forest with Ridley Scott and $6 million worth of horses does connote a proportionate amount of high expectations. I don't know if this will "flop" flop -- it has a decent chance at international traction -- but domestically, where viewers seem to neither want nor want to see another Robin Hood movie, this on track for about $21.5 million and a swift burial in the May movie avalanche. Sorry about that sequel, Russell. Oh, and keep a box near your desk if you're anywhere near the front office at Universal.

THE UNDERDOG: I've been encouraging people to look for Sol Tryon's fantastic dark comedy The Living Wake for, oh, about three years now. Born on the festival circuit in 2007 and incubated in some quiet corner of indie oblivion ever since, the ascendancy of Jesse Eisenberg has helped to afford Wake the theatrical outlet it deserves. Which isn't to say it's for everyone: Mike O'Connell co-wrote and stars as K. Roth Binew, a rural eccentric (read: drunk) who receives a diagnosis that he has, oh, a few hours to live. He recruits his manservant Miles (Eisenberg) for a fraught pedicab journey through the yellow-orange leaf canopies of autumn in Maine; their encounters with unsympathetic family, funeral home directors, watchmakers, psychics, librarians and even prostitutes conclude with the dizzying, heartbreaking set piece of the title. O'Connell's erudition and tone will no doubt alienate the smug hipster base who presumably make up a big percentage of Wake's audience. But his knack for -- and his clear love of -- storytelling should win over any conscientious adult desperate to separate the wheat from the summer chaff. I sincerely love this movie and can't recommend it enough. (Opens May 21 in L.A.)