Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or nostalgic at the movies. And this week Hollywood might as well admit you to its Throwback Ward and drive its purest nostalgia I.V. into your arm, because we are definitely not in 2010 anymore. Unless we're adjusting the box-office takes upward, that is -- but how much upwards?
WHAT'S NEW: "New" is kind of relative with The A-Team and The Karate Kid, a couple of generally appreciated (if not beloved) mid-'80s properties we've all kind of pretended not to see coming over the last year or two. And now they arrive, the latter more dignified than the former -- for what that's worth. And it won't be worth much, though I guess I should be honest and acknowledge that after the last couple weeks of wildly off-target box-office forecasting, I sincerely have no idea what either of these movies can or should make this weekend. Conventional wisdom has Joe Carnahan's bombastic mercenary joyride cresting at around $31.5 million, but its Liam Neeson/Bradley Cooper/Quinton Jackson X-factors are wholly unreadable, and A-Team could just as easily swing $5 million or so either way. If I had to pick a number with one of their submachine guns to my head, I guess I'd say $29 million. Your mileage may (and certainly will) vary.
The Karate Kid, meanwhile, isn't going to wind up too far behind that with its family-friendliness and brand-name influencers from Smith to Chan to the title itself. The big problem is its running time: 140 minutes, which is insanely overlong by all accounts and will chew into the screening volume across its 3,600-theater roll-out. Then again: I have no idea. Truth outs. I'm pulling $27.5 million out of a hat (a generally well-informed hat, but a hat nonetheless) and hoping for the best. All I know for sure is that Sony knows what it has, and they won't screw it up.
Most of the rest of the week's releases have a little more contemporary origin: The Sundance-winning Ozark-mafia-quest drama Winter's Bone and the austere period romance Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky debut in both NYC and L.A. New Yorkers can look for the South African slum thriller-drama Gangster's Paradise: Jerusalema (just in time for the World Cup!), the uptown education doc The Lottery, and the intriguing, revealing inquiry into the history of Native Americans on film, Reel Injun. L.A., you've got the porn comedy Finding Bliss, the science-fair doc Whiz Kids and the Aussie coming-of-age flick Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger expanding your way.
THE BIG LOSER: I wonder what Ashton Kutcher has planned to keep Killers viable in its second weekend? Is there a way to cleverly, cutely tell all those Twitter followers not to let his film drop 55% in 144 characters or less? We'll find out!
THE UNDERDOG: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work is a fairly comprehensive, frighteningly all-access, fitfully funny and unrelentingly bittersweet year in the life of the 77-year-old comedian. And sure: Go for the plastic-surgery explanations and the withering one-liners. But stay for directors Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg's transfixing window on the pathologies of work itself, to which Rivers is more addicted than she'll ever be to Botox. The film makes an extraordinary complement to the more outright work docs I keep telling you about here; that it's funny and gossipy to boot doesn't hurt either. Cosmetic alterations aside, don't be surprised to see more of yourself in Rivers than you expect.