Weekend Forecast: America to Take Pass on Weak New Releases

Moviegoers are in one of two boats this weekend: The one beached on the hot, sandy shoreline of Oscar Island, where multitudes catch up with their awards-season viewing at the last minute before Sunday's Oscarcast; or the one rocketing down the murky brown rapids of Multiplex River, tumbling over the high, jagged cliff known to studios and viewers alike as Crapola Falls. Look out below! Choose your vessel and let's get going on our Weekend Forecast voyage.

NATIONAL OUTLOOK

· Hall Pass: The Farrelly Brothers return with this daffy romp about some dudes (led by Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis) whose wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) give them a week off marriage to sow some wild oats. Things get tasteless and crude in classic, R-rated Farrelly fashion, but their core audience will be amused and might even find their ranks swelled by a date culture just young enough to have no idea what There's Something About Mary or Kingpin are, and thus think it's just another Apatowian-style cast-off about man-children and their patient women.I really don't know. Tracking on it generally blows, and Unknown will likely hold much of its ground from last week. I can't see this breaking $16 million. FORECAST: $15.8 million

· Drive Angry: Nicolas Cage blah blah blah Amber Heard blah blah kidnapped daughter whatever mean Satan-ish dude something something dude comes back from hell etc. etc. 3-D cars vroooooom squuuueaaaal guns and explosions blah blah blah rated-R whatever whatever. FORECAST: $13.3 million

REGIONAL OUTLOOK

It's not looking good unless you are a NYC art-house aficionado, in which case it's still not looking good: Québécois wunderkind Xavier Dolan sophomore slumps with the love triangle Hearbeats, while another Xavier -- Beauvois -- drops the true-crime-y Of Gods and Men about a group of Trappist monks under siege by Muslim terrorists in Algeria. And attention sadists: If you're up for a two-fer, it sounds like the hazing-gone-wrong crapsterpiece Brotherhood might make an execrable double-feature with The Roommate. Let me know how that goes if you take the plunge! I'll be on Oscar Island, waiting for your call.