What to Watch | Not sure what to watch this spring break? Go ask Alice

This Weekend's Box Office

For the second week in a row, "Shutter Island" comes in first at the box office with a $22.6 million dollar sum, vindicating Paramount somewhat for pushing the release date back five months. I bet Scorsese and DiCaprio will be longingly watching the Oscars this weekend, though.

"Avatar" held strong again, crossing the $700 million mark, but expect a hit this weekend as many 3D screens shift to a new release. The two new releases both did rather well, with "Cop Out" coming in second place with $18 million, and "The Crazies" in third with $16 million. Both were relatively low-budget, and these sums are a little higher than expected for both. Whether they can continue to make money as more and more high profile films begin to release remains to be seen.

Film

Spring break will put us on a hiatus here at The Hawk, so I'll try to cover all the new releases of the next two weeks. Much to the joy of Hot Topic mallrat kids everywhere, Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" is out this weekend. This is a big budget, 3D, CGI heavy adaptation of the "Alice" canon, taking place 10 years after the story we all know from our youth.

Alice, now 19, revisits the "wonderland" in order to slay the "Jabberwock" which is ravaging the citizens under the evil Red Queen's rule. This seems like a perfect match of director and subject matter. Burton's sort of gothic/circus style will certainly serve him well in this fantasy world. And with the big name director come the big name stars, with heavy hitters like Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Michael Sheen, Alan Rickman, and Christopher Lee. That cast sounds perfectly suited to a Burton fantasy world, and with the mega budget ($150 million), the director should be able to perfectly transfer his vision to the screen.

This will likely do very well at the box office, as it has wide appeal to both children and adult Burton fans. The early reviews have been very positive, so maybe when you get bored of your high school friends over break, you'll want to check this out. At the least it will likely be visually stunning, if creepily trippy.

Also releasing this week, is a new police drama "Brooklyn's Finest." The plot looks like it is full of the usual cop movie clichés, with the grizzled veteran who is retiring (Richard Gere), the down-on-his-luck cop who is tempted to become corrupt to make ends meet (Ethan Hawke), the undercover and "in too deep" cop (Don Cheadle), and the fresh faced rookie (Jesse Williams). All these characters come together in a sort of NYPD version of "Crash."

It sounds pretty standard as far as cop movies go, but the cast has some great talent, Hawke and Cheadle specifically, and the director Antoine Fuqua, did the amazing "Training Day," so there is some hope for this to be a solid movie. But Fuqua's direction was not the reason "Training Day" was so good, as evidenced by his awful "King Arthur" and even more awful "Shooter" (I'll admit, "Shooter" is probably my biggest guilty pleasure movie of all time); Denzel Washington's manic performance drove that film. I don't think Richard Gere, or even Hawke (who was pretty good in "Training Day," mind you), can make this as emotionally engaging as it clearly intends to be. If you like cop dramas, this is probably a must. If you don't, I'd say you're safe skipping it.

Next weekend, four new films release, and there is something that just about everyone can enjoy. "Our Family Wedding" is a weak-looking comedy about a Latino woman and African-American man getting married, and their families trying to separate them. Forest Whitaker and Carlos Mencia star as the couple's respective racial stereotype fathers. It's like an all-minority "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner." That just sounds insufferable, and the thought of Mencia "acting" is repulsive to me. I'm sure the families have a few crazy shenanigans, and then at the end they realize that love is more important than their petty differences. Aww. Skip it.

For the ladies, "Remember Me" is also out next week. It stars teen heartthrob Robert "I wouldn't be famous if it wasn't for ‘Twilight'" Pattinson as a sulky rebel (I think that is his only facial expression, sulkiness) who meets the girl of his dreams, but their overbearing fathers are an obstacle to their love. This looks like it might not be that bad. The director, Allen Coulter, is a proven TV man, having helmed many episodes of "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City," and "Rome," all on HBO, and producing "Damages," "Sons of Anarchy," and "Nurse Jackie." So I don't think the guy will turn in a total bomb.

And the cast, unproven Pattinson aside, is pretty good, with Pierce Brosnan and the great Chris Cooper playing the fathers (a step up from Whitaker and Mencia, I'd say). This could be good, or terrible. Either way, expect a lot of Twihards to pony up to see it.

For the guys, a new comedy "She's Out Of My League" will be out next week. It stars first time leading man Jay Baruchel (the nerdy guy with glasses in "Tropic Thunder," the skinny guy in "Knocked Up" with the Canada tattoo) as an average-looking TSA worker who is asked out by and eventually dating a beautiful girl, who is described as a  "hard 10."

I saw a screening of this a few days ago (Baruchel actually showed up, which was pretty cool) and was not overly impressed. It seemed to have two modes, really funny riffing or standard "American Pie" style groaners. I did laugh for a good portion of the movie, largely because Baruchel is so likeable in his role, but there were times when it was rather uninspired. And the main female lead, Alice Eve, has "Megan Fox syndrome": all beauty, no acting chops. Well, actually she might have been acting well, but her trying to drop her native British accent really masked her entire performance, and she ended up sounding like her mouth was full of cotton balls or something.