After debuting last year at the Sundance film festival and playing numerous festival dates, the horror comedy Tucker & Dale Vs Evil is finally making its way into a limited theatrical release this weekend.

In his Scream series, Wes Craven found a fun way to play with the conventions of the modern slasher film by turning meta-text into text. Eli Craig’s debut film Tucker & Dale Vs Evil does something similar but sets those conventions on their heads and the result is a rather fresh and funny take on the standard “college kids stranded in the woods fighting against a psychotic killer” trope.

A group of college students lead by the obnoxious Chad (Jesse Moss) head out into the woods for a weekend of camping and partying. One of their number, Allison (30 Rock’s Katrina Bowden), almost drowns when the group goes skinny-dipping but is rescued by two hillbillies, Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), who happened to be fishing nearby. However, when Tucker and Dale call out to the college kids “Hey, we got your friend here!” they immediately jump to the conclusion that Tucker and Dale are psychotic hillbilly killers and run away. Puzzled, the pair takes the unconscious Allison back to the lake side cabin they are in the process of fixing up. Meanwhile, Chad and his friends, try to figure out a plan of attack to save their friend from a fate that their imaginations have conjured fueled by having watched too many slasher films.

A solidly comical film, Tucker And Dale Vs Evil smartly reverses many genre conventions. Much like in Scream, the college kids think they know what’s going on thanks to having seen numerous slasher films. However, the movie shifts perspective and shows us that Tucker and Dale are pretty much the polar opposite of the student’s preconceived notions. They’re just a couple guys who happen to be entirely outside of anything the students have ever encountered before in real life. And thanks in part to Craig’s screenplay, co-written with Morgan Jurgenson, and Tudyk and Labine’s acting, they don’t come off as just a pair of dimwitted caricatures.

While this could easily have been a rather one-note idea on which to build a movie, Craig has managed to keep twisting and turning his script and moving things along at a good clip. He is obviously a fan of the genre and knows it genres well enough to spin them off in a new, hilarious direction. There are also some winks and nods that slasher movie buffs will get. But the in-jokes are anything but exclusionary and those who aren’t horror movie fans can enjoy the film for its comedy of errors and splatstick. In fact, this movie might play better for non-horror fans as it will surely fly in the face of many preconceived notions they might have about the genre.

1. What’s Your Number? (Fox, 3,002 Theaters, 106 Minutes, Rated R): One question about this film—did Katherine Heigl pass it up? Because it seems like the kind of high-concept romantic comedy that composes her film career. Maybe she didn’t and this was Anna Faris’ film all along. But it has Heigl’s name all over it.

This film is about a woman (Faris) who goes through her 20 past relationships to see if she inadvertently missed out on Mr. Right. However, she finds that Mr. Right was there in front of her all along.

The film has a pretty good cast and was written by women (adapted from a novel written by a woman as well), so the perspective should be right. The trailer had a laugh or two, and the biggest one was rather ribald so that R rating should be justified.

2. Dream House (Universal, 2,660 Theaters, 92 Minutes, Rated PG-13): This film is directed by Jim Sheridan, a man with 6 Oscar nominations to his credit. The cast is full of Oscar nominees, with a winner in Rachel Weisz. The question you have to ask is twofold–A) how did they get attached to a piece of schlock like this and B)can a film with this kind of pedigree in the cast and director department really be as bad as it looks in the ads?

Daniel Craig plays a man who moves into a house with his wife and two children that was the scene of a gruesome murder. It appears that years earlier, a man killed his wife and two children in that very home. Now, it appears that the killer is stalking Craig’s family as supernatural events take place in the house. He must find out the mystery before the killer attacks and his wife and kids suffer the same fate.

Well, at least that’s how the TV ads make it out to be. The theatrical trailer reveals a pretty sizable twist in the subject, and then reveals a twist to that twist. The first twist is predictable, the second idiotic. But be warned if you click that trailer after only seeing the TV ads, a major plot point will be revealed.

3. 50/50 (Summitt Entertainment, 2,458 Theaters, 99 Minutes, Rated R): Finally, a buddy comedy about cancer!

Okay, the film doesn’t seem to be as callous as that. It is loosely based on the true story of Will Reiser, a young writer striken with cancer. It tells the story of how he handled the diagnosis at such a young age and how some of his friends had a hard time handling the news themselves. Seth Rogen, Reiser’s real-life friend, plays the best friend of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Reiser doppleganger.

Your first instinct is that nobody would want to see a comedy about a person dying from cancer. However, I personally know one cancer survivor who would like to see the film with a friend who helped her through her battle with cancer. Don’t know if there are enough people like that in the world to make this film a hit, but it should count for something.

4. Courageous (TriStar, 1,100 Theaters, 101 Minutes, Rated PG-13): I hate weeks like this. As if three films to write about wasn’t enough, we get a low-budget film with no advertising and a no name cast that I know absolutely nothing about that I have to write enough words to make it past the poster. Grrr.

This film, according to IMDB, is the story of four cops whose lives are turned upside down when a tragedy hits close to home. Their faith (not the inclusion of this word) is tested and their relationships with their families shift and change.

This is a film with a religious, faith-based message. This does not mean that it is a bad film. But just be aware this film might be presenting a line of faith-based thought that does not match up with your own.

You can count on Entertainment Weekly for two things regarding comic book films. One, at least once or twice a year they’ll take a pot shot at the film genre, either through an opinion column, a snide throw-away comment in a news article, or in the text of an interview. Second, they will shamelessly promote each and every comic book movie that comes out with a big cover story, sometimes even a year before the comic book film comes out.

This love/hate relationship is exemplified by the cover of this week’s issue, which focuses on next year’s The Avengers.

I’m no expert at Photoshop, but then again, neither is the person who composed this cover. it’s blatantly obvious that these are six publicity stills stitched together. Did they have an intern work on the cover? Because they should have been told to work at trying to get the light sources to match up. I mean, really, there is a shine on the left side of Scarlett Johansson’s hair and on the right side of Chris Hemsworth’s head and that defies the laws of physics. Yeah, I know it might have been tough to get a picture of all six together, but you got to do better than this. This is the cover of the magazine for goodness sakes.

The rest of the pictures are of a better quality, and show Black Widow (Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) in action, a good look at Captain America’s (Chris Evans) new costume, and a behind the scenes of the cast and director Joss Whedon during a break.

Subscribers should be getting this issue tomorrow, and it should be on most newsstands by Monday.

If you’re making plans to travel long distance to Rochester, NY for the screening of a rare, uncut version Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, you may want to rethink your plans. While we reported last week that the screening would feature a rarely seen two minute coda scene that was excised from the film in the first couple of days of its release, it turns out not to be the case.

Bleeding Cool, the folks who first reported on the screening announced that they received an email from George Eastman House’s Dryden Theater, where the screening is being held, to state that it will not contain the missing footage as previously advertised.

It has come to our attention the print of the film we will be showing does not in fact have the two-minute final scene that Mr. Kubrick cut following the film’s initial screenings.

The version of “The Shining” screening at Eastman House will be the 142-minute extended U.S. version that includes footage Mr. Kubrick subsequently cut from the European release.

Truly disappointing for Kubrick fans. Still, if you’re in the area, you may want to drop by for the screening anyway, if only to enjoy a classic on the big screen.

There aren’t many films that I’m looking forward to seeing in 3D, but Tsui Hark’s upcoming Flying Swords Of Dragon Gate with Jet Li is one of them. Unfortunately, it is still looking as if the film hasn’t picked up a US distributor yet, so we have to be content with the glimpses that this new trailer for the film offers.

While I’ve sen the 1992 remake a few times, I’ve only recently caught up with the original 1966 Dragon Gate Inn, and I have to admit to being a bit disappointed with it. Even setting possible translation problems aside, I found the screenplay to be lacking in several areas, most notably not fleshing out the characters of the general’s children whom everyone is so keen to kill/protect.

Hark’s take on the material seems to lean a bit more towards the wuxia of the 1992 remake than the straight action version of the original. And by leaning “a bit more” I mean, it looks as if it exceeds the 1992 version for crazy action. As we should expect from Hark.

Acting icon Robert Duvall has been cast in a mystery role in Tom Cruise’s upcoming thriller One Shot. Variety, who reported the casting, was mum on the nature of the part, stating only that “though it is a small role, insiders say it is significant to Reacher’s story line.”

Based on a novel by Lee Child, the film will star Cruise as a former military police officer named Jack Reacher who is called in to help with the investigation of a string of sniper shootings. Rosamiund Pike will play the defense lawyer of a man accused of the shootings who requests Reacher’s assistance in proving his innocence and finding the real shooter.

Having read an early draft of Christopher McQuarrie‘s screenplay recently, I can think of two possible “small” but “significant” roles that Duvall could be filling. The first is the film’s real villain, a shadowy figure called The Zec. The character is off screen for most of the script but definitely has its presence felt through most of the action. Duval is definitely an actor who would deliver on the anticipation built up his lack of on-screen presence through most of the film. There’s also an aging Marine character by the name of Cash who runs a firing range that would also suit the actor.

A firestorm is erupting in the film distribution world as Sony Pictures announced yesterday that starting next spring, they will no longer be supplying 3D glasses to distributors for free with their 3D films and that theaters will be responsible for shouldering their cost.

Naturally, this enraged the National Association of theater Owners (NATO), who fired back to day with a press statement condemning the plan, accusing Sony of acting in bad faith by making the decision unilaterally. From NATO’s statement -

Since the onset of the digital 3D revolution in 2005 it has been understood that exhibitors would bear the weight of technological and facility modification costs related to 3D, while distribution took on the cost of 3D glasses. Any changes to that understanding must be undertaken through the mutual agreement of both sides of the business.

Sony, of course, is looking to increase its profit margins in any way it can. Their edict is set to start right at the beginning of the summer blockbuster season when they are releasing two big 3D films – The Amazing Spider-Man and Men In Black III. With glasses costing studios about fifty cents a pair, that can add up to $5 million per every $100 million in box office receipts.

But you have to remember that that box office number is inflated by the $2 to $3 extra that is charged onto 3D movie tickets, revenue that is split between the theater chains and the studios, so it’s not like the studios aren’t getting reimbursed for the expenditure, even if it is indirectly. That makes it hard to believe any cries from Sony over the expense for supplying 3D glasses to theater chains in the current set-up.

If Sony doesn’t back down, come next summer theaters will have to figure out how to handle the new expense. Will the chains just absorb the cost of the glasses themselves or that they will pass the new cost onto ticket buyers? I’m guessing that a further charge for 3D films will further push ticket buyers away from the from the format and towards the 2D versions of releases at an even faster rate than horrible 2D to 3D post-production conversations and poorly made 3D films already have.

When you are a studio executive and you have a film that earns $341 million at the box office against a $75 million budget, chances are you’ll want a sequel. That’s the case with Universal studios and the 2008 comic book adaption Wanted, about a team of super-powered assassins.

The problem is that the studio had been unable to get any traction in getting a follow up to the Angelina Jolie-James McAvoy headlining feature going. In 2009, Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov stated that pre-production was gearing for a late fall or early winter shoot. The next thing we heard about the project was in February 2010 and that Jolie had left the film and the script was going to be rewritten to eliminate her character, who was going to be rising from the dead considering she died in the original film. However, as time went on, it has been looking less and less likely that a sequel was ever going to happen.

That is until today, when It’s On The Grid reported that the first Wanted’s original screenwriting team of Derek Haas and Michael Brandt have been hired by to write a sequel. It is unknown if they are working from drafts developed for the previous attempt or if they will be starting from scratch. It would be my guess, though, the Universal is looking to take a mulligan on the sequel and start fresh.

It is probably too early to tell which characters from the first film will be coming back or even if Haas and Brandt will stay a little closer to the source comic book by Mark Millar and J. G. Jones than they did the last time.

Here’s a second piece of Ridley Scott news today. A new synopsis for his upcoming film Prometheus has appeared on the film’s Facebook page and it gives a bit more of a hint at what the super-secret project is about than the last synopsis studio Twentieth Century Fox released.

Ridley Scott, director of Alien and Blade Runner, returns to the genre he helped define. With Prometheus, he creates a groundbreaking mythology, in which a team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a thrilling journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

While a little less vague than what we’ve been told before, it still doesn’t offer much in the way of concrete details. It doesn’t tell us anything about the characters that cast members Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba and Sean Harris may be playing outside of the fact that some of them may be the aforementioned explorers. There’s certainly enough wiggle room in that description to not negate that the film is a straightforward prequel to Scott’s classic Alien, a vast different story that just happens to take place in the Alien franchise universe or something entirely separate that will share, as Scott has stated, “strands of Alien‘s DNA, so to speak.”

The synopsis also does jibe with the unofficial, very spoilerish synopsis that popped up this past summer.

I suspect, though, that we will have to wait until we get a bit closer to the film’s June 8th release date before we have any real answers.

The video game only been out for a few weeks, but the film rights for the zombie apocalypse game Dead Island have already been sold to Lionsgate.

A trailer created by the game’s developer Deep Silver which features a family trying to escape a zombie attack on an island holiday resort debuted last February and went viral almost immediately. Its stylistic direction and the juxtapositioning of a soft piano score against the frantic action helped it to score over a million views in 24 hours and spark interest from Hollywood.

Normally, I’m not much of a fan of movies that have been derived from video games, but from what I’ve read about the game’s storyline leads me to think that there is some interesting things that could be developed for a screenplay.

The Mummy producer Sean Daniel is attached to the project, but there are no creative talents lined up yet.