1. Battleship (Universal, 3,690 Theaters, 131 Minutes, Rated PG-13): I slammed this film on Tuesday as a form of Hollywood’s twisted new brand of originality. I feel bad because, really, I should have included the film listed below in that article as well. Phooey.

Anyway, I don’t know if I have much more to say about the film now than I did then. It’s a movie “based” on a board game. It doesn’t really draw much from the original source, although it seems to borroow liberally from films such as Independence Day, Titanic, Pearl Harbor, Transformers and just about every other film where the plot is tertiary to the special effects. I mean, the rebel who has to avenge his brother’s death while earning the respect of father of his girlfriend is not the most original or stimulating plots.

Early reports predict that The Avengers will once again rule the weekend. But that’s alright. Battleship has already earned $215 million overseas against a $209 million budget. So whatever this film makes in the U.S. is just gravy. Boggle the mind, doesn’t it?

2. What To Expect When You’re Expecting (Lionsgate, 3,021 Theaters, 110 Minutes, Rated PG-13): As the father of a three-year-old, I am very familiar with “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and it’s sequels,  ”What to Expect The First Year,” “What to Expect The Second Year,” and “What to Expect the Toddler Years.” It’s a trade paper ATM machine where worried first time parents can have all their questions and fears answered and replaced with new questions and fears (No lie. Here’s an actual exchange between my wife and I: “Does she (our daughter) say 20 words yet? The book says she should say 20 words by now. I don’t think she says 20 words? Do you think we should take her to a doctor?” And that type of thing happens again and again because of that damn book.).

What the book does not have is a narrative, characters or any sembalance of a plot line. So this adaptation of the above book is, like Battleship, passing off a generic ensemble dramedy that could really have been called anything else under a familiar name in efforts to attract an audience. Yes, the book gives advice to expectant mothers experiencing the type of agita and angst the characters in the film, but the connection seems to end there.

But will the film be any good? Well, it’s got a great cast. I love Anna Kendrick and I love Elizabeth Banks. Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez have carried movies all by themselves before. But when the trailer offers “you don’t know true love before you’ve wiped someone’s butt” as an example of one of the best lines of the film, you have a horrible film.

It would be tempting to dismiss Man On A Ledge as being inspired by the 1951 film noir Fourteen Floors, but the film itself has no such reckless ambitions. True, the two movies share a central conceit of a man stepping out on to the ledge of a hotel, bringing the surrounding city to a halt as the police try to unravel the mystery of why he is out there. But Man On A Ledge star Sam Worthington is no Richard Baseheart, and the new film is not so much a drama as it is a heist caper with a high concept twist.

Nick Cassidy (Worthington) checks into a moderately swanky mid-town Manhattan hotel orders a nice meal from room service and then casually steps out onto the ledge of his 20th floor room. The police are quickly summoned with Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks) leading the effort to talk him back in off the ledge while trying to figure out who he is. It is soon revealed that Nick’s suicide attempt is actually a distraction, keeping police occupied so his brother (Jamie Bell) and his brother’s girlfriend Gina (Génesis Rodríguez) can break into a vault in the building across the street in order to steal evidence that a Donald Trump-esque real estate mogul (a scenery chewing Ed Harris) framed him for the crime Cassidy recently escaped prison for.

Even in the best light, Man On A Ledge is only just a standard, serviceable piece of entertainment and coming out after two months of Academy Awards fodder having been released in to theaters, it pales even further in comparison. But if you’re looking for something to watch with your brain in neutral, there are probably worse options. Not many worse options, but I’m sure that Alvin & The Chipmunks 3 is still in some theaters, so there are a few worse ones.

Setting aside the faulty logic of stolen evidence being admissible in a court of law, the plot is fairly predictable even when you’re not analyzing it too closely, but things are kept moving by some brisk direction and editing. Banks unfortunately seems out of her depth as the stressed out police officer tasked with talking Cassidy back in the window while Worthington is just as good as the material needs him to be but gives nothing more.

On the plus side, the chemistry between Bell and Rodríguez is engaging enough. But that’s not enough to really recommend plunking down your hard earned money for anything more than a Saturday afternoon matinee ticket. Fitting, perhaps, as the film never rises above the level of b-movie diversion.

1. Taken (Fox, 3,183 Theaters, 94 Minutes. Rated PG-13): “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

Isn’t that quote full of awesome? It is spoken by Liam Neeson’s character in the trailer for this film, and it pretty much sums up the character. I don’t know if the rest of the movie holds up to the promise the quote makes. Neeson plays a former spy whose daughter is kidnapped while visiting Paris. He goes on a one man search and rescue mission to save her from being sold into a life of prostitution.

This kind of movie can be hit or miss. But if the rest of the script is as good as that quote, then it just might work.

2. The Uninvited (Paramount/Dreamworks, 2,344 Theaters, 87 Minutes, Rated PG-13): The previews for this movie makes it look like a “Stepmother from Hell” kind of movie, with Elizabeth Banks in the role of the hellish stepmother. But the trailer makes it seem like the horror is only psychological.

However, this film is an adaptation of a Korean horror film. Yes, another Asian horror movie adaptation. Don’t worry, they’ll run out of these remakes eventually. They have too.  So, expect a creepy ghost to pop up somewhere unexpectedly.

Unfortunately, the original, A Tale of Two Sisters, wasn’t one of the best horror movies to come out of the East. And since remakes are usually worse than the originals, well…

3. New In Town (Lionsgate, 1,941 Theaters, 96 Minutes, Rated PG-13): Ah, the fish out of water romantic comedy. Every few years one of these comes around, like clockwork. Not much changes over time, however.

The plot for this one doesn’t differ from the formula. A business executive (Renee Zellweger) must relocate from balmy Miami to the frozen Tundra of Minnesota. After some cultural misconceptions, she learns to accept her new surroundings, at least long  enough to find romance with a local hunk (Harry Connick, Jr.)

I like the way they are promoting this film as being in the tradition of Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama. Do you think they desperately wanted Reese Witherspoon and she passed?

Although no release date has been announced for Kevin Smith’s latest comedy Zack And Miri Make A Porno, NewsAskew is reporting that it looks as if the film will hit DVD and BluRay on either February 3rd or the 10th.

One scooped reports to them that Blockbuster’s internal computers are reporting a February 10th release date for both the DVD and VBluRay editions of the film. However, the BluRay release of Smith’s Clerks II has just been moved from February 10 to the 3rd, leaving them, and myself, to wonder if the Weinstein Company will move Zack And Miri to the same date to entice buyers to pick both discs up at the same time.

1. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa: (3,900 Theaters, 89 Minutes, Rated PG): You have to hand it to Dreamworks. While Pixar might have the edge in terms of quality, Dreamworks has the edge when it comes to quantity. They have the lead when it comes to making sequels to their films between this franchise and Shrek.

This time, our animal friends are trying to get back to New York and their lives in the zoo. But, unfortunately, they end up in Africa instead, and find out their time in captivity has left them unable to relate to their wild relatives.

Of course, the best part of the last film were the penguins and, to a lesser extent, the lemurs. The creators have found a way to keep both in this second film.

2. Role Models (2,791 Screens, 99 Minutes, Rated R): On the surface, this seems like another Judd Apatow productions. After all, several of the Apatow Reperatory Players are in it (Paul Rudd, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch and Ken Jeong) and it deals with emotionally immature men put in a situation where they have to become grow up real quick–an Apatow trademark.

But Judd Apatow has nothing to do with this, at least as per IMDB. The crative forces behind this one come from the long gone but not forgotten The State.

The film deals with two overgrown adolescents who are sentenced to a “Big Brothers” like program in lieu of jail time. They soon find out that the kids they are supposed to mentor are more than a match for them.

3. Soul Men (2,044 Theaters, 103 Minutes, Rated R): This minor comedy might have came and went if it was for the untimely deaths of two of its stars.

Bernie Mac died on August 9th from complications of pneumonia at age 50, and Isaac Hayes, who appears as himself in the film, died only one day later from a stroke at age 65.

The coincidence of both men from the same movie dying only a day apart does cast an ominous pall of the film. And foe a film that is supposed to be a comedy, that is hard to overcome.

Strangely enough, the plot revolves around two back-up singers who reunite after the death of their old singing partner. Spooky.

Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) have a problem.

Platonic best friends since elementary school, the two find themselves in their mid-20s sharing an apartment and going nowhere fast. Their dead end jobs are not enough to pay their bills and as their utilities are slowly being turned off, they are in danger of being evicted from their shared apartment. But after the one-two punch of a high school class reunion and becoming the unwitting subjects of a popular embarrassing internet viral video, they realize that the only way to earn some money in this downturned economy is to go into the only recession-proof business- internet pornography.

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Not unexpectedly at all, it seems that the Weinstein Company is having some problems placing advertising for the upcoming comedy Zack And Miri Make A Porno. Evidentally, for some people, even the word “porno” is a bad thing.

An article in today’s USA Today reports that the film company has received complaints about the film’s title and that several televisino stations and about 15 newspapers have refused to carry ads for the comedy about two platonic friends, Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks, who decide that making a porn film may be their only way out of their mounting debt. Previously, director Kevin Smith had butted heads with the MPAA over the advertising for the film. Finally, in frustration, he submitted the stick figure drawings that are currently being used in the film’s advertising campaign.

But it seems as if that was still too much for some folks who feel threatened by mere words. According to the story, the Los Angeles Dodgers requested that Fox Sports drop the spots from the airing of their games following viewer complaints. One parent is quoted as being flustered by his young son asking what the word “porno” meant. The city of Philadelphia also felt the title was too inappropriate for the ad space in their bus stops. (I wonder how Pittsburgh, where Smith shot the film, will respond to the advertising.)

While I am not saying that we should thrust the concept of pornography into the faces of children, the fact that it exists shouldn’t be cause to send parents into a frenzy either. Usually, in dealing with things my 11-year old step-daughter might bring up that are over her head, my wife and I merely say that it is a “grown up thing” and we can discuss it when she is older. Seems like a fairly simple solution, and one that doesn’t make adults subject to the tyrrany of the sensibilities of children.

The thing I truely take exception to is the assertation from a professor at Wheelock College who stated that “posters at city bus stops send a message to children that working in the porn industry is an acceptable occupation.” Who is this person to decide what is an “acceptable” occupation? The pornography industry is grossing somewhere in the vacinity of $12 to $14 billion annually, exceeding the revenues of most major league sports or the intake of the major television networks combined. It seems that many Americans find porn consumtion completely acceptable. Yet oddly enough, as a society, we still want to stigmatize this exceedingly popular sector of the entertainment industry.

Watch for our review of Zack And Miri Make A Porno next week, when it opens on October 31.

Here’s 11 pictures from Kevin Smith’s upcoming comedy Zack And Miri Make A Pornoto start your week off with. There’s already some strong advance buzz on the film, which, as a Kevin Smith fan, only excites me more. (No pun intended.) The pictures in the gallery below are fairly non-spoilerish, featuring various combinations of the main cast- Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, Craig Robinson, Traci Lords, Katie Morgan and Ricky Mabe.

I think my favorite of the bunch is the one of the crew behind the camera getting ready to shoot one of the scenes for the amateur porno film that is the center of the comedy’s plot. Anyone who has worked on a low-to-no budget indie film will smile in recognition at the jerry-rigged lights and the microphone boom made out of a hockey stick.

Needless to say, Kevin Smith has had some trouble with the MPAA over his upcoming comedy Zack And Miri Make A Porno. The summation of these troubles, he has now hilariously summed in the poster art for the movie which hits theaters at the end of October.

At his own blog, Smith states-

Our frustration in getting an MPAA approval on the American poster led to last-resort ideas about showcasing dopey, simple images instead of risque pics of our leads – which, in turn, led to what’s now the official American poster for the flick. I like it a bunch. Simple and kinda ballsy. Should be up in theaters this weekend.

I have to say, this is a great poster. It rightly sums up the absolute ridiculousness of the MPAA’s nanny attitude.

CNN has graced us with a short clip from Oliver Stone’s upcoming George W. Bush bio-pic W, featuring the scene where a young Bush (Josh Brolin) mets his future wife Laura Welch (Elizabeth Banks) at a backyard cookout. What do you think?