Opening This Week

WIDE RELEASE:

• Fast Five- Nearly ten years to the date when the first The Fast & the Furious opened and became a surprise summer sleeper.  Two years later came 2 Fast 2 Furious, three after that came Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and three years later came Fast & Furious, now two years have passed and the fifth (?) installment is opening, to shockingly the best reviews of any in the franchise history.  The gang's all here, plus The Rock, ahem Dwayne Johnson.  Perhaps the box office will finally pick after winter\spring slump.  Thing again only two weeks ago, Scream came out with it's fourth installment and tanked...so one never knows.  Either way, I'm sure since it's already an international success story, a sixth installment will come in two\three years.

• Hookwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil- Hold it, there's a second sequel nobody exactly asked for coming out this week too!  Yep, six years after the first Hoodwinked opened, it was one of them self-aware Shrek-type takes on fairy tales (and rather modestly it did (it made $55 million stateside, and a tad bit over $100 million globally), the saga everyone forgot long ago returns.  This time in 3-D, and Hayden Panettiere taking over the vocal talents of original Red Riding Hood Anne Hathaway.

• Prom- I love how movies now more than ever are simply about days or holidays (think: Valentine's Day, or the upcoming New Year's Eve), pretty soon they'll be "Graduation Day." "Arbor Day," "Monday"...why not.  Walt Disney brings to light the best (and worst) days of a teenagers life.  Thanks Disney.

• Dylan Dog: Dead of Night- Supernatural thriller with a totally awesome grade-B cast: Brandon Routh, Peter Stormare, Sam Huntington and Taye Diggs.

LIMITED RELEASE:

• Cave of Forgotten Dreams- Werner Herzog, mighty Werner Herzog returns to cinemas with the first ever 3-D documentary.  In this one, he showcases the little seen and gets exclusive access inside the Chauvet Caves in Southern France, where present contains the oldest pictorial creations of humankind.  I suppose, it's about time 3-D has given back some.

• 13 Assassins- From Takashi Miike (Audition, 2001-- very unsettling movie!) comes an action, carnage fest, featuring a 45-minute action sequence...I'm exhausted just thinking about watching all that.

• Exporting Raymond- Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal makes a documentary about transporting his Emmy-winning and celebrated sitcom overseas.