Silent dog farts are THE WORST.

If you’ve read the headline, you know this week sees the DVD releases of both Hotel Transylvania as well as the latest Paranormal Activity flick, Paranormal Activity 4.  If you recognize the banner image, you also know that Seven Psychopaths hits DVD today as well.  Good for you.  Of course, there’s plenty of other flicks to talk about: there’s films with Bruce Willis and Tim Roth, and films about superheroes both well-known and unknown.  We’ve got films about ghosts and hitmen and terrorists and vampires, and even one about a little girl with the power to heal through touch.  All that and still more ghosts and vampires.  What an exciting week for DVD.

The DVDs:
Seven Psychopaths
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2
Hotel Transylvania
Paranormal Activity 4
The Cold Light Of Day
The Awakening
The Liability
All Superheroes Must Die
Hello I Must Be Going
Noobz
Heaven’s Door
Cherry Tree Lane
Citadel
The Rule Of Law
The Right To Bear Arms
Brides Of Sodom

Streaming: Check out your choices here.

Really like Bruce Willis, but don’t know which flick he’s in?  Continue reading to find out.  Can’t figure out which movies involve superheroes?  You know the drill: continue reading and you’ll get your answers. If you really aren’t all that curious about any of these flicks, feel free to click the link above and jump straight to this week’s Netflix suggestions, but really, how could you not be curious about Brides Of Sodom? Read the rest of this entry »

This story was all over the Yahoo homepage late yesterday, and it goes that a theater in Nottingham, UK sent children and parents running for the exits when they accidentally showed them Paranormal Activity 4 instead of Madagascar 3, like they paid for. EEK! THAT’S NOT EVEN THE RIGHT NUMBER SEQUEL!

According to a blog from Yahoo! Movies U.K., the parents grabbed their kids and ran from the theater. They suspected something was amiss when the opening scene of “Paranormal Activity 4″ featured (SPOILER ALERT) a corpse hurtling toward the camera. The little kids, who were expecting sassy penguins and talking zebras, weren’t amused.

Natasha Lewis of Bulwell in Nottingham, who took her 8-year-old son Dylan to see talking animated animals, said the unexpected horror movie scene was “enough to make grown men jump, so you can imagine the terror in these young faces.”

She continued: “Everybody just scrambled for the exits, all you could hear were children crying and screaming. Everyone was very upset. I’ve watched a few horror films in my time but the ‘Paranormal Activity’ films are the scariest since ‘The Exorcist’. It was only about two minutes worth of the film but it was enough to scar them for life. There were parents and kids in there, including some children who were younger than Dylan.”

“They started playing the movie and I thought – this doesn’t look right. And then I recognised the opening sequence as a flash back to the first movie, which I saw a couple of years ago.”
“It was only about two minutes worth of the film but it was enough to scar them for life. There were parents and kids in there, including some children who were younger than Dylan.” [Yahoo]

Gee, why does this sound like total made-up marketing horsesh*t? Could it be the fake-outraged marketing testimonial? “I’m telling you, don’t leave a KFC spicy chicken snacker on your coffee table, you could cause a housefire! I had one a few years ago and the only way I can describe it is ‘frighteningly zesty.’ They should really warn people, it’s too exxxtreme!”

I’m calling bullsh*t. Isn’t Paranormal Activity shot entirely in found-footage, black-and-white surveillance cam anyway? How’s that scary unless you can read? Those kids would be asleep 10 minutes in. I think Business Dog is behind this story.

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Tyler Perry demonstrating the subtlety of his plots

The new wide releases this weekend were Alex Cross and Paranormal Activity 4. Predicably, Paranormal Activity made $30 million, sextupling its $5 million budget, while BoxOfficeMojo says “though its comparatively underwhelming gross suggests audiences are growing tired of the perennial horror franchise.” Yep, it’s underwhelming audiences all the way to the bank, just like it was designed to.

Meanwhile, Tyler Perry hoped he could expand his output from hokey melodrama to hokey thriller, playing Alex Cross in a film called Alex Cross with a tagline “don’t ever cross Alex Cross.” It’s not quite a lawyer named deeds learning the value of good deeds in a film called Good Deeds, but it’s close. Sadly, it didn’t work. Alex Cross ever had the worst-ever opening ($11.75 million) for a Tyler Perry starrer and the worst opening for a movie featuring the Alex Cross character (previously: Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider). I guess the world just wasn’t ready for a film about a homicidal serial killer who targets the wife of the detective sent to catch him. Sometimes you’re just ahead of your time, you know? Maybe the world will catch up in time for the sequel.

OTHER NOTES: Argo fell only 15 percent from its opening weekend, “the best hold ever for a live-action movie in over 3,000 theaters that’s released outside of November and December (when holiday weekends skew results).” Maybe it can win an award for the most conditional record.

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Paramount has announced that Paranormal Activity 4 is being produced and that it will be ready by Halloween weekend. The move isn’t that surprising when you consider the great steaming f*ckloads of money they’ve already made on the franchise. I honestly didn’t even know a third Paranormal Activity existed, and it set an opening weekend record for best October debut and best opening weekend for a horror film with $54 million, before going on to earn $202.2 million worldwide. Oren Peli directed the first one on a $15,000 budget ($194.4 million worldwide gross), then stepped into the producer’s chair for the next two, which were directed by Tod Williams and the team of Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman, respectively. No word yet on who’ll direct the fourth, but rest assured it probably won’t matter much.

Anyway, great for them. I’ll probably continue not seeing these. I just don’t really get the appeal. A curtain blows open, and a lady looks outside, and she’s like, “OH MY GOD, IT’S NOT EVEN WINDY! THIS HOUSE MUST BE HAUNTED!” It seems more like the raw material for a phone message from my mom than a movie franchise. But it’s cool that you guys like it. You know, whatever makes you happy.