Through two months, 2013 has been a pretty awful year for major motion pictures at the box office thus far. If you look at a rundown of the year’s biggest films to date, you’ll see that only Identity Thief, a comedic caper about Jason Bateman and Rex Reed’s tiny penis chasing Melissa McCarthy all over the place, has topped the $100 million mark this year.

That means that star-driven action movies like A Good Day to Die Hard ($63 million), Snitch ($31 million) and Parker ($17 million) have been big old turkey turds at the U.S. box office, while unusual entries like the comedic zombie tale Warm Bodies ($63 million) and horror films like Mama ($71 million) and Safe Haven ($62 million) have been surprising successes. Wait, what? Safe Haven isn’t a horror film? But it stars Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough and is based on a Nicholas Sparks novel. I can’t think of anything more terrifying than that.

The biggest concern* lies with the year’s first huge budget film, Jack the Giant Slayer, which had a $195 million budget and has only grossed $43 million through its first two weeks. However, before any Hollywood execs go burying themselves to the neck into mountains of cocaine, Oz the Great and Powerful may have pulled us out of this year’s early funk, grossing $80 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend, with an additional $65 million overseas. Although, while $145 million might sound awesome, Oz cost $215 million to make, so Disney would probably appreciate it if you took your brats to see it 12 more times.

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I meant to get this review up Friday to coincide with the release, but I did not. Mea culpa.

Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay Side Effects is that immediately after it was over I wanted to see it again. I barely feel comfortable reviewing it having only seen it once, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had that feeling. In movies, as in life, it’s rare to actually be treated like an adult these days (…he said as he wrote on his blog wearing nothing but Cheetos crumbs and underpants in the middle of the day). We’re so used to every plot point and expository story nugget being slammed into our numbed brains with a fungo bat, that when a movie actually requires careful attention to detail and deductive reasoning, suddenly we feel ill-equipped. We find ourselves spitting out mouthfuls of slobbery milk duds to ask our seat mates what the hell just happened. (That’s right, “we,” just go with me here). I’m saying, Side Effects is like that, the rare movie that treats us Milk Dud eaters like we’re smarter than we are.

I don’t mean Side Effects is confusing in the way that Chris Nolan movies are confusing, where relentless, deliberate subterfuge is the dominant narrative device. Side Effects can be hard to follow, but it doesn’t feel like Soderbergh trying to confuse you. It feels more like he’s just a step ahead of us and he’s a little too excited to tell what comes next to play catch up. It’s an honest thriller. You follow along, and then surprising things happen, in such a way that at the time it seems so out of left field that it might take half a scene to catch up. There’s a way to confuse the audience in a way that feels sloppy, and a way to confuse us in a way that’s intriguing. Side Effects does the latter, like some of Eminem’s old singles, where he’d say something that almost sounded like complete gibberish, but you’d rewind or hear it a couple times and go, holy shit, all of that actually made sense. It wasn’t just a cheap trick. Sadly, I don’t get to rewind at movie screenings, a fact that security has been over with me in great detail, but it seems important that I’d want to.

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Bump, set and spike my crotch, am I right?

Opening Everywhere: Identity Thief, Side Effects

Opening In IMAX: Top Gun

FilmDrunk Suggests: Rex Reed says that by paying for a ticket to see Identity Thief, you’re supporting America’s problem with obesity. He also says that your mom is “built like a brontosaurus dick” and that she “lubes with mayonnaise”. His words, not mine. So go see Channing Tatum in Side Effects.

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If I would’ve realized this was our 138th podcast, I would’ve planned some kind of special Danzig/Misfits episode. But I didn’t, so we had Laremy. We read more of your stories of embarrassment and rehashed the week that’s been, including Kai the Homeless Hitchhiking Hatchet Hero and San Francisco’s most San Franciscoest Craigslist ad – with a specific focus on whether it’s morally defensible to spread around potentially shame-inciting and life-ruining material like that.Then we get Laremy on to talk Soderbergh’s Side Effects (which we both saw this week) and his celebrity encounters with the likes of Spike Lee, Pee Wee Herman, and Kristen Stewart. No gimmicks, just a solid ‘sode.

UPCOMING SHOWS: FEBRUARY 27th AT THE HOLLYWOOD IMPROV WITH MARIA BAMFORD AND PAUL SCHEER (AND JOE KING/SINCLITICO!). If you miss this you are an asswad.

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This Week in Posters was postponed last week, but now it’s here! I suppose it’s kind of a “last week in posters” now, but better late than never, right? Don’t answer that.

First up, Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain. Okay, this is a pretty fantastic poster. Not that I imagine it’s very difficult to communicate a Michael Bay plot in a single image, but this one pretty much nails it. A couple a dudes, just gettin’ pumped and shredded in front of old glory. It brings a tear to my eye. Still, asking Mark Wahlberg to play a bodybuilder and then casting a guy opposite him who’s six foot five is borderline cruel. Regardless, I’m excited to see The Rock and Marky Mark get the same borderline-porny Michael Bay treatment as the Transformers girls. I’m envisioning a nice peekaboo shot up Wahlberg’s weightlifting shorts like the Megan Fox car scene while he’s doing so wicked tricep extensions. “Hey, Dawnny! You seen my chawklit flavahed mass gainah?” (*swooping crane shot of washboard abs*)

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