This Weekend, Watch This
A comparison of the new releases for April 22, 2011
By Curt David
April 22, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
More likely than not, each weekend there is a movie that you have never heard of in the theaters. I'll save you the hassle of researching every movie, by comparing the new releases for each weekend in this column. Then, I'll tell you which movie to watch.
For the weekend of April 22nd, the movies in wide release are African Cats, Water for Elephants, and Tyler's Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family.
| African Cats | Water for Elephants | Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family | Winner (1 point per category) | |
| Clearest Title | Uhhh... clearly there's going to be a lion in this movie - but what's the plot? | What the? More animals? At least this time we know the plot involves drinking water. | Ahhh, a movie with African-American stars experiencing hilarity and heartbreak. | You know exactly what you are going to get when a movie has "Tyler Perry" and "Madea" in the title. Point. |
| Best Genre and Rating | Documentary Rated G (I guess you don't need a description for a G movie) | Drama Rated PG-13 for moments of intense violence and sexual content. | Dramedy Rated PG-13 for drug content, language, and some mature thematic material. | Documentaries don't always get wide releases...point for the cats. |
| Cleverest Tagline (out of 5 stars) | N/A I don't think this movie had a tagline...shame cause the lion on the poster looks majestic. | "Life is the most spectacular show on earth." Aahh, I get it, the movie is about the circus, but the characters are experiencing life...eh. 1/5 stars | WHOA - so this movie parodied movie posters & taglines from True Grit, Black Swan, King's Speech, and The Godfather. Check them out here. | The Godmother. True Grits. The Queen's Speech. Madea's film rocks this round for creativity. Point. |
| Best Part of Trailer | Good footage. Cute baby cats. Lion vs. Alligator! | I got a Titanic-love-story feeling in a circus instead of a boat. | I laughed several times, most ever for a Madea trailer. | I was predicting that it would have been the worse trailer, but Water for Elephants wins this round hands down. |
| Coolest Lead Actor | A Lion | Reese Witherspoon from Walk the Line and Legally Blonde. | Tyler Perry from every movie with the word Madea in the title. | The lion almost won, but I'm going to give the lovely and talented Ms. Witherspoon this point. |
| Best Cast | Narrator Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) and Cheetahs. | Robert Pattinson (Twilight), Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) | Loretta Devine (Boston Public), Bow Wow (Like Mike), with Maury Povich | Water For Elephants gets the point this week, but just barely. |
| Best Street Cred For the Production | Disney Nature has come out with some good Earth Day documentaries the past couple of years. | Director Francis Lawrence also directed I am Legend and Constantine. | Directer/writer/producer Tyler Perry has also done all those jobs for a ton of movies. | No matter what people might say about his films, he knows how to make and sell movies. Point for Tyler Perry. |
So out of a maximum of 7 points per movie, Water for Elephants scores 3 points, Madea's Big Happy Family scores 3 points, and African Cats scores 1 point. What? Second week in a row there's a tie in this column...who will win?
You may interpret this column for your own movie preferences. For example, if baby animals make you go "awww", feel free to watch African Cats this weekend. However, if you are still on the fence, please read the following conclusions from the scientific data gathered in this column.
Conclusion 1: The best movie to watch this weekend (and Reese was the tie-breaker) is Water for Elephants.
Conclusion 2: Anyone else think it's ironic that Robert Pattinson's character is named Jacob in this movie?
Conclusion 3: I think I'm starting to regret not making African Cats win the round this week.