This Weekend, Watch This
A comparison for the new releases for February 22-24, 2012
By Curt David
February 22, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com

I'm starting to wish I hadn't made that I Hate My Husband Pie!
New movies are released into theaters every weekend. How do you decide which movie to watch? Some movies sound awesome (Muppets from Space), but then do not do too well commercially. Other movies star your celebrity crush (Lucy Liu in Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever), but then do not get much love critically. Still other movies are recommended by friends (but friends can be idiots). And if you are like 64%* of people, you are not even aware of which movies are being released, yet alone which movies you should pay your hard earned money on.

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 you should watch in the theaters.

For the weekend of February 22nd, the new movies in wide release are Dark Skies and Snitch.

Dark SkiesSnitchWINNER
(1 point per category)
Clearest TitleThis sounds foreboding. This sounds like the typical one-word action film. Both movies have generic titles. Half point each.
Best Genre
and Rating		Horror
Rated PG-13 for violence, terror throughout, sexual material, drug content, and language...all involving teens. 		Action
Rated PG-13 for drug content and sequences of violence. 		Both movies have different genres! Half point each.
Best Plot
(in haiku form)		Normal Family
Scary things and strange events
Horror aliens? 		Son wrongly in jail
The Rock needs to lay smackdown
To get son justice 		I thought this week wouldn’t be original, and then I wrote the word “alien.” Point for Dark Skies.
Best Trailer- Similar elements of other horror films with families
+ But the last five seconds seemed cool (aliens?)
+ This trailer was fine, most horror trailers are awful. 		+ Looks like a high quality action film
+ The Rock seems a little more vulnerable in this role
- I’m sure this plot must have been done at least once before		Snitch’s trailer made me a little more interested in seeing the movie. So point.
Coolest Lead ActorKeri Russell from Felicity, Waitress, and Mission Impossible 3. Dwayne Johnson from the WWE, The Scorpion King, and Get Smart. I respect both of these actors a lot. Seriously. Half point each.
Best CastJ.K. Simmons (Spider-Man) Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise), Melina Kanakaredes (Providence), and Benjamin Bratt (Miss Congeniality) Snitch has the more well-known cast. Point.
Best Street Cred
For the Production		Writer and Director Scott Stewart also wrote and directed Legion. Writer and Director Ric Roman Waugh has done stunts for a ton of action movies. Scott has directed another famous film. Point for him.


So out of a maximum of 7 points per movie, Dark Skies earns 3 and 1/2 points and a gold star and Snitch earns 3 and 1/2 points.

You may interpret this column for your own movie preferences. For example, if you’ve heard of movies like Beasts of the Southern Wild, feel free to watch the Oscars this weekend instead. However, if you are still on the fence, please read the following conclusions from the scientific data gathered in this column.

Conclusion 1: On paper, Dark Skies and Snitch are both the best movies to watch this weekend.
Conclusion 2: Each week the gold star will go to the movie with the best tagline. Snitch had a lame tagline of “How far would you go to save your son?”. While Dark Skies had the better, “Once you’ve been chosen, you belong to them.”
Conclusion 3: Tiebreaks are now easy in this column. Dark Skies, with its gold star, is now the official best movie to watch this weekend.

*Statistic is completely made up.