This Weekend, Watch This
A comparison for the new releases for March 8-10, 2013
By Curt David
March 8, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com

A monkey, a doll and a dude in a top hat walk into a bar...
New movies are released into theaters every weekend. How do you decide which movie to watch? Some movies sound awesome (The Ladies Man), but then do not do too well commercially. Other movies star your celebrity crush (Sandra Bullock in Speed 2: Cruise Control), 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 88%* 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 March 8th, the new movies in wide release are Dead Man Down and Oz The Great and Powerful.


Dead Man DownOz the Great and PowerfulWINNER
(1 point per category)
Clearest TitleThere will be violence in this movie. There will be a yellow brick road in this movie. Oz, as in the wizard? If so, point for most recognizable title.
Best Genre
and Rating		Action/Thriller
Rated R for violence, language, and a scene of sexuality.		Action/Fantasy
Rated PG for sequences of action and scary images, and brief mild images. 		Two different ratings, so 1/2 point each. (But I’m always excited to see a PG live action film!)
Best Plot
(in haiku form)		Girl blackmails a guy
Tells him to kill a bad man
Lots of explosions		The Wizard of Oz
Where did the wizard come from?
Here’s his backstory.		I guess prequels can be kind of clever. Point for Oz.
Best Trailer+ Seems well-done, nice video editing
- Kind of boring
- It looked good, but it didn’t make me want to watch it		+ Dazzling effects
+ Fun prequel about the Wizard of Oz
- But why isn’t this the musical Wicked?		Oz had a better trailer. Oz will win the point.
Coolest Lead ActorColin Farrell from Phone Booth, Daredevil, and Horrible Bosses. James Franco from Spider-Man, 127 Hours, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Hmm, this is a tough choice. I’ll let these gentlemen split the point.
Best CastNoomi Rapace (Prometheus) and Terrence Howard (Crash)Mila Kunis (That 70s Show), Rachel Weisz (The Mummy), Michelle Williams (Dawson’s Creek), and Zach Braff (Scrubs) Close race again. I think Oz squeaks by with a point for Best Cast.
Best Street Cred
For the Production		Director Niels Arden Oplev has also directed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Director Sam Raimi has also directed Evil Dead and the Spider-Man trilogy. Both men have street cred, but Sam will get the point.


So out of a maximum of 7 points per movie, Oz The Great and Powerful scores 6 points and Dead Man Down scores 1 point.

You may interpret this column for your own movie preferences. For example, if you didn’t like the movie Alice in Wonderland, feel free to watch Dead Man Down. 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, Oz The Great and Powerful is the best movie to watch this weekend.
Conclusion 2: I usually give gold stars each week to the movie with the best tagline, but this week neither tagline really did it for me. No gold stars awarded. (“Blood demands blood” and “In Oz, nothing is what it seems.”)
Conclusion 3: Did you see the Mila Kunis/ Chris Stark interview yet? I normally don’t watch things before they go viral, but I saw this one on Day 1, and loved it.

*Statistic is completely made up.