Snap Judgment: Your Cinematic Weekend

As you know by now, we at Pop Whore are equally committed to keeping you away from the worst of pop culture as we are to opening your eyes to the best of it.

Normally, major (and even minor) media sources are granted early looks at movies and TV shows to enable them to review them for their media-consuming public. However, the blog you are so intently reading right now has not yet reached that level. (Of course, as residents of Hell-Lay we do have plenty of opportunities to see movies for free in advance just by walking through major pedestrian thoroughfares and grabbing some of those ubiquitous blue flyers with 800 numbers on them; but most of those movies suck and we have much better things to do with our weeknights.)

So what's the solution? Well, it's simple: Snap Judgment. We're going to offer you quick, informative reviews of the movies coming out this weekend even though we haven't technically seen them. It's up to you whether to trust our opinion, but let's face it... if you've ridden in the Pop Whore bus for this long and we haven't gone off a cliff, you might as well stay on a little longer.

So let's get right to it! Mr. IMDB, tell us what's opening this weekend!

1. Hostel (horror, rated R, written/directed by Eli Roth)

Synopsis: Two American frat-guy types get lured by some hot Eastern European chick into a pay-per-abuse dungeon.

Snap judgment: Ew. Forget it. Unless you like that kind of thing, in which case, frankly, you scare us.

2. BloodRayne (videogame adaptation, rated R, directed by Uwe Boll, written by Guinevere Turner)

Synopsis: A half-human half-vampire girl pursues justice for her mother's rape and is joined by a pair of vampire hunters.

Snap judgment: I really liked this movie the first time I saw it, when it was called "Staying Home And Poking My Eyes Out With A Fondue Fork."

Bonus info: Uwe Boll is the guy who also directed House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark and has at least 2 other video game movies in the pipeline. I think we all need to tip our hats to him; he's like the directorial equivalent of the kid in middle school who'd chew the old gum under your desk for a dollar (or in this case, more like $1 million).

3. Grandma's Boy ("comedy", rated R, directed by Nicholaus Goossen, written by Barry Wernick, Allen Covert, and Nick Swardson)

Synopsis: A thirtysomething guy moves back in with his grandmother; "hilarity" ensues.

Snap judgment: By "hilarity" we mean "piss, fart, and pot jokes" and by "ensues" we mean "occurs in a theater as far away from us as possible." Besides, you know all the "best" jokes will be reserved for the special edition DVD ("What They Couldn't Show You in Theaters!!!")

4. Casanova (romance, rated R, directed by Lasse Hallstroem, written by Jeffrey Hatcher, Kimberly Simi, and Michael Cristofer)

Synopsis: That guy, in Venice, back in the day, with all the kissing and swordfighting.

Snap judgment: I guess Heath Ledger insisted on having this movie come out as soon after Brokeback Mountain as possible so he'd have a chance to reassert his masculinity. On the other hand, he does wear a lot of tights and masks in this one. Anyway, Lasse Hallstroem has directed some good movies (What's Eating Gilbert Grape), some apparently good ones that I haven't seen (The Cider House Rules), and a really truly horrible excuse for dragging cameras up to the lush countryside and getting a bunch of English and American actors to talk with French accents (Chocolat). Casanova looks more like the latter, with the added bonus of Sienna Miller.

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So there you go. Do with the snap judgments what you will. Frankly, based on this week's spectrum of releases, making it a Blockbuster night (or better yet, a Netflix night) would probably be a good plan.