Snap Judgment: Because I Snapped So

Historically, this is a weekend in which the studios are hesitant to put out any aggressively guy-oriented movies. The Super Bowl itself may only be airing on Sunday, but your average "YEAHHHHH! FIRST DOWN!!!" guy needs Saturday to shop for Bud Light and nacho supplies and Friday night to find the bottle opener; and it's unlikely that all that will allow for enough time to catch the latest "Vin Diesel kills a bunch of guys and sleeps with some hot woman who digs baldness and speech impediments" thriller. In its place we have a chick flick aimed at middle-aged book club attendees (but the kind who don't really read the books and just go for the divine sun-dried tomato hummus that Shelly makes); and a horror flick aimed at the kids who think the Super Bowl is lame and know they can catch the good commercials on YouTube within an hour anyway.


Because I Said So (comedy, rated PG-13, directed by Michael Lehmann, written by Karen Leigh Hopkins & Jesse Nelson)

I don't really know what to say about this, to be perfectly honest. All I can really do is point out that Diane Keaton played Zach Braff's mother in Manhattan Murder Mystery and now plays Mandy Moore's mother in this movie. Which explains why they broke up, because EWWW! They're brother and sister! Perhaps that's the context of the scene depicted on the poster. "Didn't I tell you not to hook up with your own flesh and blood? Just imagine what this'll do to your singing career when the press finds out you have a secret love child running around with funny-looking teeth and an uncanny talent for playing 'Dueling Banjos!'" "But MOM! He's so cute and funny and his directorial style fuses a blistering pop culture sensibility with haunting moments of raw emotion!" "Don't talk to me like that, young lady! I aborted a kid in Godfather II and so help me, if you keep working my nerves like this I'll chain you to the couch and put The Other Sister in the DVD player on perpetual repeat. Do you want to end up like your oldest sister, trapped on a once-great TV show with an incompetent new executive producer? Because that's where your life is heading!" "Oh, whatever, mom. Why don't you go do another CBS Movie of the Week?"


The Messengers (horror, rated PG-13, directed by Oxide Pang Chun & Danny Pang, written by Mark Wheaton and Todd Farmer)

It's not often that I get truly wacky director's names to pick on in this column. Well, okay, it's kind of often. But that doesn't make it any less worthwhile. Oxide? OXIDE??? I know there are plenty of embarrassed kids out there whose parents named them after the song that was playing when they were conceived or something like that, but believe me, it's got to be worse to be named after the cleaning product they used to remove pizza stains from the shag carpeting later that night. Anyway, I'm thrilled that this movie has given Penelope Ann Miller another chance to return to her early 90's A-list status. She's always been one of those people whose name sounds way familiar but then you can't name anything she's been in. (Up until a minute ago I thought she was in Wishmaster, but it was actually The Relic. In my defense, both those movies were released in 1997, featured scores of gruesome deaths, and sucked.) I have faith, though; if anyone can get a stellar performance out of her, it's Oxide.