Dirty Little Secrets

Labour Day weekend is, traditionally, the slowest box-office weekend of the year -- kids are going back to school, families are coming home from the cottage, people are just generally enjoying the last of their outside time. If you haven't seen the big summer movies by now, you're waiting for the DVDs.

Which is why, to critics like me, any movie being released on that date is perceived as being abandoned by its studio.

Warner is screening "The Wicker Man" for the press at 10 pm on the Thursday night before it opens, guaranteeing that no one will be able to get a review into Friday's paper. This bodes poorly, although I'm still holding out hope that Neil Labute turned in a movie so weird that no one at the studio could understand it ... which would more or less make it a faithful remake, wouldn't it? (Plus, getting Ellen Burstyn to play the Christopher Lee role is a casting coup almost as nifty as Mia Farrow in "The Omen".)

Incidentally, if I'd been ThinkFilm, I'd have waited a week on "Shadowboxer" instead of pushing it out against my other new indie, "Half Nelson". Then again, maybe this way they can use the positive reviews of the latter to cover up for the former.

Because ... well, dear god, "Shadowboxer" is terrible. At least dumping it on Labour Day would have given us some kind of warning.

Incidentally, as far as "Crank" goes, forget everything I've just said about Labour Day preconceptions -- it rocks, and rocks profoundly. But then, that's Lionsgate/Maple, always going against the grain ...

Technorati tags: Movies, Box Office, Hollywood, Shadowboxer, Crank, Half Nelson, Wicker Man Remake