The weekend box-office is in, and Sylvester Stallone’s ’80s shoot-em-up “The Expendables” remains in the number-one spot with a second-week gross of $16.5 million. And if you think the title of this blog post refers to that, well, you’re only half right.

See, the weekend’s number two movie — with $12.2 million in ticket sales — is “Vampires Suck”, the latest from hack parodists Josh Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who’ve foisted “Date Movie”, “Epic Movie”, “Disaster Movie” and “Meet the Spartans” upon our screens over the past few years. Now, in fairness, I haven’t seen the new one, but I know the template, and I know Friedberg and Seltzer’s sense of pop-culture humour, which is roughly adjacent to Jay Leno’s.

It’s lowest-common-denominator stuff — bringing out a Britney Spears impersonator and smacking her with a mallet, because everyone wants to see Britney Spears get smacked in the face with a mallet. It’s the same impulse that led Jay Roach to throw Jeff Dunham into “Dinner for Schmucks” — a sop to the Middle Americans who might not recognize Jemaine Clement, Lucy Punch, Kristen Schaal or Chris O’Dowd but sure do love that ventriloquist guy. (And here I must pause and point out that for all his failings, Roach is a more astute director of comedians than Friedberg and Seltzer, who just hire lookalike actors and make them repeat the dialogue from whatever they’re mocking with one eyebrow raised.)

So, yeah. “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” barely stays in the game, holding tenth place with a $5 million take, but “Vampires Suck” just made half its budget back, guaranteeing it’ll be profitable by the time it hits DVD (which should be presently). And Friedberg and Seltzer will have another insta-parody in theatres by Christmas — probably going after the “Harry Potter” series. That’s on you, moviegoers. Damn you all to hell.

My latest MSN Movies gallery looks at the latest wave of 3D movies, since “Piranha 3D” is the week’s biggest release. It’s a natural!

And no, I didn’t forget that awful 3D remake of “Night of the Living Dead”. I just refuse to acknowledge its existence. Better for everyone, really.

It’s turned out to be one of those weeks where nearly everything coming out falls directly on my head. How swell. Fortunately, there’s a surprisingly wide range of stuff opening today, and most of it is even worthwhile!

“George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead“: He may be running on fumes these days, but people will still give him money to kill zombies, so here we are with a sixth chapter in the “Dead” series, featuring Kenneth Welsh in what may be the single worst performance in any Romero film ever. (And Romero worked with Richard France three times.)

“The Infidel“: Omid Djalili plays an assimilated London Muslim who’s shocked to discover he was born Jewish in Josh Appignanesi’s cross-cultural farce, which doesn’t exactly break new ground comedically but does hit its marks reasonably well.

“Lebanon“: Is Samuel Maoz’ subjective look at an Israeli tank crew on the first day of the Lebanon war an experimental war movie, or an experiential one? I’m not quite sure, but I know it makes for great cinema, and isn’t that all that matters?

“Lottery Ticket“: Ice Cube continues to reinvent our notions of “wholesome family comedy” with this frenzied effort about a teenager (Bow Wow, no longer Li’l) who wins a massive jackpot but can’t collect it until the end of a long weekend. A very long weekend, as it turns out.

“Nanny McPhee Returns“: Emma Thompson brings her magical governess back for another round of CG-enhanced kid-friendly fun. It’s not great cinema, but it works well enough while you’re watching it; my review should be up on the NOW site later today.

“Piranha 3D”: No advance screenings for Alexandre Aja’s souped-up remake of the Joe Dante classic. This either means it’s terrible, or the studio doesn’t know what to do with it. Given that the cast includes intriguingly ironic leading man Adam Scott and hardened aquatic survivor Richard Dreyfuss, I’m hoping for the latter.

“The Switch“: Look, you can spin almost any subject matter for comedy — think of “The Producers”, or “There’s Something About Mary”, or “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”. But you have to know what you’re doing, and this movie — starring Jason Bateman as (literally) a jerkoff who sabotages his best friend’s pregnancy by substituting his own sperm for her chosen donor’s — decidedly does not.

There, that’s everything. Well, almost; there’s a four-hour Japanese movie called “Love Exposure” playing at the Japanese Cultural Centre tomorrow night, about which I am writing for today’s NOW Daily column. I’ll post a link as soon as it goes up (UPDATE: Linked!), but if you want the short version? I’ve never seen anything like it, and it is spectacularly crazy. So that’s good, right?

After last week’s frenzy of interviews, you’d think I’d take it easier this week … but nope, here I am in the latest issue of NOW talking to Omid Djalili, the British stand-up comic who stars as in “The Infidel”, and George A. Romero, whose most recent zombie film “Survival of the Dead” shambles into the Toronto Underground Cinema tomorrow for a weeklong run.

Film festival? What film festival? I’m having my own little film festival right now …

Today in new releases: “Vampires Suck”, the latest insta-spoof from Jason Friedberg and Eric Seltzer, the marketing geniuses who gave us the undying classics “Date Movie”, “Epic Movie” and “Meet the Spartans”, and of whom, in a perfect world, we would speak no more.

The trouble is, their movies are cheap to produce and generally profitable, so Fox loses nothing by throwing ’em on the market. Although this time, things might be different: According to the Hollywood Reporter, a work print of the film has leaked online, where it’s been downloaded by approximately 100,000 users. If I’ve done the math right, that’s about two-thirds of the opening-weekend audience.

Poor Fox. First the Wolverine debacle, now this. It’s almost like someone in a position of access and power is trying to warn people about the low quality of these movies. I wonder why he or she didn’t leak “Knight & Day”, too.

Well, here we are. Or more accurately, here I am. Early middle age, or the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything? I guess I have another 364 days to figure that out.

I do know that, empirically speaking, things are good. Even with another TIFF looming — my 21st as an accredited journalist, which means I have now been covering this thing for exactly half my life — everything’s chugging along.

Relationships are strong, work is solid (amazingly enough, both for this economy and my chosen field), and I’m in fine health except for the thinning hair and my stupid old-man diet. (Don’t ask.)

And, of course, Dexter is making things interesting in his own unique way. Wasn’t really expecting there’d be a new dog in the picture today, but as a decidedly un-great man once said, we’re gonna keep him.

So, yeah. Let’s see what happens next, shall we?

… or the weekend, actually. With an estimated $35 million gross, Sylvester Stallone’s dopey retro bloodbath “The Expendables” roid-raged its way to box-office prominence, cementing Stallone’s comeback and guaranteeing he’ll make more dour, preposterously violent action pictures in the years to come.

The Julia Roberts spiritual-journey drama “Eat Pray Love” took in $23.7 million. And Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”, which was easily the week’s best new movie, took in about $10.5 million, according to this firewalled Variety piece, which you can still sort of read if you tilt your screen just the right way and squint.

Ah, well. “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” didn’t set the box-office on fire either, but they’re still “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”. “Scott Pilgrim” will find its audience on disc, just you wait and see.

With most of MSN’s entertainment pages devoted to “Scott Pilgrim” — and rightly so, dammit — it fell to me to come up with a little counterprogramming. So this week’s movie gallery uses “The Expendables” as its launching pad, looking at eight other attempts to relaunch a character, concept or franchise for a new audience.

Yeah, Stallone turns up in a couple of ’em. Reinvention is kind of his thing lately.

Also, if you find yourself near a television set this afternoon, flip on CTV News Channel to catch me talking about “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” under what I hope will be a thick layer of makeup. I’ve caught some sun this week. I’m currently set to go on at 3:15, but check my Twitter feed for any last-minute changes. See you there!