EDIT: Mike Fissel, friend of the site and who has been on The MovieByte Podcast with me more than once had something to say in the comments below that I thought was worth bringing up to the top.

So, The World’s End, the BEST thing you can see this weekend (probably this month). This movie is the final installment in “The Blood and Ice Cream” trilogy from Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. The trilogy included Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz - both incredibly clever and brilliant comedies. It’s already been out for nearly a month overseas and now we’re finally getting our shot.

For anyone looking…

Given that I have no desire to see The Butler in large part because Oprah Winfrey is in it, and otherwise because it looks terrible, sappy, cheesy and more, I have not seen it yet. but it’s what is winning the day at the Box Office so maybe I should make time for it.

#1 — Lee Daniels’ The Butler

Budget: $30 M
Totals: $25 M Weekend Gross  and Current Total
Weekend 1

My general rule of thumb is, if Oprah Winfrey is involved I want nothing to do with it. Fair or not, that’s my feeling on the matter. General movie goers seem to disagree however, because this, her latest film, seemed to…

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has seen “Jobs,” and his review basically says the Ashton Kutcher movie is, meh, okay.

“I saw ‘Jobs’ tonight. I thought the acting throughout was good,” Wozniak wrote in a blog post for Gizmodo. “I was attentive and entertained but not greatly enough to recommend the movie.”

I find this to be no real surprise myself.

Wozniak believes the biggest problem with the movie was Kutcher’s take on the iconic entrepreneur the film focuses on.

“I suspect a lot of what was wrong with the film came from Ashton’s own image of Jobs,” Wozniak—who is played by Josh Gad…

This weekend, we get to see if Ashton Kutcher playing Steve Jobs is any good. I have a slight general dread of the film because I fear, as an Apple Gadget lover and follower of all things Apple that I’m going to hate the film.

There are other things to see this weekend too, though, but I’m thinking JOBS will most certainly be the best one of the lot of new films.

New Films

JOBS — PG-13

There is no doubt that Ashton Kutcher looks like Steve Jobs. In fact, so much so, that in many of these pictures, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was a picture of Jobs himself. From what I’ve…

The future is here, at the box office anyway, and it doesn’t look great. It looks a little like a third world country in fact. Back here in the present however, a stripper, a small time drug deal, and two teenagers are going to rake in a little bit of cash from the onscreen drug deal. And then of course, Dusty Crophopper isn’t really going to get off the ground.

#1 — Elysium

Budget: $115 M
Totals: $30.4 M, Weekend / $10.9 M, Foreign / $41.3 M, Worldwide
Weekend 1

Looking at the disparity between the budget, and what this film brought in this weekend, I have a bad feeling about this. The…

When your first film is a major commercial and critical success like District 9, seeds of anticipation and worry are planted in the collective mind of your audience. Questions start crowding to the surface: “Is this guy for real? Is he a one-hit wonder? Can he do it again?” Needless to say: Neill Blomkamp‘s Elysium had ginormous shoes to fill, serious expectations to meet, and a lot to live up to. Did it succeed? Yes… and no. Mostly no.

It’s Better Up There

The year is 2154, and society is divided into two classes: the wealthy, who live on a man-made habitat called Elysium, and the…

Up-charged tickets made up a full 71 percent of Avatar‘s 2009 opening-weekend gross of $77 million, and Alice in Wonderland (70 percent),TRON: Legacy (82 percent), and The Final Destination (70 percent) also got major boosts. Animated family movies have never done as well in the format, but even Toy Story 3 managed 60 percent in 2010. This summer a different tale has unfolded: During the 30-day span from June 21 to July 21, 3-D business hit a new low three separate times (that’s since 2009, when this new golden age began).

Only 31 percent of Monsters University‘s June 21 opening-weekend…

The sea is full of monsters, strippers, runaways, and drug dealers are teaming up, Matt Damon is trying to free us from a post-apocalyptic nightmarish future, planes are soaring through the air, and trailers are getting voiceovers this weekend! It’s a big one.

New This Weekend!

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters — PG

It’s hard for me to have a good opinion since I still haven’t even seen the first one, a problem I intend to rectify this weekend because it does look interesting and I want to come to this film with the proper context. I won’t get to see this film until next weekend probably,…

Well it wasn’t terrible but…

What a horrible way to start a review, right? I mean, I want to say something nice about this film because I didn’t hate it. It was entertaining and enjoyable on a few levels, but on other levels this film also failed to deliver. That makes this film kind of mediocre.

Yet on the other hand, this film has a couple of problems, and one very significant problem, hence: it wasn’t terrible, but…

Twists and Turns

This film definitely has a few more curve balls in store than the average film plot these days, and that’s not actually a negative thing. Often, it seems…