Despite a fall of 48% from its opening last weekend, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen continued to pound audiences into submission, resisting the relatively puny attack of new releases starring Jack Black and Cameron Diaz. Michael Bay's robots flick has taken £16.49m in 10 days, which compares with just over £12m after two weekends for this summer's previous biggest openers Wolverine, Star Trek and Night at the Museum 2. All those three films benefited from preview takings of at least £800,000, whereas Transformers opted not go the preview route.

Highest new entrant is biblical comedy Year One, starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, which debuted with £976,000. It's fair to say that when Sony dated the movie for 26 June, it didn't anticipate that rival comedy The Hangover would still be posing such a potent threat in its third week of release. Warners' Vegas misadventure declined just 15% from the previous weekend, with takings of £1.91m and a highly impressive cumulative total of £11.19m.

Read the complete story

Students in Glenwood Avenue School's Homework Club celebrated the end of a long week of standardized testing with an afternoon at Franks Theaters in Rio Grande, courtesy of the Cape May County Bar Association and the United Way of Cape May County. About 60 students and their teachers enjoyed popcorn and soda while watching Disney's "Earth" on Thursday, May 14.

"Many people don't realize that there are kids right here in our community who don't get a chance to enjoy the things we take the granted," United Way Executive Director, Suzanne Nardi said. "Some rarely or never get a chance to go to the Boardwalk or the zoo or the movies."

Read the complete story

The stars (voices): John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Queen Latifah, Ray Romano, Simon Pegg.

The story: The cute and sassy prehistoric animals are balancing food and relationship issues, and come across a strange underground world where dinosaurs still exist.

The verdict: This fun-packed and welcome third film in the Ice Age series gets the digital 3D treatment, meaning even more in-yer-face prehistoric entertainment as the mismatched bunch of sub-zero creatures have some hairy close encounters with flesh-hungry drooling dinosaurs.

The first two Ice Age movies have been massive hits with kids and parents alike. In the third, the best moments come from oddball creature Scrat and his neverending (and usually doomed) pursuit of a tasty acorn - although this time there is the possibility of romance in the form of a squirrel named Scratte. Simon Pegg is on hand to provide the voice of new character Buck the Weasel and the laughs are balanced with some outstanding action sequences.

“One who is abnormal must never feel abnormal,” the French novelist Colette once wrote to a friend. Instead, he or she thinks, “What is this world full of monstrous pigs who are different from me?” What words to live — or rather to write — by! Born in an age of corsets and legalized prejudice (1873-1954), Colette scandalized society with her colorful life, lovers of both sexes and demimonde characters. Her inspirations were artists not of the pen but of the bedroom, women whose idea of the bottom line, to quote the critic Judith Thurman, “was 50 thousand a year and a villa of one’s own — with a big garden, a great chef, and a pretty boy.”One such character is Léa de Lonval, the Parisian courtesan in Colette’s brilliant 1920 novel “Chéri” who’s played by Michelle Pfeiffer in a pretty adaptation from the director Stephen Frears. Over her long career as a professional coquette, Léa has reaped ample rewards and seemingly few serious regrets. Six years before the novel opens, she also acquired a much-younger lover, the fatal beauty of the book’s title — “a graceful demon” in Colette’s words, played by the striking Rupert Friend — whose appeal for her is as openly maternal as it is unabashedly erotic. Léa even goes so far as to call the affair an adoption, a description that seems rather less metaphoric whenever her “naughty child” rests his cheek on her breasts.

Read the complete story

Michael Bay is the modern day Jim Jones. The reason I say this is because for about 24 hours, he had me believing. I drank the Kool Aid and if Bay was Jim Jones, I’d be dead. Luckily, viewing the new Transformers film isn’t akin to committing suicide unless you count the death of your pride and self-esteem.

For those who don’t know, Michael Bay is the embattled director of blockbuster hits such as Armageddon, Bad Boys 1 and 2, Con Air and of course, Transformers. I call him embattled because critics around the country hate his work, despite his box office shattering resume. He's become a joke in critical circles due to his excessive, hyperactive visual style. Yes, I know film is a visual medium, but it's often best served with restraint. Michael Bay, however, knows no restraint and knows no limits.

The problem with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is that it's really two movies wrapped into one. On one side, you have a mindless and somewhat enjoyable giant robot/military shoot-em-up that, while devoid of any intelligence or plot, serves as mindless brain candy for summertime audiences. It's the other half that's much more insidious.

Read the complete story

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" has blasted off at the box office with a $16 million haul from midnight screenings alone. That's the third-best midnight debut ever, behind the $18.5 million taken in last summer by "The Dark Knight" and the $16.9 million for "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" in 2005, according to box-office figures from Hollywood.com.The big midnight numbers put the

"Transformers" sequel on track for a huge five-day return through the weekend. Some box-office watchers predict it could pull in $150 million over the first five days and $100 million for the weekend alone.The first "Transformers" opened with $70.5 million in July 2007.

In "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," a National Security Adviser confronts the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime -- he's a good robot, trying to help us foolish humans defend ourselves against an army of bad Decepticons -- and says, angrily, "Who are you to pass judgment on us?" During the all-but-interminable course of this appalling event, I asked the same question of myself. Who am I to pass judgment on a vast industrial enterprise that cost, and will earn, countless kings' ransoms? What words of wisdom can a movie critic offer in the face of an antimovie that will give its many fans the sustained pleasure of watching machines battling machines without the distraction of coherence or fugitive traces of humanity? Then a word did come to me: MaxLite. It's the brand of ear plugs I've found best for defense against deafening movies and the brand I used to protect my tympanic membranes against "Revenge of the Fallen." If only I'd had protection for my brain.Compared to this sequel, the first "Transformers," which was released two years ago, ranks right up there with Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." The new one is impressive for what it is, glittering pieces of computer-generated machinery that gyrate, undulate, somersault and explode. But even for those who enjoy glittering pieces of machinery -- and I'm one of them, up to a point -- Michael Bay's 150-minute celebration of attention deficit disorder is like a July 4th fireworks display that doesn't end until July 8th and makes you swear off Roman candles for life.

Read the complete story

As much as I like to spend long days outdoors, it's nice to sneak into a dark-ish movie theater for a matinee on the hottest days of the summer.
The Regal Entertainment Group is making this even more possible by offering free movies for kids and their parents during their Free Family Film Festival for 9 weeks during the summer.
Starts at 10am on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and admission is first come, first served.
Check out the schedule for participating theaters in SC...it's a good rainy-day event even if you are on vacation somewhere else!

A music video aimed to promote "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" soundtrack, "Walk the Dinosaur", has been debuted. It mainly presents scenes from the animation movie, centering on its lead characters Manny, Sid and Diego. It gives a look at the animals dancing to the song as well.

"Walk the Dinosaur" is performed by Queen Latifah who will also be heard voicing Manny's love interest, Ellie. This song was once made famous by band Was (Not Was) in 1987. Before being used as "Ice Age 3" anthem, it was covered by George Clinton for the theme song of 1993 film "Super Mario Bros."

"Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" itself is slated to hit theaters across United States on July 1. Directed by Carlos Saldanha, this family-oriented movie will feature Ray Romano, John Leguizamo and Denis Leary as its voice talents in addition to Queen Latifah.Music video of "Walk the Dinosaur" from "Ice Age 3" Soundtrack.

South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut You would think that two dimensional cut-out children would not learn anything, but the wise children of South Park, in their first screen outing, learn that friendship and tolerance are the things that make the world go around and that to battle the evil forces of Satan, Saddam Hussein and Kyle's mom (who is indeed a big fat b*tch) all you need is a good song-and-dance routine.

What we learn:The lessons learnt from this movie are that all you need to stop the forces of evil is resurrection of a former friend, a chip that gives you Dragonball Z-like powers, a kid-like homage to Les Miserables and to know ‘special parts' of female anatomy.The Monster Squad In this B-movie classic from the late 80s, a group of teens have to work together to stop a whole list of Universal Studios' monsters from rampaging through a suburban town and bringing about the end of the world.

Read the complete story