In Theaters: 01.25.08

My prediction that Cloverfield would be at the top of the box office and Teeth would get little attention was spot on (not that it was hard to say). Cloverfield claimed the number one spot and Teeth was near the bottom of the list. This week is a little bit harder to predict. Will the growing success of Cloverfield propel them to beat out John Rambo? Will audiences be fooled into seeing Meet the Spartans? Coming out of the mist this week is another great movie that will remain, again, largely unnoticed. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days hopes to capture the same audience that enjoyed Knocked Up and Juno. I’m guessing Cloverfield will hold its place with Rambo following in a close second. Meet the Spartans will lock in a 4th place finish.

We’ll begin with the less-than fantastic movies of the week. Untraceable is about the internet predators of the future. The villian kills his victims faster if his website gets more “hits” or visits. Special Agent Marsh (Diane Lane) is dead set on popping a cap in this predator’s ass. One minor problem undoubtedly will arise; he is “untraceable.” Let me know if I’m correct. The movie looks like something in-between 2006’s Firewall and 2002’s Feardotcom. Both of those movies were horrible so I guess you can make up your own mind about how awesome Untraceable will be.

Meet the Spartans comes from “the guys who saw 300.” So far, so good. What the trailer fails to tell you is that they also saw (and made) Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Scary Movie. Chances are these guys still don’t know how to create a good comedy. I’ll state this as clearly as I can. Don’t see this movie. Rambo is also making its premier this week. The reviews don’t have too many positive things to say. If you didn’t mind the first three Rambo films you probably won’t have any problems with this one either. If you want to see a dinosaur killing people it’s a perfect fit.

Probably the only movie worth going to this week is 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. I said before that the film is trying to capture the same audience as Knocked Up and Juno. I was just kidding. If anything, it takes on a closer resemblance to the best movie of 2007, The Lives of Others. It’s also a winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. The film takes place in Romania during the Cold War. During this time it was illegal to get an abortion and college student Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) finds this out the hard way. She and a roommate Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) seek out a black market doctor to perform the operation but things aren’t that simple in movie land and trouble ensues. Check out the trailer here.

This week is pretty slow because many of the good releases will be hard to find in theaters. If you have trouble finding 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days check out some older releases. Then again, you could always save next week to do that.