Recent history suggests the third weekend in May is where, to paraphrase Han Solo, summertime fun REALLY begins. Only thrice in the past fifteen years has the weekend's top opener FAILED to top the box office; the weekend's last eight consecutive No. 1s have opened to an AVERAGE $76 MILLION in initial three-day revenues, and grossed a mean $307 MILLION domestically. Further, in SEVEN of those years, the weekend's top film placed among the top ten BIGGEST-revenue RELEASES OF THE YEAR (including three Number Ones: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Shrek 2).

And the weekend's typical top film isn't just a hit for the Box Office Moguls game; its last eight Number Ones (Star Wars Episodes I-III, Dinosaur, The Matrix Reloaded, last year's The Da Vinci Code and, of course, both Shrek films) compiled the following records:

• An average 17 Top 5 points (The Phantom Menace and Shrek lead the way, with 22 and 21 points, respectively)
• Nearly 11 mean PTA Points (the Star Wars prequels average almost 16, and the two Shrek films amassed a total 17 PTA points)
• Median IMDb scores of just over 7.0 (ranging from Dinosaur's disappointing 6.1 to Shrek's stupendous 8.0)

Finally, perhaps most compelling of all, four films opening on this weekend -- all since 1999 -- NUMBER AMONG THE TOP 20 GROSSING RELEASES OF ALL TIME. Simply put, if you're looking for a sure-fire giant for YOUR Summer game, you can't do much better -- historically speaking, anyway -- than the probable No. 1 release the Friday before the long Memorial Day weekend.

So, speaking of giants -- or, at least, exotic, strangely fascinating, implausibly popular mythical creatures (no, not you, Sanjaya) -- let's begin our coverage with the latest whirlwind adventure imported from Far Far Away: Shrek the Third (Paramount/DreamWorks), which re-teams Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz and recent Oscar nominee Eddie Murphy in the FURTHER further exploits of an unexpectedly tenderhearted ogre, a feisty princess and an incessantly-yammering-yet-lovable ass (no, not YOU, either, Simon). Oft-harangued readers/victims of my columns know that normally at right about this time, I'd serve up a general synopsis of the film in question, garnished with some snarky observations about its stars and with a side of quasi-relevant nods to comparable titles, genres and literary works, finally plucking a well-crafted pop-culture reference or two from the dessert cart. Not this time. We all know what we're dealing with here, right?

With more than $1.4 BILLION in worldwide box office, DreamWorks has developed, established and exploited a truly global property with by-now familiar characters, relationships, settings and themes. The world of Shrek is, at this point, every inch as recognizable to the modern theatergoer as the universes of Austin Powers, Harry Potter, Captain Jack Sparrow or Ewoks. (Although, in MY ideal fantasy world, George Lucas's runtish, grunting, detestable lemur-marsupial-Lhasa Apso mixes would ONLY exist on menus, hunting lodge walls or my own slippered feet. However, I digress ...) No need to waste time -- yours, mine or my editor's -- explaining, examining or evaluating Shrek as a creative enterprise. Some facts are simply self-evident.

Here's what I WILL say about Shrek the Third: first-time feature director Chris Miller -- previously an artist, dialogue writer, voice talent and, most recently, story lead for the franchise -- and his veteran animator co-director, Raman Hui, have reunited the series' impressive vocal talents (including Antonio Banderas, John Cleese, Julie Andrews and Rupert Everett) while managing to pile on as preposterous an array of multimedia luminaries as has been witnessed this side of Hollywood Squares: Amy Sedaris, Ian McShane, Larry King, Eric Idle and occasional costumer's nemesis Justin Timberlake. The story promises the subjection of previously unparodied fables, fairy tales and myths to well-deserved lampooning, delightfully stylized animation and the resumption of ridiculously screwball antics. And, with Shrek 4 already being prepped for a May 2010 opening, it's fair to say we're nowhere near the end of the tale, yet.

Therein, folks, may lie the problem. As I discussed in my March 21 Low Five SPECIAL REPORT, franchise fatigue is a real phenomenon; the Shrek series' high-flying performance may be poised to, if not fall to earth exactly, at least assume a somewhat less lofty cruising altitude. Historically, even the most beloved, reliable properties have begun to show wear in (if not before) their third outing. Alien 3, for example, retrograded 35 percent from its predecessor's zenith. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift ran out of gas $73 million short of the established franchise pace; Back to the Future Part III fluxed to 30 million fewer gigawatts than II had produced just six months earlier. Quality is no disqualifier from this trend; 1995's Die Hard: With a Vengeance, the landmark action franchise's best effort, barely managed to 'yippee-ki-yay' across the all-important $100 million "blockbuster" threshold. More recently, The Matrix Revolutions dove like a de-powered hovercraft straight into the scarred, sunless ground, and even the third Harry Potter film conjured up a mere $249 million, $40 million below the franchise average. Three [heh] Dog Night was mistaken: In this industry, at least, THREE is the loneliest number.

There are exceptions. Joel Schumacher, assuming control of Warner Bros.' breakout superhero franchise, guided Batman Forever to $184 million –- up $20 million from Batman Returns -- despite substantial development issues, massive (for 1995) cost overruns, Tim Burton's well-publicized dismissal, and the lead's re-casting. More recently, Best Picture-winner The Return of the King improved on The Two Towers by $37 million. But, on the whole, even the rare third-chapter INCREASE tends to be minimal: Austin Powers in Goldmember, for example, upped The Spy Who Shagged Me's mojo by a scant 3.5 percent.

In fully two-thirds of uninterrupted film trilogies, not only does the third entry fail to equal its IMMEDIATE predecessor's performance, but it instantly becomes the lowest-grossing title in the series TO DATE. Across 85 English-language film trilogies, the third entry performs, on average, nearly 27 percent WORSE than the first two films' mean grosses and more than 22 percent under its immediate predecessor's revenues. Futher: twice as often as not, in trilogies where (as with Shrek 2) the second film improves on the first's performance, the third installment fails to meet even the series' AVERAGE grosses. (Given such reliably diminished returns, the costs of returning talent, production expenditures and marketing, it's actually a wonder studios WANT to make trilogies so often. Perhaps more should just skip No. 3 entirely and move directly to a fourth installment.)

What does all of this mean for Shrek the Third? Well, for starters, its chances of falling off the current franchise pace ($355 million, give or take) by a third  or more are far better than its prospects of setting a new high-water mark. The third Pirates of the Caribbean film might not end Shrek's world, exactly, but said realm will certainly be a lot less welcoming come May 25. Sure, Shrek has faced challengers before and won, but none have packed the broadly-appealing, repeat-business-generating punch of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Here, then, is what I know for certain: 1) Shrek's third opening will NOT match Shrek 2's $108 million three-day total, 2) Shrek the Third will spend NO MORE THAN ONE WEEK atop the box office (hardly new for the franchise, though), and 3) it will NOT surpass Shrek 2's domestic take. Everything else, at this point anyway, is basically guesswork -- but I'm inclined to believe that Shrek the Third -- along with Surf's Up (June 8) and Ratatouille (June 29) will offer up the latest evidence that the appeal of computer-animated family fare, while by no means dead, has finally plateaued, and that the genre is entering a long, slow decline into relative mediocrity. More to the point, I'm convinced that NO ONE is frantically excited about Shrek the Third. Not preteen and teenage audiences, descending upon May's cineplexes like so many sun-blotting swarms of highly caffeinated, Abercrombie & Fitch-garbed locusts to devour the Spider-Man and Pirates of the Carribean sequels; not the balding, thickening legions of middle-age-encroaching Gen-Xers -- who will plan family vacations around Transformers but might well wait until Third is released on DVD to catch up with the latest developments -- and not even Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks, presently are deep into an uninspired, paint-by-numbers promotional campaign.

There's a been-there, seen-that ... FUG surrounding Shrek the Third that's just as damaging as the shrug-worthy anti-buzz currently burdening this summer's other uninspiring sequels, Ocean's Thirteen and Live Free or Die Hard. Here, then, are my updated predictions for Shrek's third cinematic campaign: First, rest assured that it'll come up with a big, though not extraordinary, opening weekend -- $70 million is a lock, $80 million probable, but $90 million is perhaps ever so slightly beyond even Shrek's lime-green grasp. Call it $87 million (up slightly from my March 21 estimate), its likely 4,000-plus screens a not inconsiderable factor in Shrek the Third's early success (as was the case for Shrek 2). PTA, too, will be initially large, probably $19,000 for the first three day. Given the intensity of the competition both fore and aft, I've revised my original PTA estimates for Shrek the Third DOWN a notch: from 13 points to 12, though it COULD earn as little as 10. A couple of my other early forecasts remain unchanged: I still see IMDb at around 7.2 -- under no circumstances will it exceed 7.5 -- and I'm still calling for Shrek the Third to muster a franchise-low three-to-four Top 5 finishes for just 14 points. As far as total domestic revenues, I initially saw Shrek the Third struggling to a series-nominal $240 million. I still think that's in the ballpark, but I'm going to give Shrek a minor boost in the batting order -- largely on the basis of what I anticipate will be exceptional across-the-board Memorial Day weekend ticket sales, as well as the franchise's proven durability (both Shrek and Shrek 2 played through Thanksgiving). I now suspect Shrek the Third will wind up with $270 million, good for second-best in the trilogy and approaching Fantasy Moguls's earlier ($286 million) predictions ... but still well below the currently projected $390 million.

Moving on, and while we're on the subject of strange, weird, even freakish cinematic journeys: Captivity (AfterDark Films) has had a particularly bizarre, controversial and, from some perspectives, infamous path to theaters. In March, Lionsgate Films and AfterDark (a company whose apparently endemic difficulties I chronicled in the March 22 ONE MONTH OUT) began distributing some uncommonly blunt promotional materials for Roland Joffé's psychological thriller ... including visuals depicting Elisha Cuthbert's character in the throes of various indignities, miseries and torments: to wit, in the process of being abducted, caged, tortured and, finally, exhibited -- her prone and (presumably) lifeless body dangling carelessly off the edge of an autopsy table.

What followed perhaps depends on your perspective. It was either A) a slow-motion public relations train wreck, reminiscent of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters's brief hijacking of Boston's civil defense priorities; B) a brilliantly, sadistically, elaborately counterintuitive marketing strategy -- free publicity; or C) an utterly unbelievable, ludicrously farcical game of Hollywood hot potato, in which ever-more-outlandish excuses were bandied about in the hopes of avoiding public embarrassment and accountability for what was, at the end of the day, merely an ill-advised decision about product placement and branding. The images -- whose "unapproved" installation on billboards and taxicab roofs in New York and Los Angeles was quickly blamed by AfterDark on a no-account, reckless, dunderheaded rogue ad agency -- were variously slammed as graphic, outrageous, over-the-top and even misogynistic, leading to not only their ultimate removal, but an unprecedented decision by the MPAA to embargo ANY ratings decision on Captivity until after May 1.

Allow me to editorialize for just a moment. I've reviewed the offending images, and as a fairly idealistic, somewhat provincial and undoubtedly overprotective parent of a minor child, I can certainly understand where decriers of Captivity's abortive marketing campaign are coming from. I wouldn't particularly want MY daughter eyeing Elisha Cuthbert's soiled, tattered, brutalized corpse, festering anonymously on a slab as a city bus or airport shuttle rumbled by. But I honestly have to wonder why Captivity, with its handful of undeniably jarring, squirm-provoking tableaus, gets crucified on the altar of public decency -- while equally, if not even more brutal depictions on the theatrical one-sheets of (for example) 300, Saw III and The Hills Have Eyes 2 get a pass. It's not that I think that ANY of these are especially noxious or awful -- and I'm NOT calling for a crusade against egregious celluloid or promotional imagery here, much less the establishment of a U.S. Ministry of Objectionable Materials. But I DO think that if there IS to be a "standard," it must be applied sensibly, evenly and indiscriminately, and must constructively and intelligently balance a studio's need to publicize its product with a theater's desire to not outrage and alienate its patrons.

And the MPAA's decision, in a fit of pandering, pontificating public pique, to deliberately sabotage the long-term profitability of Captivity in the name of "restor[ing] good faith" [from the Association's March 29 press release] is simply the height of hypocrisy. This is, after all, the same organization that allegedly accommodated Steven Spielberg's entirely self-interested pleas to revise the forthcoming Transformers's initial R rating, dropping the Paramount/DreamWorks release down to a substantially more marketable PG-13 without a single frame being cut or modified. I mean, if Joffé, Captivity producer Gary Mehlman or AfterDark studio exec Courtney Solomon put their proverbial foot down with the MPAA, would it even make a sound? However, I digress.

Getting back to it. Despite the relative paucity of his filmic efforts, Joffé -- like Michael Apted and so many other talented British helmers, a graduate of the "Coronation Street" directorial collegium -- has had a varied and undeniably outstanding Hollywood career. He cowrote and directed Fat Man and Little Boy, a fiercely gripping account of the scientists and soldiers who carried out the Manhattan Project, and is also responsible for the criminally neglected City of Joy, a dignified, quietly rousing ode to the human spirit that is, unquestionably, the very best work of Patrick Swayze's entire career. The Mission (1986) might just be the most outstanding entry on THREE gifted actors' résumés (Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons and Aidan Quinn). And Joffé's first cinematic effort, 1984's The Killing Fields is, of course, one of the most exceptional, disturbing, masterful theatrical experiences of the last century.

The last 15 years or so of Joffé's career, however, have been, to put it mildly, troubling. A trio of high-profile failures (the inexcusable Super Mario Bros., 1998's unapologetically spurned Goodbye Lover and the civilization–abrogating, universally panned Demi Moore adaptation of The Scarlet Letter) was partially redeemed by 2000's Vatel, but the director has been absent from the studio lot ever since. Now he's gotten back in the game for Captivity, a thinly disguised rip-off of Saw, Hostel, Turistas and, strangely, The Fan, starring Cuthbert as a kidnapped fashion model who ends up locked in a dungeon with an equally discomfited Daniel Gillies.

It's no secret that I'm pretty hard on 2007's disappointing (understating things, here) crop of horror/thriller offerings. Even the handful of only modestly successful genre films released this year have been pretty much, well, crap: Thr3e, Primeval, The Hitcher, Blood and Chocolate, The Last Sin Eater, The Abandoned, Dead Silence, The Hills Have Eyes 2. (Damn, but this litany of loserdom gets old.) Yeah, there are some bright spots, I guess. Disturbia, of course, which will be the first thriller of 2007 to threaten $70 million. The Messengers also won its opening weekend, earned a total four points in PTA, six Top 5 points and will close with $35 million-plus. Hannibal Rising bowed with $13 million, 2 PTA points and a second-place finish. The Host -- in what I consider proof that God is really either Douglas Adams, Hunter S. Thompson or an extremely ripped Sam Kinison -- has a decent IMDb (7.3). Tarantriguez's (one last time) Grind House, a bust by virtually every standard, managed an 8.2, a top-four finish and will probably score upwards of $25 million. The Reaping placed in the Top 5 and may approach $30 million, and the recently released Vacancy already has upwards of $10 million in just the first ten days or so ... Woo. Hoo.

As I see it, Captivity's already got AT LEAST FIVE STRIKES against it. STRIKE ONE, it's being released by AfterDark, a company that foolishly attempts, against laws of man and nature, to re-animate very deservedly dead, not to mention unmarketable films. STRIKE TWO, it's already been delayed (from its originally scheduled release date, March 16) –- although widely reported as a "sign of support" for Captivity, this sort of move isn't often reflective studio confidence. STRIKE THREE, it's coming off an absolute blizzard of public scandal. STRIKE FOUR, it's made by a director who honestly hasn't shot a single frame of film worth watching since late in the first George Bush administration, George H.W. Bush, I mean. And, last but certainly not least, STRIKE FIVE is Elisha Cuthbert herself, whose lone foray into actual theatrical watchability was 2004's The Girl Next Door.

Here's how I see it: Yeah, Captivity -- Elisha, really -- will manage to put butts in seats, on opening weekend anyway, to the tune of perhaps $12-$15 million. College-age spillover from the two true blockbusters in release might boost sales some -- though I think it's likelier Shrek the Third and Spider-Man 3 will each simply benefit from the other. Nevertheless, Captivity might well come in as high as third (assuming Lucky You rolls snake-eyes and 28 Weeks Later falls off early) and could even earn a No. 4 or 5 finish the following week, so I'll call for four to five Top 5 points. IMDb will be in the 5.1-5.6 range. One, perhaps two PTA points are possible, though not guaranteed. And aggregate box office will end up in the $29-$34 million range. [NOTE: ALL BETS ARE OFF if the MPAA comes down with a kiss-of-death NC-17 rating AFTER May 1 -- if that happens, AfterDark MIGHT NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME to trim Captivity and get it stamped with a far more promising R by the monolithic ratings board.]

Now, delving ahead to chart the prospects of six limited-release films also opening Friday, May 18:

I was a big fan of Cannes Golden Palm-nominated Henry Fool, Hal Hartley's 1997 film that plays a little like Reign Over Me in reverse. In the highly allegorical work, Henry, a waggish, querulous aspiring novelist, befriends New York sanitation worker Simon, by chance uniting the trod-upon garbage man with his own far less overt, superior muse. Simon pens a singularly raw, personal, improbable epic, and goes on to a life of fame and comfort while the unavailing titular character becomes, himself, a garbageman. There's more than a little Greek-style tragedy and ironic comedy at work here, and I always thought the main male characterizations combined to form a nearly flawless Ignatius J. Reilly -- one of many, many reasons I'm an advocate of Hartley, and not Soderbergh or Ramis being tapped to helm A Confederacy of Dunces. [Sigh] But I'm not Boss of the Universe, and, lately it seems, He's taking fewer and fewer of my calls ... which, I suppose, partly explains why, nine years on, Hartley went and made Fay Grim (Magnolia) -- a modestly topical, somewhat arbitrary and, in fact, wholly unnecessary continuation of the very nearly ideal Henry Fool. Henry's central players (Posey, as Fay -- wife of Henry, sister of Simon; James Urbaniak as Simon; and an under-utilized Thomas Jay Ryan as the MacGuffinesque Fool) are all back, in service of a plot that frankly digresses from this sequel's worthy heritage. Grim plays like nothing so much as a Lifetime Original Movie developed by Section Eight Productions. Its current 6.6 IMDb isn't awful, but it is a notch below Fool's well-worn 7.1 -- a potentially distressing development, given that the film's only been exhibited at a handful of international film festivals and has probably been attended largely by fans of Henry Fool. In short, Fay Grim is no Henry II. I expect IMDb to rise, but not above 7.4; it would surprise me indeed if this film made a PTA splash.

On May 11, theatergoers got swatted with the Georgia Rule; on May 18 they'll get positively whacked by Brooklyn Rules (City Lights Pictures). A multi-generational cast of Hollywood royalty (Freddie Prinze, Jr., Scott Caan, Alec Baldwin, Mira Sorvino) stars in a tale of three friends whose youthful bonds of affection are sorely tested by one's foray into the Gotti-era New York mafia. Think The Godfather: Part II meets Down to You (and try not to barf up that cannoli while you ponder that). IMDb will not surpass 6.6, and could end up a great deal lower.

Next under the gun: Hurry up, place your bets for Even Money (Yari Film Group), a film which -- fairly transparently -- wants to do for the gambling culture as Traffic did for the world of illegal narcotics. Mark Rydell (acclaimed director of On Golden Pond) has brought together a talented cast that includes Forest Whitaker, Tim Roth, Ray Liotta, Jay Mohr and Kim Basinger to examine this underappreciated addiction from all sides, through the affecting stories of no-nonsense professionals, adroit enthusiasts, unscrupulous racketeers, sober law-enforcement operatives and the people who try not to be annihilated by them. It's all done with, to paraphrase Friday Night Lights, clear eyes, full hearts and exceptionally heavy, leaden hands. In fact, the only thing weightier and more plodding than Even Money's effusive moralizing is its dialogue; at one point, a conflicted, double-life-living turf accountant (Grant Sullivan, making his big-screen debut), attempting to justify his criminal enterprise, proclaims (somewhat disingenuously): "I give people dreams!" The anvil-subtle response? "No ... You take their dreams away." Somewhere, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is positively chewing her face off. I predict that Even Money -- in poker parlance, a real "rock," if ever there was one -- will fold on the flop. Its 5.5-6.0 IMDb score is the very BEST thing Money has going for it.

Remember what Uncle Kenny taught: know when to walk away, folks, and when to run. I'm not exactly a big fan of filmed musicals. As far as I'm concerned, the entire overrated, overproduced, overblown genre has no more than seven essential titles: Show Boat, Dreamgirls, The Commitments (and, no, I DON'T care if you think The Commitments isn't a "real" musical), Evita (yes, seriously), South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (also yes, seriously), Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (Yes. [Sigh] Seriously), and my all-time favorite, the 2002 Best Picture-winning Chicago. Yeah, yeah, I know: Hair. Fame. Godspell. The Sound of Music. Jesus Christ Superstar. Yankee Doodle Dandy. Annie, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins. Fiddler on the Roof, 42nd Street, Oklahoma! Friggin' ANYTHING with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland or Cyd Charisse. Cabaret, The Jazz Singer, A Chorus Line. God help me, Grease, or Funny Girl, or, even worse, the apocalypse-provoking Xanadu. (And, seriously, don't even get me started on High School Musical –- by now I've heard "Breaking Free" so many times, I'M beginning to think there's not a star in heaven I can't reach, either. Did I really just say that? Never mind.) Anyway, this year features the debuts of two projects that might just convince me to change my uncultured, plebian mind about this particular, often peculiar brand of onscreen theater ... and Once (Fox Searchlight) is the other one. This appealing, timeless story of an earnest, anonymous Dublin street performer (Glen Hansard, lead guitarist and singer of The Frames) who meets, is inspired by and ultimately falls in love with an equally obscure, industrious immigrant flower peddler (Czech singer-actress Markéta Irglová) is pure, organic, unforced beauty ... and the songs (written especially for the screen) aren't half bad, either. Put it another way: Once is the anti-Music and Lyrics. IMDb, already sitting pretty at 8.0, is unlikely to fall by much; and although Box Office will probably wind up in the $4-$6 million range, I could see this little gem from the Emerald Isle picking up a handful of PTA points over several weeks. For Once, here's a musical worth standing up and cheering for. (Fine, you should also be listening for Julie Taymor's Across the Universe.)

It's been awhile since Luke Wilson did anything that actually appealed to me. He's come a long way from his roots, and not necessarily in the right direction. So it's with a heavy heart that I proclaim his most recent attempt at a return to early-career form, The Wendell Baker Story (ThinkFilm), a total dud. It's never a good sign when a film sits on the shelf for year after unreleased year. I caught a screening of Baker not one, not two, but THREE SXSW Film Festivals ago, and I'm actually surprised it found a theatrical distributor at all. In this project Wilson (who also wrote and directed Wendell), per usual, embodies genuine decency and compassion -- here playing a reformed felon with a heart of gold who lands a job at an assisted-living hotel, bonds with the genteel, generous residents/captives and helps them fight an unsympathetic bureaucracy for reasonable amenities, courtesy and dignity. Luke's joined by brother Owen (who, despite a recent turn in the rare, charming The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, seems about one Ben Stiller, Jackie Chan or Pixar film removed from total irrelevancy), Eddie Griffin, and a trio of veteran character actors I can never get enough of (Kris Kristofferson, Harry Dean Stanton and Seymour Cassell) -- along with Eva Mendes as, well, some very nice window dressing. [Sigh] Wendell Baker may pull in some modest bucks; Wilson's got a lot of supporters out there. But PTA points are much too much to hope for, and IMDb's holding steady in the mid-5s.

Finally, I give you Severance (Magnolia) –- a gleefully gory, wickedly irreverent amalgam of Deliverance, Ten Little Indians, House of 1,000 Corpses and Ricky Gervais's trailblazing The Office. There have been rave reviews, approving audiences and film-festival accolades across half the world. Originally scheduled for April 20, Severance -- and NOT, I maintain, Hot Fuzz -- is the TRUE successor to Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's brilliant, multilayered, seminal Shaun of the Dead. I said as much back on March 22: "[U]nremittingly hilarious... [Severance] simultaneously manages to shock and horrify" from first to last. But let's be realistic: IMDb (currently at a healthy 6.8) MIGHT improve, but only slightly, and in fact it's likelier to drop (though by no more than one or two tenths of a point). Severance has virtually no Box Office prospects and no hope for a Top 5 ranking; a single PTA point would be quite frankly astonishing. If you're a fan of cruelly uproarious, cynical send-ups and inventively gruesome horror spectacles, by all means, please buy a ticket to SEE Severance ... but unless you're looking at real difficulty with IMDb, my advice is to cut this one from your summer slate, call security and toss it unceremoniously out of the building. Anyone got an empty box they can spare? Leave the red Swingline stapler here, if you please -- don't make me go all Michael Bolton on your ass.

DATE CHANGES: Day Night/Day Night (IFC), the ominous chronicle of a suicide bomber's last hours before detonating in a crowded Times Square, has been moved up two days, from May 11 to May 9. Though it won't make much of a difference in terms of this film's Fantasy Moguls prospects, the extra 48 hours might give this release time to get noticed before 28 Weeks Later and Georgia Rule steal all its press. Also, Lionsgate plans on accelerating an exceedingly well-considered expansion of Sarah Polley's Away From Her (opening in four locations against Spider-Man 3 on May 4), after widening the affecting Alzheimer's drama to the nation's top ten markets on May 11. This release might score more PTA points than I previously predicted (one, if any); Lionsgate is acting as if it wants Away From Her to be remembered at awards season.

And that concludes today's regularly scheduled programming. Next time, I'll be mapping the final Friday in May -- a date already buzzing with: anticipation for the psychological thriller-horror film Bug, the hallucinogenic anime import Paprika, and, oh yeah, those Pirates who don't do anything -- except, you know, break records and establish themselves as the top-grossing film of the year. Until then, I lay down my enchanted quill; I remain, as always ...

Nico

From one of Nico's fans -- no, the other one –- set to "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow:

His name was Nico, he was a rodent /
With many insects in his hair and a beard way down to there /
He would confuse us, wax philosophic /
Though far too garrulous by half, he could always make us laugh /
And through his mystic door, he tells us what's in store /
He's so wise and he is so pithy, who could ask for more? /

At the Moguls (MO!), he's top banana (he's top bana-ana) /
Much cooler than Carlos Santana (here) /
At the Moguls (MO!), he's top banana /
Movies he's bashin' will always be smashin' /
At the Moguls... he earns our love... /
(Moguls... Mo's top banana...)

Want to add your voice to the chorus? E-mail Nico at nicodemus@fantasymoguls.com.