I've always been a huge fan of Boyle. Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later and even Millions are brilliantly original films, and, as a huge movie fan, I'm inclined to always give guys like him the benefit of the doubt. He's attempting so much more than the run-of-the-mill filmmaker, and I think it's only fair to grade a true auteur "on the curve."

With the being said, I didn't love Sunshine. So far, critics seem to disagree with me, judging by the 88 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But Sunshine is more spiritual than sci-fi, more metaphysical than scientific and more philosophical than exciting. The concept is great. The sun is dying, and a team of astronauts is on its way to launch a nuclear warhead into the solar core with the hope of re-igniting it. The fate of human civilization hinges on their success. It's a thinking man's Armageddon or, perhaps more precisely, it's Armageddon meets Solaris.

I expect a terrific per-theater average this weekend, but it's hard to imagine that, once Sunshine goes wide, it will receive positive word-of-mouth from the general sci-fi audience. Best-case-scenario for Fantasy Moguls players with this one is $25 million domestic with 5 PTA points (mostly, if not entirely, from its strong Week 1), but see the movie. This is the kind of picture that real movie fans should go out and support, and you could very well like the movie more than I did.

Will the Western make a comeback this fall?
Writer/director James Mangold has tackled, more or less successfully, the life of Johnny Cash (Walk the Line), high-concept horror (Identity), romance (Kate and Leopold), institutionalized young women (Girl, Interrupted) and corrupt cops (Copland), but can he pump life into the Western? Anne Thompson from Variety writes about 3:10 to Yuma (Lionsgate) and links to the trailer for the film on her blog. Like Anne, I love a good Western, and I'm always rooting for the genre. Smartly, Lionsgate has moved the film up a couple of weeks so that it will beat The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Warner Bros.) into the marketplace. That long-delayed project stars Brad Pitt and will get a wide release on Sept. 21.

As for Yuma, it's an excellent trailer. And with Oscar-winner Russell Crowe and indie favorite and Batman Begins star Christian Bale as the leads, the film will definitely receive a great deal of attention.  If you're preparing for the August-September-October Fantasy Moguls flight, give this one a long look. It opens on a very soft weekend with the only real competition coming from The Nanny Diaries (MGM/Weinstein), starring Scarlett Johansson and Laura Linney, which should skew heavily female. The last Western to break out commercially was Brokeback Mountain with $83 million, but that was anything but a standard genre picture. The last true Western to deliver at the box office was 2003's Open Range, directed by and starring Kevin Costner, along with Annette Bening and Robert Duvall. It grabbed $14 million on opening weekend and went on to a domestic take of $58.3 million.

As for The Assassination of Jesse James, Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere does a great job of explaining why you don't want it on your Fantasy Moguls slate. The film, written and directed by Australian Andrew Dominik (Chopper) and starring Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell and Sam Shepard in addition to Pitt, has kicked around for far too long, and Warner Bros. clearly views it as an ugly stepchild.

The Simpsons are in hiding
It was revealed last Thursday that The Simpsons Movie (Fox) will not be screened for anyone until at least Tuesday, July 24, three days prior to the film's opening. That means that as of this moment, no critic in America has seen the film. This could be read two ways, both detailed in this July 13 story in the Los Angeles Times. Either Fox is going to extreme lengths to prevent details of the movie from becoming Internet fodder, or the movie just isn't a $10 experience. I'm not ready to write this one off. It has an audience-friendly PG-13 rating, it's based on arguably the most successful television sitcom of all time and the marketing muscle behind the movie is substantial and clever ... but this could be a bad sign.

Ain't It Cool News calls Chuck & Larry D.O.A.
Just came across a blistering review of I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry on AICN. The poster known as Massawyrm sums it up this way:

"This is exactly the type of comedy you expect to get dumped in the late July slot of the summer, a film that never seemed to get developed any further than the initial pitch. It's gonna grab for a big opening weekend, then die on word of mouth and end up totally forgotten by fall. I can't in good conscience recommend this film to anybody but the most slavish of Adam Sandler completists. It's really just not worth it."

In the early going, America's critics are in agreement. Chuck & Larry has only a 29 percent Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. If you own this movie in your Fantasy Moguls league, lower your expectations accordingly. Hope for a strong opening weekend, then pray for $75 million-$80 million.

Can Mandy Save her 2007?
Mandy Moore is a sweet, likable star in the Meg Ryan-Sandra Bullock mode. She's the girl next door, sexy to men but not so hot that she turns women off. Despite that analysis, she has tanked twice in 2007, first in Because I Said So and, more recently, in License to Wed. Peter Sciretta from Slash Film speculates on whether she will complete a hat trick of box-office bombs when Dedication (Weinstein Co.) hits the marketplace on Aug. 24. This movie premiered at Sundance and follows the story of a misogynistic writer of children's books (Billy Crudup), whose life is changed when he works with a sweet illustrator played by Moore. The Weinsteins paid $4 million for this romantic comedy.

There are some real strikes against this one. Moore isn't exactly on a career roll, Crudup doesn't sell tickets, it's a first time director, and, frankly, The Weinstein Company has been a mess as a distributor, juggling release dates relentlessly and always seeming to make the wrong choices. James Greenberg from the Hollywood Reporter, however, gives the film a strong review. He writes:

"Although it sometimes strains for the quirky, the film is buoyed by winning performances by Billy Crudup and Mandy Moore. This one could really catch on as a date destination for the indie crowd."

The present plan is for Dedication to open New York and L.A. on Aug. 24, followed by an expansion Sept. 14, but keep in mind that Bob and Harvey change release dates as often as the rest of us change underwear.