SATURDAY NIGHT: After scoring a narrow box office win over The Kingdom (Universal) on Friday, The Game Plan (Buena Vista) has turned it into a good old-fashioned "blow-out." While the Peter Berg-directed thriller saw a 13 percent or so uptick from opening day, Disney's gridiron family comedy received a huge "kiddie bounce."

Greetings, Moguls, and welcome to the latest Tip of the Week. Choosing the movies that comprise your slate is, as we all know, no easy task. Critics' reviews, performance during release in another country or at a film festival, and columns outlining industry tracking data all helpful in shaping your picks. Arguably, however, one of the best litmus tests to determine whether a film belongs on your slate is to watch its trailer (also called a "preview," or sometimes a "coming attraction") and decide what you think. With some movies, a trailer is the only way to know or guess about the film's quality and judge how likely it is that the film will appeal to a broad range of moviegoers.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson will test his box office muscle this weekend with the PG-rated Buena Vista comedy The Game Plan. This guy is a charismatic screen presence, but he's apparently been "Disney-fied" according to critics. Rotten Tomatoes has The Game Plan at 36 percent Fresh, although it's so far been given a marginally better score of 43 by MetaCritic.

At the end of the year, when you look back at the films you saw in 2007, some of the ones you'll have enjoyed the most will be big Hollywood fare. Some will be films that seemingly everyone hates but you. And some will be small films you'll be proud to have seen, because not many others will have. It's a remarkable sensation, getting out of a movie theater feeling you've a discovered a gem almost no one else knows about. When playing Fantasy Moguls, you can experience the same kind of sensation by picking up a film not many have paid attention to ... and scoring big points because of it. My mission is to help you find those gems that might give you an unexpected boost. And, while I'm at it, to awaken your inner filmgoer's curiosity toward a few films worth noticing.

Hello once again, and welcome to yet another edition of Bard's Eye View, where I, your champion of cinematic prognostication, swoop down from the ether to rescue you from the bug-eyed monster that we call ignorance. Whether you are a time-stopping, teleporting Japanese comic-and-sci-fi geek (armed with a samurai sword and a plucky attitude), or whether you are a precocious 16-year-old cheerleader (who apparently needs "saving" despite a complete invulnerability to injury), I bid you welcome. (Yes, yes, yes, this week it's Heroes. What can I say? Ever since I first heard about this show, I've been putty in Tim Kring's hands. Or Masi Oka's. Or, God willing, Ali Larter's. Wink.)

SATURDAY P.M. UPDATE: On Saturday, Resident Evil Extinction (Sony) dipped an estimated 9 percent, but still managed to rake in $8.64 million. With a 63 percent drop on Sunday, exactly what Resident Evil: Apocalypse fell on its first Sunday, the zombie scarefest will finish the weekend with $23.59 million, enough to make it the biggest opening of the franchise. Meanwhile, Good Luck Chuck (Lionsgate) was essentially flat for the day, adding a an estimated $4.95 millino and giving the Dane Cook-Jessica Alba raunchfest a respectable $13.1 million opening weekend.

The likely winner at the box office this weekend will be Resident Evil: Extinction (Sony). Milla Jovovich returns as Resident Evil heroine Alice, in the third and (reportedly) final film in the series of films based on the incredibly popular video game series of the same name.

Annyong haseyo everyone, and welcome to Dances with the Arthouse, the place where you can listen in on a live discussion with the best filmmakers on the planet. OK, I've just been informed that I'm actually discussing the filmmakers' works by myself, not with them. Plus it's not necessarily just the best ones, I get to talk about some bad ones too. And just the films opening in the United States in limited release, not films opening elsewhere. Wow, I think I lost all of my readers before the end of my first paragraph, that's gotta be some kind of record ... Since there are probably at least one or two intrepid Fantasy Moguls players still reading, I may as well keep writing. You never know. I'll give you, and only you, a few tips about the Oct. 5 arthouse releases. Don't you feel special? (If you're Steven Spielberg, and you've decided that, maybe after all, Shia really isn't your main dude, my email is at the end of the column.)

Greetings, Moguls, and welcome once again to the Tip of the Week. This time around, I'm taking another look at PTA, the category that's arguably the hardest nut to crack for Ultimate Movie Moguls players. While the box office and Top 5 categories are closely intertwined and relatively easy to forecast, and you can see low-scoring IMDb films coming from a mile away, striking gold with your PTA choices is, well, just as difficult as striking actual gold was back in the 1840s. (Except that with Fantasy Moguls, there aren't any pickaxes to deal with ... or at least I hope that there aren't.)

Hello again, and welcome back to Bard's Eye Hugh ... erm, I mean View, where I, your very own filmic diagnostician, will attempt to lay out for you which upcoming movies have clean bills of health and which need to be avoided like ... well, the plague. Whether you are a street-smart former hoodlum with an acerbic wit and no tolerance for shenanigans, or whether you are a hot brunette with severe attachment issues and an incomprehensible attraction to Dr. Chase, I bid you welcome. (If you can tell by reading this that I am eagerly anticipating the season premiere of House, M.D., well, you couldn't be further from the truth, you moron! Now pardon me while I reach for my bottle of Vicodin. Wink.)