Some picks, mostly the studs, might be a little on the pricey side, but by paying that much, you're virtually guaranteed to get good results. As always, I'd stay away from the duds unless you really like living dangerously, and the wild cards could help you, but might just as easily be disappointments. Onward!

WEEKEND OF AUGUST 8-10
Stud: Pineapple Express — Here is just another example of how producer Judd Apatow can sell just about anything by attaching his name to it. (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, of course, being the exception.) Even a stoner comedy, usually a niche genre topping out under $50 million (Dude, Where's My Car? came in at $46 million), has an outside shot at $100 million total. Whether or not becoming the highest-grossing marijuana-themed movie of all time — which is virtually guaranteed — is really such a notable accomplishment, the fact remains that this Express is about to cruise out of the station. The R rating probably won't be much of a hindrance as far as grosses are concerned, and if it really breaks out, it might even steal the top spot away from The Dark Knight. I personally think James Franco's performance is most hilarious; he steals the show. And with a price tag under $20 in Ultimate leagues, you'd better hop aboard Pineapple Express yourself unless you want to be left in the dust.
Dud: Hell Ride — Apparently the failure of Grindhouse taught Dimension Films a lesson of sorts. They're rolling out this rather similar Quentin Tarantino-produced biker movie on just a few screens this weekend (and doing so through one of their lesser arms, Third Rail Releasing). They're aiming for a smaller core audience, which is probably a smart move. To quote one IMDb reviewer, however: "If one of the Wild Hogs grew some balls, took acid, and went all the way with a chick from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, then their badass son would be Hell Ride!" While that review is positive, frankly, that sentence makes the movie sound like a mess. It does carry an IMDb rating of 7.4, but that's about the only benefit you'll get if you put this on your slate. It's the only scheduled limited release this weekend, but even so, I'm not optimistic it can win the PTA crown. Even if that core audience shows up, it won't be enough for the biker gangs of Hell Ride to do any significant damage.
Wild Card: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 — After Sex and the City and Mamma Mia!, this'll be the third movie aimed chiefly at the female demographic to make a splash this summer. While it won't be as big as either of those, a good $50 million-$60 million total could be in order. (And with trailers for Twilight, High School Musical 3: Senior Year AND Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince — yep, the Holy Trinity — scheduled to play before it at some locations, many teenage girls may pass out shrieking with excitement before the movie even starts.) The original Traveling Pants came out in June 2005; an August release is much smarter this time around. Now the Sisterhood gals will make their big entrance AFTER Batman has already made his, not before. (Quick refresher: Batman Begins also came out in June 2005.) The only danger with Sisterhood is that it'll be overshadowed by three male-driven movies: Pineapple Express, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and The Dark Knight. Still, I'm optimistic that the magic jeans will manage to crack the Top 5 this weekend.

WEEKEND OF AUGUST 15-17
Stud: Tropic Thunder — I changed my mind about this at the last minute. At first, I thought the price tags were too high to be worth taking a chance on it, but I've heard nothing but positive buzz surrounding the film. And then that $29 price tag in August-October Ultimate Movie Moguls leagues, well, that was enough to convince me. I still don't think that spending $55 on it in Box Office Moguls leagues is the smartest way to go, but, for just $29, you can't afford NOT to go all in on Tropic Thunder with your Ultimate slates. The American Association of People with Disabilities has expressed discontent over a few scenes that feature Ben Stiller's character, action star Tugg Speedman, portraying a mentally challenged farmhand, but their displeasure won't have even close to the damaging effect of, say, the Christian backlash against The Golden Compass. All the choices Stiller has made — the fake trailers, a fake ad for an energy drink using a character named Alpa Chino, cameos from Tobey Maguire, Matthew McConaughey and Tom Cruise — are mighty clever, and the movie's sweeping spoofery of Hollywood itself should have audiences rolling in the aisles and Paramount raking in the cash yet again.
Dud: Vicky Cristina Barcelona — Shame, too, because I really thought this one had potential. But Woody Allen is not a wide release kind of guy; his movies perform better when they start off small and slowly expand. The wide release Box Office Mojo is reporting for Vicky Cristina Barcelona is just another bad move by The Weinstein Company. Against Tropic Thunder and, to a lesser extent, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, it would have been much better to open VCB in just Los Angeles and New York and spread out to the rest of the country later via a platform release — after all, that worked for Match Point. I'm guessing the screen count will be on the low end of "wide," between 1,000-1,500 screens — but that just means too wide to do much PTA damage and too small to bring home any sizable box office gross. It's not a bad $2 Box Office pick, but if $2 is what you're going to spend, I'd personally go with Zack and Miri Make a Porno (which, after winning a ratings appeal, now carries a mere R). Or, for $7 in Ultimate, pick My Best Friend's Girl or Babylon A.D. instead.
Wild Card: Mirrors — Instead of saving America from terrorists, now Jack Bauer —  er, Kiefer Sutherland — must save his family from ... evil mirrors. Okay, it's not as badass when you put it that way. Still, there hasn't really been a flat-out horror movie in the marketplace (The Midnight Meat Train doesn't count) since The Strangers and The Happening in late May/early June. (Following that trend, should we call this THE Mirrors?) Plenty of gore to go around here, with Alexandre Aja (of The Hills Have Eyes and next summer's Piranha 3D) behind the camera, plus, apparently we get to see Amy Smart pull her own face apart. (Although I quite like it intact, thank you very much.) I think Mirrors could benefit from the lack of any direct horror competition — my only worry is that 20th Century Fox hasn't exactly had a great summer, with Meet Dave, Space Chimps and The X-Files: I Want to Believe all taking a nosedive in the past month. Here's hoping Mirrors will break that pattern.

WEEKEND OF AUGUST 22-24
Stud: Hamlet 2 — Focus Features is, I think, making the right call with a "select cities" release first and an expansion to follow. Aug. 22 is a fairly weak weekend for wide releases, so I expect that Hamlet 2 will walk away with the PTA crown, and it could expand well and make decent box office revenue in the following weeks. At $5, it's the best cheap PTA pick in the August-October season; everything else $5 or less is either a wide release or has already come out. Plus, what some might consider a top competitor for PTA, Crossing Over, has moved to October, so the odds of Hamlet 2 coming out on top of PTA just increased. The 5.6 IMDb score and the fact that director Andrew Fleming's last project was Nancy Drew are perhaps demerits, but I think the inside jokes about theatrical productions (and Elizabeth Shue) will really hit home with the select cities audiences, and the sheer preposterousness (and, perhaps, a desire to hear the full version of "Rock Me Sexy Jesus") will draw in the rest. For what it's worth, too, all six reviews submitted to RottenTomatoes thus far have been positive — so while I'll admit I have some uncertainty about Hamlet 2, it's a far more reassuring pick than anything else that comes out against it.
Dud: The House Bunny — Sydney White ($11 million) didn't exactly make a lasting impression in theaters last year. The House Bunny looks like a virtual clone of that plot, with a perhaps slightly more bankable star in Anna Faris turning a nerdy sorority into glamorous gals. I do think it'll perform a little better than most people think, but it's still an iffy film at best coming out on a truly crowded weekend. The screenwriters previously brought us Legally Blonde, but you can only do scatterbrained blonde with a heart of gold so many times — and it's old hat by now. Plus, Anna Faris is no Reese Witherspoon. Adam Sandler is producing under his Happy Madison label, so you might think there's some reason for hope — but remember, Strange Wilderness was a Happy Madison film too, and it came away with all of $6 million in its entire run. It seems Happy Madison doesn't mean happy moviegoers unless Sandler himself is in the movie — so, though The House Bunny does include a Hugh Hefner cameo (with the three Girls Next Door, to boot), it'll struggle to get off the ground.
Wild Card: The Rocker — In an effort to outdo Brendan Fraser's feat of having two movies — Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor — in theaters at the same time, do you think Emma Stone persuaded 20th Century Fox to move The Rocker back to August 20 so that she could have two movies come out in the span of three days? (The other, of course, being The House Bunny.) OK, so that's probably not the case, but star Rainn Wilson has a small following from his portrayal of Dwight Schrute on The Office, and I think there's some potential here. The trouble is, moving the release date from April to August to July and back to August probably indicates a lack of confidence on the studio's part. We've seen it before, and though it works in rare occasions (like moving Wanted from March to June), pushing The Rocker into the wasteland that is the end of August probably isn't a good sign. It won't cost you very much to put on your slate, so it might be worth taking a chance on, but tread carefully.

WEEKEND OF AUGUST 29-31
Stud: Babylon A.D. — Gas prices have recently gone down a bit, and August-October leagues carry new price tags, so the Diesel pun I've made in the past would be slightly less effective if I made it here. However, Vin Diesel's potential benefit to your slate has NOT gone down. The one thing I'm worried about with Babylon A.D. is the reported 90-minute run time — seems awfully short, like it's undergone massive cuts and edits. Hancock also clocked in just a shade over an hour-and-a-half, however, and that didn't stop the movie from making over $200 million thus far. Babylon A.D. has the potential to win the weekend, given the lack of any other quality films opening against it (or the week prior) and assuming Tropic Thunder isn't still wreaking ticket counter havoc. It's the same kind of sci-fi action that drove Jumper above $70 million this February, and, though I don't think Babylon A.D. will go that high, the projected $47 million could be doable. With both The Accidental Husband AND Passengers moving away from Sept. 5, too, Babylon A.D. might just have an opportunity to spend ample time in the Top 5, perhaps (and this is a very outside shot) even spending two weeks atop the box office.
Dud: College — Ads have tried to equate this with Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds and the first American Pie. That's a tall order, and there's no way College belongs in that company. It's a straight-to-DVD type concept that's just being thrown out to theaters to try to grab a few extra bucks, to try to hook in the Superbad-type audiences. In fact, its plot is vaguely similar, only one year earlier and it practically could be Superbad's little brother. (Except without the same actors, it'd be even worse than Dumb and Dumberer — at least THAT featured a funny scene with Bob Saget having a literal s***-fit.) College was originally supposed to come out this past January, but was yanked to August to capitalize on ... hmm ... newly minted collegians going to see it? Your guess is as good as mine, and whatever the case, it really doesn't matter, because this movie will be dropping out of theaters before some schools even start classes. If it's a terrible college comedy you're after, maybe this is for you — but even then, why waste the money in Fantasy Moguls?
Wild Card: Traitor — Overture Films hasn't had a lot of luck, but Don Cheadle rarely makes bad movies. I know he'll turn in a sterling performance, but sadly, his film might be overshadowed by the crap that is Disaster Movie. Still, maybe the Wednesday release date can set Traitor apart from the weekend's other releases a bit. It's got kind of a Jason Bourne aspect to it — Cheadle plays a former U.S. Special Operations officer who "has a knack for emerging on the scene just as a major operation goes down." And get this: Steve Martin — yep, Jacques Clousseau himself — gets a story credit. I want to believe in Traitor's chances — it looks great to me — but the fact that Overture hasn't really gotten off the ground yet, plus the political aspect of the film in a time when movies with those kinds of themes (Lions for Lambs, Rendition, Stop-Loss) aren't always well-received, leaves me with some doubt.

That's all for this week! Next time I'll jump ahead and examine some of October pricing in the August-October Ultimate game. Is there anything there that's worth the money? Until next we meet, good luck!

Mister Informative would already have College and The House Bunny as a midnight double-bill — if this were 1981 and he owned a drive-in movie theater. And he'd probably be taking a long look at Hell Ride and Mirrors, too. Send your own suggestions to misterinformative@gmail.com.