Movie Releases, 4/7

Comedy gold will be struck this weekend with Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Jon Heder in the baseball comedy The Benchwarmers. The trailers look awful and it's not being shown to critics, so usually 1 + 1 = bad flick in this case. Anyway, the rag-tag group of losers take on little league kids--if they win I suppose all of their troubles are over, they get bragging rights, as anyone would after beating children. Written by Allen Covert and Nick Swardson of January's Grandma's Boy. Directed by Dennis Dugan (Happy Gilmore, Beverly Hills Ninja, Big Daddy, National Security).

Antonio Banderas goes the Blackboard Jungle, Lean on Me, Dangerous Minds, The Substitute, and 187 route...with dancing, in Take the Lead. I'm going to be watching this because of hot girls and sexy dance moves, and maybe to see if the 45-year-old Banderas breaks a hip.

Then there's Phat Girlz. Plus-sized Mo'Nique finds love with a hot, ripped African, played by Haitian Jimmy Jean-Louis. There will be important messages in this--like not judging a book by its cover, and beauty is really on the inside, and perhaps we should forget about dieting and exercise because being overweight has tons of advantages.

The movie of the week, though, is Lucky Number Slevin. One of those twisty crime plot movies with a large big name cast--Josh Hartnett, Lucy Liu, Bruce Willis, Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci, and Morgan Freeman. It probably won't beat Take the Lead or Benchwarmers at the box office, but none will beat Ice Age 2 in its 2nd week--a movie that just cleared $68 million over the weekend.