Is there anything worth watching in the year's busiest frame?

The surprising answer is yes, I think there are actually three movies in wide release that I want to see this week. And, well, there's also a movie about talking chihuahuas, but I guess you can't win them all, right?

For as long as my three-day weekend lasts (which may not be much longer, though I did manage to survive my newspaper's latest round of layoff/buyouts fairly intact), I'll probably go see three movies if I can find three I think are worthy of a matinee. Here's a look at what's available in a week that has, rather amazingly, seven new movies opening in wide release, in the order that I want to see them (and not including Bill Maher's "Religulous" for two reasons: It's not playing here and I wouldn't bother to see it anyway because that's simply not my cup of bile.)

1. "Blindness"
I'm willing to make one exception to my new rule that I will no longer watch the world end (yet again!), but only because this comes from the great Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, who created the simply perfect flick "City of God." (By the way, I recently watched the sequel of sorts, "City of Men" [pictured here], on DVD, and while it' a different kind of flick it is - in its own way - a compelling tale of coming of age on the rough streets of Rio.) Reviews have been surprisingly abysmal for this flick starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Diego Luna, but I'll find out for myself anyway, probably Saturday.

2. "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist"
Roger Moore threw down the gauntlet of hyperbole by calling this flick "this generation's 'Say Anything'," but as comparisons go, here's hoping he's accurate. Extremely funny man Michael Cera and Kat Dennings star in a tale of two teens who find love and hopefully a lot of funny high jinks during a wild night in NYC.

3. "Appaloosa"
I'm really glad that 1. someone in Hollywood (in this case Ed Harris) loves old Westerns as much as I do and 2. this movie is actually playing in theaters near me, unlike the sublime "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," for which I had to settle for DVD. Here, Harris and Viggo Mortensen star as hired guns brought in to restore order to a town under the control of strongman Jeremy Irons. Renee Zelweger is unfortunately in here somehow too, but hopefully she won't have too much to do.

4. "Flash of Genius"
As silly and sappy as it is, there are just very few movies I love more than Francis Ford Coppola's "Tucker," so I've always had a soft spot for movies about the little guy and cars. Unfortunately, reviews so far have painted this flick starring Greg Kinnear as intermittent windshield wipers inventor Bob Kearns (and Gilmore Girl Lauren Graham as his wife, huzzah!) as too heavy on the courtroom and too light on inspiration. I'll wait a week, but if you see this one and I'm wrong, please let me know.

5. "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People"
I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the title of this one that Simon Pegg just looks extremely annoying in the trailer. I'll see it eventually, because I like movies about journalists and see just about anything with Jeff Bridges in it, but not this week.

6. "An American Carol"
With Michael Moore reduced to releasing his latest "movie," "Slacker Uprising," on the Internet for free, doesn't this flick just seem like a really mean-spirited case of kicking the man when he's already way down? I guess it's nice that Hollywood's Republicans get to have a little fun, but I'll wait until at least DVD to see this one.

7. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua"
I have to assume that this one will win the weekend, but I really have nothing to say about that.

Instead, check your multiplexes Saturday night for a possible sneak preview of "The Express," starring Rob Brown as Ernie Davis, the first black dude to win the Heisman trophy. "Glory Road" was just a crapfest of epicly bad proportions, but I have high hopes that this flick will be much better. Peace out.

If you're gonna spoof, go for a big target ... like Michael Moore

Before I say anything bad about the man, let me say this first: I really like Michael Moore and most of his movies. "Sicko," which focused way too much on what's right with health care in Europe rather than what's wrong with it here in America, was a failure in my book - but a noble one at that - but I think all his other flicks have been right on-target.

And I swore after going to see "Date Movie" (admittedly only because Alyson Hannigan was in it, poor girl) that I would never again go see any spoof flick with the word "movie" in it. And I'm sticking to that, but one of the masters of the genre, David Zucker, is gonna take on Michael Moore in one spoof I think I could really go for.

Vivendi Entertainment has picked up North American rights to Zucker's "An American Carol," described by Variety as being about "a cynical, anti-American filmmaker who sets out on a crusade to abolish the July Fourth holiday. He is visited by three ghosts who try to show him the true meaning of America."

First of all, Michael Moore is in NO WAY "anti-American," but good spoofs always draw their targets with a broad brush. The late Chris Farley's brother, Kevin, will play the filmmaker (talk about ghosts!), and the cast will also include Zucker co-conspirator Leslie Neilsen, Dennis Hopper, James Woods and Jon Voight.

I'm assuming this will get a wide opening when it hits Oct. 3, along with - if you're lucky enough to live in a city bigger than mine - the great Fernando Meirelles' "Blindness" and another flick whose trailer you can find below.

So, if I like Michael Moore, why do I want to see him lampooned mercilessly by Zucker and company? Because even though he holds strong opinions and almost always makes movies good enough to back them up, he's also an extremely pompous dude who certainly deserves some good-natured ribbing.

"Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist" trailer

It's been quite a while since I've mentioned Michael Cera, but if you happened to visit here around the time "Superbad" came out a year ago you might well have assumed I have some kind of odd hetero-crush on the dude. Well, I don't, but any one who's seen "Arrested Development" (and if you haven't, why not?) knows he's just an extremely funny guy, and that's reason enough to talk about him from time to time.

Coming Oct. 3, he'll be back opposite Kat Dennings in "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist," a romantic comedy about - as best I can tell - a high school student who asks the girl standing next to him to be his girlfriend for five minutes so he won't be embarrassed by the ex-girlfriend who's shown up at his band's gig with a new beau. (After watching the trailer, I think I might be mixed up on just who does the asking, but does it really matter?)

Sounds too predictable and frankly, young, for me, but this is being directed by Peter Sollett, who six years ago made the nearly flawless flick "Raising Victor Vargas" (if you've never seen that one, do so on DVD now.) In his hands, the story of Nick and Nora's night in New York City could have a little "After Hours" and a little "Before Sunrise" thrown into it, or it could just turn out to be much worse than either of those fine flicks.

Anyways, enjoy the trailer, and have a perfectly pleasant weekend. I'm debating whether or not to go see "The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" or not. I know it's gonna be bad, but I often enjoy watching movies to see just how bad (like M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening," which just made me laugh hard for all the wrong reasons) they can turn out to be. Peace out.