There's only one kinda big movie hitting wide release this weekend, and unfortunately, it's a pretty weak one. It's the latest movie in the Smurfs franchise, called Smurfs: The Lost Village. Some of you may know, especially if you have little kids, that there's been a couple of Smurfs movies over the last few years. The difference is that those movies had animated smurfs in a live-action world like the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, but this time around, it's an entirely animated movie. And I mean, come on, it's the Smurfs, I can't think of too many people who care about this. Even the description on Rotten Tomatoes reads that it will only satisfy "young viewers and hardcore Smurfaholics." Who are these hardcore Smurfaholics? Who has dedicated their life to knowing every detail about the Smurfs? On second thought, don't answer that, I don't want a 50-page email from some Smurfs fan telling me every Smurfing thing I screwed up.

There are a couple of smaller movies opening up this weekend in limited release that do look appealing, though. The first is called Gifted, a drama about a single man raising his niece by himself and trying to figure out what to do when she turns out to be a child prodigy. The movie stars Chris Evans, Jenny Slate and Octavia Spencer and I'm hearing ok things - that the movie may not be as smart as its kid protagonist, but that it does offer solid drama and good performances.

Finally, there's a movie that I'm very excited about - it's called Colossal, and this is a new comedic take on monster movies starring Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis. After a giant monster surfaces snd starts destroying Korea, Anne Hathaway's character realizes that she has some kind of psychic connection to the monster, and that every move she makes, the monster makes too. I've heard really good things about this, that it's like a weird mix of indie comedy and large-scale monster movie, and that Anne Hathaway is great in it. So if this is playing near you, Colossal is definitely the one I'd say to try to see this weekend, and until next time we'll Meat at the Movies.

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