... but I won't be able to because I'll be on another continent.

Yeah, it's hard to gripe about missing a couple of opening days due to travel but there's a certain cruel irony in the fact that despite this being February - the traditional dumping ground for films being chucked off the back of the bus and left to die - there are a pair of worthwhile films opening this week that I'll be missing while attending, hah hah, a major film market in Germany.  Grr.  But anyway ... I hereby abandon this particular digression to tend to two others before moving on to the main point.

Other digression number one:  How surprised am I to see Liam Neeson star vehicle topping the box office? Pretty damn surprised but, honestly, I'm not nearly as surprised by that as I am by all the reviews talking about how shocked they were Neeson could carry an action film.  I can only presume from this that they have all blocked The Phantom Menace from their minds which is a perfectly sensible thing to do except it means that they've also blocked the fact that Neeson is the greatest on-screen Jedi ever, by a healthy margin.  Plus, he was Darkman, too.

Other digression number two:  Christian Bale made a total ass of himself on the set of Terminator Salvation a good while back and the tape of said ass-making has just arrived online. Christian's a bright and cheery fellow who likes a particular naughty word A WHOLE LOT.Way to rack up the karma, Christian.

Anyway, back on point now.  Opening options.  Option the first, Push.  No, not the one that just cleaned up at Sundance.  Yes, the psychic-soldier one that co-stars Dakota Fanning.  Stop rolling your eyes!  I get the Fanning-repulsion, really I do, but it's more than balanced out here by the fact that this one is directed by Paul McGuigan, the man behind the ferocious Gangster Number 1 and IRvine Welsh adaptation The Acid House. Yeah, he made Wicker Park, too, but I like to pretend that one didn't happen and when McGuigan's on point he's really damn good.  The non-Fanning parts of the cast are solid, I like the teasers and the comic series and they shot a whole lot on location in Hong Kong so it'll have some good exotic zing.  I make Push a solid B-option.

The A-option?   No doubt about it, it's Coraline.  If anything other than Coraline tops the box office this week I will officially abandon all hope for humanity.  Author Neil Gaiman is a fave who has never been done right on screen despite repeated attempts and this looks to be the one to break the streak.  Gaiman's been heavily involved in the adaptation process himself and doing this as stop-motion with Henry Selick in the directors chair was a positively inspired decision.  Selick?  Oh, you know ... he directed a little film called The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Advance buzz on this has been universally positive and the 3D version of the teaser I saw a while back more than convinced me that it was worth ponying up the extra few bucks to see this one pop off the screen at you.

So, there you have it. Check 'em out and tell me what a sap I am for not being able to see them myself.