the final destination

Welcome back from your holiday hibernation! If you still feel like being a couch potato, settle in and prolong that vacation with these new movie releases. Or if you're in the mood for a marathon, catch up on your TV (and prep for the upcoming episodes) with Big Love: Season 3 or Chuck: Season 2, which also hit shelves today.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

After a strong showing at the box office and solid reviews, I'm curious to check out Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs — even if it's not the most grown-up of movies. The film follows Flint (Bill Hader), an inventor whose creations get him into trouble. His latest is a contraption that changes water into food, and Flint accidentally launches it into the sky, causing hamburgers and the like to rain down. Seems like a cute, kooky pick if I want something light. Plus, Anna Faris voices one of the characters.

Special features include a Director's Commentary with Hader, but if you get the Blu-Ray/DVD combo, you can use the "Splat" button to simulate throwing food at the screen, which sounds fun if you're a kid (or not a kid).

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The Final Destination

It's the fourth installment in the horror franchise, so you know the premise by now: a teen sees a deadly vision and tries to protect those around him, but death still comes calling in a series of over-the-top gruesome setups. It may be campy, but The Final Destination did well in theaters, probably thanks to its new 3-D effects. The DVD version includes special 3-D glasses, so you can watch it in all its gory glory home. I doubt it'll capture the magnitude you get on the big screen, but it's kind of an entertaining novelty, none the less.

Special features include deleted scenes.

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Guess people still haven't tired of seeing Tyler Perry in a grandma frock! His latest film in the Madea saga, I Can Do Bad All by Myself, took the box office crown with an estimated $24 million this weekend. Second place went to 9, which raked in $10 million. Rounding out the rest of the top five were Inglourious Basterds, All About Steve, and the box office winner of the past two weeks, The Final Destination.

As for the other new films that debuted? Most of you said that you were going to pass on Sorority Row, and the masses seem to agree — the film came in at No. 6 with only $5.2 million. Whiteout starring Kate Beckinsale trailed at No. 7 with $5.1 million.

Photo courtesy of Lionsgate

Apparently Labor Day moviegoers wanted to be freaked out over the holiday, because horror movie The Final Destination topped the box office again this weekend, earning $12.3 million. This was its second weekend at the top, with Inglorious Basterds staying behind it at No. 2.

Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper's All About Steve came in third, a decent showing for the quirky comedy, followed by Gerard Butler's futuristic action flick Gamer. District 9 rounded out the top five.

Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema

Lots of you said that you'd rather watch scary movies around Halloween, but that didn't stop the masses from checking out horror films at the box office this weekend. The Final Destination scored the top spot, taking in $28.3 million and marking the most successful opening weekend of the franchise. Inglourious Basterds was bumped to number two with a little over $20 million in its second week. Halloween 2 couldn't hack it with the competition and had to settle for third place, making approximately $17.4 million in its opening weekend.

The other big news of the weekend is that ticket sales are way up — 38% higher than they were this time last Summer. 2009 is now set to surpass 2007 as the highest-grossing Summer, thanks to all of you who are heading to the theaters more often than usual.

Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema