my week at the movies: ‘The Unborn,’ ‘Bride Wars,’ ‘Hotel for Dogs,’ ‘Notorious,’ ‘Yonkers Joe’

And so another movie year begins, and it’s time to get back on the hamster wheel of screenings.

I was all set to say, “You know, maybe The Unborn (opens wide in the U.S. on January 9, and in the U.K. on February 27) ain’t gonna be so bad after all. Yeah, it looks rather tragically like the recent slew of PG-13 ‘horror’ flicks -- that is, not very scary at all -- but the fact is that Rogue Pictures is screening it for critics at a time when not screening horror movies for critics has become the norm.” And then I saw this poster, which is one of the most hilariously blatant panders to the hormonal-teenage-boy crowd I’ve ever seen in a movie poster. Don’t come for the scares: come for the chick in her underwear! As for the critics’ screenings... well, perhaps Rogue figures we’re tired of all those quality arthouse awards contenders we’ve been watching over the past few weeks and are ready for a change of pace.

I’ve already noted some potential objections to Bride Wars (opens wide in the U.S. and in the U.K. on January 9). I expect to renew them.