Weekend Movie Preview

The fall movie season kicks into high gear this week, led by two terrific movies: "Volver" is Almodovar's richest, most satisfying and entertaining movie in years (with Penelope Cruz wonderfully ripe) and "Borat" is simply pee-in-your-pants funny. You've also got the family friendly "Santa Clause 3" and "Flushed Away," which might be good but still hits the wrong notes for me since it's a 2-D movie made to look like the three-dimensional fare Aardman is famous for. Box Office Prophets makes the predictions and I certainly agree "Borat" is going to be sold out across the country. Fox cut it back to 800 screens because they were worried about the movie's tracking numbers. Well, they made the right move for the wrong reason since it's been a while since a relatively wide release film was hard to get into. People don't know Borat? He's been on every talk show in sight and the roar of applause Borat received on "The Daily Show" made clear to me that every college student in the country is going to be seeing this movie. You get the "Jackass" crowd, the HBO crowd, the smart crowd and the liberal crowd. And unlike "Jackass," this one will cross over -- though you still might not want to bring your mother.