Something 4 The Weekend by Paul Bullock

Welcome ladies, gentlemen and film fans everywhere to entertainment manchester's weekly feature 'Something for the Weekend'. If, as Forrest Gump once might have said were he a film fan, cinema really is like a box of chocolates, then think of us as your mini-menu, steering you away from the coffee creams and towards the Turkish delights of the movie world.

When a film garners comparisons to The Goonies, it has my attention. When it features an old-school arcade game with terrible graphics and a Casio keyboard soundtrack on its official website, it pretty much has my heart. So please welcome what could well be this summer's sleeper hit: Monster House.

Directed by Gil Kenan, this animated adventure about three kids who investigate a creepy house on their sweet suburban street has got many a 1980s nostalgia fan (including myself) hopeful for a film which looks to mix Joe Dante’s anarchy, Steven Spielberg’s sweetness and Robert Zemeckis’ invention. It’s fitting then that the latter two of those three legends are also exec-producing the film.

Still, despite their presence there are no A-list stars attached, a fact which could well hamper its box office progress. But Steve Buscemi and Maggie Gyllenhaal lend their voices, so it certainly had a touch of indie cred. And while we’re on the topic of those unusually named Hollywood types, the wackiest monicker of them all, M. Night Shyamalan, unleashes his latest foray into the supernatural this week - Lady In The Water.

Rightly or wrongly, it seems this film will be remembered as the one which split Disney and Shyamalan up as the director fell out with Mouse House execs when they said they simply didn’t ‘get’ the film. That encouraged Shyamalan to up sticks and head to Warner Brothers who were only to happy to take on one of the most profitable directors of recent years.

This time, however, Shyamalan has assured us that there is no bankable twist in the tale and that Lady in the Water is a (relatively) simple bed-time fairy tale which features Paul Giamatti as an apartment janitor drawn into a world of magic and mystery when nymph-esque creature Bryce Dallas Howard appears in his swimming pool.

It certainly sounds like an interesting idea, but it’s received mixed reviews so far and if The Village is anything to go by, the concept may prove to be better than the final product.

Finally, we end with Nacho Libre. Directed by Napoloen Dynamite helmer Jarad Hess, the film stars Jack Black as Nacho, a Friar who is lured into the world of Mexican wrestling. It’s a simple concept which is sure to garner many laughs. But, just as with Dynamite, it seems it will score most of those laughs through mocking crazy 80s fashions rather than actual wit.