All in all, I think we can agree that it was a pretty weak showing for Hollywood at the Super Bowl this year. Aside from the new trailers for The Last Airbender and Robin Hood, which were released online early, there was nothing for movie fans to get excited about, and very little in the way of new footage.

Last year people were drooling over the cutting edge TV spots for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. This year we got a lot of 30-second spots for movies that are coming out in the next month that have already been advertised to death (plus The Back-Up Plan starring Jennifer Lopez). Did any of this year’s commercials impress you? Check out the rest of the Super Bowl ads after the jump and see what you think.

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Well it was bound to happen eventually, but I don’t think many of us expected to see Avatar knocked out of the #1 spot by a chick flick. Dear John, based on the book by Nicholas Sparks, managed to top the box office this weekend with an impressive $32 million opening weekend, ending the 8 week run that James Cameron’s Avatar had enjoyed up to this point. With plenty of women flocking to the theatre in order to get away from the Super Bowl, it may or may not be a coincidence that Avatar also fell on the same week that it broke the final record held by Titanic. From Paris with Love opened with a pretty uninspired $8 million, good enough for the #3 spot, while Edge of Darkness and The Tooth Fairy rounded out the top 5. Crazy Heart also made its first appearance in the top 10, earning $3.6 million on about 800 screens.

1. Dear John — $32.4M
2. Avatar — $23.6M
3. From Paris with Love — $8.12M
4. Edge of Darkness — $7M
5. Tooth Fairy — $6.5M
6. When in Rome — $5.5M
7. The Book of Eli — $4.83M
8. Crazy Heart — $3.65M
9. Legion — $3.4M
10. Sherlock Holmes — $2.63M

Frozen
Written and Directed by: Adam Green
Starring: Shawn Ashmore, Kevin Zegers, Emma Bell, Rileah Vanderbilt, Kane Hodder

The first time I ever went skiing was on a class trip in grade 8. After getting some quick lessons and mastering the bunny hill, I felt like I was ready to tackle my first real run. About halfway down that first run, however, my ski caught an edge and I fell into a snow bank off to the side in the midst of some trees. My friends had already blown past me, and I was stuck there by myself, trying desperately to snap my boots back into my skis. As silly as it sounds, at the time, I remember panicking a little bit because I literally felt like I was alone, with no way to get help if I needed it. That’s when the thought crossed my mind: someone could really get stranded out here.

Many years later, writer/director Adam Green has tapped into that same fear with his new indie thriller Frozen. The concept is simple: what if you were on a ski lift right at the end of the night, and by some unfortunate mistake, the ski lift stopped and you were left hanging, with no one even aware that you were up there? Surely the idea is enough to give anyone the chills — and not just because of the temperature.

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I know I’m about to broach a potentially touchy topic here, but well… I’m going to do it anyway. There have been a couple of movies recently that have launched somewhat controversial marketing campaigns, but probably not for the reasons you might think. The trailers for A Single Man and Valentine’s Day have drawn some criticism, but the problem isn’t that the ads are trying to grab attention by being edgy and outrageous — rather, the opposite. They have seen it fit to gloss over one important detail in order to avoid making anyone uncomfortable: they both neglect to mention that they feature main characters who are gay.

A Single Man, in particular, avoids revealing much about the story at all, although it definitely seems to hint at a relationship between Colin Firth and Julianne Moore (in actuality, their characters are just friends). As for Valentine’s Day, they have cleverly hidden Eric Dane’s character from most of the ads because he happens to be the boyfriend of Bradley Cooper’s character. It’s a little less noticeable since there are so many other well-known cast members in the movie, but it’s certainly no accident. This deceptive practice is becoming more common than you might think, and has often been referred to as “de-gaying”.

Now there are a few ways to look at this. One is that the job of a marketer is to sell a movie, and that if they think they can make more money by catering to the more conservative moviegoers, then perhaps they are justified in doing so. However, it’s also a bit dishonest, because the same conservative moviegoers will be even more shocked when they find gay characters in the movie that they didn’t expect. It’s definitely false advertising in a way, but on the other hand, trailers are shown to a captive audience who can’t change the channel if they don’t like what they see. On the flip side of that, maybe by sneaking the gay themes past the conservative folks and getting them out to see the movie, they will end up learning that it’s not such a bad thing after all? It’s hard to say, but I’m curious whether anyone else is bothered by this practice. Is it wrong to de-gay a movie’s marketing material? Give us your thoughts here on Open Forum Friday.

Surprise, surprise… another Super Bowl spot has found its way online early, and it just so happens that this one brings Ridley Scott back to the Super Bowl some 26 years after he created the groundbreaking Mac “1984″ commercial. I know the first trailer for Robin Hood didn’t impress a lot of people, but I’m curious to see if this changes anyone’s mind.

The ad is basically 45 seconds of sweeping shots of large-scale armies and a few other fist-pumping moments. Although it doesn’t quite seem to fit with the rogue-ish version of Robin Hood that we’ve traditionally seen in the past, I’m still more than willing to give it a chance. The only problem is that this may all be a little too predictable, coming from the man who made Gladiator. Starring Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Kevin Durand, William Hurt and Mark Strong, Robin Hood hits theatres on May 14th. The trailer is embedded after the jump.

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Previously on LOST is a weekly column recapping and analyzing each episode from the final season of Lost. (Warning: May contain spoilers!)

Entering the final season of LOST, I had a lot of anxiety about how the series would end. For me, LOST represented a show that made me believe in television again. I’ve never felt such personal investment in a piece of entertainment. Delusional as it may be, I thought that LOST owed me a satisfying ending, justifying the countless hours I’ve spent watching, talking and thinking about it. Writing that sentence I’ve never felt more pathetic but, to deny it, would be a lie. Is there any way that a show can live up to these lofty expectations? Starting Tuesday at 9:00 I was about to find out, for better or worse.

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With Kevin Smith’s Cop Out coming later this month and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s The Other Guys due out this summer, it looks like we’re in for a brand new wave of buddy cop flicks. In the meantime, however, let’s take a look back through some of the classics of the genre and pay tribute to the all-time greats. I’m a bit surprised we haven’t done this poll topic before, because surely it’s one we all have an opinion on. Do you prefer buddy cop films that are strictly comedies or do you like them a little more serious and action-packed? Cast a vote for your favourite in this week’s poll, and then list off all the ones I missed in the comments below.

Alright, so the first trailer for Kevin Smith’s Cop Out was kind of a flop. Despite the promising pairing of Bruce Willis with Tracy Morgan, it failed to deliver many laughs, and left a lot of people wondering how this movie’s screenplay by Robb and Mark Cullen could have possibly been such a hot commodity in Hollywood. There was really only one hope left for the film, and that was the possibility that all of the funny stuff was actually rated R, and thus not suitable for a green band trailer.

Well, now it’s reckoning time, because a red band trailer for Cop Out has just arrived over on MySpace. And you know what? I think this thing might still be salvageable. It certainly doesn’t seem all that clever, and most of the jokes are pretty juvenile, but it’s a heck of a lot funnier than the first trailer we saw. If you ask me, this movie is all on Tracy Morgan’s shoulders. If he can deliver the weirdness and unpredictability that he is known for, this could actually be worth watching. Check out the red band trailer after the jump and see if you agree. Cop Out hits theatres on February 26th.

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Here’s something to get excited about. Director Jody Hill is once again teaming up with his muse Danny McBride for a new comedy called L.A.P.I., in which McBride will play a “beaten down, hard boiled” private investigator. The movie will be written by Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan, two guys who have apparently been making a name for themselves with a spec script called Comic Con, about a group of friends who pull off a heist at the annual fan gathering in San Diego. They haven’t had a script make it to the screen yet, but they did land on the 2009 Black List for best unproduced screenplays, and they are also penning the upcoming remake of Brewster’s Millions.

L.A.P.I. will be the first movie under the new production house formed by Hill, McBride and David Gordon Green, called Rough House Pictures. Green will serve as producer on the film. Although the details are scant, I am definitely on board, even if there seem to be a lot of these hard boiled private eye comedies lately (HBO’s Bored to Death in particular comes to mind). No word on whether or not we might see this movie later in the year, but currently David Gordon Green is putting the finishing touches on Your Highness starring Danny McBride.