9’ leads the week’s gang of four

We’ve finally reached the time of year when there’s no reason to go to the movies. Still, many will march to the metroplexes and purchase their tickets to films such as these, which will grace the area’s screens this week …

“9” : OK, this one might be an exception. It’s an animated film, a full-length version of a short that director Shane Acker made in 2005. Set in a post-holocaust world, it follows the travails of several rag-doll characters who carry with them the fading last hopes of humankind. The landscape is suitably seedy, leaving the only question to be whether Acker can carry the strength of his film to full feature length.

“I Can Do Bad All by Myself” : Yay, another chance to skip a Tyler Perry movie.

“Whiteout” : Kate Beckinsale stars in what looks like a variation on “The Thing,” which has humans and some sort of creepazoid battling in icy Antarctic turf.

“Sorority Row” : A variation on “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” this horror entry has appeal if only because it offers another opportunity to watch a range of sorority beauties get extinguished, one by one.

Variations … do we detect an ongoing Hollywood theme here?

Happy viewing.