No October surprise here... The Campaign is a big disappointment.

If you're in the mood for a few good laughs before the serious-as-a-heart-attack dystopian action movie The Hunger Games drops next Friday, 21 Jump Street is your best option. But if the idea of a remake of an old '80s TV series -- even one that features the young year's strangest and strongest comedy duo, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum -- makes you reflexively cringe, there are two other options this weekend: a pair of smaller comedies with some big-name talent involved. Jason Segel, Ed Helms and Susan Sarandon headline the purposefully meandering stoner flick Jeff, Who Lives at Home, while Will Ferrell ventures south of the border for the telenovela spoof Casa de mi Padre. Buyer beware, though: neither movie is as consistently amusing or as pleasantly satisfying as Jump Street. We know -- we're surprised too.

If we look carefully at the movie trends of 2008, it's not hard to make a few predictions for the year ahead. Sure, some of these may seem kind of crazy, or maybe they sound flat-out impossible. But just remember these seven words: Steven Soderbergh to direct Cleopatra rock musical. Anything can happen, so get in on the ground floor of these predictions while you can!

Time and experience has led me to extrapolate that the filmic offerings of Will Ferrell tend to go one of three ways: Funny But Forgettable (as in Talladega Nights), Surprisingly Hilarious (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy), or Pointlessly Heinous (Blades of Glory). It is a rare confluence of factors that produces a genuine comedic achievement like Anchorman and elevates it above the run-of-the-mill masturbatory poo he so frequently churns out.

Sadly, Step Brothers most assuredly does not fall into this last category of insta-classic comedy. The jury is still out on which of the remaining two it ultimately belongs in, but after seeing a screening of it last night and feeling particularly generous after my twelfth caffeinated beverage of the day, I'm gonna vote on Funny But Forgettable.

The fossil record is littered with examples of what a long, slow process evolution usually is: Around forty million years ago, wolf-sized whales were scampering around Pakistan on their furry little legs. For the reptilian Sleestaks from Land of the Lost, however, it took just over thirty years to evolve from guys in truly horrible rubber suits to...guys in slightly less horrible rubber suits.

First things first: if you like Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, you'll enjoy The Campaign, in which they play rival North Carolina candidates competing for a congressional seat in the nation's capital. Going in, the big fear was that the movie would essentially be Ferrell's George W. Bush fighting with Alan from The Hangover for 90 minutes, but Cam Brady (Ferrell) and Marty Huggins (Galifianakis) are their own men for the most part. The two stars clearly have comic chemistry together and they each have shining moments that show off their individual brands of humor.