It's actually starting to get difficult to remember a time when Ben Affleck was a punchline, following his dismal performance in Daredevil, his string of forgettable action films like Paycheck and Reindeer Games and the despised Gigli. Since 2004, he's been taking mostly serious lead roles, and his appearances in less-respected fare were mostly smaller, comedic cameos. And after winning acclaim for his directorial debut, Gone, Baby, Gone, it seemed like he had found a new fallback career if this acting thing didn't work out. Well, Affleck directs and stars in The Town, and while it's mostly the familiar ground he walked in previous Boston dramas like Gone and Good Will Hunting, and it has its moments of silliness, it's a pretty solid heist movie, with a bunch of great actors and enough wicked Bahston accents to fill Fenway Pahk.

The science-fiction underpinnings of Never Let Me Go are only hinted at in most of the advertising for the film, which is probably a good idea, because it's first and foremost a love story. Granted, the story takes place in an alternate reality, where the characters are all pawns in a grand experiment in selective health care, but don't go into it expecting lasers and laboratories. The movie is based on a book by Kazuo Ishiguro, the author of The Remains of the Day, which was about an emotionally repressed butler, so that should give you an idea of what to expect here.

When we heard that Jon Hamm was being seriously considered to play the role of Superman in a new movie, we got a bit confused: doesn't he already play Superman? Seriously, the steely-eyed Don Draper on Mad Men is the spitting image of the Man of Steel, and the two characters have a lot in common. So while the role is fraught with peril (where are Dean Cain and Brandon Routh now?), it seems like Hamm would be the perfect fit for an older, more established Superman. And, as the following examples prove, he's already got plenty of experience.

Light-on-substance studio films and substance-crammed independent offerings battle it out for your hard-earned movie-renting dollars this week. Relax -- Amanda Seyfried is in one of each, so you're covered.

As a fan of sci-fi and zombies in general and Milla Jovovich in particular, my view of the Resident Evil movie franchise has been one of benign ambivalence. The first was surprisingly good, but the sequels got increasingly sillier and seemed to level out profit-wise, so I assumed that the latest installment, Resident Evil: Afterlife, would be the last. But because it found a nice, empty weekend to park in, and because it was filmed in price-gouging 3-D, it managed to bring in the franchise's highest opening-weekend box office ever, which all but guarantees a sequel. Milla herself has said that her director-husband is already thinking about the fifth film, and that it will incorporate ideas taken from fans on Twitter. While that sounds disastrous all by itself, there are a number of reasons why this franchise needs to quietly fade away.

Remember how Dawson's Creek got pretty unwatchable (more so than normal) for a while there towards the end? This really feels like that, and not just because the former Joey Potter is in it, but because everyone just seems like they came straight out of Capeside and landed in this post-college horrible nightmare. There is a group of friends who have a weird incestous relationship where they've all basically hooked up with each other at some point (aside from the brother and sister), some characters have purposefully weird names like Minnow and Tripler, Katie's character can't make up her mind (shocker!) and she has a best frenemy who is blonde with big boobs. And so there's not a creek, but they do spend the majority of the time by the ocean. Oh, and they all talk like they're sitting around discussing philosophy all the time, with big five dollar words and attempts to make frivolous things sound lofty and important, and Josh Duhamel's character recites poetry. It's all completely believable. I assure you.

At this point in the road to I'm Still Here I'm really not interested in debating whether or not the thing is a hoax. After seeing it, it's obvious to me that it is (many critics disagree, but I honestly don't see how that's possible), and as such I'm just going to remark on the entertainment value of this misguided and, frankly, pretty poorly made mockumentary. (I promise there actually is some, despite that ringing endorsement.)

This weekend, we get a new Resident Evil film -- Resident Evil: Afterlife -- this time using the new-fangled 3D camera contraptions from Avatar. Wow! What a waste of those innovative contraptions! Kidding aside, while the RE films are good, gory fun and all, they are a little embarrassing to be associated with. Here's our tough-love look at the new movie's cast and an evaluation of their decision to appear in it.

A lot of analysis has been done on the increasing number of ensemble films on the marketplace. Movies like The Expendables, Valentine's Day and the upcoming Red stack the deck with stars, either to optimize NetFlix recommendations or simply to draw in the widest audience possible. The latter might be what Bruce Campbell is going for, as he plans to make a horror movie with "so many horror movie stars that people can't possibly not see the movie." Somehow, we think that people will be able to resist the siren song of Kane Hodder and Robert Englund in a sequel to My Name is Bruce, especially since it seems like most horror movies nowadays are simply there to employ washed-up horror stars (i.e. Behind the Mask, Hatchet). But the idea of applying that team-of-all-stars premise to other genres seems like it might have legs. Here are some genre-fied Expendables movies that would put butts in seats.

MACGRUBER! Didn't do well in theaters, now it's come out on DVD! MACGRUBER! Still trying to recoup that massive budget, hope we make it in rental fees! MACGRUBER!