FOCUS GROUP: Can ‘Disturbia’ scare up some business?

We've assembled representatives of some of Hollywood's key demographics. Each week, our group weighs in on the coming weekend's releases, letting us know whether all the script fixes, the re-shoots and the product tie-in campaigns have added up to a movie they are likely to see.

Last weekend America rejected "Grindhouse," the three-hour pulp double feature from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, but not our teenage boy. He freakin' loved it! "It was amazing. It was unbelievable," he said. He was especially fond of the three trailers in the middle, which he described as "killer."

It is unlikely any of this week's SIX movies will provoke a similar response from our intrepid team of Hollywood outsiders. In fact, our city girl was so overwhelmed by the number of films she had never heard of and had no interest in seeing that she opted to take this week off.

THE CHARACTERS:

The Christian
Keenan Roberts: Senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center in Northglenn, Colo., as well as director of the ministries of the Hell House Outreach.

The Rapper
GLC: An artist on Kanye West's label. Originally from Chicago, he now lives in Los Angeles where he is at work on his album.

The College Boy
Justin Scharf: A freshman at Georgia State University. He is 6-foot-3, listens to a lot of music, and works at Starbucks.

The Teenage Girl
Elena Roye: An eighth-grader at a middle school in Westchester County, N.Y.

The City Girl
Carol Creighton: Lives in the West Village of Manhattan. She is a manager for a pharmaceutical company, volunteers at a women's shelter, and enjoys her martinis with a twist.


THE MOVIES:


A sentient meatball, a milkshake and a box of French fries to band together as a super crime-fighting team cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past. R | VIEW THE TRAILER

GLC: "I will see this with my overweight friends. Food talks to them all the time."

Keenan: "This 'film' is proof that you don't need an I.Q. comprised of a higher number than your shoe size to make a movie. Who's the projected audience for this stuff: 8th-grade drop-outs?"

Justin: "I would rather hang myself than go see this. It gives me a headache."

Elena: "OMG this movie is sooooo stupid! It's a desperate attempt to be funny. It's sooo weird oh my gosh no!!"


Extremely bored and under house arrest, a troubled teenager (Shia LaBeouf) starts to think that his next door neighbor might be a serial killer. PG-13 | VIEW THE TRAILER

Keenan: "This will be on my wife's list but not mine. Paying to have the bajeebers scared out of you is not my idea of an entertaining evening."

GLC: "They picked a very bad title for the movie. I am at peace in my life. I am happy and tranquil and I don't want to be disturbed. That's a horrible name. I do not want to see 'Bother-me-ville.'"

Justin: "This one is kind of interesting in that it combines the seminal Hitchcock classic 'Rear Window' with the kid from 'Even Stevens, which is hilarious. I won't see it but with that combination it is kind of tempting."

Elena: "I wanna see 'Distrubia' even though I don't think the acting is going to be amazing, because the story seems good and when somebody's getting accused like that or misjudged it really leads me on to want to see or hear what happened."


Left behind in North America by the Vikings, a young boy is raised to manhood by Native Americans but is faced with conflict when his people return decades later. R | VIEW THE TRAILER

Keenan: "A decent SUV. I'd drive one if somebody handed me the keys. As a warrior in the bush movie though, truthfully I don't think I'd go if you handed me a free ticket."

GLC: "So this is a story about a kid that was abandoned by his family and got raised by another family and now the kid wants to beat his original parents' ass? That's like growing up in urban America. A lot of time we grow up without our fathers, then when you get grown you want to kick your father's ass."

Justin: "I thought '300' was going to be the gayest movie of the year, but this movie has taken the title. I don't want to be within 100 feet of this movie. I don't even want to go to a theater where this movie is playing. What a disaster."

Elena: "OK, so 'Pathfinder' seems really like, interesting and I kinda like movies like this now. Like it seems a little too violent and too much fighting but it seems like a really good story."


An investigative reporter (Halle Berry) goes undercover to find out if a top ad exec (Bruce Willis) murdered her friend. R | VIEW THE TRAILER


Keenan: "Just the facts ma'am (classic cops TV quote): great thrillers do not have to be filled with all of the R-rated garbage to be terrific movies. The edginess should be the storyline and crafting it cinematically; not the optional tougher ratings refuse. I'd love to see this one, but I won't."

GLC: "Is Halle Berry going to have sex with Bruce Willis? She likes to have sex with old white men in movies. I don't really care what it is about. If I might get to see her naked again I'll go see it! Count me in!"

Justin: "I like Bruce Willis as a villain, but now whenever I see Halle Berry in a movie I know it is bad. Her decisions are so bad I just know it is going to be horrible, and these modern thrillers where they are using the internet and text messaging are not nearly as interesting as the old ones."

Elena: "I wanna see it because it seems to be a very interesting story and because the trailer is kinda confusing. Like, there are a lot of different scenes in the trailer and I wanna see what happens in them."


An auto/action thriller that features the personal exotic car collection of the producer, real estate investor Daniel Sadek. | VIEW THE TRAILER


Keenan: "All teenage dudes please write on the board 100 times: I will not drive like a maniac and put myself or other people in danger."

GLC: "I'll go see it only because I'm interested in cars. I'll see how the girls react to certain cars so when I get rich I can know what to get."

Justin: "The best review of this came from Steven Smith, the main anchor at Fox News. When Eddie Griffin crashed that Ferrari in an obvious publicity stunt, [Smith] said it was probably the funniest thing Griffin ever did in his career. That was hilarious."

Elena: "OK, this movie seems sooooo weird. Like no point at all whatsoever. It's like, is it a car race or an action movie? Totally dumb. Definitely don't want to see it."


A big-city district attorney (Ray Liotta) has just a few hours to discover the truth behind his assistant's murder confession, which apparently is more complicated than she (Jolene Blalock) makes it seem. R | VIEW THE TRAILER


Keenan: "I've always liked Ray Liotta's style. He's not typical and predictable for whatever reason. But this flick goes in the same pile as 'Perfect Stranger.' Forget the movies, I've got to find time to go to a baseball game."

GLC: "I will probably slow burn right before I see the movie. It's legal of course. Prescription! I'm diabetic! Legal!"

Justin: "Jolene Blalock was in the Star Trek prequel, 'Enterprise.' It went on for three years and then right at the when it was really getting good it got canceled. She was really good in that. She was like a Vulcan woman and started having affairs with the crew. I liked that. I don't think I'm going to go see the movie, but it is good to see her around. This looks a little too formula driven for me. I'll just have to watch 'Battlestar Galactica.'"

Elena: "'Slow Burn' seems really interesting, a little confusing, but it does seem like an interesting case and story."