WHAT'S NEW: This is a good weekend to maybe paint the house or just drink — a lot — as Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Meet Dave jockey for Top 5 position against holdovers Hancock and Wall-E. We admit: We walked out of Golden Army's LA Film Festival premiere, annoyed with its wisecracking self-awareness and degradation of Selma Blair — but that's just us, it seems, as director Guillermo del Toro and his magical make-believe realm of creatures and bad screenwriting have dazzled most critics and are likely to nab $40 million over the next three days. Journey, meanwhile, which places Fraser in 3-D, PG-rated peril somewhere near what looks suspiciously like the Warner Bros. lot, will be lucky to surpass Wall-E for third place around $27 million.

It's a crowded weekend for indies and art houses as well, with the documentary Oscar hopeful Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired making its "official" theatrical debut after a sub-sonic run in April. The Spencer Breslin/Cuba Gooding Jr. balding-teen dramedy Harold also opens, as does Death-Defying Acts, the Weinstein Company shelf-casualty starring Guy Pearce as Harry Houdini and Catherine Zeta-Jones as the con woman who falls for him.

THE BIG LOSER: Speaking of jilted premieres, you can reasonably take Murphy's Meet Dave no-show at face value; the spiritual heir of Norbit should still break $20 million, but if Murphy's latest multi-role hackwork doesn't stop the travesty of Beverly Hills Cop IV in its developmentally-disabled tracks, we don't know what will. Oh, who are we kidding? They'll probably start shooting on Monday, box office (and worn-out welcomes) be damned.

THE UNDERDOG: We recommend the ensemble drama Garden Party with a few reservations: filmmaker Jason Freeland's forced script could use a dialogue polish or eight; it's got more twee sound cues than a Moldy Peaches set; and if wanna-be dreams come true this fast in LA, then we should all be doing lines off each other's asses today by happy hour. That said, the low-profile cast — particularly Vinessa Shaw as a cutthroat realtor (with a past, natch), Willa Holland as a teen looking for her absentee mother or a decent job, whichever comes first, and the endlessly fascinating Patrick Fischler as a skeevy, unassuming porn photographer — does quite a bit with not a lot. And there's a bonus: The most awkwardly choreographed gay-bar dance sequence since Cruising. You heard it here first.

FOR SHUT-INS: Among this week's notable DVD releases: the gross-out psych-horror thriller The Ruins; the pig-nosed Christina Ricci rom-com Penelope; the not-eagerly awaited MTV! Award! Winner! Step Up 2: The Streets; and the masterful Dallas: The Complete Ninth Season.

So what do you think? Anything good on TV this weekend, or any books you might recommend? Or is the Eddie Murphy completist in you racing to the multiplex as we speak. Be honest — nobody is judged here! Well, sort of. Anyway, when is The Dark Knight opening again?

Geimer had flown in from Hawaii, "a beautiful spot where no one is aware or even cares"; she's now happily married with three children and working as a "personal assistant, accountant, and bookkeeper" for a real-estate developer. Both her husband and her mother, who had taken her to the party where the incident took place, had gotten gussied up with her for the premiere. ...

She approves of the movie — "I didn't think somebody could make it that interesting" — and hopes it will quell some of the curiosity about what happened that night. "I'm glad [director Marina Zenovich] put the truth of the way it happened out there, because I don't want to have to tell people," she says. "It's nice that she went ahead and did it, so people can know the truth and I can just go, 'It's a great movie!'"

Well, then, fantastic. We don't know how or even if ThinkFilm, the distributor who will (re?)release the film theatrically in July, plans to outdo Geimer's appearance later this summer, though a cleverly disguised Polanski himself — smuggled into the States via suitcase, natch — would be just the kind of coup to launch this film into the March of the Penguins-esque notoriety that would position everybody right where they want them come Oscar time. Or, considering how one popular Web site even has Geimer and Polanski listed as an item after all these years, just overturn the conviction and let felony bygones be bygones. Clearly it's time.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• The Surprise Guest at the Roman Polanski Documentary Premiere [Vulture]

As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, when HBO has broadcast previous ThinkFilm releases ahead of time, the theatrical runs suffered from a lack of reviews; with Wanted and Desired headed to Cannes, however, and The New York Times already having reviewed its short New York run, ThinkFilm president Mark Urman said he isn't worrying about it. Moreover, with ThinkFilm coming off a Best Documentary Oscar win with Taxi to the Dark Side, look for Wanted and Desired to jump near the top the early '08 Oscar nominee short list overnight — if it hasn't already. Somehow we doubt Ben Stein's Yoko-tweaking right-wing hit Expelled will be in the running come January.

• ThinkFilm picks up 'Roman Polanski' rights [THR]

HBO Documentary Films purchased Wanted and Desired for $1 million out of Sundance, planning a cable premiere and a DVD release — but no theatrical run. Except that to qualify for an Oscar, you have to screen "for a minimum of seven days in both Los Angeles County and the Borough of Manhattan." We don't know what to tell you about Los Angeles, but we know now — thanks to an eagle-eye who pointed out the microscopic newspaper ad above — that HBO is protecting its audience for the June 9 cable premiere and keeping its Oscar hopes alive by dumping it in the farthest reaches of Upper Manhattan for the bare minimum two afternoon screenings per day.

An HBO rep contacted by Defamer had no word on Los Angeles screening location or dates, so we're not sure if you've missed it already or not. Check your local listings, we suppose. In any case, we know docs are a tough sell these days, but either way: This isn't exactly the kind of treatment supposedly Oscar-worthy films deserve, is it?

UPDATE: A resourceful tipster sends word that Wanted and Desired is in fact currently screening in Pasadena at the Laemmle One Colorado through April 3 at the convenient hours of 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Director Brett Ratner told Daily Variety that he persuaded Polanski to appear after a chance encounter while in pre-production in Paris. He expressed particular affection for Polanski's stint as an actor and director in 1976's "The Tenant" and the notion of directors such as Orson Welles, Sydney Pollack, Spike Jonze and Albert Brooks working as thesps.

"Roman is my favorite director and my favorite actor, so I asked Jeff Nathanson to write him into the movie," he added.

While Polanski may initially enjoy the attention during his stay on Ratner's set, we suspect he'll quickly tire of the director's repeated and transparent attempts to steal the kind of seduction techniques so unfailingly effective that they necessitate a lifetime exit from the country in which they're practiced. After the tenth instance of Ratner prematurely calling "Cut!" in the middle of a scene to pull aside his actor to ask him, "Yeah, that's a keeper. So tell me again: Do the Quaaludes or the Champagne come first? I can never keep that part straight," Polanski might start to feel a little used.

• Roman's in a 'Rush' [Variety]

Oh, wait a minute, Polanski won? We'd sooner fuck a duck than try to understand British libel laws [Ed.note—Disclaimer: Defamer is published in America and not intended for the eyes of any British citizen with the resources to retain a libel attorney.], but the upshot of this is that we find ourselves in the highly confusing position of agreeing with Graydon Carter.

After the verdict, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter said he found it "outrageous that this story is considered defamatory, given the fact that Mr. Polanski cannot be here because he slept with a 13-year-old girl a quarter of a century ago." [...]

We'd love to marinate in the irony of the decision, but we're a little too busy being profoundly disturbed by the description of "cuddliness" we read in the girl's testimony from Polanski's statutory rape trial. But at least now the world knows that he didn't hit on that Swedish chick.

• Polanski Wins Vanity Fair Libel Suit [AP]

The key witness during that proceeding was Samantha Gailey, the 13-year-old California girl who Polanski plied with Champagne and a Quaalude in a Mulholland Canyon home owned by Jack Nicholson. According to her testimony, which you'll find below, Gailey testified that her abuse began after she posed naked in a Jacuzzi for Polanski, who said the images were for French Vogue. The girl left the Jacuzzi after a naked Polanski wrapped his hands around her waist. Gailey testified that when she retreated to a bedroom, Polanski sat down beside her and kissed her, despite demands that he "keep away." Polanski, she said, then performed a sex act on her and eventually "started to have intercourse with me."

Yup, it gets worse. You probably don't want to read the next line if you have delicate sensibilities. But it's got to be comforting for Polanski to know that even after all the nasty stories about champagne and 'lude parties with 13-year-olds in Nicholson's jacuzzi, pals like Mia Farrow are still willing to stick up for him in court.

Also: Indiewire's The Reeler blog tallies the score from the trial.

• Why Polanski Lives Over There [The Smoking Gun]

As he acknowledged to a court in London on Monday, Roman Polanski was, in his younger days, a libertine and rake who freely engaged in casual sex, sometimes with more than one woman at a time.

But on no account, Mr. Polanski declared, did he try to seduce a beautiful Swedish woman in 1969 while en route to the funeral of his wife, Sharon Tate, soon after her brutal murder by followers of Charles Manson in California. Nor was it true, he added, that as part of part of his seduction technique, he placed his hand on the woman's thigh and murmured, "and I will make another Sharon Tate out of you."

See? Polanski could check his libido, even when he might succumb to his grief and seek comfort in the bosom of a comely Swede. Furthermore, it can only help his case that it took him nearly eight years after the funeral to work his way down to having sex with a 13-year-old. That kind of restraint is nearly superhuman.

• From Paris, Polanski Testifies in Libel Case [NYT]