WHAT'S NEW: So Burn After Reading is good — more admirable than likable, really, with the Coen brothers returning to their parched well of overmatched dolts in possession of objects way beyond their ken. This time it's Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand attempting to blackmail a CIA analyst (a bracingly potty-mouthed John Malkovich) whose "memoirs" they've found lying on their gym's floor; Tilda Swinton and George Clooney join in as awkward archetypes of paranoia and aloof, striving America. If we sound glib, that's Burn for you — a plot- and style-allergic screwball comedy that succeeds primarily as an almost-clean break (even Pitt's character is ultimately a red herring) from two decades of recycled Coen tropes.

Alas, it's 20 years too late for some moviegoers, whose Coen aversion will keep Burn and its high-octane ensemble around $16 million for the weekend. That might be enough to surpass the De Niro/Pacino miscarriage Righteous Kill for second place overall, but we don't think anybody will overtake The Family That Preys — or, excuse us, Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys. The distinction matters, too: Even with 1,000 fewer screens than Kill, the dude is a box-office witch with a cult following and increasing crossover juice (Kathy Bates!) that'll push Family to $19.5 million in three days. Not that we've seen it — Perry doesn't avail his films to the press — but it's still fascinating stuff; we'll have more on him here later in the day.

Also opening: The chatty, mostly misleadingly titled Young People Fucking; Takashi Miike's acid-trip spaghetti Eastern Sukiyaki Western Django; the flashback-y Jewish family drama A Secret; the enviro-alarmist doc FLOW: For Love of Water; and Matthew McConaughey's shirtless adventure Surfer, Dude.

THE BIG LOSER: Here and elsewhere, we've made little secret of our disdain for Towelhead, Alan Ball's thoroughly revolting, exploitive, amateurish, illiterate and borderline retarded sketch of molesty, multi-ethnic suburban ennui. It's not worth getting into again — that's what Google's for — but look at it this way: Warner Independent Pictures didn't fold because it couldn't compete; it was poisoned. If you pay money to see this movie, you could be next.

THE UNDERDOG: Don't look now (oh, all right, go ahead) but The Women is up to a 9 percent approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes! The comeback is on! Sort of! Still, don't expect some Sex and the City blockbuster shocker; director Diane English can preach gay quadrants and underserved audiences all she wants, but she's only got her cast — not an HBO institution — to rely on. And how much does a Meg Ryan/Annette Bening/Eva Mendes/Jada Pinkett film open to these days? Not a ton, but more than most are predicting on 3,000 screens. We'll call it for $11 million and not a penny less.

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD's include the hit Sarah Palin comedy Baby Mama; Tarsem's visually sumptuous Flopzterpiece™ The Fall; the long-awaited (we're serious this time) restoration of the Cinerama benchmark How the West Was Won; the 10th-anniversary edition of The Big Lebowski; and, extraordinarily, Child's Play: Chucky's 20th Birthday Edition. Chucky! 20! Christ, we're like grandparents now.

This is more like it, right? Is there anything better than a week when we won't be writing about The Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder on Monday? And when we can finally throw dirt on Towelhead's fetid corpse? Oh, fall. We missed you. Choose your own adventure, and share below.

But things got a little sketchier late Wednesday as Ball and source novelist Alicia Erian each issued statements responding to the CAIR kerfuffle, invoking their minority status to deflect the charge that Towelhead is anything but a cynical tug on the pantleg of jaded viewers everywhere. Their two cents is after the jump, along with a few reasons you should see right through it.

This ultimately comes down to the principals hanging themselves by their own ropes, starting with race-card shark Arian:

As an Arab-American woman, I am of course aware that the title of my book is an ethnic slur. Indeed, I selected the title to highlight one of the novel's major themes: racism. In the tradition of Dick Gregory's autobiography Nigger, the Jewish magazine Heeb, or the feminist magazine Bitch, the title is rude and shocking, but it is not gratuitous. Besides the fact that the main character must endure taunting about her ethnicity (including being called a towelhead), so much of the novel's plot is fueled by the characters' attitudes toward race. ...

This is not to say that I don't find these concerns legitimate — I absolutely do. We live in a racist society, one in which people continue to use ethnic slurs to delineate those who are different than they are. Realistically speaking, though, these people are neither the audience for my book, nor for the film. They will continue to use whatever language they wish whether or not a movie called Towelhead is released. For this reason, I am pleased that Warner Bros. is standing by the title.

Got it. Then Ball got loose with his homo creds:

As a gay man, I know how it feels to be called hateful names simply because of who I am. Therefore, I felt it was important to retain the title of Alicia Erian's novel, in which she so effectively dramatizes the pain inflicted by such language, something many people of non-minority descent never have to face. I believe one of the unintended consequences of forbidding such words to be spoken is imbuing those words with more power than they should ever have, and helping create the illusion that the bigotry and racism expressed by such cruel epithets is less prevalent than it actually is, which we all know is sadly not the case.

WIP threw in some spin for good measure ("Good Night, and Good Luck drew criticism from some as well") along with a few "experts," but first things first: The film was never called Towelhead until after it was roundly brutalized at Toronto under the title Nothing is Private; Warners lay low for a few months, quietly reclaimed the title of Erian's novel, and traveled with it to Sundance last January for a reboot of sorts.

Alas, Towelhead's intellectual and aesthetic qualities (or lack thereof; you be the judge Sept. 12) — not its name — continued to precede it through its abortive fest cycle, with WIP's pulled plug soon contributing as well to an early-fall dump. It's an institutional thing, really: Its sister company Picturehouse issued The Women the same fate, with Warners promoting both films in New York opposite each other two weeks from today — when 90 percent of film journalists are still up north covering Toronto.

So anyway, when Ball, Erian and the WIP brigade as a whole say they know about discrimination, we can't necessarily argue. But we can — and should — point out for the record that their exploitation artistry exceeds their sensitivity, and whatever lipstick they want to slather on their pig in advance of its release back into the wild is ultimately a waste of perfectly good makeup. Did CAIR miss the point? Maybe. But Towelhead got what it wanted. So, no — apology not accepted, gang. Off you go.

For starters, outgoing Picturehouse president Bob Berney told Variety that Warners' abdication of the art house is purely philosophical:

"Their decision was not to be in this business," he said. "It's not a reflection on me or Picturehouse. It's not their world."

Berney has no specific plans for a new job. "A lot of people want to do something — companies, investors. I am confident at the end of the day I will find something, but it needs to be a place that fits," he said. Berney added that he and several others from Picturehouse will be in Cannes as scheduled. WIP is sending a smaller contingent than originally planned.

[A]m I genuinely sad for the good people of these two companies? Yes. Will I make some phone calls for a few of them when they write, looking for new jobs? Yes. But is losing two companies that put out less than 10 films a year and grossed less than $50 million a year total each on average, even with the financial backing - however lame - of major studios? Not a tragedy... just a reasonable business choice from businessmen who were not terribly smart or reasonable when they launched these divisions in the first place.

In other words: We may mourn, but the numbers don't. That's entertainment.

• Towelhead [Warner Independent]