Next: Jem The Movie

1. Transformers/Paramount Wknd/$ 67.6 Total/$ 152.5
2. Ratatouille/Disney Wknd/$ 29.0 Total/$ 109.5
3. Live Free or Die Hard/Fox Wknd/$ 17.4 Total/$ 84.2
4. License To Wed/Warner Wknd/$ 10.4 Total/$ 10.4
5. Evan Almighty/Universal Wknd/$ 8.1 Total/$ 78.1
6. 1408/MGM Wknd/$ 7.1 Total/$ 53.8
8. Fantastic Four 2/Fox Wknd/$ 4.2 Total/$ 123.8
7. Knocked Up/Universal Wknd/$ 5.2 Total/$ 132.0
9. Sicko/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 3.7 Total/$ 11.5
10. Ocean’s 13/Warner Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 109.1


LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE
Transformers opens at number one and they came along just as I was becoming too old for certain types of science fiction and fantasy, as I’d discovered the women around me were grown stuff on their chests. Like with the Knightrider TV show, one day something seemed amazingly cool to me, the next day it was “Man, this is stupid. And did you see her boobs?” The second generation of GI Joe, Knightrider and Transformers all arrived just a moment too late for my interest. This is probably what allowed me to enjoy this movie, as the biggest Transformers fan I know was livid about the changes made for the movie and swore he’d never see it. Basically, what Superman is to me, Transformers is to him. But just as I had to watch Smallville despite bitching about “Kal-El’s Creek” from day one, he too relented and saw this---and enjoyed it in spite of himself. I also enjoyed this big dumb movie about giant robots fighting in downtown LA. Some have compared this to Independence Day. Well, that’s accurate, because Independence Day was just an updating of flying saucer movies from the 50’s and this pretty much the same. Invaders from space, the everyman gets involved and with military assistance, saves the day. In this case, the everyman is none other than the little douchebag of the moment, Shia LeBouf and his agent needs to get more than 10% given what he’s done for this little shit. He plays the descendant of an explorer who actually discovered the first Transformer on earth, but had to die in shame in a mental ward so the government could keep it a secret. Now, the good Transformers come to him to help fight the bad ones. To protect him, one has come to earth disguised as a Camero. In fact, all the good guy robots transform into everyday vehicles while the bad guy robots are all military vehicles. Couple this with a less than respectful moment with the president and I’d dare say someone had an agenda. But the military is depicted as nothing less than super-competent, represented by pretty boy Josh Duhmael and Tyrese Gibson. The movie’s biggest flaw is far too much comic relief. The sequence where Shia tries to hide five giant robots in his backyard goes on much too long and steals a resolution from Pump Up The Volume. Also Anthony Anderson appears. Need I say more? The black Tom Arnold is just as annoying here as he is in everything and the double-digit IQ possessors continue to be amused by him. But what can you say about a movie about giant fighting robots from space? Which is based on a cartoon used to sell toys in the 80’s? How can you seriously complain about a movie like this? You know exactly what you were getting into it when you paid your money. I did and in the end, it was a pleasant way to spend a free afternoon. If anything is really a problem, it’s that they made the Transformers too complex looking, so when they’re moving around onscreen, you really don’t know what the hell you’re seeing, especially when they’re fighting, which is the only reason you’re there in the first place.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH
Live Free or Die Hard is down to number and the bad guy here is Timothy Olyphant, who is the answer to the question, “What if pretty boy Josh Duhmael actually had talent?” He’s been bouncing around in supporting roles for years, from the drug dealer in the criminally underrated Go to the porn director in The Girl Next Door, stealing scenes left and right. Unlike Josh Duhmael there’s an undercurrent of menace to him, which tends to hamper playing the typical hero. This probably why he found his greatest success as the sheriff on Deadwood. Yeah, now you know him.

SHUT UP AND TELL JOKES!
Ratatouille is down to number two and another huge difference in Pixar films than your typical computer animated funny animal movie is the choice in voices. Pixar chooses who best suits the role while others just grab stars they can advertise (to give credit where credit is due, this was Disney’s policy they adopted). How else would someone like Patton Oswald wind up as the principle character in one of the biggest movies of the summer? Or Janeane Garofalo? Obviously she’s the only female character and in typical Garofalo form she goes on talk shows and makes herself unlikable. Janeane came up with Ben Stiller and on his show. She would then appear in his movies like the rest of his crew. You don’t see that any more. Andy Dick went crazy, David Cross and Bob Odenkirk did the great Mr. Show before David Cross decided briefly to join Janeane Garofalo and Margaret Cho in sacrificing humor to rail against George Bush, Garofalo in particular, becoming the worst kind of liberal shrew, as intolerant of other viewpoints as the people she was attacking. And their mainstream careers suffered as a result because they just couldn’t do their jobs and tell jokes. David Cross recovered and was obviously on the great Arrested Development, but Margaret Cho pretty much makes her living now being a professional hag and Garofalo is also a liberal fringe entertainer, appealing to the kind of person who ever thought that lame-ass “Bush, Dick, Colin…no wonder the country’s so fucked up” joke was ever funny, which it was not (which is why I hate so many of my fellow liberals: lame senses of humor). Even doing the rounds to support this movie she’s lucky to have, she can’t help but be an unpleasant bitch making needless political comments. Talking about pissing away a gift. She was funny once. Now, even I, a fan, cannot stand seeing her. Luckily she may have a future in voice, because she’s totally unrecognizable in this.

ANY MINUTE NOW PATCH ADAMS 2 IS COMING
License to Wed opens at number four and the Robin Williams trainwreck continues. Who is still paying to watch this guy mug his way through films? Is he too old for Ritalin? I’m not a fan of either version of The Office, so the appeal of the male lead is lost on me. He’s just some average-looking goofball to me. And poor Mandy Moore. She just keeps trying and trying, bad movie after bad movie, disappointing album after disappointing album and interview after interview insisting that she’s comfortable with her curves. Honey, if you were comfortable, you wouldn’t keep talking about it. Britney never made excuses for her thick thighs and surprising-for-a-white-girl ass. And most surprisingly out of the four (Britney, Christina, Jessica, Mandy), given she seems to have had the most normal home life, she’s displayed the worst taste in men. Yeah, even worse than Fred Durst and K-Fed (Britney) and Johnny Knoxville and the douchebag lead singer of Maroon 5 (Jessica). Who knew the skanky one would have the least amount of gossip about her and wind up happily married and now pregnant? But Mandy has been attached to Wilmer Valderrama who revealed he popped her cherry on Howard Stern (classy); Zach Braff (‘nuff said) and DJ AM. Yeah, a Nicole Richie leftover. More than that, a 30-year-old Nicole Richie left over, who apparently picks girlfriends from Teen People along with Jared Leto.

AFTER GILMORE SHE PREFERS AS FEW LINES AS POSSIBLE
Evan Almighty is down to number five and Lauren Graham is in this continuing her career as “the girl” for in comedies where leading men are willing to be with a woman their own age. So far it’s been Vin Diesel (The Pacifier), Billy Bob Thornton (Bad Santa) and now this. She’s not really a big screen lead and if Mary Louise Parker weren’t available to do Weeds, she’d be the next person on your list.

GIVING THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT
1408 is down to number six, followed by Knocked Up at number seven with Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is down to number eight and to show you that exploitation is more even than you realize, Chris Evans, who plays the Human Torch, has another gratuitous shirtless scene in this movie like the first. Given this movie is motivated by anything but genuine inspiration, you know they read the responses from the first, saw women (and gay men) loved it, so found a reason for it to happen again. Why else would the shower entrance BE IN THE MAIN HALLWAY OF THE BUILDING so he can run into his romantic interest (Frankie Raye, whom geeks know becomes a Human Torch herself and eventually herald of Galactus) and do a little flexing? The ironic thing being, even though Jessica Alba’s character has another “Oops, I’m naked in public scene” we never see her, while this guy had to give up pizza for six months. Oh, and he used to date Jessica Biel. Of course they never made a sex tape either. See, it’s never the good couples.

THEN THEY SHOULD BOTH CALL DEBBIE RENYOLDS
Sicko holds at number nine and Ocean’s 13 closes out the top ten at number ten and have we mentioned just how much is must suck to be Jennifer Anniston recently? Well, you know it does. Especially during the promotion for A Mighty Heart, on which Brad Pitt also served as a producer. Why does it suck? Because no one can ever tell her he traded down. Probably the only person she can talk to now is Cameron Diaz who has to see Jessica Biel show up every other day with Justin Timberlake. Again, no one can tell him he traded down. And, they had to be at Shrek 3 premieres all over the world together, after which she knows he went home and boned the younger girl with the better ass----while she found out that Criss Angel’s estranged wife was going to name her in their divorce suit. Criss Angel? Now’s she’s got no shortage of friend willing to tell her she traded down. Yeah, she and Jennifer Anniston should become drinking buddies.

AFTER HOURS
Never again. I’m serious this time. When Chasing Amy says, “Let’s go out” around midnight, I’m just going to say home. I’m too old to be having a meal at 4:00 am and then dragging my ass home as the sun comes up. It just messes with my clock and you cannot mess with an old man’s clock. This time it was the birthday gathering for a guy she hates, but whom is still good friends with her boyfriend. She only agreed to go if she could turn up very late and apparently with me in tow. It was at a bar called Nurse Bettie on the Lower East Side, directly across the street from the atrocity known as Blue, that horribly ugly blue apartment building. This will be important later. Because it’s summer, the bar isn’t packed the gills the way it would normally be on a night like this and for that I’m grateful. I even managed to find a seat. Now, the reason Chasing Amy hates this douchebag is because he once hit on her and upon being turned down, he then told her current boyfriend not to date her. But even now, at every sort of social gathering makes some sort of attempt to impress her. But this was not douche enough for me to condemn him the way she had. Being a moron about a crush hardly makes a man a douche. No, he became a douche to me when he kept going on about the mixes he made that were playing in a bar. He would sing every lyric, beat and electronic effect so we knew what a great job he’d done. This is when he effectively transcended to “douche.” He solidified this when he then began telling Chasing Amy how much money he made a year ($200K he alleges, which may be true as he is an “Evangelist” for Microsoft). Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. After a year long sabbatical, Chasing Amy decided she needed bacon, so at 4:00 we decided to go to Cafeteria on 7th. In the cab ride over The Douche then told us all about the perks of working for Microsoft, which include all internet and phone bills reimbursed with no need for receipts; mandatory ownership of all their software & hardware (including the Xbox Elite), and also their competitor’s works, which is why they bought him a Mac book and, of course, the iPhone---which he whipped out All. Night. Long. Supreme Douche. But the cherry on top was at dinner (where he ordered a macaroni & cheese with bacon for the table to try again to please Chasing Amy). Because it’s 4:00 am we’re getting the club fallout crowd, but since the real club goers are all out of the city in the summer, it’s only the people who go to clubs in the summer, which means the Bridge & Tunnel Crowd. Now, I personally found this hysterical to watch, because guido and guidette fashion is never anything less than amusing (they never run out of ways to expose skin or abuse mousse), but this sent him off in a tirade on how “Jersey is ruining the city.” Bear in mind the only true New Yorker at that table was Chasing Amy, Brooklyn born and bred. And for as long as there’s been a “New York Scene” the people at the center of it have been those from outside the city. Truman Capote? New Orleans. Andy Warhol? Pittsburgh. Even those social matrons on the Upper East Side are never from New York. The Lou Reeds and Woody Allens are out-numbered ten-to-one by the people who really make up what you think is “New York” especially Manhattan. And this asshole, who was living in The Blue Building (renting, not buying, which makes me doubt his salary claims), whose exorbitant prices are exactly what’s driving out the people who really make New York interesting, is going on about how people from Jersey are ruining New York!?! People from New Jersey have always come into New York, but unlike The Douchebag, they fucking leave again. He stays and stinks the joint up. Thankfully, this is pretty much when the meal ended otherwise I was tempted to puke it back up onto him. When I finally got home the freaking sun was up. Not coming up, up! Sigh. I’m so too old for this.

WE ARE FAMILY
So my dad calls me on Wednesday and tells me, “Remember your cousin, Renee? Well, she’s got a daughter coming to New York to do an internship at Vibe Magazine and needs a place to stay for a week until her actual living arrangements kick in. She starts Monday. See what you can do.” Um, okay. So I start making phone calls and doing research to see if what the women’s residences that still exist charge. Apparently my cousin has led a good life because Around The Way Girl calls me back to offer me her apartment as she’s pretty much living with her boyfriend these days. Shit. Who knew I had friends like this? She came in on Saturday and I kept her with me on the first night and took her to dinner, as I couldn’t just dump her in city on her first night here. She was my excuse to go to Empanada Mama (I haven’t been in months, I swear). I took her up to the apartment the next day (which was painfully, the morning after my night with Chasing Amy). Around The Way Girl’s apartment is on 120th Street near St. Nicholas park and that area has changed dramatically (i.e., White people live there now). Every other building is pretty much brand spanking new and more are in the works. Also, it’s near the 125th Station subway stop, so she’s going to be spoiled for a week, because her regular housing is with an old friend of her mothers---in COOP City in The Bronx. Ouch. But the part about this that sends me shopping for Depends is that it was 20-years ago that I was 20-years old, just finished my sophomore year and decided not to go home but to stay in New York for the summer and work. However, I lacked the foresight to get an internship. No, I just worked at the gym just like I did during the school year. How was it? My life was so boring I literally cannot remember a thing I did (aside from two blown chances for sex; one my stupid choice, the other the unscheduled appearance of a new roommate). Hopefully, she’ll be smart enough to have some fun. Given that she’s working at Vibe in their fashion division, there should be plenty of opportunities.