SAW? MORE LIKE BORE.

1. Saw IV/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 32.0 Total/$ 32.0
2. Dan In Real Life/Touchstone Wknd/$ 12.1 Total/$ 12.1
3. 30 Days of Night/Sony Wknd/$ 6.7 Total/$ 27.3
4. The Game Plan/Disney Wknd/$ 6.3 Total/$ 77.1
5. Why Did I Get Married/LGF Wknd/$ 5.7 Total/$ 47.3
6. Michael Clayton/Warner Wknd/$ 5.0 Total/$ 28.8
7. Gone Baby Gone/Miramax Wknd/$ 3.9 Total/$ 11.3
8. The Comebacks/FoxA Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 10.0
9. We Own The Night/Sony Wknd/$ 3.3 Total/$ 25.1
10. Nightmare Before Xmas 3D Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 5.1

QUEEN OF THE GEEKS
Saw IV opens at number one and sadly, this gives hope to the movement known as “torture porn” (I call it “snuff horror”) after it saw one of its originators, Hostel stumble with its first sequel. Then again, you could open at number one at Halloween with home movies, so long as you sold it like a horror movie. I could give a shit about this. I didn’t care about the first one---based on the oldest “shock” idea in the book about sawing through the chain or your leg before the bomb goes off and your leg would take less time (somehow every version of this misses out that whatever the chain is attached to can probably also be sawed through quickly)---so you know I don’t care about sequels. In fact, they only interest me because they’ve given my girl Dina Meyer regular work and solidifying her place as a geek movie queen. That she’s been in all four Saws is obviously her horror requirement (that and Bats); her comic book requirement was Batgirl (Birds of Prey TV show); she’s got one old-school semi-literary science fiction movie with Starship Troopers and one new school with Johnny Mnemonic. There’s the fantasy requirement of Dragonheart and the mother of all geek requirements: Star Trek (though it was the Next Generation and its worst movie, Nemesis). So, if this keeps her off Cinemax playing a bi-sexual private investigator in something called “Seduction Is My Business” then I guess it’s not a total waste (the irony being she’s confessed to little same sex loving in real life).

SPELLED “R-E-E-L”
Dan In Real Life opens at number two and if this looked any more sweet natured and heartwarming, I don’t think I’d ever stop vomiting. I mean you’ve got the nice guy, precocious kids, funny siblings and warm loving movie star parents. It’s one of those movies where everyone is comfortably middle class, everyone gathers at mom and dad’s for the holidays and no seems to watch TV, instead choosing to engage each other and put on little shows. Where the fuck does this happen except in the movies? It’s a little early for Steve Carrell to be going this way, isn’t it? After, all he didn’t get here by playing dumb (The Daily Show), nice (The Office) or overly sweet (The 40 Year-Old Virgin). Or maybe he just wanted a day off from being a little smarter, meaner and honest. How this isn’t a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie I’ll never know. And who the fuck opens this at Halloween and not Thanksgiving or Christmas so people can escape and see the fantasy family they wish they had?

CAN IT BE NEPOTISM IF DAD’S DEAD?
30 Days of Night is down to number three and also in this is Danny Houston, who is threatening to become one of the Hardest Working Men in show business. Yes, he’s the son of John Houston and the brother of Angelica and if you saw The Kingdom, you saw him. If you saw The Number 23, you saw him. If you saw Children of Men, you saw him with an English accent. If you saw Marie Antoinette, The Constant Gardner or The Aviator, you have seen him. He’s got an oily kind of look, so he’s usually playing an oily person, usually a government official of some sort. It’s fitting. Whenever his dad was in front of the camera, he usually played some type of rich, corrupt bastard, most famously as the father/rapist of Faye Dunaway in Chinatown.

THE OTHERS
The Game Plan is down to number four, followed by Why Did I Get Married at number five and Michael Clayton at number six and why is George Clooney smart and funny? Doesn’t that violate the rules? If you get looks you cannot have the brains and the wit? That’s what I was told but I’m thinking it’s a lie for those of us who only got one. It keeps us from either killing ourselves or killing people like Clooney. And probably some smart, pretty bastard like Clooney came up with it. Muthafucka.

“FEARLESS “ = “SAGGING BUTT”
Gone Baby Gone is down to number seven and also in this are Ed Harris and his wife Amy Madigan and the pretty one still looks good and the one who was never about being pretty…well, let’s just say it’s good that wasn’t what her career was based on, because it would be gone, baby, gone. And I like Amy Madigan, so I’m hoping her look here was padding and make-up to make her fit in with her white trash family. Aside from Ben Affleck and his brother, Casey, the person to benefit the most here is Amy Ryan, who was the actress I mentioned that was briefly kept off the set by the police because she seemed more like a real neighborhood girl and not some actress. She plays the foul-mouthed, drug dealing negligent mother of the little girl and if she’s not at least nominated for awards at the end of the year, there is no justice because she rocks it hard here. This is one of the rare times when a woman’s “fearless” performance doesn’t mean she’s got an ugly body but still does nudity. She’s also in Dan In Real Life as one of his sweet sisters and you probably wouldn’t know it unless I told you.

THE END
The Comebacks is down to number eight, followed by We Own The Night at number nine and Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D closing out the top ten at number ten.

ACTUALLY CAN YOU GET MORE PORN SOUNDING THAN “VERA WANG”?
So, The Libertine is leaving me this week for a new job at the University of South Carolina and we spent our last weekend together doing what friends who are soon to be parted do: eating, drinking, looking at wedding dresses, engagement rings and porn. It started off because The Libertine used to work at the German Chamber of Commerce here in the city, which is how she got her German boyfriend. And why she invaded Poland. But that aside, anything German I notice in life goes back to her, including a particular porn star named Annette Schwartz who once yelled out, “Fuck me like a German whore, not like an American princess!” to a guy who was clearly too intimidated to do either. Needless to say, she became a regular part of our conversations, so I decided to finally show her just who we were talking about it. She found it disturbing because the girl wound up reminding her of someone she did actually know, which will make future conversations difficult. But as anyone knows, porn is meant to be watched alone…in an empty apartment…with the lights out…behind a locked door and with your junk in your hand. Otherwise, it can get boring quickly. I mean, there’s only so long you can watch it and make jokes about it and try to see which porn stars remind you of your friends. This is how, while numerous carnal acts that violated the laws of god and man where going on, we were actually busy looking at engagement rings and wedding dresses. Now the last time the ring came up, she panicked and I got a drunken 1:00 am plea to join her on the lower east side. She’s a lot better now and we looked over cuts and settings in relative calm. Then came the wedding dresses and let me tell you now: anything less than white is unacceptable! I’m not down with even champagne, much less burgundy or black? Black!?! Are you fucking kidding me!?! What are you, the fucking bride of Dracula? Grooms wear black tuxes and brides wear white, I don’t care if it’s your first marriage or your 15th. White, period! No colored sashes around the waist either! And it’s a wedding dress, not a fucking nightgown so there’s such a thing as too simple! It should be otherwise a totally impractical piece of clothing. If you can wear it elsewhere and not be noticed, you were ripped off. People are getting away with murder with the shit they’re designing. You know what was nice? The Vera Wang that Grace wore on Will & Grace, silk duchesse with molded corset bodice, trapunto stitching and pin tucking with Sergio Rossi boots. Very nice. $20,000 and one of a kind. I swear I’m straight. I brought porn, remember?

I WILL WATCH THIS SHOW IN A MOUSE, I WILL WATCH IT WITH A MOUSE…
The last show on the fall agenda for me was “Samantha Who?” starring Christina Applegate This began as “Sam I Am” before they realized they had to ask the Dr. Suess estate for permission first and they were either declined or wouldn’t pay up (like the Sean Penn movie did). The premise is, she was a raging bitch who was hit by a car and has lost her memory and is now trying to be a better person. It’s pretty funny and Jean Smart as her mother pretty much steals every scene she’s in (and at least once an episode she recovers a memory and you get a flashback to the old Samantha). That Jennifer Esposito is in it as her best friend who preferred the old Samantha is just icing on the cake. And we’re done for now…at least until they start canceling the shows and sticking in replacements. One of which will not be New Amsterdam, the show I was really looking forward to. It’s about a 400-year-old cop in New York who won’t die until he finds true love. They actually filmed it here in the city and not Toronto (I know because they were doing it around the corner from my house). The network literally called them in the middle of filming and told them to stop. I guess they realized that this new season had overdosed on geek/sci-fi stuff and if Heroes is down, this probably wouldn’t fly at all and it wasn’t cheap being filmed here. Too bad. I loved Highlander and this seemed right up that alley, but with the advantage of being New York based.

THAT CRAZY MUSIC ALL THE KIDS LIKE
Finally, this weeks attempt to listen to music made by the young people leads us to Paramore, which is kinda what Avril Lavigne would sound like if she were actually a rocking chick and not a Canadian poseur. As always, it comes my way courtesy of Fearless Music. I swear those people should be paying me.

TOUGH GUYS WEAR WARM-UPS

1. 30 Days of Night/Sony Wknd/$ 16.0 Total/$ 16.0
2. Why Did I Get Married/LGF Wknd/$ 12.1 Total/$ 38.9
3. The Game Plan/Disney Wknd/$ 8.1 Total/$ 69.2
4. Michael Clayton/Warner Wknd/$ 7.1 Total/$ 22.0
5. Gone Baby Gone/Miramax Wknd/$ 6.0 Total/$ 6.0
6. The Comebacks/FoxA Wknd/$ 5.9 Total/$ 5.9
7. We Own The Night/Sony Wknd/$ 5.5 Total/$ 19.8
8. Nightmare Before Xmas 3D Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 5.1
9. Rendition/New Line Wknd/$ 4.2 Total/$ 4.2
10. The Heartbreak Kid/Paramount Wknd/$ 3.9 Total/$ 32.0

120 MINUTES OF GEEK
30 Days of Night opens at number one and even though this is the scary I almost went to see it because of my comic book loyalty and this began as a graphic novel (big comic book). The premise is so brilliant in its simplicity you wonder why no one has ever thought of it before: vampires hunting above the Arctic Circle where night lasts for a full month. It makes sense that someone snapped it up immediately for a movie. It was also a huge comic book success and has spawned a half-dozen sequels. I ultimately decided against it because a) if it’s done well, it’ll be scary and who the hell wants that, and b) if it sucks it’ll be a waste of my time and who the hell wants that? Your first warning for the latter is the casting of Josh Hartnett who has one expression and one expression only: Blue Steel. Now, remember what we said about doing horror films? Usually it’s a safe career bet because it’s a “genre” film, with a built-in audience that could give a crap who’s in it so long as people die. Well, since Pearl Harbor (which was the beginning of the end for Ben Affleck as well), Harnett has been struggling to find a role beyond “New Pretty Boy” especially since Orlando Bloom sewed that up with Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. To his credit, he’s tried different types of roles and even going indie film, but he needs to accept he’s just a pretty boy, not an actor. There’s nothing wrong with just being a movie star. And he’s a 6’3” pretty boy, which goes a long way in a town filled with little guys who lie. But this means when you make a Pearl Harbor, you don’t have some “crisis of conscience” you just make sure Michael Bay calls you for the next one. Yeah, he missed The Island, but he also missed Transformers, but by this time, Bay had moved on to new 6’3” pretty boy, Josh Duhmael. You snooze, you lose.

UNFORTUNATELY THIS TIME THEY DO ALL LOOK ALIKE
Why Did I Get Married is down to number two and while normally I despise marketing people who come in and say shit like “Well, you’ve got two blondes, so make one cut her hair short so the audience doesn’t get confused,” as if everyone is a moron. But then you see a movie where the actors are so dull and you wish someone had made them a little different because you really can’t tell them apart. Here you wonder how not one suit looked at the cast said, “You’ve got three guys here about the same age, with the same build, same haircut even the same fucking facial hair. Are they playing brothers? If not then someone needs a shave and a wig.” But as Tyler Perry likes to brag, he answers to no one, so this kind of crap slips through.

MURDER---AND PEOPLE WHO DISAPPEAR IN THE BOSTON AREA---IS MY BUSINESS
Michael Clayton holds at number four, followed by Gone Baby Gone opening at number five and Casey Affleck plays the toughest private detective you will ever see. I’m not kidding. What he does in the end makes him tougher than Phillip Marlowe. You keep expecting him to go soft, but he does not. Samuel Archer came close to this level of toughness at the end of The Maltese Falcon when he sent Brigid O’Shaughnessy away even though he was in love with her, but it doesn’t equal what goes on here. And Ben Affleck continues his career resurgence. Like Josh Harnett, Pearl Harbor was the beginning of the end, but unlike Hartnett his salvation may be actual talent. First he shows some acting chops in Hollywoodland last year and now he apparently knows his way behind a camera. And he had a hand in the screenplay, suggesting that maybe, kinda, he deserved his Oscar. Now this has gotten some unwarranted publicity thanks to a sad similarity to the case of the missing child in Europe. Both little blonde girls and in both cases were left alone by their parents. The similarities end there as the English girl came from upper middle class parents, whereas Ben Affleck apparently had the greatest white trash casting call in Hollywood history. My god. He doesn’t cheat and fill it with pretty movie stars slumming. Nope, he picks actors who look the part. Bitch all you want about black people constantly playing criminals in movie, but since it’s Hollywood, it’s always good looking black people. When Ben Affleck decided to show white trash, he kept it real as a muthafucka. When one character says to another, “Ah, go suck a nigger’s dick,” you know it’s real (the same cast member was actually stopped by the cops from returning to the set because they thought she was just another person in the neighborhood). Casey Affleck, who with partner/girlfriend Michelle Monaghan (for some reason playing Italian when she’s obviously as pasty Irish as everyone else in the cast) are the most unlikely pair of private detectives in movie history. They look like a couple of high schoolers and you keep waiting for the older, real detective to walk in and say, “I thought I told you kids to stop playing detective!” But they are, in fact, missing persons private detectives brought in to augment the case of the missing girl because he has a connection to people who don’t talk to the police---and because he apparently went to school with every lowlife in the Boston area. Like any good private dick story, what he turns up reveals things are not quite what they seem, starting with mom actually being a cokehead who was doing lines at a local bar when her kid was snatched. It’s downhill from there and by the end of the movie there are double crosses and bodies in the ground. But Casey Affleck hangs tough through it all, so not only has Ben Affleck saved his own career, but like a good big brother has opened up his brother’s, who will now be up for leading man roles.

ARE YOU TELLING ME RADIO WASN’T MEANT TO BE A COMEDY
The Comebacks open at number six and while sports movies are wide open for this type of parody, these are obviously not the guys to do it. Who would have thought the only person to come close to the Zucker, Abrams, Zucker crew who did Airplane and The Naked Gun would be Keenan Ivory Wayans family. Sad days indeed. Sadder still? Two of the guys from Best Week Ever co-wrote it and that show is fucking hysterical. Then again, they’re two of like, a dozen other funny people, so maybe they should have brought the whole crew with them.

YOU’RE TELLING ME THIS IS BETTER THAN CHASING PAPI?
We Own The Night is down to number seven and apparently when Jennifer Lopez cooled off, she took all the Latina actresses who had a shot with her, Jessica Alba notwithstanding. Roselyn Sanchez is on TV and Eva Mendes has yet to try and carry her own film. It makes no sense because Hitch made $368M worldwide and she was the female lead. There’s Something About Mary made $369M and Cameron Diaz at least got that one crappy movie, The Sweetest Thing. Yeah, she’s skinny and blonde, but Eva Mendes is way prettier (imagine Cindy Crawford Latin and with an ass) and does full frontal nudity! Doesn’t that count for anything anymore!?! Where have our values gone when money and a willingness to show your bush can’t get you your own movie!?! This is why she’s here getting finger-fucked by fugly Joaquin Phoenix in the opening minutes of this movie. Ew.

I AM JACK’S RAGING CHOICE IN MOVIES
The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D opens at number eight and I never liked this movie. I fell asleep in the theater the first time I saw it and cannot muster the interest to try again. Mainly because I hate Tim Burton. No, it doesn’t make any sense, but welcome to my world.

OF COURSE THEN ASHELY JUDD WOULD HAVE TO STAR
Rendition opens at number nine and look how far we’ve come when every other movie is attacking our own government. Remember when Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins stood alone in the wilderness? Speaking of Susan Sarandon, why isn’t she here? You’d think she would have been all over this, but instead we have Meryl Streep, but she’s playing the bad guy and maybe Susan just couldn’t do it, not even for a movie that supported her position. Speaking of fugly Joaquin Phoenix, his Oscar-winning co-star, Reese Witherspoon stars here and this should have been more of an estro-thriller rather than some polemic against torture. I can’t stop bring up Costa Gravas insistence that he doesn’t make political movies, because he understands that it’s entertainment first, politics second. This obviously has its politics in mind first and suspense second. Especially since they don’t make the government super-movie-evil and have assassins trying to kill her for trying to learn too much about her husband being taken by the government. Now that movie I might have gone to see. But someone trying to school me in what America is supposed to stand for? I think not. I don’t need your lessons. I know what America is all about! I haven’t missed an issue of Captain American in 23 years, goddamnit!

CHICKS & FLICKS
The Heartbreak Kid is down to number ten and this is now officially a failure (I’ve got $5 says they rush it to DVD for the holidays). They’re trying to say its audience never showed because they were too busy playing Halo 3. Well, I guess that’s why you should pay more attention the majority of the populace. You know, the ones with boobs!?! Women!?! Hello!?! Anyone home!?! This is partially good news because it will hopefully be the final nail in the coffin of The Farrelly Brothers. Unfortunately, while Ben Stiller will emerge unscathed, his two female costars may not be so lucky. The Cameron Diaz replacement is already filming Zak Snyder’s follow-up to 300, Alan Moore’s comic book classic, The Watchmen (for you geeks in the know, she’s The Silk Spectre), which I predict will tank like a muthafucka, so maybe her band will save her. Okay, stop laughing. We all have our stupid dreams. Luckily, Michelle Monaghan she’s also in Gone, Baby Gone, which should help wipe the stain of this away. Also, in her next role, her two leading men are Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey) so apparently even she got the romantic comedy Eva Mendes couldn’t. And not that you were ever going to see Lara Flynn Boyle again onscreen, but whatever roles she might have played will most likely go straight to her. I mentioned once seeing Michelle Monaghan in a restaurant and thinking initially it was Lara Flynn Boyle, but Lara Flynn Boyle hasn’t looked this good in years (aging, anorexia and collagen don’t mix). But you know Michelle is rising because she keeps getting cast alongside men a decade her senior, from Robert Downey Jr. to Tom Cruise to now, Ben Stiller (she was in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but was obviously not Brad Pitt’s love interest). Trust me, if anyone still gave a shit about Harrison Ford, she’d be making out with him onscreen right now. Unfortunately, they’ve all been about as successful as this, but hopefully she won’t follow the Lara Flynn Boyle career path, where her optimum fame was fucking Jack Nicholson. Though I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.

LIKE A BABY’S, MY BOTTOM
During my unemployment, I did cut back on a few things. First, I swore I wouldn’t date because I refused to be some woman’s loser, jobless boyfriend without the virtue of even being in a band (hey, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!). Next, I stopped my compulsive habit of buying lotions from Bed, Bath & Beyond. If you’ve been there, you know those suckers are $10 a pop so it was purely an extravagance. Well, that drought came to an end when I stepped in for the first time in over two years and found them in the middle of a massive “5 for $20” sale. Needless to say, I left with five all-new scents: Sensual Amber (got two because it’s just that good), Pink Grapefruit, Fresh Pineapple and Tropical Passion fruit. Laugh all you want, but I need this for my skin! Swimming isn’t exactly friendly to it. Okay, fine. I don’t wear cologne so this is the closest you’re going to get to a scent on me…and there was that woman who kept telling me over and over how soft my skin was, but originally, I swear, it was strictly medicinal.

ONE MORE TIME: HAPPY PEOPLE MAKE BAD ART
Annie Lennox has the Billie Holliday disease: she picks men who are bad for her, but she turns it into art. She’s been divorced no less than three times, the most recent result being her underrated album, “Bare.” Well her latest crap choice in men is in choosing Glen Ballard to produce her latest album, “Songs of Mass Destruction.” As you may remember, Glen Ballard was the soulless force behind Alanis Morisette’s “Jagged Little Pill” the album borne of the record label’s order to “Sound more like Sinead O’Connor” so all you women who where teenage girls who took refuge in it, sorry. It was nothing but a soulless corporate ploy. But is sold a billion copies and allowed someone as unattractive as her to land Ryan Reynolds, so he’s never stopped working, draining the soul out of everyone he touches, from Aerosmith to my beloved Shelby Lynne to Annie Lennox. But Annie Lennox has that kind of a voice where not even this slick, packaging bastard can diminish hearing it. Plus, I’m old and new music scares me, though I did use my emusic.com account (that I keep forgetting to cancel) to download the album “Real Life” from Joan Wasser’s band “Joan As Policewoman.” Joan Wasser is one of those people who have been around forever, playing with everyone as a violinist for hire, be it Lou Reed or Scissor Sisters. She was also in the band The Dambuilders (who had a nice little single called “Break Up With Your Boyfriend”), but for better or worse she’s best known for being Jeff Buckley’s girlfriend when he drowned.

ECETERA, ECETERA
Death is back and clearing the decks of the older crowd. First, none other than Deborah Kerr, she of The King & I, From Here to Eternity and the overrated, An Affair To Remember. Yes, I know it’s Cary Grant. You don’t have to fucking tell me it’s Cary Grant. But it’s bad Cary Grant. Successful yes. Good, no. Joey Bishop also died and as was his place as the least talented member of The Rat Pack, he died a cranky old man, railing against the superior remake of Ocean’s Eleven. Know how it’s a comedy? The original was stone cold serious, complete with members of the group dying.

UNDER PRESSURE

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MOM'S BRINGING IT ON

I MEANT TO DO THAT
The Game Plan is holding at number one and now The Rock is rationalizing his success with family films as part of a “choice” he made. As if Doom had made more than $2 worldwide he’d still be here. At least Krya Sedgwick here (as his agent) knows fully well she’s just making a quick buck. She has a real day job with The Closer. Likewise for Roselyn Sanchez, who landed a cushy gig on Without A Trace. They’ve got no illusions about big screen careers. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Roselyn Sanchez is the love interest. She’s hot and she’s brown the way The Rock and the actress who plays his daughter are, though they are without being any specific ethnic group. His character’s name is “Kingman” so I guess they could all be Israelis who are dark and hot, but I doubt it. But even Disney isn’t going to throw some blue-eyed blonde in there to be this girl’s potential mom. Not in this PC era. But godforbid the half-Black Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson ever touch a sista onscreen.

THERE’S NOTHING ABOUT THE FARRELLYS
I walked away from Ben Stiller’s “Theater of Pain” awhile back and judging by The Heartbreak Kid opening at number two, I’m not the only one. Though a remake of a film from the 70’s with Charles Grodin, this seems to be an attempt for the Farrelly Brothers to recreate their glory days of There’s Something About Mary from a decade ago. Ben Stiller is doing them a favor as his career has only gotten better, whereas they’ve had disappointment after disappointment with Me, Myself & Irene, Osmosis Jones, Shallow Hal, Stuck on You and Fever Pitch. They even tried to replaced Cameron Diaz with another wide-eyed blonde in Malin Akerman, who did better for herself for gross-out comedies in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (as the nympho wife of the freak). You may also know her as the girl from Eric’s threeway on “entourage.” Yeah, now you see she’s just Cameron Diaz younger, less skanky and doing nudity. But if anyone benefited from this disappointment it was Cameron Diaz, whose credit in the success of There’s Something About Mary has now increase since she was missing ingredient (though she never had another comedy hit like that again either). Then there’s the near two-hour runtime for what should be a brainless movie. Brainless movies cannot be that freaking long. Movies like this should be 90 minutes, tops. 30 minutes for each act; first, second and third act conclusion. A two-hour movie means forty fucking minutes just to set-up, forty fucking minutes milling about in it and forty fucking minutes just to resolve it. Too much. That’s only for movies that have a brain. Also, any movie with Carlos Mencia has to suck. It’s pretty much Spanish for “Dane Cook.”

AND AS “THE WOMAN IN THE ELEVATOR” HIS MOM
The Kingdom is down to number three and this movie is filled with a “Hey, they look familiar” supporting cast. Danny Huston is there for 30 seconds as a very oily Attorney General, Frances Fisher as a journalist, Anna Deavere Smith as a government official, Kyle Chandler as an FBI agent, Ashley Scott as a housewife in Saudi Arabia and…Tim McGraw as a worker widowed by the initial attack? Seriously? Tim McGraw? Why are they here like this? Well, when your director is an actor himself you get these odd appearances in small roles that are pretty much a director’s discretion because he’s essentially casting his friends. Luckily for him, his friends have some degree of talent. Yeah, even Tim McGraw.

LOOK FOR RHIANNA IN HALO THE MOVIE
Resident Evil: Apocalypse is down to number four and also along for the ride as zombie fodder is…Ashanti (or, as I like to call her Aliyah 2.0 as opposed to Ciara who was Aliyah 3.0 or Rhianna who is Aliyah 4.0) and the only thing that even remotely interests me about this is that Mike Epps dies. I despise Mike Epps to the point where I’d send you money if you promise not to put him in your movie.

THEY CALL ME THE SEEKER
The Seeker: The Dark is Rising opens poorly at number five and you have to pity authors like Susan Cooper who wrote The Darkness Rising books long before Harry Potter took over the world, only see it just crapped onto the big screen by these people who have been trying to cash in on its success. It’s now to the point where anyone anywhere who’s ever written a “magical story with a kid in it” can get a movie deal. I know jack shit about this, but I know I don’t care and neither does anyone else apparently. You know the producers of the other derivative movies are shitting bricks right about now, because Eragon bombed and now this is tanking. Gee, could it be a sign that loyal book readers know when their beloved novels are being turned into cinematic garbage by quick buck producers? It doesn’t help when your director flat out admits he didn’t think the books would make good movies, so obviously he’s a whore for doing this. And poor Ian McShane. From Deadwood to this? Ouch.

YOU GOT SERVED LEFTOVERS
Good Luck Chuck is down to number six followed by Feel The Noise opening at number seven and aren’t the leads in movies for young people supposed to be good looking? Sorry, I don’t find ex- member of B2K, Omarion the least big attractive. Yeah, he’s coming in with a built-in fanbase, but if you didn’t care for B2K or You Got Served (and I didn’t), then there’s no motivation to see something like this. Again, the plight of the young black actor, losing roles to guys like this. Then again, I’m sure Justin Timberlake’s recent movies roles are also pissing off a whole bunch of young white actors who thought that maybe, just maybe, years or training and actual work might have qualified them to work with Samuel L. Jackson, but they would have been wrong.

TRANSVESTITES BRING OUT THE BEST IN A MAN
3:10 To Yuma is down to eight and followed by The Brave One at number nine which was directed by Neil Jordan. Remember when The Crying Game briefly made him the shit? When his casting of Tom Cruise in Interview With The Vampire was controversial? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, Michael Collins happened, where for some godforsaken reason he allowed Julia Roberts to do an Irish accent. In Dreams happened, which allowed Annette Bening to continue derailing her once promising career (and providing money for Robert Downey Jr. to keep doing drugs). The Butcher Boy happened and while it may be an excellent novel about an abused boy with delusions who murders his neighbor and spends the next few decades in an institution, but it’s not a movie anyone, anywhere wants to see. End of the Affair also happened allowing Ralph Fiennes to continue playing miserable bastards who are unlucky in love. Point being, Neil Jordan only became a mainstream name as a fluke. The Crying Game should have let you know he had no business in Hollywood with people like Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise. And you can now add Jodie Foster to that list.

BRING IT ON AGAIN AND AGAIN
In case you wonder why men run the world, look no further than CMT, Country Music Television, and their shows. First they had Making the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (which is still on and still wonderfully horrible to watch), then the Coyote Ugly Search (who the fuck competes to be a fucking bartender!?!) and now…I Want To Look Like A High School Cheerleader Again. They have a group of women from their 20’s to their 40’s who were once cheerleaders and want their teenage bodies back. How fucking sad is this!?! First of all, you can’t have that teenage body back because you can’t have your teenage metabolism back! Unless you’re freak skinny like Mick Jagger or Teri Hatcher, you’re just going to get thicker are you get older, so just deal with it. Now, I’m not going to pretend they didn’t all need to lose weight. Like typical Americans, they were needlessly heavy, but it’s not like they were obese. If they’d just made this show about getting into a type of shape commiserate with their ages, it would have been different. Hell, even if they’d just taken “high school” out of the title I’d respect it more (especially since two are actually former professional football cheerleaders). And if they really wanted to fun, they would have reunited an complete squad from 20 years ago and let them compete against one another, re-opening all the old wounds from high school (and you know there’s the chance that a few of those bitches are like Teri Hatcher and still look the same, which would have instantly caused eating disorders in 38-year old women). But the biggest problem is for me is where are their husbands? I’d like to see those pot-bellied bastards. Where’s “I Want To Look Like A High School Football Player Again.” Huh? Where’s that show? Oh, that’s right. Men are too busy running the world to do that show. And do not get me started on the first competition where the two black women (whose names are Glenetta and Shamekia) could not participate BECAUSE THEY WERE THE ONLY TWO WHO COULDN’T SWIM! It got worse when the tempted the women with a layout of fried chicken and one of the sistas recognized it a being specifically from Popeye’s. Sigh. Needless to say, I will watch every episode (it’s on right after the Dallas Cowyboys Cheerleader show).

I’M STILL CRAZY, BITCH
My star sightings haven’t stopped, I just keep forgetting to mention them. But this past week was David Chapelle in a Miles Davis t-shirt waiting for his change at The Coffee Shop. He didn’t look stoned, but he did look a little lost. Or maybe trying to remember where he’d left his sanity. Patricia Clarkson, very tiny and in a hurry in the theater district and incredibly the tiny Holly Hunter on her way to attend the Barack Obama rally in Washington Square with her two kids in their stroller. You think she looks small and thin on TV, on person it would be scary if you didn’t see she was all muscle and sinew.

AND ENDLESS RESOURCES OF CRAP
I love the internet. Know why? Because when you can’t remember something, you can type in the fewest amount of details and still find it. Now, there was a song I loved from my youth from a minor band that I could not remember. All I could remember was the chorus, which was “This feeling for you/Is like a tattoo/Just like a tattoo-ooo-ooo/It won’t ever away.” I had a vague memory of the band’s name being something like “ovo-ovo” so I kept thinking it was Aldo Nova, who scored with one minor hit in the 80’s. Well, I was close. Thanks to a breast cancer website where the women were playing a music trivia game, I found my answer: Novo Combo. And because the internet is all-giving, I was able to download on top of it. Yes, it was illegal, but it’s not my fault! No one is selling it for me to buy. Now, the next on the list is some odd song with a video showing the location of a guy and girl from space and the lyrics are “you are something _______” and then “Why can’t we get halfway there/Why can’t we get______” That’s all I remember.

BETTER OFF WITH THE MASTER CHIEF
So, I’ve slowly been returning to my old life. I went out drinking with Chasing Amy with no ill effects. If anything the only problem was our age (as she said, “You’re in a jacket and I’m in heels---what's wrong with this picture?”) and the changes in NYC. We had our first margarita ever together at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame so we went there after having a few with dinner at Tortilla Flats. When did straight people take over the West Village? Seriously. White Horse Tavern is one thing, but all along Hudson are bars and restaurants that stink of breeders and heterosexuality and Cowgirl is no exception. Yeah, there was the older lesbian with her obviously much younger companion (younger to the point where Chasing Amy wanted to stop their aesthetically unappealing union), but they were the exception. It was very sad, but the upside is it was easier to play our game of “Watch the Mating Rituals.” This time it was a Guy Who Wanted to Leave, but his girlfriend was having fun spending time with her good friends, one in particular. Enter his Pretty Boy Buddy who is obviously meant to solve that problem. Problem is Pretty Boy Buddy is a playa and is better looking than Her Good Friend. He gave off nothing but an attitude about it and obviously didn’t feel the need to try too hard. Her Good Fiend still had some pride over it and instead turned away from him to the attention of a Group of Yahoos who never would have been in that bar five or six years ago. Not geeks or frat boys; these were guys who wait inline to buy Halo 3, but still had enough testosterone to go out on Friday night looking for women (something real geeks with Halo 3 would never do). They’re more like guys who work in a music store as opposed to comic book store. Of course, to them she’s a goddess, so with Fat Red (a fat guy in a red shirt) on point, they chat her up and include her when buying shots----which was their undoing. See, the shots helped to kill her pride enough so that she would take shit from Pretty Boy Buddy in order to go home with him, but they weren’t nearly enough that she would go home with Fat Red or any of his crew. So soon after that, Guy Who Wanted to Leave had, in fact, managed to get his girlfriend out, leaving Her Good Friend with Pretty Boy Buddy and outside probably the least attractive of The Group of Yahoos was screaming about how he hated that place and they needed to go somewhere else. Yeah, like you’d get laid anywhere (he looked like that angry, bald short guy in every IT department who will probably be a serial killer). Chasing Amy was very adamant in how he’d wasted his time even coming out.

WHITE RICE: THE NEW ENEMY
In addition to trying to drink again, I’ve returned to the gym----and not a moment too soon, as 6 of the lost 11 pounds has returned. I kept them off for the longest time, but then football season kicked in and I just cannot watch football without nachos and melted cheese (plus, I added shredded chicken). But the real sticking weight oddly wasn’t until I started eating sushi again. Seriously. I haven’t had a taste for it since July, but it came back with a vengeance and I was literally having it every day, for lunch or dinner or even both. Bear in mind, I’ve been eating Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms daily since getting out of the hospital without gaining an ounce. Damn white rice. But since I’m not giving up sushi, it’s just more gym motivation. I took it easy, cutting all my activities in half. Half the number of crunches, half the time on the bike and half the amount of time in the pool. And I was only lightheaded after that first workout, but fine for the other two. Needless to say, just as my body is in a place where I can do this crap again, it’s time for me to go back and have my final angiogram, where they punch an hole in the femoral artery in my thigh, which means no gym for the next two or three weeks until it heals. Sigh. Where’s my reality show? Where’s “I Want The Body of A High School Geek”? I wasn’t ripped, but I didn’t have man-boobs either.

WHAT'S HARD, BLACK AND 4 INCHES LONG?

1. The Game Plan/Disney Wknd/$ 22.7 Total/$ 22.7
2. The Kingdom/Universal Wknd/$ 17.7 Total/$ 17.7
3. Resident Evil: Extinction Wknd/$ 8.0 Total/$ 36.0
4. Good Luck Chuck/Lions Wknd/$ 6.3 Total/$ 23.6
5. 3:10 To Yuma/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 4.2 Total/$ 43.9
6. The Brave One/Warner Wknd/$ 3.8 Total/$ 30.9
7. Mr. Woodcock/New Line Wknd/$ 3.0 Total/$ 19.3
8. Eastern Promises/Focus Wknd/$ 2.9 Total/$ 11.2
9. Sydney White/Universal Wknd/$ 2.1 Total/$ 8.6
10. Across The Universe/Sony Wknd/$ 2.1 Total/$ 5.5

BODYBUILDING APPARENTLY TAKES MORE BRAINS THAN WRESTLING
The Game Plan opens at number one and this has got to be bittersweet for The Rock as he could have, should have, been the next big action star. But after the promising start that was The Scorpion King, they stupidly released The Rundown in the fall when it should have been a summer movie, which was then followed by the inane Walking Tall remake, then too little too late sequel to Get Shorty, Be Cool, then the utter stupidity of making him the bad guy in the movie adaptation of the game Doom (not that it would have made that movie any better) and then the surrender of just making something uplifting, with The Gridiron Gang. But it was a moderate success, which led us to this, sealing his fate and his doom: family films. Basically, he just relieved the career of Vin Diesel. From their “Oh, I’m not really Black” ethnic origins (if one of your parents is Black in America, you’re black and they both have Black dads) to promising opening films, to their big-budget follow-up flops, to their purgatory in family films, they’ve had uncanny similarities. What’s sad is that they both should have been the heirs to Schwarzenegger (who acknowledged this by making a cameo in The Rundown), both possessing in tons of charisma, but it’s been bad career decision after decision. We’re getting a new sense of how smart The Governator really was. After all, he hooked up with James Cameron early on. Followed by Paul Verehoven and John McTiernan; guys with vision. Even Conan was directed by John Milus, who helped write movies like Dirty Harry and Apocalypse now, not to mention none other than Oliver Stone was in on the screenplay. When he made a family film or attempted at departure it was from a place of security not necessity. Not like these guys. Needless to say, I won’t be seeing this failure any time soon. I just hate this kind of cutesy crap. Is it so difficult to respect your audience enough to realize that orphaned, bastard children just don’t show up at your doorstep. Given that America has a 50% divorce rate, odds are that half the kids in the audience know what a lawyer is, so why not just have the lawyer show up with the kid!?! It’s just easier to say, “it’s just a kid’s movie; no one cares.” These are the differences between good films and bad, people.

ARABIAN KNIGHTS
The Kingdom opens at number two and speaking of The Rock and The Rundown, the director of that is pig-faced actor, Peter Berg, also the director here and at least he calmed down with the camera. When actors take over as directors they either move the camera too much or too little. He was a too much guy. He’s gotten better and for that I thank director Michael Mann, who was a producer here. One of the best parts of the movie is the very beginning where we get a brief and creative history lesson about Saudi Arabia. What’s scary is 90% of the audience probably had never heard of any of it before. I’ll give it credit for flat out saying our interest in Saudi Arabia is oil and they love our money and not offering any opinion on it. They aren’t evil for it and neither are we. It’s just the way things are. In fact, no one anywhere has any political opinions. Despite the volatile setting, this is about as political as an episode of Law & Order. So if you’re a liberal looking for an indictment of the status quo or a conservative looking for validation, look elsewhere. And this may be a problem, since not much happens between the opening credits and “The Big Shootout” that climaxes the film. It’s just an investigation, like any police procedural you’d see on TV. Now Jamie Foxx is the head of the team and his best friend is killed by one of the bombs at that beginning of the movie. Jamie Foxx actually got him assigned there to save his career because of his non-romantic relationship with Jennifer Garner (in the Hilary Swank role) but if there are any feelings of guilt from the two of them, they’re not onscreen. We’re also given a heroic Saudi colonel whose job it is to protect the FBI team. Of course they start off a bit antagonistic, but then become friends. He also has no political opinions about anything. Like the FBI team, he’s just a professional doing his job. Not that anyone really cares. We came to see guns fired, shit blow up and some Arab bad guys die, let’s not kid ourselves. They just can’t be bad guys, they have to be bad guys we don’t like right now (the main bad guy is described as an “Osama Bin Laden wannabe”). And you get it. You get it in spades, which one guy getting stabbed in the balls and then the head for daring to fuck with the US of A. It tries to get thoughtful in the last 30 seconds, but it’s just a dumb attempt at relevance which you can’t take seriously after seeing a guy get stabbed in the balls and then in the head.

NEXT UP: JAMES VAN DER BEEK IN HALO
Resident Evil 3 is down to number three and yes, I know Ali Larter is actually another action girl in the movie, but she’s not slutted up the way the girls have usually been, so I still have no interest in this. Everyone knows, if you want to appeal to the 14-year-old in all men, that girl kicking ass has to be doing it in something hot, not a bunch of drab rags. I don’t necessarily need a micro mini-skirt like the girl in the second movie (though I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy her in it), but at least skintight. It’s like a male action hero whose shirt doesn’t get ripped off. Who wants to see that? At least Mel Gibson was clad up in leather in The Road Warrior and everybody loves that! But they’re actually talking about continuing the Resident Evil series with Ali Larter and her character of Claire (which I assume means something to you game players) and she seems to be in place to be a new geek queen if it does. Her role on Heroes has her halfway there (and I’m sure she’d rather be a geek queen than forever remembered as the girl who wore the whipped cream bikini in Varsity Blues).

THE BIG SEXUAL CONFUSION
Good Luck Chuck is down to number four, followed by 3:10 To Yuma at number five and the men guarding the gold for the railroad here are from the Pinkerton Agency, for whom none other than Dashiell Hammett also worked as a private detective, but there’s no romance here for them and deservedly so. These fuckers were strikebreakers and pretty much did whatever they had to do for their clients. The head Pinkerton man here is played by Dallas Roberts, whose claim to fame so far is playing Angus on The “L” Word who was Pam Grier’s lover. Someone should have told him if you’re going to play the kind of man who can bed Pam Grier you might want to “act” straight. Watching him made me occasionally think I’d accidentally tuned into Queer As Folk. Needless to say, he’s primarily a theater boy.

OH, MY PAPA…
The Brave One is down to number six, followed by Mr. Woodcock at number seven and Eastern Promises at number eight and playing the head of the Russian mob is Armin Mueller Stahl, who is the go-to guy when you need an older Eastern European dude. I think he’s spent half his career being calld “papa” and this movie is no exception. I’d say he’s known to most people as the dad in Shine, but since no one remembers Geoffrey Rush won an Oscar for Shine, why should you remember his Oscar nomination? Chances are you know him best as the Russian general in The Peacemaker with George Clooney, given that TNT runs it every other fucking day.

YOU THOUGHT BEING USED IN COMMERICALS WAS BAD
Down to number nine is Sydney White and entering the top ten at number ten is Across The Universe, rumored to be this generation’s answer to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band as a movie musical that wastes the music of The Beatles. Well, I’ve got a confession to make: as much as it sucks, I love Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band because it was my introduction to The Beatles. I was 12 years old with only a passing knowledge or interest in The Beatles but then this crappy movie came on cable and just grabbed me. I got the soundtrack album and from there went off to discover the real thing. So if this has the same effect in a year (which is when I’ll see it) for some other kids, it’s not totally bad. This has been roasted by every critic alive and even beforehand the producer re-cut it and got a better response, but apparently he didn’t have a right to final cut so director Julie Taymor released hers and producer Joe Roth would be laughing if he weren’t, you know, the producer and losing money on this. Just as Sgt. Pepper had characters like Billy Shears, Strawberry Fields, Mr. Kite and Sgt. Pepper himself, this has characters named Jude, Sadie, Prudence and oh, Eddie Izzard is back as Mr. Kite (ironically an actor named Martin Luther is here, but not as “Martin Luther” but that was a Wings song anyway). While Sgt. Pepper took Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees at their 70’s peak, this uses mostly unknown actors and it’s celebrity guest list is noticeably smaller. Yes, Bono shows up (as Dr. Robert), but that’s about it. Eddie Izzard and Salma Hayek don’t match the first film having Aerosmith (kicking ass on “Come Together”), Earth Wind & Fire (kicking ass on “Got To Get Your Into My Life”) Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, Billy Preston or in the gigantic group which turn up in the closing credits (including Peter Allen, George Benson, Keith Carradine, Carol Channing, Rick Derringer, Donovan, Yvonne Elliman, Leif Garrett, Heart, Nona Hendryx, Etta James, Dr. John, Nils Lofgren, Curtis Mayfield, Bonnie Raitt, Helen Reddy, Minnie Riperton, Johnny Rivers, Seals & Crofts, Tina Turner, Frankie Valli, Del Shannon, Grover Washington Jr, Hank Williams Jr, Wolfman Jack, Bobby Womack). But one thing both films do have in common is the presence of Cousin Brucie Morrow, who introduced The Beatles at Shea Stadium. So if you’re going to make a concept Beatles movie, don’t have him in it and you’ll be okay. Let me put it this way: he wasn’t in Yellow Submarine.

‘CAUSE BOOKS ARE FOR LOSERS
The new fall season is here and more than in recent memory were shows I at least wanted to give a shot and like a fat kid in a candy store, I tried everything I could lay my eyes on:

The Big Bang Theory: A show about geeks living next door to a hot girl. First of all, Kaley Cuoco isn’t that hot. She’s “New Jersey Dive Bar At The End of The Night” hot. With all the pretty blondes in Hollywood, this is the best they could do? I gave this a shot and it blows. Hard. It’s every typical sitcom you’ve ever seen. You wanna see geek jokes done right, Tina Fey drops them all the time on 30 Rock.

K-Ville: I hate Anthony Anderson, so this was doomed from day one. Also, it’s exploiting New Orleans because it’s just doing a typical dumbass cop show there without themes that explore just what the hell went wrong. And no one, and I mean no one, uses the expression “K-Ville.”

Chuck: At first I thought this was going to be a silly version of the underrated Jake 2.0, but this is actually a much better show smarter and funnier than I expected and a perfect lead-in for Heroes.

Journeyman: Despite my sci-fi geekness, I’m not a time travel fan, especially when your plot requires the character to change history, which should cause all sort of reverberating changes, but don’t. But what makes this show work is the intensity of Kevin McKidd, best known to some of you as the intense Lucius Vorenus of Rome. He’s also not your typical bland hero. He’s married to his brother’s ex-girlfriend, has had trouble in his marriage because he’s not over his dead fiancée and when he goes missing on his journeys they think he’s back doing drugs. Oh, and did I mention the dead girlfriend turns up halfway through the episode as a time traveler herself (she’s played by Blood Moonglow who was Taye Diggs’s girlfriend whom he was trying to stop from dying in his time travel show, Daybreak)? It’s a nice twist you never see coming (sorry to ruin it). Also, it’s filmed on location in San Francisco, which looks as beautiful as ever (they actually give him a modern version of the famous Mustang from Bullitt as an in joke). This is on after Heroes, making Monday night geek night!

Reaper: Again an old show that failed is seemingly retooled as a comedy. This time it’s Brimstone where a man was given the task of returning souls to hell. That show was dark and seeming trying to capture the feel of the movie Se7en, this is a comedy and Kevin Smith directed the pilot. Rather than a goofball comedy, the actual crux of the plot, his parents selling his soul to Satan, isn’t done as a joke. It’s stone cold serious. They made the deal when they had no children because they thought it was impossible. Turns out, their doctor had his own deal with The Devil. Also, they’re consumed by guilt over it, his mother an alcoholic as a result. But other than that, it’s pretty funny. Ray Wise is obviously enjoying himself in his role as Satan and it only adds to the show.

The Bionic Woman: The team behind the Battlestar Galactica revamp continue to mine cheesey science fiction shows of their youth, this time with the spin-off of The Six Million Dollar man, done dark and straight. Which may be a problem here. Yes, I know, “How could sexy killer robots in space work but not this?” Because that has no context you can relate to. The Bionic Woman is set here in our world and the whole “bionic” thing (here it’s more nanobots inside the body than flat out limb replacement) does come across as silly and illogical, because why would you just make one arm or one eye “super” and not both? And to have that gravity without any sense of humor tends to make it more ridiculous. It speaks volumes that the best part of the show was from someone who isn’t a regular cast member and was allowed to portray and over-the-top type character. If this show wants to survive it had better find sense of humor quickly. And on a shallow note the lead actress isn’t that attractive and displays no charisma.

Private Practice: The Grey’s Anatomy spin-off using the Grey’s Anatomy formula so rigidly, that I could fast forward through scenes I didn’t like because four years of Grey’s has taught me exactly what’s going to happen and how (if it’s any consolation, I did some fast-forwarding through the Grey’s season premiere as well). One big problem is that the show is an ensemble in a way that Grey’s only developed into. Initially, Grey’s was about Meredith and eventually everyone began to matter just as much. Here, Addison is regulated to co-star almost immediately, when we’re following her here. I loved Moon-Unit Zappa when I was a kid, but her storyline with Amy Brenneman (who drank her way off her last spin-off, CSI Miami) bored me silly and I jumped right through it. Because Taye Diggs is on it, I’ll hang, but this is in a three way tie between Bionic Woman (which I have to watch because I’m a geek) and Gossip Girl (which I continue to watch ‘cause it’s pretty) and something has to give because my DVR can only record two things at the same time and my gym membership reactivates this week so I can’t just watch the third show on my roommate’s TV. This may get regulated to online viewing.

Life: The innocent man falsely accused is popular plot idea (Hitchcock loved it, The Fugitive was successful on TV and the movies, Burn Notice has it and it was in Daybreak last year) and in this instance it’s a cop who spends 12 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit and gets to $50M payout from the city and his job back. For me the premise is faulty because 12 years is too much. You don’t do a decade and come out even remotely normal. Yes, they have him embrace Zen to compensate for it and he’s obviously a little crazy, but for a good cop in prison (meaning unlike a dirty cop he’d be another crook and could make allies) he’d go full on crazy, not just cute eccentric crazy like here. Also, there’s no way LAPD would allow him to come back after that embarrassment. It would make more sense if he were a private detective, but they’ve got a whole conspiracy aspect going on here, which is going to be an ongoing thread. That thing kinda gets old quick, so I hope they know to give us progress. Fortunately, it’s got a strong cast, including Damian Lewis (from Band of Brothers), Adam Arkin, Robin Weigert (who was Calamity Jane on Deadwood) and the amazing Sara Shahi (who was Carmen on The “L” Word). That they went for actors rather than just trying to pack it with small screen stars speaks volumes (and honestly, Sara Shahi is so fine I’d watch her in just about anything, acting be damned).

Dirty Sexy Money: Now this is just a cast of names (Peter Krause, Donald Sutherland, Jill Clayburgh, William Baldwin) amounting to not a whole lot. Normally, shooting in NYC automatically gets you time from me, but these people don’t convey the “feel” of the city the way even Gossip Girl does. And they’re trying too hard with the crazy, rich family (ooh, William Baldwin loves a tranny). They’re all caricatures, not characters. Too bad for Peter Krause, who was originally slated for Journeyman, but blew out his knee and couldn’t do it.

Big Shots: Apparently there was an outcry for Desperate Husbands, because that’s all this is. And if Dirty Sexy Money can’t convey NYC even though they film here, imagine how ineffective this is shot-totally-in LA but claiming to be in NYC. IT’S OBVIOUSLY FUCKING LA SO WHY NOT JUST SET IT THERE!?! This is supposedly the secret lives of otherwise successful men. Dylan McDermott still sleeps with his ex-wife (the gorgeous Paige Turco), has a rebellious daughter and is trying to hide an arrest for getting a blowjob from a tranny (“straight guy with tranny” is this year’s “left for another woman”) from Prince’s ex-wife (yes, Mayte). Christopher Titus is flat out whipped and Michael Vartan apparently has a perfect life until his boss fires him, but is killed before he can tell anyone and at his funeral Vartan learns the boss was sleeping with his wife (as if any woman would cheat on Michael Vartan). There’s a fourth storyline with some dweeby guy and his wife and mistress, which I fast-forwarded through. It’s not totally uninteresting (aside from that dweeby guy), but the New York thing bothers me and the whole “broad strokes” comedic aspect of it doesn’t appeal to me, even on Desperate Housewives and that’s actually done with some skill! Michael Vartan is apparently in a different show as he plays his role as the wounded husband totally straight, while the others camp it up and it’s only his story that will have me give this another shot.

Moonlight: Another detective vampire show and I haven’t even finished watching it, which tells you everything. Another clue is that the entire cast but the lead was fired and they started from scratch. I’ll stick with Blood Ties on Lifetime, which is your final clue. When you’re better off watching Lifetime, it’s bad.

THE BEST THING IN MY PANTS
So the hospital finally let me know they would be paying for my stolen iPod which allowed me to buy a new one this weekend. It was a matter of principle that I wouldn’t buy another one until I knew the money was coming. I wasn’t just going to eat it and hope for the best. But it actually worked out for me, as they dropped the price of the 80G last month to what I paid for my lost 30G and it’s gotten so much better since last year. Technology is wonderful. It may be even thinner than my old one, but holding more than twice as much. And the software has improved on top of it, so it even looks better on my little color screen. Not to mention because I now have so much room I can put video on it---starting with the Aquaman pilot. It’s so sad. I’m gonna geek this thing up so badly now…gonna put some superhero cartoons on this sucker. But I really needed it back. I was starting to sing to myself in the streets, I missed the music so badly and you don’t want me singing Fleetwood Mac’s “Say You Love Me.” The gays didn’t appreciate it, in terms of musical choices or degree of execution. They prefer Stevie Nicks and my voice just isn’t that deep.