NAKED, BLOODY CARTOON MEN

1. Beowulf/Paramount Wknd/$ 28.1 Total/$ 28.1
2. Bee Movie/DreamWorks Wknd/$ 14.3 Total/$ 93.9
3. American Gangster/Universal Wknd/$ 13.2 Total/$ 101.0
4. Fred Claus/Warner Wknd/$ 12.0 Total/$ 35.8
5. Mr. Magorium’s/Fox Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 10.0
6. Dan In Real Life/Touchstone Wknd/$ 4.5 Total/$ 37.1
7. No Country For Old Men/Mira Wknd/$ 3.1 Total/$ 4.9
8. Lions for Lambs/UA Wknd/$ 2.9 Total/$ 11.6
9. Saw IV/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 2.3 Total/$ 61.8
10.Love in the Time of Cholera/NL Wknd/$ 1.9 Total/$ 1.9

WHAT NEXT? GILGAMESH WITH JESSICA ALBA?
Beowulf opens at number one providing bad flashbacks for anyone and everyone who went school in the English-speaking world, as being forced to read it is a rite of passage. You’re excited at first to read this story about monsters and heroes, but then the trap slams shut! It’s a poem! In Olde English. Ha-ha-ha! In 8th Grade English no one can hear you scream! This does basically follow the poem. Beowulf fights the Grendel who terrorizes the mead hall, rips his arm off and he dies. Grendel’s Mother comes back for revenge and now Beowulf has to go into her lair and fight her. And in the final act, when he’s an older king, Beowulf has to fight a dragon. But, of course, there are changes made, the most notable being the relationship of the kingdom Beowulf inherits to both Grendel and his mother and even the dragon that shows up for the third act. It’s an interesting twist and adds and nice layer of gray to a heroic story that was always black and white before, but not enough is done with the extra dimension it provides to the story. But who are we kidding? No one is here for the story. The pull is the animation and my only question is…why? Seriously, why make this as an animated feature? Especially when your imagination won’t let you make the characters any different from the very actors portraying them. Shouldn’t you take the freedom of animation and turn it up to eleven? Granted Ray Winstone doesn’t look anything like the blonde, six-pack bearing figure you see onscreen, but he doesn’t look like James Remar either, but that’s who the character most resembles. They come closer to what should be done in regards to the Grendel’s Mother, portrayed by Angelina Jolie. With shimmering golden skin and a dragon’s tale they show some wit and verve there, but how the fuck do you make an image of Angelina Jolie done from a computer generation of a very face less attractive!?! They not only do it to her, but they make Robin Wright Penn look like a child’s plastic doll. The Princess Bride herself!!! And I won't get into the blinking problem that still exists. I blame director Robert Zemeckis, who is typical of the Spielberg children (filmmakers who owe their careers to a direct hand from Steven Spielberg) in that they view technology as the motivation and not the story itself. He was so happy to meld old film footage into Forrest Gump he didn’t bother with the story, which should have been more whimsical and not nearly so melodramatic. If he were more interested in filmmaking than technology, he’d have paid more attention to the superior Zelig that preceded it or even Little Big Man for how to treat an innocent stumbling through history. And it shows the maturity level of Zemeckis---which remains on the same adolescent level as Spielberg---the very fight with Grendel is one non-stop dick joke. I’m not kidding. In the poem, Beowulf does fight Grendel naked, but since you obviously cannot show his penis, CGI or no, there’s a constant stream of objects that “just happen” to wind up in front of Beowulf’s crotch, including---and again, I’m not kidding---a sword handle. Given how much of the story is changed, why not just put him into a fucking loincloth and avoid this jarring display if immaturity? “Hee-hee-hee. We’re covering his wang. Hee-hee-hee.”

DO-WAH, DO-WAH, DO-WAY DITTY, LET THE BOY TELL YOU ‘BOUT NEW YORK CITY
Bee Movie is down to number two, followed by American Gangster at number three and it’s a pity director Sidney Lumet, the man behind such gritty NYC classics as Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon didn’t do this. He was there, so he’d have made this stink with authenticity. After all, he also did Prince of the City, which was about corruption in the NYPD in the 70’s, which is partially addressed in this film. Even his smaller, less noteworthy dramas like Night Falls on Manhattan and Q&A come obviously from a man who knows Houston Street is pronounced “Hows-tun” not “Hews-tun.” I think he would have made sure that The Rza’s “Wu Tang Clan” tattoo was covered up, because it’s kinda hard to explain on a narcotics detective in 1972. Yes, The Rza is here as is Common playing father to none other than T.I. Between them and Denzel Washington as a GQ gangster, this will soon join Scarface in the DVD collection of hip-hop artists everywhere.

BACK TO FIGHTING WITH JERRY STILLER TO PLAY BEN STILLER’S DAD
Fred Claus is down to number four, but expect this to hang around the top ten like a bad genital rash pretty much until Christmas, unlike Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, which opens at number five, and Dustin Hoffman must just be bored to do something so beneath him like this. It’s like he’s trying to prove he wasn’t too old to be in Willie Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. And Natalie Portman wanted something so kid-oriented, her legions of creepy male fans would lay off wanting her nude (and for that you can see Hotel Chevalier, the short-film prequel to Dejeeling Limited, on iTunes). No, I’m not one of them. She reminds me too much of someone I once knew for that.

YOU BETTER, YOU BETTER YOU BET
Dan in Real Life is down to number six and at one point in this movie Steve Carrel and Dane Cook do a cover Pete Townsend’s “Let My Love Open The Door” and who knew this would become the classic it has over the last 20 years? Or maybe it’s just amazing to me, because I remember how great I thought it was when it came out in the early 80’s (on the same album where he sung about his homosexual leanings on “Rough Boys) and couldn’t believe that everyone else didn’t feel the same. It’s one of those songs I just never get tired of hearing (and actually taught myself to play on the guitar). Apparently I was right after all. Notice how the solo 80’s work of Steve Perry isn’t quite standing the same test of time (but you’ll find me singing “Foolish Heart” in the shower as part of my Journey Tribute Set).

THE SCOTTISH VERSION OF THE OUTSIDERS
No Country For Old Men enters the top ten at number seven and this gives James Brolin two films in the top ten as he’s also a corrupt cop in American Gangster. Also in this is none other than Kelly McDonald. Remember her as the Lolita who blackmails Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting? Well, it took me a moment to place her because her accent is so dead on. It’s embarrassing how English, Irish and Scottish actors come to this country and do regional accents better than Americans. Or do I have to remind you how Cate Blanchett embarrassed pretty much the entire cast of The Gift? Every time you think only Ewan McGregor became a success after Trainspotting, another actor turns up. Kevin McKidd had Rome and now Journeyman. Robert Carlyle wasted his heat from The Full Monty, but recently turned up in 28 Months Later. Unfortunately, Jonny Lee Miller is now best known for being Angelina Jolie husband #1 and who the fuck knows what happened to the guy that played Spud. Who cares, really? His girlfriend, however, lucked out not just playing Jude in the Bridget Jones movies, but Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter, so she’ll always have cheese on her Whopper. Or whatever they fuck they put cheese on in England.

GEEK LOVE IS FOREVER, BABY. JUST ASK SHATNER.
Lions For Lambs is down to number eight, followed by Saw IV at number nine and it seems the gravy train actually ended for my beloved Dina Meyer with Saw III when her character was killed. Still, three is more than enough for convention money.

BECAUSE TRUE LOVE SHOULD BE BEAUTIFUL ON THE OUTSIDE
Finally Love In The Time of Cholera opens at number ten and starring in this is none other than Javier Bardeem, who described doing Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic literary romance after being the psychotic hit man of No Country For Old Men like “taking a cleansing shower.” I’ll probably never see this for two reasons: 1) Javier Bardeem is ugly, so I have no interest in any romance where he’s the lead, much less a lead who gets laid a lot. Benjamin Bratt is in this as well, so why the hell couldn’t he be the romantic lead and Javier Bardeem as the old guy who marries the love interest at one point? And 2) when I think of the appropriate director for a decades long Spanish love story, Mike Newell, the director of Four Weddings & A Funeral does not come to mind. In fact, no one who went to Cambridge should be doing this. When you think of the passion and longing of the Spanish-speaking people of the world, some English guy telling them how to do it should not be your next thought. If it is, I question you really know what passion and longing is.

WHAT I SAID ABOUT EXTERNAL BEAUTY? I WAS JUST KIDDING.
I feel badly for Kanye West about his mom, but she wasn’t in the hospital for a medical condition; she was there for vanity. And this was after the first plastic surgeon declined to work on her because she had a condition that made him fear for her life. How bright do you have to be to think, “Maybe I’ll just use these thousands of dollars or therapy or a personal trainer?” Or even have a another doctor look into the very condition the first doctor was concerned about? Sorry, people. As cruel as it sounds, this is Darwin at work. You do dumb shit and you die. And going to a plastic surgeon whose office is over a Kinko’s is dumb.

WHEN I SAID I WAS KIDDING ABOUT EXTERNAL BEAUTY? I LIED. IT’S ALL THAT MATTERS.
Speaking of being so disgusted with what you see in a mirror, you’re willing to have someone take a knife to you, I’ve not only gained back all the weight I lost in the hospital (damn sushi!) but another five just to be safe. My “winter coat” apparently. I’ve reached that point where you can feel layers of your fatty skin folding over on one another when you sit down. Yeah, ew. This is what sent me to a martial arts class on the Upper West Side and this one was serious, unlike that silly shit over on 8th Avenue. It was a real taekwondo school. White uniforms, forms (katas for you karate people; hyungs for taekwondo) and an older Asian guy overseeing it all. Unfortunately it’s also $200 a month, which would hurt almost as much as the “free introductory lesson” they put me through to see what 20 years of no training had done. Kicks, kicks and more kicks. I was in serious, serious pain the next day. When I could once again bend my foot I was grateful because after the “brain bleed” I fear every unusual discomfort is something on my body breaking down. Until I decide whether or not to lay out the money for this, I’ve stepped up my normal workout at the gym by including weight training along with the swimming. Normally I’d do one or the other (actually, I don’t weight train at all because it’s boring), but never both. Unfortunately, the man boobs and the fleshy rolls beneath them demand more from me. And the swimming…oy. Given I’m too disgusting to be seen in my streamlined, aqua-dynamic, square bottomed Speedos (meaning they’re thigh-length and not some bikini-banana-hammock type) that I bought after being inspired by Michael Phelps in the last summer Olympics, I’ve returned to my fat-friendly, knee-length regular trunks (the choice of pot-bellied frat boys the world over). But because I’m a label whore, they’re my Ralph Lauren Polo regular trunks.

BESIDES, IT AIN’T A PARTY WITHOUT BLOOD ON THE FLOOR AND WHO WANTS THAT?
So I’m not having a party. I’m drinking in a bar and you’re welcome to join me paying homage to the god Dionysus for his gift of the grape (not that tequila comes from grapes, but you get what I’m saying). Obviously, I didn’t seriously expect any of you outside the NYC area to even consider showing up, much less doing so. Hell, I don’t expect anyone outside the borough of Manhattan to seriously consider it. I wouldn’t. You have a gathering outside my comfort zone (i.e, “my apartment”) and my chances of showing up are somewhere near “zero” and negative numbers. But for those of you sentimental enough or just plain bored, it’s December 6th, before you’re too busy with Christmas and are over Thanksgiving. If you didn’t get an invite, it means I probably just forgot you (not that I refuse to forgive you for that thing you did, ‘cause I’m over it, seriously). If you did, pretend you weren’t raised in a fucking barn and respond appropriately. To be able to RSVP is a privilege, not a right. I chose a bar close to home for obvious reasons: if you bother me, I can leave easily and go home to drink in peace. Where the absence of my pants won’t be an issue.

I HAVE SEEN EVIL AND IT’S PRETTY, SET TO MUSIC WITH A LOT OF QUICK CUTS
Stay away from the music video section of iTunes. You can buy videos for $2 a pop. You think you won’t…and then you see “Candy” by Cameo… And then there was “Tell Me” by Groove Theory, which is flat out one of the best R&B songs from the 90’s. Back when they still made R&B. I’m just happy they don’t have the uncut version of Duran Duran’s “Girls on Film” that I can have on my iPod for $2. But for all you “New Romantic” holdovers, there is “Planet Earth” with the sound remastered No Spandau Ballet either. Good. Less temptation. Ooh, Kate Bush…!