GEEK THEN, GEEK NOW

1. National Treasure 2/BV Wknd/$ 35.6 Total/$ 124.0
2. Alvin & The Chipmunks/Fox Wknd/$ 29.1 Total/$ 141.5
3. I Am Legend/Warner Wknd/$ 27.3 Total/$ 194.4
4. Charlie Wilson’s War/Universal Wknd/$ 12.0 Total/$ 34.7
5. Juno/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 10.6 Total/$ 26.0
6. AVP: Requiem/Fox Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 63.8
7. P.S. I Love You/Warners Wknd/$ 9.3 Total/$ 23.6
8. The Water Horse/SonyR Wknd/$ 9.2 Total/$ 16.8
9. Sweeney Todd/Paramount Wknd/$ 8.2 Total/$ 26.9
10. Enchanted/Disney Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$ 110.7

IT’S NO SECRET; IT BLOWS
National Treasure: Book of Secrets holds steady at number one and this is just as much a surprise hit as the first. I’ll admit to liking the original. I obviously have an affinity for a hero who is essentially a geek (history in this case) and wins not by fighting, but with his brains (one of the reasons I liked The Saint when no one else did). Also, I was also a bit of an American Revolution history buff in my youth and the movie was filled with all sorts of little facts which just thrilled my geeky little heart. This follows that same premise, but with lots of useless noise and clutter that ultimately only slows the movie down. The first was longer than this one, but moved quickly, while this seems to drag on forever. And while the first required a suspension of disbelief obviously, this requires you flat out check your brain at the door and contradicts itself in its stupidity. Obviously, finding the Mason treasure made Nicholas Cage’s character famous and that’s acknowledged, but that same fame would pretty much allow for a repeat to come easily. If he told anyone in the world he was on a new hunt and needed access to whatever they had, he’d get it. He doesn’t need to do all the breaking and entering he does here. They literally have him get into Buckingham Palace because of his reputation, but then turn around and need to break into a section of it. Why didn’t he just ask? Because then you’d have no movie, that’s why. There’s even a car chase through London that not one law enforcement agency notices. Can you even have a car chase in the streets of London? Then there’s a needless convolution that requires the president’s kidnapping. It’s almost a minor movie in itself and pretty much stops this one dead. Its primary purpose seems to be to set up a third film. And don’t look for any explanation as to why Nicholas Cage’s obviously dead mother from the first film is now suddenly alive as Helen Mirren (a brilliant historian in her own right). She’s obviously decided to start making some money after winning her Oscar in the tradition of Nicholas Cage, who became the world’s biggest whore after getting his. Anthony Hopkins holds the number two slot for Academy Award Winning Whores.

THE LAST GYM MEMBERSHIP ON EARTH!
Alvin & The Chipmunks holds at number two followed by I Am Legend down to number three and if James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger had done this like they’d planned, you can best be sure there’d be less “Oh, I’m so alone” and more “Mutant human ass-kicking.” I think I’d have liked that one better. But like Arnold, we do have a totally gratuitous workout scene. Did we really need to watch Will Smith work out with his shirt off, displaying a chiseled physique? No, but he’s a movie star, damnit, and this is their job! As far as I’m concerned all of them should get naked in every movie, I don’t care what the plot is. It’s what we’re paying for!

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU
Charlie Wilson’s War is down to number four and remember my theory of American Mediocrity, how in the end, while we claim to worship excellence what we truly love is the mediocre because they’re no better than we are? Well, here are two living embodiments of this together for the first time and you couldn’t have conspired to keep me away from a movie more. Actually, I do have some respect for Tom Hanks because he has a great sense of humor about all he does and doesn’t seem to be a dick. Julia Roberts on the other hand is living in a land of illusion as she currently bitches about the current state of stardom…as if she became a star because of Martin Scorsese and not fucking Joel Schumacher. As if her own youth of constantly fucking her co-stars, being engaged for 10 seconds, married for 5 to somewhat famous musician and then ultimately hooking up with a married guy would have her sitting right next to Lindsay and Britney today. This movie is based on the true story of a congressman who helped to supply arms to the Afghan rebels back in the 80’s. Given how that ultimately worked out for us, it’s odd to think this is being marketed as a comedy of some sort. What next? A comedy about how the Japanese based their Zero fighters on a design by Howard Hughes that the US Government rejected. That’s funny in the ironic sense, not funny “ha-ha.” But star power is star power and two of the biggest stars of the last 15 years together does mean something, as it’s not doing badly. And it’s all them, because really, who wants to visit this particular storyline right now? No one. People are going to see Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks, period.

ON THE “TO DO” PILE
Juno rises to number five and this is actually on my list of things to see and you’d think a 90 minute movie would be the first thing I saw, but alas, I spent my time in two hour Oscar bait and bloated action movies. Hey, I confuse no one more than myself. If anything is slowing me down it’s that it looks just a bit too indie film precious, stinking of “Oh, my. Aren’t we clever?”

…VERSUS ENTERTAINMENT IN GENERAL
Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem is down to number five and I won’t front. Seeing this did cross my mind as they went back to an “R” rating after pussying out with the first AVP installment, which wasted a decent cast in a very weak PG-13. Well, there’s no chance of that here as it’s filled with no names. I think Dan’s dad from Gossip Girl shows up here to get his head ripped off. That’s as good as it gets. The big flaw of this continues to be setting it on Earth in the present day. Yeah, the first Predator film was here and now, but you know what? It wasn’t that great. I’d rather see Alien, Aliens and Alien Resurrection before that. What we need are Aliens, Predators and the Colonial Marines from Aliens all duking it out on a planet somewhere. Maybe if this makes money too it’ll come to fruition.

ONE DAY EVERY BEATLES SONG WILL BE A FILM TITLE
P.S. I Love You is down to number seven and speaking of Oscar whoring, it’s taken a few years, but now Hilary Swank seems ready to get into it. Alimony payments do that to a person (‘cause god knows Chad Lowe is making no cheddar). Two Oscars and $2 will get you on the train, so girlfriend is long overdue for formula Hollywood movies. This is your “recovering from loss” romantic comedy where the bereaved goes through some sort of humorous passage to learn to love again. Jennifer Garner (who is like a B-list Hilary Swank) made this last year as Catch and Release. It doesn’t look any more interesting with Gina Gershon and Lisa Kudrow helping her to find Harry Connick Jr, than it did with Kevin Smith and Juliette Lewis helping Jennifer Garner find Timothy Olyphant. Though Timothy Olyphant is what you’re looking for when you need help recovering, not Harry Connick Jr. Let’s not kid ourselves.

POND PONY: LEGEND OF THE SHALLOW END
The Waterhorse Legend of the Deep opens at number eight and there was a time when Ben Chaplin and Emily Watson were the hot new kids in town. Now here they are playing third string to a CGI Loch Ness Monster. I can only hope they both have kids they can claim to have made this for. Then again, Emily Watson has made some extreme indie shit in her day, so she’s earned a little kid’s film rest. Ben Chaplin on the other hand is another woulda, coulda, shoulda leading man who peaked in The Truth About Cats and Dogs and I last saw having his brains blown out by Winona Ryder for being the Antichrist in Lost Souls. Yeah, it’s been that long since someone considered him a lead. Who would have thought being good looking and having an accent wasn’t enough? Sadly, this forces you to respect someone like Tom Cruise for being on top for as long as he has.

IN SEARCH OF A PUN ABOUT A “KILLER” MUSICAL…
Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is down to number nine and this is the latest dark and weird collaboration by Johnny Depp and Tim Burton (and by some extension, Helena Bonham Carter). This time they go theatrical as this is based on the Stephen Sondheim musical. This is not the stretch for Johnny Depp you might think it is as he was actually in a band when he became a star back with 21 Jumpstreet, though they oddly didn’t let him do his own singing in Cry Baby. It’s funny, but the last time I saw Sweeny Todd was in high school and apparently it was too much for my small southern high school, so Sweeny Todd didn’t kill and bake his victims; just kept them prisoner in his basement. Yes, I know. It didn’t make any sense to me either. But now you have a greater understanding as to why I left, yes? I enjoyed it for the most part, but it does drag and he doesn’t really begin his killing until the halfway mark of a two-hour movie and while I’m sure a ton of stuff had to be cut to put a 3-hour musical on screen, they either needed to cut more or structure this better. But I shouldn’t be surprised. Tim Burton’s first dark musical, The Nightmare Before Christmas, actually put me to sleep. And oh, yes, there is blood. Gushing, spraying, spurting blood. But it’s the over-the-top theatricality of it---and the film’s very black humor---that serves to lessen the gory impact. And it needs it, because what this story is about is two serial killers who grind up their victims and serve them as food. Not your usual musical.

AND IN THAT CONTRACT IS A SPECIAL BOOB CLAUSE
Finally, Enchanted closes out the top ten at number ten and who knew that witch in the ads was actually a heavily made up Susan Sarandon? Is she ever going to get so old that she doesn’t look hot? I’m beginning to think the got that same deal with the devil Sean Connery signed up for.

BRIDESHEAD NOT QUITE VISITED
No longer in the top ten but sure to come around again by Oscar time is Atonement and I was prepared to treat this like a nice three course meal like I said I would. The first course/act is almost cliché at this point. You have your very posh family at their beautiful country estate in pre-war England. There’s obviously a beautiful older daughter and a there’s a handsome housekeeper’s son (James McAvoy) who just so happens was also sent to Cambridge along with the beautiful daughter by the master of the house. No, he’s not his bastard son, because if that were the case we couldn’t have the romance that obviously exists. It’s a romance not quite understood and resented by the precocious younger daughter who is also in love with him. This causes her to lie and say she saw him rape their cousin. He is taken away to jail, which brings our initially idyllic first act to a dark close. The second course/act is, of course, World War II, which the English just love, love, love. The housekeeper’s son is now in the army, released from jail to fight the war. He meets for lunch the older sister, now working as a nurse. She tells him the younger sister who lied is also working as a nurse seeking atonement for what she’s done. They swear to reunite as he heads off to war. Now the third act is obviously going to be post-war England where all the characters are reunited, we find out who the real rapist is and hopefully our lovers get to live happily ever after, right? Nope. The third act is about 10-15 minutes long and is entirely Vanessa Redgrave as the younger sister, now in her 70’s talking about the book she wrote about what she’d done and what happened to everyone and happiness ain’t on the menu. What. The. Fuck? Yes, I know this was based on a novel and they can’t help what that author wrote, but given how slavish it was to so many other clichés, I can’t help but be a little disappointed it didn’t follow through and give me what I was hungry for. But this is still Oscar bait aplenty. Aside from being a period piece with lots of British accents, which the Academy just loves, it’s also openly going for technical achievements in sound and editing. A great deal of the film is told in flashback. We’re actually in France with the housekeeper’s son before we flashback to his meeting with the older sister. And sound is incredibly important to the setting of a mood. One might even say the use of sound effects borders on pretentious. Before I was disappointed by the third act (which isn’t so much a third act as it is .5 of the second act) I savored it as part of a meal, but now it was just a director’s artistic indulgence, dragging out a film to two hours when it didn’t have to be. Probably the epitome of this is a 10-minute single shot as James McAvoy moves along the Normandy coast amidst the British forces. I know it’s meant to be impressive, but by this point I needed the cast of Monty Python & The Holy Grail to shout out, “Get on with it!” There’s also Oscar-begging from the writing, though this may be reflective of the book. Words that one character uses will be used again by another character verbatim, though you aren’t beaten over the head with it. You either catch it or you don’t. And I’ll give them credit for not going with a third use, because one of my professors in college said the third refrain was for dumb people. If you’ve anticipating a hot sex scene between Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, look elsewhere, because it ain’t all that. Neither is the green dress she wears that there’s been so much talk about. Maybe if she ate a meal so she could fill it out a little.

A CHRISTMAS STORY
So, I obviously went home for the holidays. I had to leave on Thursday morning to catch the cheapest fare, thus forgoing my company party at Ciprinani’s on 42nd Street. Luckily, the real estate place had their party there last, year so I wasn’t really missing anything except the opportunity to see my fellow employees get drunk and act inappropriately to one another. Home is always important but in light of the brain bleed it was especially important this year, just as it was important last year in the wake of my sister’s cancer. This is why I actually took the opportunity to hang out with her. She and her friends have a music trivia contest once a month with different themes. I knew of it because I’d get these odd texts and emails asking for song suggestions but this time I finally understood. They’d pick a theme and then everyone had to bring a collection of songs for that theme. This time it was the 7 continents. Now, I wasn’t going to participate or hang around long, because I wanted to watch the Falcons play on TV, which I rarely get to do here. But I was enjoying myself so what was going to be a thirty minute stop turned into four hours and ultimately my participation in the contest. At first I was just helping my sister because as it turns out, most of her friends are all DJ’s, so it’s like your professional basketball player friends asking you if you’d like to play friendly game in the driveway. I was also somewhat protecting her from the lesbian with the camera who was obviously besotted with her. And it’s not the first time this has happened. See, my baby sister is what I’d be if I were a girl in that she simply doesn’t give a fuck about her appearance. She wears what’s comfortable, not what looks good to men. This means she gives off a very…well, dykey air. So every five seconds a flash was going off followed by, “Oh, you’re so beautiful. Isn’t your sister beautiful?” And I’m not going to say one of her other friends was flirting with me, but when I was checking my phone for messages from our other sister she came by and remarked, “Ooh, that’s a nice phone. So slender.” Then she stroked it. She stroked my hard, black phone. Later when I was partaking of the very nice spread of food she had out, she touched my back to ask if I was enjoying myself then said, “Ooh, you work out. That’s nice,” and let her hand linger. As it turned out, I would need these little compliments because not only did my boy, O.G. (Original Geek) remark that I wasn’t kidding about the weight gain, but when we were in Alabama to see relatives, my grandmother brought it up! MY GRANDMOTHER! Though obviously happy to see me healthy, she didn’t hesitate to ask “Did you get fat too?” She’s at the age where she doesn’t give a fuck anymore so she says what she’s thinking and apparently all three of us have gotten fat. She wants my baby sister back down to her 16-year-old weight and not even cancer made her do that. But this shooting from the hip also led to interesting facts about my lineage. Apparently her father, my great-grandfather, was a “pot bellied white man.” He was only half (like my mother’s grandfather, who was likewise described as “an old cracker”), but that didn’t stop my father from being afraid of one of his aunts because he thought she was white. She was also rendered blind by diabetes (yet another thing I now have to watch out for) but could tell who he was merely by the way he walked. My grandmother also described one of her sisters as “the black Indian one” and while my sisters like to romanticize it and insist it’s Sioux, I’m gonna hazard a guess and say the most likely Native American lineage from a family from Alabama is the ALABAMA TRIBE. Let’s see, we got Indian, Black and Irish. Yeah, there’s a group of history’s winners. No wonder I’m so successful. And look at their mastery of alcohol. Sigh. But this was one of the first trips to Alabama that wasn’t a chore or obligation for me, so I guess the brain bleed did have some sort of positive effect. I looked forward to seeing my family (especially my aunt, who is undergoing chemo). Normally, if you weren’t where I was, tough shit, but this time we went out of our way so I could see one of my cousins. This was important and odd, because it occurred to me that there was a time she was my best friend and essentially an older sister to me (which meant she beat me up and explained sex to me). Funny enough, she married a guy who is pretty much a geek in disguise. He doesn’t look like one, but while I was there he whipped out his Mac to show me his favorite comic book and movie websites and then we started watching Enter The Dragon on his new Blu-Ray DVD player. It was glorious, but I must wait for the format war to end before I can choose a side. Maybe next Christmas Santa will bring me in the age of high definition. I won’t ask you people. You can’t even get me a fucking jacket.

DOING MY PART TO HELP TO PAY K-FED’S ALIMONY
Years ago, my brother surprised me by loving one of Janet Jackson’s albums, which I didn’t even care for. He explained the production was just so top notch it superseded everything. Well, now I understand because I picked up Britney’s album, much the derision of my sister. Well, I picked up the last one too, so apparently shame is for others. But in my defense, one of my sister’s friends is an engineer in Atlanta who worked on it (he had a great Pharrell is a dick story) and supported my decision saying if it were anyone’s voice but hers it’d be a great dance album. I won’t hate on poor Britney like that. There’s no difference between her Rhianna or Janet or Kylie. Non-singers who depend on top notch producers. You like one, you like them all because they have little to do with the songs. Let me put it this way, Britney and Mary J. Blige were both offered “Umbrella” before Rhianna.

ALWAYS WAS, ALWAYS WILL BE
You love that photo, don’t you? The funniest thing about it is I’m still the same height.