YOU KNOW?

1. National Treasure 2/BV Wknd/$ 20.2 Total/$ 171.0
2. I Am Legend/Warner Wknd/$ 16.3 Total/$ 228.6
3. Juno/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 16.2 Total/$ 52.0
4. Alvin & The Chipmunks/Fox Wknd/$ 16.0 Total/$ 176.7
5. One Missed Call/Warner Wknd/$ 13.5 Total/$ 13.5
6. Charlie Wilson’s War/Universal Wknd/$ 8.2 Total/$ 52.6
7. P.S. I Love You/Warners Wknd/$ 8.0 Total/$ 39.4
8. The Water Horse/SonyR Wknd/$ 6.3 Total/$ 30.9
9. Sweeney Todd/Paramount Wknd/$ 5.4 Total/$ 38.5
10.Atonement/Focus Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 19.2

ASSUMING THE HAL HOLBROOK ROLE
National Treasure: Book of Secrets holds on to the number one slot and given how well this is doing, they were somewhat justified in setting up the sequel in this film. However, this still does not change the fact that it’s clumsy, time-consuming and slows down the momentum of the film. Playing the president in this is none other than Bruce Greenwood (say what you want about Clinton, but he made is safe for the president to finally be portrayed by someone under 60 who was actually attractive), who is one of my favorite actors and was cheated of an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of JFK in Thirteen Days, mainly because it was seen as a Kevin Costner film and his [Costner’s] lame Boston accent just dragged everyone down. It warms my heart to see him in a film that’s not only making money, but will guarantee him a job in the sequel. He deserves it after John From Cincinnati. And personally I love that he’s playing Captain Christopher Pike in the Star Trek movie. Almost as much as the idea that Winona Ryder is going to be Spock’s mom. No, I’m not kidding.

NOW YOU KNOW WHY WILL SMITH’S SHIRT WAS OFF
I Am Legend actually rises to number three and the last moneymaking movie Bruce Greenwood was in was I Robot with none other than Will Smith. This was directed by Francis Lawrence and if that name isn’t familiar to you then you’re not big Constantine fans. A movie he got apparently based on his superlative work on Britney Spears’s “I’m A Slave 4 U” video or “Waiting For Tonight” for Jennifer Lopez or the videos no one saw from Janet Jackson’s last album that one bought. Yes, he’s gotten two mega-budgeted films with A-list stars based on his fucking video work. And it’s not exactly extraordinary work either. How difficult is it to make a video with JLo and Britney at their peak half-naked and wet? You’d pretty much have to point the camera at the floor to fuck it up.

IT’S SPANISH FOR “ARE YOU AWARE?”
Juno rises to number three and I finally did see this and for the first 10-15 minutes it does fulfill my worst fears of indie film by being waaaay to pleased with itself, but then it settles down and becomes a welcome indie bookend to Knocked Up and Ellen Page locks down her position as the next indie “It” girl. It’s the story of a smart (and smart-mouthed) teenage girl who gets knocked up by her best friend and decides to have it and give it to a couple she finds in the penny save newspaper, played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. It’s all you’ve heard, smart, funny and heartfelt. Because this is the indie world, we actually go to the abortion clinic before it’s dismissed. Also because this is an indie film, when Ellen Page forms a relationship with Jason Bateman with whom she shares a number of similar interests, it’s a little more than just paternal. And her refreshingly supportive and loving stepmother realizes it even before she does, warning her against involving herself in the couple’s relationship. At the same time she’s dealing with her supposed ambivalence with the baby’s father (played by Michael Cera, who was Jason Bateman’s son, George Michael, on Arrested Development) of whom she asks nothing (everyone in school knows he’s the father, but his parents don’t) but obviously would like something. What makes the film is that everyone is a bit more than they initially seem. Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman seem like caricature of a suburban yuppie couple and her desperate need to have a baby is ripe for the mocking, but then we learn he’s a former musician who hasn’t quite let go of his dreams and her yearning to be a mother is sincere and loving. See what I mean about sweet? But just in the way the sweetness of Knocked Up is offset by the crudest humor possible, this gooey loving warmth is balanced off by a sharp wit. And unlike Knocked Up, some attention is played to everyone’s character.

A COOKING RAT DOES NOT TOP “NEVER NUDE”
Alvin & The Chipmunks is down to number four and apparently there’s a little scandal in the comedy world over the presence of David Cross (another Arrested Development alum) in this. It seems Patton Oswalt called him a whore for being in movie like this, after Oswalt and another comedian both turned it down. Now, this is a sell-out maneuver for supposed edgier comedians like Oswalt and Cross, but Oswalt was on fucking King of Queens, while Cross was doing Arrested Development. One was as superb as comedy can get while the other was just another sitcom about a fat guy with a hot wife, its only saving grace the lack of precocious children. When it comes to having comedic street cred to burn, David Cross has an infinitely greater supply. Not even Ratatouille can put Oswalt over Arrested Development, Mr. Show and being part of Ben Stiller’s original little comedy crew from back in the days of The Ben Stiller Show. Advantage, Cross.

‘CAUSE FOREIGN THINGS ARE ALWAYS SCARY
One Missed Call is down to number five and this could easily be called One Missed Career for Shannyn Sossamon. She came out with Heath Ledger as one of the next “It” girls with a heaping of cool because she was found DJing at the birthday party for Gwyneth Paltrow and her brother back when she was white hot and something like this mattered. It also showed her as not being just another actress. But then, like Ledger, she stumbled. What movies that came were usually bad (she also stumbled with another pretty-boy-of-the-moment, Josh Hartnett, in 40 Days, 40 Nights), then she got knocked up and had a son she named Audio Science, which makes sense for a DJ, but that doesn’t make it any less stupid. But I guess she’s realized that children cost money, because she’s been turning up again recently. First in Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang, then as a semi-reoccurring role on the vampire detective show, Moonlight and the Courtney Cox show, dirt, and now she’s hopping on the Japanese horror movie bandwagon years late with this, One Missed Call. What’s funny is that Jessica Alba is coming out next week with one of her own and they’re pretty much interchangeable, (Shannyn’s got a prettier face but Jessica has that amazing ass) multi-ethnic actresses who are never really identified as such. Though I’ve always liked her, I’ll never see this because a) I don’t do the scary and b) I especially don’t do the Japanese scary because no matter how inept these people may be, if even a tad of the original Asian scary gets through, it’s gonna be messed up.

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER…
Charlie Wilson’s War is down to number six and perhaps the only reason to sit through this on cable in a year is Phillip Seymour Hoffman, whose presence makes this a triumvirate of lead actor Oscar winners. Though you have to wonder what someone like Hoffman thinks of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts and the shit they both won for.

THIS! IS! A MAN!
P.S. I Love You holds at number seven and Gerard Butler is taking another swipe at the brass ring thanks to 300 and the heat it gave him. After this he’s appearing in a film with Jodie Foster, so he’s apparently what women with some degree of power want in a leading man. I respect that.

“So, who do you want?”
“Get me that hot guy from 300.”
“Gerard Butler?”
“I dunno. The one with the abs who does the queen doggiestyle. That’s what I want to look at on-set.”

Okay, so maybe not Jodie, but before this he was with Angelina Jolie as her bad boy ex in Tomb Raider 2. And while no one in Phantom of the Opera had the power to pick him, director Joel Schumacher likes his man meat hunky and cast him as The Phantom.

ONCE A GENERATION AN ENGLISHWOMAN COMES TO WEAR THE CORSET
Waterhorse: Legend of the Deep holds at number eight, followed by Sweeny Todd at number nine and Atonement returnins to the top ten at number ten as its Oscar momentum builds, and if this were made twenty years ago, Helena Bonham Carter would be playing the Keira Knightley role. Hell, she’d have played all the Keira Knightley roles because like Knightley she’s an actress who seems more at home in period costume than modern dress. From Room With A View in 1985, to Howard’s End in 1992, to Wings of a Dove in 1997, to Sweeny Todd today (and a half-dozen other smaller period films in between), it’s how Helena Bonham Carter is best known. Similarly, Kiera Knightley is best known for Pirates of the Caribbean, Pride and Prejudice and now Atonement. Even when she did an action movie it was King Arthur. Things like Fight Club and Domino just fall through the cracks. But the funny thing is, if they’d done this ten years ago, it might have gone to Gwyneth Paltrow because the Englishwoman at that time was Liz Hurley and god knows she’s no actress.

JOKE SOFT
It’s gone from the top ten and isn’t coming back, but I did also see Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and while having its moments, it was a bit disappointing and brought the Judd Apatow juggernaut this year to a halt. Obviously parodying movies like Ray and Walk The Line and pretty much every Oscar begging, end-of-the-year celebrity bio movie ever made, you’d think they’d have a non-stop supply of targets but they fail to make the most of them. There’s an utter waste of Buddy Holly appearance, which happens after a hilarious encounter between Elvis and Dewey Cox. That shows just how hit-and-miss this is. They nail Elvis, but blow it on Buddy Holly and you don’t have Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper show up and not do a joke about the plane crash that took them both. Instead the joke here is that he’s meeting yet another rock legend, because he keeps repeating his full name. Yeah, that’s the entirely of the Buddy Holly joke. Well, that and the fact he’s played by Frankie Muniz. And making fun of Dylan’s sometimes obscure lyrics is just too easy. One of the better jokes is a repeated riff on Dewey’s introduction to drugs with Tim Meadows. The other is the fight that erupts between The Beatles as portrayed by Paul Rudd (John), Jack Black (Paul), Justin Long, the Mac guy (George) and Ringo (Jonathan Schwartzman). If the entire movie had the energy and ruthlessness of those scenes it might still be in the top ten. Also, as much as I like John C. Reilly, this was a movie that needed Will Ferrell in the title role to help take it over the top. It was kind of a sad waste of its “R” rating---but the male frontal nudity is pretty funny and long overdue.

THE OLDEST LIVING BOY IN NEW YORK
So I read a novel. I do read, but long ago I made the switch to non-fiction and never really looked back. But when I was in the hospital a friend of mine told me she was sending me a book called "Forever" about a man who was immortal so long as he stayed solely on the island of Manhattan (an obvious dig at me) I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Especially when I was looking forward to a new TV series called New Amsterdam, which was about an immortal man living in Manhattan and working as a cop. And my love of Highlander goes without saying. Unfortunately the show was pushed back on the Fox schedule until ’08, so I looked forward to the book…, which never came. Patience isn’t one of my virtues, so I headed down to The Strand and got a copy for myself. It’s written by reporter Pete Hamill who ironically comes from Brooklyn and has pretty much said the only way he’s going back is in a box. He’s one of NYC’s best-known reporters, making his knowledge about the city is unquestioned, so I was looking forward to not just a novel but also something of a history lesson about Manhattan (hard to get away from my love of the real). I did get it, but I was somewhat disappointed by the book’s pace. At least a third of it is spent solely on the main character’s (Cormac O’Connor) childhood in Ireland and the beginning of the blood feud against the Earl of Warren that would bring him to New York in the first place. And while it was interesting, Hamill does dwell a bit much on the relationship between the African slaves brought to America and the Irish indentured servants who were little better. It’s Cormac O’Connor’s kindness to a slave on-board the ship that carries them both to America that results in his boon. The African in question turns out to be a shaman of sorts and after Cormac is wounded helping him and his wife escape, takes him to a cave in the northern tip of Manhattan Island and grants him the gift of immortality (we don’t ask why, if Africans had these powers, they didn’t stop slavery). Only if he leaves Manhattan will he die, but that will also be suicide and if he does that he can never join his loved ones in the afterlife. His only other way out is to find a dark woman with markings. Make love to her in the cave and he can go. So basically, he spends the next two hundred years looking for a tattooed sista. And if Cormac being an Irishman who loves Black people wasn’t enough, he’s also half-Jewish. Yeah, it does border on parody with its love of the oppressed. We go from Manhattan at the beginning of the Revolutionary War to his time with Boss Tweed (in a rare sympathetic portrayal) and then we jump to the 21st Century and when his new girlfriend gets a job in the World Trade Center, you pretty much know what the climax of the book is going to be about. Ironically enough, Hamill actually finished the book on September 9, 2001 then decided he needed something more in it. Fate, unfortunately, had something on the menu. My problem with the book is that it pretty much skips over a hundred years of NYC history. So much happened in the city between Boss Tweed and the falling of the Twin Towers, but we only get smatterings of it from Cormac, as he remembers what Miles Davis once said to John Coltrane one night. New York in the 50’s and 60’s wasn’t exactly dull and I’d love to have read more about that. But as Highlander has taught us, immortality can be a curse as much as a blessing and that isn’t skipped over here, as we feel his pain and loneliness over the many friends and loved ones he buries over the centuries. Some who just vanish because they leave Manhattan and he is unable to follow them (one small joke is that he has no idea what New Jersey is like because he obviously cannot go there). I should have an extra copy coming if you want to read it.

“Oh, Let The Sun Beat Down Upon My Face/Darren Starr To Fill My Dream…”
Cashmere Mafia premiered and this is the latest from Sex & The City creator, Darren Starr. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. It’s about a group of four female friends in New York City who are plugged into its many facets and are all fabulously successful and well dressed. Sound familiar? Well, hang on to your memories because this isn’t nearly as good. First of all they pretty much represent what many of us hate about the city now; the obscenely successful and wealthy that drive up rents and property values and are slowly but surely pushing anyone truly interesting off the island. Hell, even out of the boroughs. And none of these women are those people. Not one is even vaguely artistic. Their sole purpose in life is the accumulation of wealth, period. Even Carrie was a writer. Charlotte managed an art gallery. These women met in fucking business school (which gave me a flashback to the party I attended for Around The Way Girl and her fiancée where I met the group of Wharton b-school girls). It’s kind of hard to give a shit about any of their problems when you’re just so repulsed by their very existence. And don’t get me started on the one girl who’s supposedly from Brooklyn realizing she’s gay and falling from some girl who’s supposed to be from Queens. It makes you wonder that after six years of shooting Sex & The City Darren Starr even met someone from Brooklyn or Queens. It’s at times like this when my sad attraction to pretty shows actually shot in NYC is a problem because I’ll probably still watch this crap until they cancel it. Which should be soon.

TACO HELL
Is that fucking Joe Jackson I heard in a Taco Bell commercial? Sigh. Bad enough Modern English’s “I Melt With You” was used in Cashmere Mafia, then I had to hear this in the commercials.

PITY CLICK
So I actually encouraged someone to start a blog and now she’s whining to me that no one actually reads it, so pity click if you will here. The line about her life (blonde English woman raising two biracial boys in Bed-Stuy) being a potential sitcom is mine and if she makes any money from it I’d better get paid.