AND THE LOSERS ARE...

1. Vantage Point/Sony Wknd/$ 22.9 Total/$ 22.9
2. The Spiderwick Chronicles/Par Wknd/$ 13.1 Total/$ 44.1
3. Jumper/Fox Wknd/$ 12.7 Total/$ 52.3
4. Step Up 2/Touch Wknd/$ 9.6 Total/$ 41.2
5. Fool’s Gold/Warner Wknd/$ 6.6 Total/$ 52.7
6. Definitely Maybe/Universal Wknd/$ 5.2 Total/$ 21.8
7. Welcome Home Roscoe…/Uni Wknd/$ 4.2 Total/$ 35.7
8. Juno/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 130.4
9. Be Kind Rewind/New Line Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 4.1
10.There Will Be Blood/ParV Wknd/$ 2.7 Total/$ 35.1

AS IF RIPLEY COULDN’T KICK REMY’S ASS
Vantage Point opens at number one and this was a briefly intriguing idea---until they show the freaking president wasn’t really the president. I’m pretty sure that’s a major twist you’re not supposed to know about. Plus Dennis Quaid is in it and that’s no longer a good sign. Not to mention what kind of world is it that we live in when Sigourney Weaver isn’t the star!?! This should be about her as the crusading journalist uncovering the conspiracy and finding out that the president who was shot was really a stand-in. If this were the 70’s it would have been, but this is the early part of the 21st Century where such tasks can only be done by manly men.

THE HARDEST WORKING MAN IN SHOW BUSINESS, JR.
The Spiderwick Chronicles actually won last week so it’s drops to number two this week and here to try and get some of that post Harry Potter money is none other than indie queen herself, Mary Louise Parker. Getting bail/lawyer/rehab money is none other than Nick Nolte doing one of the creature voices, which puts him on the same scale as Martin Short and Seth Rogen who are also here doing voices. But the star here is Freddie Highmore who’s currently surfing a wave after Finding Neverland, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and as the title character in August Rush. He even hedged his fantasy movie franchise bets by being one of the voices in The Golden Compass. Ironically, every single one of these movies has been nominated for some type of Oscar and in the case of The Golden Compass and Finding Neverland, they actually won something.

AND IT’S BETTER THAN REVENGE OF THE SITH
Jumper is down to number three and yes, this is a rematch between Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu and since Hayden Christiansen is the hero and Samuel L. Jackson the bad guy, the end result is pretty much the same, except for the fact Samuel L. Jackson spends most of the movie kicking his ass and doesn’t die a screaming bitch death. And you have to suspend your disbelief for it, because if you can transport people and things, you’re not really fighting anyone. You’re just choosing whether or not to kill them.

HE GAVE HER NO CLASS, AND BROUGHT HIS OWN SEX APPEAL
Step Up 2: The Streets is down to number four and you gotta think the girl who was the female lead in the first step up is feeling a little Ginger Allen jealousy. After all, who the fuck was Channing Tatum dancing with?

NOW YOU KNOW WHY MCCOUGHEY KEEPS HIS SHIRT OFF
Fool’s Gold is down to number five and I’m thinking I should sue Time Out Magazine as they did their own little Kate Hudson Crap Movie list after I did mine. Then I realized that it’s simply a matter of everyone knowing her choices suck and it was downhill after Almost Famous. She may be he most famous cast member but she’s made the worst choices. She’s has what someone I knew called the “F” Factor. It doesn’t matter how crappy your work is if everyone still wants to fuck you. This is why most of George Clooney’s and Brad Pitt’s and Nicole Kidman’s and Angelina Jolie’s movies can flop but they remain top stars. Professional failure doesn’t make them any less fuckable.

BEFORE KIDDIE FILMS AND HORROR MOVIES
Definitely Maybe is down to number six and Ryan Reynolds is looking again for salvation in a comic book franchise having just signed up to play the wisecracking mercenary Deadpool in the Wolverine movie. Hopefully it will do more for him than Blade Trinity. It seems that comic book movies are becoming the new “saving a falling career” move.

THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE, NOT LITTLE RAT DOGS
Be Kind Rewind opens at number seven and no, I will never see this. I despise Jack Black beyond even Mos Def being able to redeem him. Even Kung Fu Panda will be a struggle for me. Not to mention I’m enough of a tech geek that I have no interest in anything VHS. I’m struggling to contain my desire to begin converting my DVD collection to Blu-Ray now that the format war is over. Must…have…new…toys…. It’s killing me because mean Surrogate Sister fucking won a 37-inch HDTV and it’s wasted on her because she hates science fiction when everyone knows those things are made for spaceships blowing up, not dialogue. I’d better not catch her watching Legally Blonde on it.

THE END
Juno is down to number eight, followed by Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins at number nine with There Will Be Blood returning to the top ten in time for the Oscars.

AND THE WINNER IS…
Speaking of The Oscars, that’s why this is a day late; I had my annual Oscar party to attend and wasn’t going to try and crank it out after getting home at 1:00 am…I was trying to make a lasagna for the evening but I fucked up trying to do my marinara from scratch. I wound up flushing it down the toilet and having to go buy marinara sauce then spicing it up a bit. It seems to have worked, but the time lost meant I had to take my pan with me and bake it there. I actually had enough leftover to make a second smaller dish and I’ve still go more of the cheese filling left over. Don’t know what I’m going to do with that…mass transit works for me and I’m in the East Village at 7:00 on the nose after walking out of my house at 6:30…pre-show just isn’t the same without Joan and Melissa Rivers. Those people feared her yet wanted her approval. These other sad case just kiss ass. The only highlight was crazy-ass Gary Busey threatening Ryan Seacrest and attacking poor Jennifer Garner…Katherine Heigel, Helen Mirren, Amy Adams, Laura Linney, Hillary Swank, Jennifer Garner, Renee Zellweger, Kristen Chenoweth, Marianne Cotillard, Ellen Page (even though color wouldn’t kill her), Diane Lane and even Miley Cyrus all looked good. Julie Christie (let Helen Mirren teach you how to cover your arms), Marlee Matlin (looking like a double mastectomy patient), Nicole Kidman (giving birth to a bunch of dirty “necklace” jokes in the company I was keeping), Anne Hathaway (showing how to screw up the red theme of the evening), Diablo Cody (once a stripper…), Tilda Swinton (doing it on purpose doesn’t make it any less ugly) even my beloved Cate Blanchett did not. Yeah, I know Cate is pregnant. She’s been pregnant before and not dressed as poorly as she has recently. Jessica Alba is pregnant and looked better and that’s just wrong…the awards show actually seemed to move quickly, but maybe that’s just because of all the drinking. Funny, no movie ads on the show. I saw more movie ads during the Super Bowl…Jon Stewart has pretty much guaranteed a third hosting gig…it’s amazing how everyone seems wittier in their speeches than Americans. Only the Coen Brothers redeem us…one of the other part guests expresses an extreme distaste for Nicole Kidman who (who shouldn’t botox while pregnant) and upon further probing we learn that while he worked at the BBC he met Thandie Newton who wasn’t shy about telling Nicole Kidman stories and apparently Nicole flat out stated her goal was to go to Hollywood and marry the first big star she made a movie with. Her first big star? Tom Cruise. That story alone made my night. And now the awards:

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis. Well duh.
Best Actress: Marianne Cotillard. A surprise and the sincerity and excitement of her speech made the woman sitting next to me cry. Wuss.
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardeem. Again. Duh. Great speech too.
Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton. A serious shocker. I’ve loved her since Orlando, but what I love most is that she seriously doesn’t give a shit about any of this. She’s hardcore art film having worked with Derek Jarman.
Best Picture: No Country For Old Men. Duh. No, it’s not the feel good movie of the year, but The Godfather is about a sociopath taking over his family’s criminal empire and I don’t see you whining about that. Sorry the Coen Brothers didn’t kiss you on the forehand and hold your fucking hand.
Best Director: The Coen Brothers. I want to see that Henry Kissinger movie.
Best Animated Feature: Ratatouille. Yeah, Persepolis was probably the better film, but I can’t take this category seriously considering it’s just a ghetto to keep films like The Incredibles from winning Best Picture. Yes, I remain bitter.
Best Documentary: Taxi To The Darkside. Wow. This means I actually know someone who was in an Oscar-winning film. Dorito Cheeseburger Woman (aka, Karyn Plonsky) plays one of the soldiers in the dramatizations. Maybe now I can fulfill my destiny as an obnoxious hanger-on (“No, goddmanit! Ms. Plonsky wants Cool Ranch Doritos, not Nacho Cheese!”)
Best Song: “Falling Slowly” from Once. So now one of The Commitments has an Oscar.
Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody. This is usually the award they give to the indie crowd and this year is no exception. May she fare better than Pulp Fiction co-writer, Roger Avary, who just killed one of his friends while driving drunk.
And who cares about the rest? Seriously. Giving costume design to movies like Elizabeth is bullshit. How are you designing what really existed?

FLICKS OF FURY
So Chasing Amy tried to get me to start taking martial arts with her, but I’m still looking (i.e., still laying on my ever-widening ass), but in the meantime she’s just advanced to blue belt. I was very impressed until she told me that in her style Blue Belt is the equivalent to yellow in others (blue belt in many styles is the second highest you get before black). Still she’s advancing, while some of us are deteriorating. But there’s a gap in her training only I can fill: the films of Bruce Lee. So on Saturday night we killed two bottles of wine and a sausage meatball pizza while I showed her Game of Death (so she could understand just why people keep turning up in that yellow tracksuit) and believe it or not The Last Dragon. It seems she wanted to see it when she was in 5th Grade but her mother refused because she apparently thought it was rated “R.” For me The Last Dragon is a supreme guilty pleasure combining New York (a lot was actually filmed not 5 blocks from where I currently live), a black guy doing martial arts, Bruce Lee and Vanity. And honestly it’s mostly that last thing. It was never a good movie and now it’s goofy and dated. Very, very 80’s. But one thing I realize is that the story is actually solid and so are the characters. It could have been a better movie if they’d wanted it to be. They just chose to make it into the incredible cartoon it is. And it gets big points for African American authenticity by having one character use the expression “Nigga, please” and slip in “muthafucka” under his breath. And yes, that is William H. Macy as Vanity’s producer decked out in full “hip” 80’s wear. To complete her 80’s education, Purple Rain came on VH1 that night and she became a bit frightened by the immense knowledge I had of Prince and pretty much every cast member working. But she can’t throw stones in her glass house. She’s a sad, sick Depeche Mode fan, going all the way back to her vampire lesbian days.