BALLERS WEAR SHORT SHORTS

1. Semi-Pro/New Line Wknd/$ 15.2 Total/$ 15.2
2. Vantage Point/Sony Wknd/$ 13.0 Total/$ 41.0
3. The Spiderwick Chronicles/Par Wknd/$ 8.8 Total/$ 55.1
4. The Other Boleyn Girl/Sony Wknd/$ 8.3 Total/$ 8.3
5. Jumper/Fox Wknd/$ 7.6 Total/$ 66.8
6. Step Up 2/Touch Wknd/$ 5.7 Total/$ 48.6
7. Fool’s Gold/Warner Wknd/$ 4.7 Total/$ 59.1
8. Penelope/ Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 4.0
9. No Country For Old Men/Mira Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 69.6
10. Juno/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 3.4 Total/$ 135.1

SEMI-TOUGH JUST GOT A NEW LIFE OF ACCIDENTIAL RENTALS
Semi-Pro opens at number one and I was tempted to see this, mainly because I’m old enough to remember the ABA (American Basketball Association) with the red, white and blue basketballs, which I always thought was the neatest thing in the world. Besides, Dr. J was in the ABA and Dr. J was Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan existed (before Dr. J took off from the top of the key he had to file a flight report he went so high; he was up there so long flight attendants served meals). And believe it or not, but incredibly stupid promotional gimmicks were part of their reality, so there’s a huge nostalgia thing going on here which I’m sure is part of the reason it’s opening at number one. But then I remembered that Will Ferrell was in this doing the same goofy manchild he’s been doing…well, for-fucking-ever. And apparently everyone in the fucking world loves it but me. I’m fine with it in small doses, like Old School, but like Jack Black he’s a supporting player or at best in desperate need of a straight man. He’s gotta be cut with something because the pure stuff is just too much. And no, Woody Harrelson is not that guy, nor is Andre 3000 from Outkast. Yes, Maura Tierney is here and my love from Newsradio remains pure (basically she’s who geek boys adored before Tina Fey came along), but if I won’t watch e.r. for her, then I’m not going to see this either.

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO THE KID WHO PLAYED THE BABY
Vantage Point is down to number two and also in this is Matthew Fox and it seems like a thousand years ago that he Neve Campbell, Scott Wolf and Lacey Chabell were part of a Party of Five on Fox. It’s actually the show that made Jennifer Love Hewitt a star. She was such a hit, it spun off to her own show, Time of Your Life. Yes, you’re old. How old are you? Prince is going in for hip replacement surgery and unlike Eddie Van Halen, it’s not because drugs and booze have destroyed his body. That’s how old you are. I never watched because I simply wasn’t buying this group of kids were on their own and running a restaurant. But if you watched one show on Fox, you saw the promos for them all so I felt like I did. Such is the price I paid for 21 Jump Street. Now, Fox is obviously best know for Lost, so much so I can’t believe he wasn’t pushed more as the star of this. And yes, he is Racer X in the new Speed Racer movie. Given how geeks love themselves some Lost (I do not, but I’m the exception which is why I’m kind) it’s all kind of sticky fun for them.

“I’M ‘ENERY THE EIGHTH I AM…”
The Spiderwick Chronicles is down to number three, followed by The Other Boleyn Girl at four and again, there was temptation towards this costume melodrama, but I get that weekly from The Tudors (which covered the same time period in its first season) and with real English actors, not two Americans and an Australian. Not to mention the only thing it was more about than costumes, was nudity and this damn thing is PG13 with Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, both of whom you know aren’t giving up so much as a butt cheek (Portman regrets her only nudity and says she won’t do it again). Sorry, but how can you have a movie about passion and no one is dropping trou? Not to mention, this movie obviously isn’t sincere based simply only the casting of Portman and Johansson. Last I heard, there was no shortage of talented English actresses, so why these two unless all you were concerned about was making a buck and not the best movie possible. It’s like when they cast Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder in Dracula or Julia Roberts in…well, anything requiring an accent. Yes, they’ve done it before, both of them, but it was competent at best. If all you want were names, then Keira Knightley and Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) would have been fine. Recognizable actresses with actual freaking accents. And oh, over 5 feet tall both of them. This casting is brainstorm of a middle-aged studio exec who’s been jerking off to them both for the last ten years and they’ve only been legal for five. It’s no coincidence they’ve both been in Woody Allen movies.

AGE IS MORE THAN THAN JUST A NUMBER
Jumper is down to number five and this was actually started with two other actors but reshot when they decided to make the characters older to make them more interesting. Um, not quite. For a guy who’s been on his own for years and traveling the world, Hayden Christensen is remarkably unseasoned. Nowhere do we see an inclination that his travels all over the world have affected him. He doesn’t seem to speak another language, he shows no familiarity with history or culture. Nothing. Well-traveled is the last thing you’d use to describe him, which is sadly ironic. They wasted millions of dollars for a character development they hoped would be added by casting alone. Not to mention, Rachel Bilson is older than whom exactly? Dakota Fanning? Hannah Montana? Don’t say you’re going for older and cast a pretty little doll girl. This is geek casting because on The O.C. she played the unlikely girlfriend of a comic book geek who actually dressed up like Wonder Woman for him. If that wasn’t clue enough then the conversation Christensen has with Jamie Bell about “Marvel Team Up” should seriously have let you know.

AND WORKING CRAFT SERVICES…DWAYNE WAYNE
Step Up 2: The Streets is down to number six, followed by Fool’s Gold at number seven and also in this is Malcolm Jamal-Warner? Seriously? Theo!?! I mean, I’m glad he’s not doing drugs or sticking up liquor stores, but aren’t actors like this all doing real estate or some shit? It’s always weird so see certain actors still working. I’m not going to pretend to know their names, but Rudy and Vanessa have turned up from time to time and Raven Symone (I don’t know her character’s name because I stopped watching the show when Lisa Bonet left) is a little mini-mogul thanks to Nickelodeon. And we all know what happened to Lisa Bonet. Her clone/daughter was in The Brave One, letting Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie know just how pretty their daughter is going to be when she grows up. And apparently Lisa Bonet is in the pretty baby making business, having just dropped the baby of that pretty boy from Stargate: Atlantis, Jason Momoa. But I have to say it again…fucking Theo!?!

THIS LITTLE PIGGY DIDN’T GO TO MARKETING CLASS
Penelope opens at number eight and this was a problem for 20-something dudes this week. All the girls they jerk off two were in movies 20-something dudes don’t want to see. First Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman in The Other Boleyn Girl and now Christina Ricci in Penelope, a fairy tale romantic comedy about a heiress cursed with a pig nose until she finds true love, an obvious variation on Beauty & The Beast---providing The Beast was rich and was rocking from the neck down (though Christina did get a breast reduction). This has been sitting on the shelf for at least a year, despite being produced by Reese Witherspoon and having her make an appearance. Apparently it took James McAvoy’s recent ascension to get it out. It looks cute enough but they ruined it by showing what her nose looks like in the commercials and trailers now when before they wisely hid it. That was your “hook” to get people in. There’s no “hook” here now. I’ll see it on cable in a year.

NO COUNTRY FOR BEING LATE TO THE PARTY
No Country For Old Men returns to the top ten at number nine after winning a bunch of Academy Awards. A bunch of poor bastards went in to see what the fuss was all about and were exposed to a totally unromantic view of darkness. Suckers! It’s what you get for being fucking sheep!

CRAPACON: HE TRANSFORMS FROM A STUPID SCRIPT TO A MINDLESS MOVIE
On the other hand, Juno drops to number ten after just winning Best Screenplay because we know damn well the average person could give a shit whether or not something is well-written. Every Michael Bay film is proof of that. Speaking of whom, I wonder if the Writer’s Guild, so fresh after the strike, has the balls to go after Michael Bay for openly saying he’s already written the Transformers sequel. First of all, I wasn’t sure it took writing at all to make a Transformers movie, but I imagine someone technically has to write down things for the actors to say while standing in front of a green screen. This why Bay is or should be in trouble, because eventually a member of the Writer’s Guild has to try and convert “Big machine fight, hot girl, dude, boom!” into something resembling a coherent story and that person may not be able to use something written during the strike, even by a director. Let me put it this way: imagine if, during a director’s strike one of the writers took over directing. I think the Director’s Guild would be a little pissed.

ALL’S CHANGED, SHE’S HAVING A BABY
So, I’m not supposed to talk about The Former Miss Pretty Boy or Around The Way Girl without their permission, but fuck it, this is important. The Former Miss Pretty Boy is giving birth to a girl in about three weeks. I found out about this three weeks ago after getting an invite to her baby shower. What’s funny is that in my initial delirium in the hospital when she and her husband came to visit me, I insisted she had to have a child. She was maybe three weeks along at that point and obviously it was too early to tell anyone, even your delirious, blood-in-his-brain friend. Eventually , she sent me an email telling me about it, but apparently my overly-aggressive spam filter prevented me from seeing it. The shower was initially a non-shower type of surprise brunch meeting at a restaurant where we were supposed to buy gifts but not bring them because she insisted she didn’t want a shower. Then it turned into an actual surprise baby shower brunch and you know I love you if I’m getting up early on a Sunday and taking a cab to see you. I almost blew the surprise because my lazy ass didn’t go buy a gift from the registry until the day before. When I got the list from the desk, the woman remarked, “Oh, yeah, she’s here now.” Oh. Shit. I immediately vacated the premises to go shopping for two hours, subjecting myself to the humiliation of buying new jeans in my normal size only to find them tight. But I will not move up! I’ll go on Atkins before I buy pants in a larger size. After two hours of tromping around Chelsea, I safely returned, got my gift and got the hell out. Obviously, Around The Way Girl was in attendance for the brunch along with her fiancée. They’re getting married in Paris, so for all of you who thought your wedding was so great? You were wrong. It sucked and was provincial. The gathering was nice and I got to formally meet Former Miss Pretty Boy’s mom. I saw her at the wedding, but only really met her dad. She was sweet and very much looking forward to her granddaughter. I left there with the tiniest champagne buzz to go shopping with The Libertine, who moved to South Carolina a few months ago for a job. She hates it there and regularly causes ripples with her very Manhattan wardrobe, which the rubes just don’t understand. Her goal was to buy more to keep it going. We met at our usual spot of Kenneth Cole in SoHo and went from there to LBT, which I did my annual Christmas shopping for my roommate to give her wardrobe the edge I can’t seem to give myself. After that it was Ben Sherman, to a French place that serves damn good chocolate croissant, to two New Designer Spaces. One sits on Bleecker where we’d been to before. There she bought a beautiful spring type dress---and by “she” I mean “her fiancée.” The other was in SoHo (I refuse to dignify the term “Nolita”; it’s all fucking SoHo) where she bought another beautiful dress made from an iridescent material (and by “she” well, she actually bought this one). But oddly nothing brought her greater joy than buying a shirt for me that reads, “I ♥ Cheese.” Yes, it’s befitting, but I like to think I wear that on my face (and now, on my gut). After that were our usual stops at DSW and Filene’s Basement. She still wanted to hit Barney’s yearly warehouse sale, but my early rise combined with late night computer issues (I upgraded my hard drive, doubling its size) ad left me spent and her own fiancée clearly toast, finally realizing the great favor I’d be doing him by shopping with her all this time.

AND I’LL BE WRAPPED AROUND YOUR FINGER
It was a full week so seeing my friends, as I also took a trip up to Riverdale (yes, I left Manhattan) for an emergency babysitting session for Former Movie Buddy and her beautiful little girl. And when I say beautiful, I’m not being nice the way we all are to the friends of our children no matter how ugly they may be. She’s actually working as a model, making her a literal Model Child. But apparently that’s just a title as she was not thrilled to learn I was coming up. It’s been a minute since I last babysat her and she’d forgotten me. And she’s a precocious three-years-old now, as demonstrated by calling both her parents to express her dissatisfaction with me as a babysitter before I arrived. When I was three I was still immersed in the mysteries of my genitals, totally incapable of working a phone (hell, I have trouble now dropping my junk to pick one up). But I went in prepared, making a stop by Borders to pick a few things up. 3 or 43, I’m not ashamed to buy a woman’s love. In this case it was three books of reusable stickers. One was Disney (of course), another was Horses (because I was told she was learning the letter “H”) and the last one was…The DC Comics Universe! Yes, I am shameless! But one day, her casual knowledge of these things will win some sad geek’s undying devotion and he will do all her homework. And she played with the DC Comics stick book the most. Even more than Disney. Though it did prompt her to bring out her Disney Princesses book where she displayed a frighteningly encyclopedic knowledge of all within. However, this didn’t prevent her from asking me to at least read one of them to her---while she told me what I was going to say before I even read it. After that we played a little store, alternating between customer and owner, switching by her request from Duane Reade to CVS. My favorite moments were when she admitted doing things she wasn’t supposed to with a smile and a little tilt of her head. They’re soooo going to have their hands full during puberty. During the night she told me how she didn’t want me as a babysitter but now it was okay, but that wasn’t the real moment of acceptance. No, that came when I put on the Schoolhouse Rock DVD and she told me to sit down where she promptly sat down in my lap and draped my arm across her. I will admit to be owned at that point. If she was looking for someone to help her out in 13 years when she wrecks mom and dad’s car, she got him.

THIS IS WHERE THE WRITER FIGHTS, THIS WHERE THE DIRECTORIAL CONTROL DIES
300 just started running on cable and while fun to watch I’d forgotten just what a silly fucking movie it was. It pains me that my beloved The 13th Warrior was a flop and this was one of the biggest hits of last year. I guess it wasn’t homoerotic enough (though who could argue Antonio Banderas isn’t prettier than Gerald Butler). I’m still hoping one day we’ll get a director’s cut from John (Predator, Die Hard, Hunt For Red October, Thomas Crown Affair) McTiernan. He and author Michael Crichton bumped heads and in a rare case the writer had final say over the director.