WHY BODYGUARD?

1. Horton Hears A Who/Fox Wknd/$ 25.1 Total/$ 86.5
2. Meet The Browns/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 20.1 Total/$ 20.0
3. Shutter/ Fox Wknd/$ 10.7 Total/$ 10.7
4. Drillbit Taylor/Paramount Wknd/$ 10.2 Total/$ 10.2
5. 10,000 B.C./Warner Wknd/$ 8.7 Total/$ 76.1
6. Never Back Down/Sum. Wknd/$ 4.9 Total/$ 16.8
7. College Road Trip/Touchstone Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$ 32.0
9. Vantage Point/Sony Wknd/$ 3.8 Total/$ 65.3
8. The Bank Job/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 19.4
10.Under The Same Moon/Wein Wknd/$ 2.6 Total/$ 3.3

DIE, CARREY, DIE!
Horton Hears A Who holds at number one pretty much guaranteeing us even further horrendous Dr. Suess adaptations into needless full-length films---and Jim Carrey will probably be in all of them. The sad thing is when he first did this he was at his peak and it was the lark of the A-lister who chooses to do a children’s film. That’s why Steve Carell is doing it now. However, for Jim Carrey it’s now stopping a career slide. I mean, they aren’t advertising Seth Rogan in this because Jim Carrey can carry it by himself. I’m just letting you all know right now: if they fuck with “Go, Dog, Go!” I’m getting a rooftop and a rifle because that’s messing with my childhood in a way I just cannot forgive.

PRIDE GOETH BEFORE THE FALL
Meet The Browns opens at number two and while I love Angela Bassett I can’t help but think this is karmic payback for her being a total bitch about Halle Berry willing the Best Actress Oscar. Yes, we all know you should have been the first Black woman to win for What’s Love Got to do with it, but there were enough sour grapes from you to fill a wine vat. And she married (and by “marriage” I mean that in the Tom Cruise sense) an equal douchebag in Courtney Vance, who once whined about losing a role to the Denzel Washington of TV, Blair Underwood, pretty much saying they went for the less-talented performer. Maybe they wanted someone good looking who could convey actual heterosexuality, Courtney. Now, Halle makes $10-15M a film and Angela is doing chiltlin’ films with a closet-case who likes to dress up in drag pretty much every chance he gets. I hate to get snobbish, because there’s lot of absolute shit out there that I love, but my shit pretty much knows it’s shit. Doomsday was like a really messy, half-melted sundae with everything under the sun thrown into it, but it knew that with every action movie cliché it threw at you. It didn’t pretend to be the finest cinema. But Tyler Perry actually thinks he’s saying something when he throws his lame clichés at you. Needless to say, I didn’t see this. I can’t watch Tyler Perry’s shit. Whenever I try to it’s so fucking awful, my stomach fires gastric acid up into my brain to wipe it clean of the offense and I spend two days trying to remember my childhood as the neurons grow back.

IN THE MEANTIME KATIE HOLMES LIVES THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
Shutter opens at number three and isn’t this post-The Ring spate of Japanese horror remakes over yet? You can blame Sarah Michelle Gellar for this one, because just when it was about over, complete with the failure of the The Ring 2, along comes The Grudge to make a little money and keep this train running. But they are seriously scraping the bottom of the teen-TV barrel to drag Pacey into it. How long ago was Dawson’s Creek? And he’s not even the lead. Apparently, they have flat out exhausted the casts of every teen soap ever for the female lead to use this no-name blonde last seen in Transformers. What’s that you say, you don’t remember a blonde in Transformers? Only a smoking hot brunette? Well, there was one. She was the scientist, remember? Stop laughing. That’s the role she played. And considering this is about a dead Japanese girl looking for revenge but involving pictures and not an apartment, you might as well call it The Photoshop Grudge.

THE BUTTERSCHOTCH STALLION TRIES AGAIN
Drillbit Taylor opens at number four and the first time I heard the plot of this I couldn’t stop laughing because in the description I read the kids actually hired a real mercenary, though obviously second rate. Now that’s funny. However, it was either wrong or changed to Owen Wilson now being a con artist only pretending to be a bodyguard. Sorry, the version in my mind was funnier (though that “Mexican Judo” line is pretty good). Also, it didn’t have Owen Wilson in it, so that’s another plus. This is also from the Apatow factory if the presence of yet another fat kid with a jew-fro wasn’t your first clue. And yes, I’m gonna rag on the fugly little kids. Why? Because these fugly little bastards all want and usually get conventionally attractive girls, that’s why. Where’s the smart, funny, chunky chick who wins their hearts? But why should Judd Apatow compromise in the movies? He didn’t in real life. His wife did that for him. In fact, it’s a betrayal of the Apatow audience to have someone who looks like Owen Wilson as your lead who gets the girl. I guess Seth Rogen must have been busy working on Horton Hears A Who to take the role. Or Apatow’s wife decided since she had compromised in real life for him she wasn’t going to do it on film too, as her husband in Knocked Up was thinking girl’s sex symbol, Paul Rudd. Owen Wilson will undoubtedly be blamed for this not opening better because he refused to do press to help promote it and let’s face it, you don’t see anyone else in that poster do you? He’s the product they’re selling. But I can see why. Who’s going to ask about this movie when there’s an attempted suicide and Kate Hudson to discuss?

YES, THE 80’S WERE A LONG, LONG TIME AGO
10,000 B.C. is down to number five followed by Never Back Down at number six and why exactly isn’t Jean Claude Van Damme in this? What the hell is his 50-year-old ass doing that he can’t be in a movie that’s actually released in theaters? I sooo would have see it if he’d played the old instructor teaching the kid. I’m just not buying Djimon Himsou as an ass kicker. In my mind he’s still that guy dancing in the desert for Janet Jackson. Believe it or not both Jean Claude and Dolph Lundgren are still making direct to video action movies on a regular basis, though not together. I guess Universal Soldier was enough of collaboration for them. That one actually had three sequels, though two of them straight-to-video with no one less than Burt Reynolds. Jean Claude came back for number four with workout queen, Kiana Tom and Goldberg. I know far too much shit about shit.

USUALLY IT’S THE BROCCOLI YOU SWORE YOU’D EAT
College Road Trip is down to number seven, followed by The Bank Job at number eight and Vantage Point at number nine, still hanging around like that bad smell in your fridge even after you threw the rotten food away.

MY COUNTRY TIS OF THEE/SWEET LAND OF LOVING TV/OF THEE I SING…
Finally, Under One Moon, opens at number ten and this is nonetheless impressive for a foreign language film almost no one has heard of. I love Ugly Betty like anyone, but does America Ferrara really have that kind of pull to get people into a kids trying to smuggle himself into LA to find his mom? In a supporting role no less? I’m thinking not. What’s really sad is that more people wanted to see this than see Doomsday, which actually fell out of the top ten after one week to number eleven. What has a America come to when a heartwarming tale of immigrants (not even in English) beats out shit blowing up with hot chicks and fast cars?

I COULD NEVER BE A HIT THEATRICAL RELEASE
Released on DVD last month after a long and protracted struggle was I Could Never Be your Woman, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd as yes, her love interest. She’s the producer/writer of a Beverly Hills 90210–type show called “You Go Girl” who falls for a young actor on the show played by Rudd. Because it’s a movie about woman, written by a woman, the age difference is the story, whereas if a man wrote it about a man it would never come up. And the age difference wouldn’t be a mere 11 years like here. It’d be a nice Harrison Ford/Michael Douglas two decades. And only a woman would cast Jon Lovitz as the ex-husband of Michelle Pfeiffer and mother of her child. Now there was a story in Entertainment Weekly about a month ago about the long voyage this took to release and why it didn’t make it to the big screen, but it can really be summed up in five little words: Tracy Ullman as Mother Nature. That’s right, Tracy Ullman plays Mother Nature who rags on Michelle Pfeiffer speaks to throughout the film for dating a younger man because it’s against her plan. Aside from being unfunny and annoying, if you took her out of the movie it would change not one iota, so this is the worst type of creative indulgence. Also in the movie is Saoirse Ronan of Atonement as her daughter, continuing the British shaming of Americans with her spot-on American accent. She’s just hitting puberty and discovering boys and actually makes for the more interesting parts of the film. It’s needed because they really give no depth to Paul Rudd’s character. He’s just good-natured and fun and that’s it. No more, no less. A pure fantasy character just like a younger girl would be in a movie with a guy, bringing no baggage and only wanting to give love. This was directed by Amy Heckerling and I think it’s safe to say she needs help with her work. Her best films Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Clueless both came from original work by other, better, writers. Here she’s on her own and it shows. There’s a strong feminist message popping up throughout, but in the end when here daughter finally catches the attention of a boy she likes, she then pretends to be dumb for him. What the fuck? Nice soundtrack though. The film’s title comes from the song “Your Woman” by White Town.

ENTER THE DRAGGIN’…OF MY LAZY, FAT ASS
So I decided to start looking for a martial arts school again. Basically, I refuse to buy pants a size up. I’d rather fucking jog than suffer that and I fucking hate jogging. So rather than jog I called another taekwondo school for another free class. This one was again on the Upper West Side. Actually up near where I used to live. I miss the UWS. It’s where people actually live, not big on visitors beyond the museums on Central Park West. If there’s one problem I have with Hell’s Kitchen it’s all the fucking tourists all the time. Tourists have no need to be on West End Avenue (where I’d kill to live) ever. The class was strenuous enough that I felt dizzy and light-headed on more than one occasion, and as racist as it sounds, I’m suspicious of any martial arts class that doesn’t have even one Asian in it. The other taekwondo school was easily 50% Asian. Think of it as food. You go to one Italian restaurant were half the people in it are Italian and then you go to another where there are no Italians. What’s your prognosis? Yes, the head instructor was Asian, and while I’m just a little too old for the hardcore discipline, this guy was so laid back I kept waiting for him to call me “dude.” But the deciding factor was that they don’t do the same forms I do. I mean, if I’m gonna learn new forms, I might as well learn a new style entirely. And old friend suggested that maybe “because of your age” I should look beyond something takes a lot of kicking like taekwondo. I turned my nose up at her suggestion, having seen far too many little old men still throw kicks better than kids throw elbows, but while doing multiple sets of friggin’ double kicks (and now, a day later, when my legs feel like jelly and walking is an ability I’m relearning) her words suddenly became only the sagest wisdom. I mean, why the hell do I need to be throwing double kicks anyway!?! And you sure as hell won’t be doing that in a bar fight or on the train. I was kinda spoiled because my instructor had also studied kyokushin karate and tried to balance out the kicking with hand techniques. Since I was going to be sore the next day anyway, I decided to completely obliterate myself and walk home, stopping by the Reebok Sportsclub, the six-floor facility I’d visited a week previously. I still had a day left on my free week membership so why not? I made some token attempts to fight my man boobs on their incredibly nice equipment, but my opinion remains the same. Even if I could afford it, I don’t like how friggin’ massive it is and the pool sucks. But like any gym, if you go during the day, you’ll see far too many pretty people. When I was unemployed and going to the gym in the morning (hey, 11:00 am is still morning) that’s when I’d overhear conversations between the male models. Yes, they’re dumb. Feel better about yourself now? Well, you should. When I walked into this place I was immediately greeted by something 6’ tall, blonde and willowy. And in the men’s locker room I saw her male counterparts. I’m sure they’re all stupid too. They have to be. It’s the only way I can live.

DCW
Oh. That new show with Juliana Marguilies, Canterbury's Law? Dorito Cheeseburger Woman, aka, Karyn Plonsky, is going to be on it...whenever the hell it airs. It was supposed to be this Monday, but I think it's been moved to Friday. Unless of course it's been canceled. Which is possible.