FORGET AFTER SEEING

1. Burn After Reading/Focus Wknd/$ 19.4 Total/$ 19.4
2. The Family That Preys/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 18.0 Total/$ 18.0
3. Righteous Kill/ Wknd/$ 16.5 Total/$ 16.5
4. The Women/ Wknd/$ 10.1 Total/$ 10.1
5. The House Bunny/Sony Wknd/$ 4.3 Total/$ 42.2
6. Tropic Thunder/Par-DW Wknd/$ 4.2 Total/$ 103.0
7. Batman: Dark Knight/WB Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 517.7
8. Bangkok Dangerous/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 2.4 Total/$ 12.5
9. Traitor/Over Wknd/$ 2.1 Total/$ 20.7
10. Death Race/Universal Wknd/$ 2.0 Total/$ 33.2

FORGET AFTER SEEING
Well, summer is over and the “real” films are now being released as this week’s top four movies can attest to. All are aimed at adults and even in humor are supposedly dealing with more serious matters. Funny thing is, none of them are better than some of the dumbest shit you’ve seen all summer. First to stumble in the fall season are none other than the Coen Brothers. No Country For Old Men has strangely wiped out the fact that they were once best known for humor, be it broad based in the excellent Raising Arizona or black as night in the Oscar-winning Fargo. Here they lean more toward Fargo in the story of a comedy of errors as a former CIA analyst finds himself being blackmailed by a fitness instructor who wants plastic surgery, just as his wife is divorcing him for a man who also happens to be sleeping with said fitness instructor. You say that doesn’t sound funny? Well, that’s cause it’s not, really. The funniest part of the film comes from the reactions of J.K. Simmons (best known to you as J. Jonah Jameson from Spider-Man or Schillinger from O.Z.) as the insanity of the participants is described to him. In fact the film would have been better served being told in flashback as everything was described to him, but Simmons actually doesn’t show up until halfway through the film---after the first body drops. As with most Coen Brothers films the laughs come from watching the very odd people with strange names just be themselves and create chaos, but unfortunately they just aren’t chaotic enough to generate any real humor. It ping pongs from character to character as if hoping the next one will be funnier than the previous one, but to no avail. Except for J.K. Simmons, who just happens to be the character it spends the least amount of time with.

THE SEQUEL: LEIGH ME DOWN FOR CHRISTMAS
Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys opens at number two and I hope to go to my grave never seeing a Tyler Perry movie in its entirety. Yes, I know “How can you judge without seeing it?” Look, I’ve never German fetish porn where people crap on each other either, but just from the description I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like it. For me Tyler Perry’s heavy-handed chitlin theater idiocy is evident from some of the titles alone. Oooo, he used “prey” instead of “pray.” This may be impressive to his fans but to the rest of us it’s just obvious and stupid. Either he’s an idiot or thinks his audience is dumb, neither of which I have time for. And yes, it bothers me more because this nimrod is perhaps the most successful Black filmmaker working and as you can see his web of influence is expanding beyond his usual C-list cast. Now I expect to see Robin Givens here, as she’s lucky to still be working, but Kathy Bates!?! The closest contact Robin Givens should have to Kathy Bates is turning out for a Screen Actors Guild meeting. And Cole Hauser and Sanaa Lathan were slowly establishing themselves as potential A-list leads and could have, should have been able to do better than this.

NO MOVIE FOR OLD MEN
But if you want to see A-list actors doing crap, look no further than the number three entry this week, Righteous Kill. This is a Cinemax movie that would normally star Michael Pare and Mickey Rourke that somehow managed to get Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro to star. You’re better off watching Heat again to see their five-minute conversation in a diner than wasting your time watching them in this. First of all they’re both at least twenty years too old for the roles they’re playing. I fully expected Carla Gugino to be playing DeNiro’s daughter, but of course she’s playing his girlfriend, a forensics cop so hot she makes the women on CSI look like dudes in drag. She also just happens to like rough sex and gets turned on hearing about DeNiro beating up a suspect. Similarly, Al Pacino wears all black all the time and rides a motorcycle also with some woman less than half his age on it. The movie obviously appealed to both their vanity and their wallets, if not their better instincts, because I cannot stress how fucking old they both look in this, making co-stars John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg look young even though they’re both 40. And I won’t even get into how old 50 Cent makes them look. Unless you’ve never been a movie in the last thirty years you know from the first line being uttered just who the killer really is. Yeah, it’s that lame. You can always tell a bad film about cops because they live in a vacuum. There’s a serial killer murdering bad guys and leaving poems and strangely only four cops are involved and their lieutenant (played by Brian Dennehy, also too fucking old for his role). There’s no Chief of Police with any interest or a commissioner or mayor. Nor is there any press. You’d think when a Catholic priest is murdered and the note shoved in his ass, it might be newsworthy, but no, not here.

DRECKS IN THE CITY
The Women opens at number four and is currently being touted as one of the year’s worst films, as if the utter lack of an ad campaign wasn’t a clue. If not for Sex & The City doing so well, this probably never would have been released theatrically. It’s been 15 years in the making but I don’t think a thousand years would have made it better given Diane English is behind it. Murphy Brown was a horribly overrated, unfunny sitcom that benefited from an idiotic Vice President lending the show a gravitas it never really possessed. Not to mention the play and the original movie are essentially products of their time. I’m not sure you can take it out of the period and have it work. We live in an America now where a female president doesn’t even shock conservatives and divorce rates are 50% and hardly a social stigma. How does the central plot point of a husband cheating on his wife with a perfume counter girl stand up? The same pressure to make a marriage work simply does not exist, especially when the wife has been changed to a career superwoman. The only question now is why she doesn’t leave him, take everything and get a boytoy. Not to mention the original was also about class, though it’s rarely acknowledged. Was it because her husband was cheating on her or because he was cheating on someone so far below his station? And that she was unrepentant about it? And while color-blind casting is to be applauded it now stinks of lower class minority daring to fuck the rich white man, with Eva Mendes in the Joan Crawford role. That’s the other thing. I like Eva Mendes but she really should never be mentioned in the same sentence as Joan Crawford and now we have to. This cast is B and C list with Meg Ryan and Annette Benning 15 years past their A-list days and my beloved Debra Messing never quite making it there (much less Jada Pinkett-Smith). It’s an amazingly lackluster cast.

OR WAS IT WEIRD SCIENCE?
The House Bunny is down to number five, followed by Tropic Thunder at number six and The Dark Knight still kicking around at number seven and did we mention that non other than Anthony Michael Hall has a role in this? Yeah. Director Christopher Nolan must be a really big Sixteen Candles fan.

BY THE WAY, KIRK DOUGLAS IS STILL ALIVE TO REGRET IT
Bangkok Dangerous makes a swift drop to number eight, followed by Traitor down to number nine and also in this is Guy Pearce, a momentary “Next Big Thing” until it became obvious he had no interest in joining the Hollywood machine, preferring indie work. But what I find most interesting is that in Australia he played the lead in the TV series based on none other than The Man from Snowy River, a movie whose claim to fame is that everyone wanted to see what happened when all the horses went over the cliff in slow motion that was shown in every commercial for it. It sure wasn’t for Kirk Douglas playing twin brothers, one in a Gabby Hayes make-up job.

THE BOX ON LOAN FROM TOM CRUISE
Finally, Death Race closes out the top ten at number ten and as “the bad guy” in this is none other than my beloved Joan Allen and given she’s about six feet tall in heels, they must have had Jason Statham standing on a box in their scenes together.

VAMPIRE LOBBYISTS? NOT HOT.
True Blood started on HBO and it’s interesting enough, I guess. I’m not really a vampire person, but when I do watch them I like them sexy and gothic be it classic or the noveau goth. Rural is not really something that interests me, and the twist of the main character being a telepath really isn’t enough to keep me coming back, nor is the conceit that vampires are openly living in society and fighting for their rights. That only serves to make them more mundane in my opinion. And no, not even the gratuitous sex is enough to keep me coming back.

THE Z-Z-Z-Z FILES
Fringe premiered and you say you miss The X Files? You say you miss it so much, you’ll take just about anything? Well then this is the show for you. It’s yet another show that starts out on one level of realism, but when that proves to be a detriment to their limited writing skill, it’s immediately tossed out the window. Some actress who looks like she was put together out of some leftover Cate Blanchett DNA is an FBI liaison officer when a jet filled with melted bodies lands in the United States. First of all, the plane lands itself. Uh, no. Was it too much to have the pilot last long enough to land it? Then, as liaison officer between the various agencies, she’s bossed around by the Homeland security guy running the task force. Makes sense, right? Well, that ends when, to follow up on lead even he declares slim, she somehow manages to take a private jet to Iraq. If you know jack shit about the government, that couldn’t have been a bigger departure from reality if she’d sprouted wings and flown herself. And it’s downhill from there. She’s teamed up with Pacey from Dawson’s Creek because his dad is literally a mad scientist, but their only hope. And apparently dad’s former lab partner runs a massive super-secret company that may or may not be complicit in all the weird things happening in the world resulting from “fringe science.” We’ll find out in future episodes. Well, you will, because I’m not coming back. It’s from JJ Abrams, the most overrated geek icon since Joss Whedon. At least Whedon can back up his devotion. Lost must be the greatest show ever to continue allowing him to shit on TV and film the way he does between Mission Impossible 3 and Cloverfield and now this.

NO ONE EVER DOES ROD STEWART’S “YOU WEAR IT WELL”
Fashion Rocks is yet another show that I record just to watch the musical acts. God knows it wasn’t 15 years past-his-prime Dennis Leary hosting. Fergie doing Blondie’s “Call Me” continues her path of inspired covers. It got even better when Debbie Harry joined her onstage. The theme was fashion based on the various eras of music, so for the old school R&B we had Beyonce doing Etta James, whom she plays in an upcoming film. She sang “At Last” and somewhere Christina Aguilera was laughing because she knows she does it better. Even Etta James sitting in the front row didn’t seem as impressed as she might have been. Rhianna doing “Vogue” only made you realize that Madonna’s voice is stronger than you thought. But she was Ella Fitzgerald compared to her boyfriend, Chris Brown, who embarrassed himself and committed blasphemy trying to do Sam Cooke. I’d have leapt through the TV and choked him to death if I could. This is why that little shit has to dance all the time. HE CANNOT SING! In comparison, Justin Timberlake doing Marvin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up” was positively soulful and he and Beyonce did a decent job covering Marvin Gaye & Tami Terrell. I won’t apologize for liking the Pussycat Dolls, especially that one who does the standing split. I’m just a man, goddamnit! The Black Eyed Peas doing a rap version of “Miss You” is something that never should have left the discussion stages. What, are there no real rock bands anymore who could have come on to do this? Will someone please tell Mariah Carey this cutesy sex kitten stuff needs to stop? I think the world is embarrassed for her now. Kid Rock? Talk about out of place and Mary J. Blige couldn’t help him anymore than Lil Wayne could last week. That song sucks and bringing out the surviving members of Lynard Skynard to a New York fashion audience? Uh, no. It’s good that Beyonce and her family support her younger, less talented (and let’s face it, less attractive) sister, Solange, because they’ll probably be doing it for the rest of her life. I love Duffy, but I hope she normally gives better performances than that. I didn’t even bother to listen to Chris Cornell or Mr. Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, but they do have fashion sense. I hope the big all-girl superstar single sells well, but I couldn’t listen to it all the way through.

AND DID I MENTION THE EASTSIDE SUCKS?
My latest biking adventure took me back up the west side, only this time I didn’t stop. I kept going until the trail ended then cut across Dyckman Avenue---apparently the place to go if you want your windows tinted---to the east side and back down again. I went up so far I saw Yankee Stadium only on my way back down. Another sign summer is over is the number of people out on the bike paths. Usually, once you get above 100th street on the west side, the number of people, much less white people, decreases. Nope. Not any more. Now, all those annoying douches who were spending their weekends outside the city are back to annoy the shit out of me. I started riding my bike at just the right time to be denied their odious presence. But even they dropped away by the George Washington Bridge, much less the crossover to the east side. And coming down the east side is another visual treat, as this bike path is pretty much brand new. I was alone in my ride down the east river almost until I hit 155th street where the path ends. From there you’re supposed to go down St. Nicholas until you hit 120th where the path restarts, but I didn’t pay that much attention to the map and spent the next 30 blocks riding through traffic and almost took my ass onto the FDR. The east side ride isn’t as picturesque as th west side obviously because a) your only view is of fucking Queens, and b) the east side sucks! Once I got down to around 86th, greater numbers of people began appearing again and of course no they were no longer of color. But this lower part of the path sucks because rather than a smooth surface it’s all interlocking stones, so it’s blocks of crotch bruising bumps. No wonder I was one of the few riders. Still, the views of the various islands in the East River are nice (the bridges are as ugly as sin), but I didn’t bring my camera that day because of the ongoing threat of rain that keeps fucking up my riding schedule. Yes, millions evacuate due to the threat to their lives from the weather and my only concern is riding my bike. I’m that dick.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER
Okay, apparently the only people who love R&B more than Jews are the English, because there’s yet another White girl singing it old school and this one is named Adele. And again, this is someone I read about in Blander six months ago, but forgot about only to see her blow up later. I give her credit because she wasn’t trying to be a performer only a writer and she’ll actually play a guitar and sing, so she’s real. But as nice as her single “Chasing Pavements” is it’s the dance number in the video that stays with you. With so much of this dance crew nonsense, you forget dancing is also about grace, not gymnastics. Heh. See you kids when you’re 35 and the bill for all this jumping around comes due. Yes, I’m a bitter old man whose body betrays him daily, so I hate everyone young and healthy.

DRINKING WITH CHICKS – PART 712
So Friday night was another night out with the girls from Jezebel and this one wound up relocating down the lower east side for the birthday part of one of the writers from Jezebel whose pride was apparently damaged when I not only took no interest in her cleavage but informed her that in my family that would be small. The next night I went out with Star Trek Woman for sushi and pool. She actually wanted to play ping-pong, but that’s too much athleticism to go along with drinking. Fat Cat on Christopher apparently now has cute little cover charge. It’s only $3 but only after you pay do you find out there’s going to be a two-hour wait for a pool table. We passed the time drinking and watching the crowd and the inequality of male to female dress continues to make me sad. Women make an effort. Even if it’s just jeans and a top, it’s a nice top, it’s nice jeans and probably heels. In the meantime, he looks like he just rolled out of bed and put on what didn’t smell bad. One girl was dressed especially nice with shoes so killer I almost asked her where she got them. And what did her date have her doing? Playing shuffleboard. She was tall, blonde, thin and attractive. There’s an older man coming to take her off his hands in 3, 2, 1… “Hi, my name’s George Clooney. Those are really nice shoes. Can I buy you a drink?” One couple we especially liked was the dweeb with the hot girl. Seriously. He could easily play The Skinny Dork in any Judd Apatow film, but somehow managed to snag a little Sade-esque cutie, whose pretty little white bra with black polka dots would pop into view occasionally. But not nearly as much as her iliac crest (those “V” shaped lines that point to your crotch), thanks to her low riding jeans. He only the other hand barely had a chin, was wearing a shirt that looked like his mom got for him from JC Penny and was wearing brown cords---with his wallet bulging in the front pocket. But she loved him. Every time he made a shot she’d clap her hands. But this has a shelf-life too. She’s a little too pretty and a little to open, as she began talking to some guy while he returned the balls to the bar. Hell, she saw us watching her and stopped to tell us about it (she was convinced the guy who tried to talk to her was gay) while he hovered impatiently. When we finally got a table I was reminded of why we hadn’t played in years: she kicks my ass. I’m not that good to begin with (pool is literally all about math and physics), but she owns her own cue stick. Never a good sign. But as time passed, I got better or she just got tired. Out of ten games I won four (as opposed to last time when I didn’t win any). Two clean victories and two because she blew it and sank the “8” ball before she was supposed to. But in my own defense another came I should have won I lost for the same reason. Of course this in no way alters the severity of my ass whupping by her hands. There were times I’d sink one or two balls and she’d just finish up. It’ll probably be another two years before we play again. She’ll be older, she’ll be slower and my time will come: at least a 50% victory!