JESUS THE VIKING

1. Paul Blart: Mall Cop/Sony Wknd/$ 21.5 Total/$ 64.8
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Wknd/$ 20.7 Total/$ 20.7
3. Grand Torino/Warner Wknd/$ 16.0 Total/$ 97.0
4. Hotel for Dogs/Paramount Wknd/$ 12.4 Total/$ 37.0
5. Slumdog Millionaire/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 10.6 Total/$ 55.9
6. My Bloody Valentine 3-D/Lions Wknd/$ 10.1 Total/$ 37.7
7. Inkheart/Warner Wknd/$ 7.8 Total/$ 7.8
8. Bride Wars/Fox Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 48.7
9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Wknd/$ 6.0 Total/$ 111.0
10. Notorious/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 5.7 Total/$ 31.8

LEFT HANDED PRAISE: FUNNIER THAN ADAM SANDLER
For some Paul Blart: Mall Cop holding at number one may signal the end of civilization, but as I said last week, I totally understand. Stupid. Fun. In a bad. Time. And apparently, though all appearances to the contrary, Kevin James didn’t make it, say, Adam Sandler stupid, which is why this almost tripled its budget in two weeks while Adam Sandler’s last film barely made it over its budget and it was a family film released at Christmas! Not that we didn’t already know whom to blame for I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry.

AH-OOOO/WEREWOLVES OF UNDETERMINED EUROPEAN COUNTRY…
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans opens at number two and this was nothing but a good time, better than the second Underworld film that’s for damn sure. This tells the full story of how the war between the vampires and the werewolves began, which was already briefly recounted in the first Underworld film. Not sure why we needed it again, but given that all the most interesting characters from the first film were dead by the end of it or just totally missing from the second, I can see why they decided to go back rather than forward. One of these characters was Bill Nighy’s Viktor, head of the vampires. In fact, the first ten minutes of the second film was also a flashback with him because they realized how much gravitas he brought to the film. Also missing from the second was Michael Sheen as Lucien, the werewolf king. Between the two of them they help to make this Romeo & Juliet story with werewolves and vampires better than that description would suggest. Also, the director of the first two films, Len Wiseman, left out co-writer Kevin Giroux from the second along with the character he played, Raze. He’s back in both capacities here and you realize just how valuable he was, because like the first, he recognized the need for lots of individual characters aside from your leads, something else the second film lacked. In fact the vampire/werewolf element is just an added bonus to what is a satisfactory medieval story with sword battles galore (people tend to forget Romeo & Juliet actually had no shortage of them). Rhona Mitra continues her ascension to science fiction and fantasy goddess playing the daughter of Bill Nighy’s character. Her resemblance to Kate Beckinsale is perfect and hopefully deliberate, because the very reason Beckinsale is adopted by Viktor is due to her resemblance to the daughter he killed. They even address this in the film, much to the delight of continuity fans like myself (not to mention correcting the flaw of the first film where she didn’t look like Beckinsale and was blonde). George Lucas needs to see this and learn how a prequel is done, as this doesn’t just recount a story you already know, but also throws new light on the characters and motivations contained in the later stories. What both Viktor and Lucien do and how they react in the first Underworld film takes on a deeper meaning after seeing this. Lucas could also learn not to waste time on the origins of a character he claimed was a throwaway and whose fan obsession he couldn’t understand (yes, Boba Fett, I’m looking at you).

DO YOU FEEL PROFITABLE, PUNK? WELL DO YA?
Grand Torino is down to number three and leave it to Clint to teach the kids how it’s done. $97M from a $33M budget. This was rumored to be his last acting role, but with a return like that in an economy like this, you can better believe Warner Brothers execs will be on their knees begging him to keep going.

SHOW THEM GOOD MOVIES AND LET THEM LEAD THE WAY
Hotel For Dogs actually rises to number four and that’s more of a threat to civilization than Paul Blart: Mall Cop because it threatens the kids and you know they’re our future.

WELCOME TO THE BANDWAGON
Thanks to Oscar nominations and an additional 800 screen roll out Slumdog Millionaire jumps to number five, so millions of people can now start whining, “It wasn’t nearly as good as people said it was.”

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SEE THE YEAR IN QUARTERS
My Bloody Valentine 3-D is down to number six and shouldn’t this have been released in February? So not only do the filmmakers need never to work again, but so the corporate heads who decided on the release date.

THE BLONDE NOT REALLY LEADING THE BLONDE
Bride Wars is down to number eight and do you think Candace Bergin offers any advice to all the younger blondes she winds up making films with about their potential future? I mean we’re talking Sarah Jessica Parker, Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow and now Kate Hudson. And nobody needs like more than Kate Hudson. Trivia: Meg Ryan has played her daughter twice, once 28 years ago in Rich & Famous and last year in The Women. See, knowing shit like that is why I can’t learn a new language. There’s just no more room at the inn!

COSTUME DESIGNER = SOMEONE WHO WATCHED HAPPY DAYS
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button pops back up into the top ten thanks to 13 Oscar nominations and 40 more screens---neither of them deserved. Okay, that’s not entirely true. All the technical nominations were well deserved. Everything else…not so much. I predict a non-technical shut out and by “predict” I mean “hope for.” Except for costume design. Those 50’s and 60’s outfits were smoking. Though how can you design clothes that actually existed.

ALREADY DEAD
Finally, Notorious closes out the top ten at number ten and also in this as Biggie’s mother is Angela Bassett who seems to be making a minor career out of music bios. Aside from this there was the Tina Turner bio pic she should have won an Oscar for and playing the matriarch of the Jackson family. Who’s taking bets on if she winds up playing Tupac’s mom too? No wonder she hates Halle Berry so much. She’s more talented, but doing TV and crap like this, while the beauty queen (literally) has an Oscar and the A-list career.

JESUS THE VIKING
Not breaking the top ten but soon to debut on The Sci-Fi Channel one Saturday night in the near future is Outlander, a movie with the greatest premise ever: Jesus leads the Vikings to fight an alien monster. Okay, not Jesus, but Jim Caviezel, the guy who played Jesus. And technically he’s an alien too. The alien race he’s at war with kills his crew and causes his ship to crash land on earth, where it then begins to feast on the Vikings. He then leads the Vikings to fight it. It’s The 13th Warrior (which I loved), Alien and Predator all wrapped into one. And maybe a little of the great 80’s sci-fi film, The Hidden. Now, this movie has been sitting on a shelf for about a year thanks to The Weinstein Company falling apart, but let’s face it: even during their Miramax days they’d let movies die this way. In any case, it was finally released in the US this week in about ten cities---none of which was New York. I was so pissed I did the unthinkable: I hopped on a train to New Jersey to go see it. And I’m not talking PATH, but NJ Transit. Out to Hamilton, where Angelina Jolie Smile lives. Of course she wasn’t in town this weekend (Happy Birthday!), but that’s okay, because I wasn’t there to socialize. I was on a mission. A geek mission. A little research online showed me the movie theater was just down the road from the train station. I arrived at 10:30 and at 11:00 had bought my ticket and was sitting in an empty theater for the 11:25 show. Out at 1:30 and I was on the 2:08 train back home. You know how I do! No, it wasn’t the greatest film in the world, but was definitely entertaining enough that I didn’t regret the effort I took to see it on the big screen. Sorry, but it matters. The budget wasn’t major, but big enough for them to make some use of it. I mean John Hurt, Jim Caviezel and Ron Perlman aren’t A-list, but they don’t have to do children’s films either. So they had money for a decent cast, sets, locations and specials effects and that’s lost on the small screen (yes, I’m still not part of the HD generation). And it was fun. It’s no surprise that some of the people behind this were also behind Lord of the Rings and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (also, Sophia Myles, who played Erica, the conniving blonde vampire from the first Underworld is here). One of the nice twists of the film is that Caviezel speaks to the people in terms of their own experience, telling them he’s hunting a dragon who sunk his ship, never once trying to explain he’s and the creature are both aliens. And the movie is just as much about him becoming part of the Viking tribe as it is about fighting the monster. Yes, characterization! There’s also the very novel twist in that the alien may be as much victim as anyone else. If there’s any problem I had with it, it’s that the Vikings…are kinda wussy. If you’ve seen The 13th Warrior you know those actors looked and conveyed the feeling of people who walked around with axes and swords cutting off heads. Caviezel and the others…not so much. Apparently there was no money in the budget for a “300” type of training. And the costumes weren’t great. Nothing really dramatic or inspiring. Just generic furs. Again, it suffers in comparison to the greatness that was The 13th Warrior---though ironically, this may actually be more historically accurate. The clichéd Viking names, however, Freya, Wulfric, Gunnar, Erik, where studio forced. You know, the same studio that all but abandoned the film?

DEATH, WILL ROBINSON! DEATH!

1. Paul Blart: Mall Cop/Sony Wknd/$ 31.8 Total/$ 31.8
2. Grand Torino/Warner Wknd/$ 22.0 Total/$ 73.0
3. My Bloody Valentine 3-D/Lions Wknd/$ 22.0 Total/$ 22.0
4. Notorious/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 20.5 Total/$ 20.5
5. Hotel for Dogs/Paramount Wknd/$ 17.0 Total/$ 17.0
6. Bride Wars/Fox Wknd/$ 11.7 Total/$ 37.5
7. The Unborn/Universal Wknd/$ 9.3 Total/$ 32.6
8. Defiance/Paramount Wknd/$ 8.9 Total/$ 9.3
9. Marley & Me/Fox Wknd/$ 6.2 Total/$ 132.6
10. Slumdog Millionaire/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 5.8 Total/$ 42.7

SHOP WELL OR DIE HARD!
Paul Blart: Mall Cop opens surprisingly well at number one, which is both disturbing and understandable. Disturbing well, because it looks like the biggest piece of mediocre crap imaginable. A parody of Die Hard twenty years later? You know this idea occurred to someone when he saw the movie as a kid and he’s been waiting his entire life until he could make it. But it’s also understandably at number one because it’s January and people are broke, cold and sick of three-hour downbeat Oscar-bait. They just want a short, stupid distraction and this looks like it more than fits the bill. I’ve never found Kevin James funny. I just haven’t found him offensively unfunny like so many others. He’s just…blah and this movie looks pretty much like that.

DON’T CHANGE A SCARE FOR ME/NOT IF YOU CARE FOR ME…
Grand Torino is down to number two, followed by My Bloody Valentine 3-D at number and I’m sadly old enough to remember when the original came out in the first big slasher movie trend of the early 80’s and even then it was purely second tier stuff. I guess they recognized this when they decided to add the 3-D effect. It didn’t even have a minor star cast going for it, whereas this has a few B and C listers out for a quick check. But I will give them credit for their ad campaign. Rather than push this as a straight horror flick, they pushed it as a good time date flick, which is what a really good scary flick has always been. Sadly, this ain’t one of them. Silence of the Lambs was one of them. If you didn’t get laid after that, you weren’t really trying. Or you’re really ugly.

THAT THIS SHARES A MOVIE TITLE WITH CARY GRANT BOTHERS ME TO NO END
Notorious opens at number four and as I was briefly trying to decide what was the most opportune time to see this and not get shot I realized I had no interest in seeing this. Seriously, I was never the biggest fan of Biggie when he was alive, so why should I risk my life watching his now? Not to mention since everyone but Biggie and Tupac are still alive, you can’t tell any unpleasant truths about them (unless you’re Lil Kim). I mean, let’s face it: Suge Knight probably had both Tupac and Biggie killed, but saying so will probably get you killed and pointing out that Puffy is a talentless asshole will get you sued. And who the hell thought this was an appropriate film to open on Martin Luther King Jr. Day Weekend before the inauguration of Barack Obama!?! Seriously, this is how you know there are no Black people in marketing at Fox. Well, no smart ones anyway.

DOGHOUSE FOR CAREERS
Hotel For Dogs opens at number five and also in this is Lisa Kudrow and do you think she misses 1995? I’m thinking she does. Don Cheadle too, because that was when he lit up the screen in Devil In A Blue Dress. Now, he’s just happy that Terrence Howard got bounced from Iron Man so he’ll never have to do shit like this ever again. Even for star Emma Roberts (daughter of Eric, niece of Julia) this is a step back after the attempted Nancy Drew franchise failed.

REMEMBER KIDS: LEONARDO DICAPRIO WAS ON GROWING PAINS
Bride Wars is down to number six, followed by The Unborn at number seven and what do these two films have in common? Stars from one of the worst TV shows ever, October Road. And I know this because I watched it devotedly. It’s like seeing the carcass of a cow on the side of the road on the way to work. You know it’s going to be awful, but every day you still look at it rotting and even when it’s gone you remember that horrible thing. Bryan Greenberg, who’s the fiancée of one of Anne Hathaway or Kate Hudson, was the star of the show and Odette Yustman the star of The Unborn was his love interest. This is a step down for him as he starred alongside Uma Thurman in Prime, while Odette (big points for refusing to change her name) has stepped up from being a girl who needed to be rescued in Cloverfield. But honestly, after October Road, they’re both lucky to be working at all.

OY, YOU SHOULD LIVE AND LET DIE
Entering the top ten at number eight is Defiance, continuing Daniel Craig’s list of movies where he plays a tough Jew who kills anyone who’d fuck with him for being Jewish and if Hollywood were really run by Jews don’t you’d think there’d be a million of these instead of us literally being able to count them? Now the mystery about this movie is why this was barely released in 2008 to get a little Oscar heat? I mean, it’s got a big star, it’s about the Holocaust which is almost guaranteed gold and it’s directed by Oscar baitist supreme, Edward Zwick, the man behind Glory, Legends of the Fall, The Siege, Courage Under Fire, The Last Samuraii and Blood Diamond…which means this is big, well-meaning movie that ultimately blows like all his big, well-meaning movies. By not even remotely trying to push this as something important (it would have had a Christmas release in that case, not December 31st), it shows that maybe people are finally catching on to how much he blows.

AFTER ALL IT’S NOT LIKE TRAINSPOTTING MADE SCOTLAND LOOK LIKE SHIT
Marley & Me is down to number nine followed by Slumdog Millionaire back in the top ten at number ten and the slight backlash against Slumdog Millionaire has begun. It seems some people (Indians) don’t like the slums in India being shown, especially by some Scottish dude. People don’t like their dirty laundry being aired by strangers. Black people do the same freak out here in America when white people make movies about slavery or race in general. Remember Spike Lee’s bitching about Stephen Spielberg directing The Color Purple? They’re conveniently ignoring this film is based on book written by an Indian guy. He didn’t create the story and he sure as hell didn’t create the actual slums they filmed. Here’s a thought: maybe it’s a zillion people living in poverty that’s your real problem.

DEATH, WILL ROBINSON. DEATH.
Death continues to hurt the geeks in the New Year as Bob May, the voice of The Robot from Lost In Space, has died. He also did the voice for the big screen adaptation, which wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be, but not that great either. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine.

DRACULA RABINOWITZ

1. Grand Torino/Warner Wknd/$ 29.0 Total/$ 40.1
2. Bride Wars/Fox Wknd/$ 21.5 Total/$ 21.5
3. The Unborn/Universal Wknd/$ 21.1 Total/$ 21.1
4. Marley & Me/Fox Wknd/$ 11.4 Total/$ 123.7
5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Wknd/$ 9.5 Total/$ 94.3
6. Bedtime Stories/Disney Wknd/$ 8.6 Total/$ 97.2
7. Valkyrie/UA Wknd/$ 6.7 Total/$ 71.5
8. Yes Man/WB Wknd/$ 6.2 Total/$ 89.4
9. Not Easily Broken/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 5.6 Total/$ 5.6
10. Seven Pounds/Sony Wknd/$ 3.9 Total/$ 66.8

YOU FEELING LUCKY, WHIPPERSNAPPER?
Grand Torino (a.k.a, Old Dirty Harry) hops to number one as it finally enters wide release and if you noticed a dearth of old people on the streets this weekend, this is why. They were seeing the ultimate “you damn kids get off my lawn” movie, only he gets to shoot those “damn kids.” And it’s not just me. The movie fully acknowledges its cranky old armed man aspect by using that line. Given that I’m slowly settling into my cranky old man phase (which is much more socially acceptable than my cranky infant phase, cranky toddler phase, cranky prepubescent phase, cranky teen phase, cranky young man phase and cranky middle aged man phase), you’d think I’d have long since seen it, but I’m dragging my feet with all the overly long, downbeat Oscar bait and Eastwood’s movies (he also directed this) are known for their laconic nature. It’s gonna have to get some nominations to get me into it and maybe not even then.

MAIDEN HELL
Bride Wars opens at number two and this looks bad even for a January release and the critical responses back it up. Then again, who doesn’t know by now that if Kate Hudson’s in it, it sucks. Almost Famous was it. Somehow she sucked Anne Hathaway in to her web of mediocrity and wasted talent. I’m thinking she was just looking to do something upbeat (and well-paying) after the dark turmoil (and no money) of the indie Rachel Getting Married. Then again, maybe her ex advised her to do it. She’d better hope this isn’t her Norbit, the movie that sours the various award giving bodies. What’s especially sad is that two women are credited on the screenplay. Then again, being Black I understand how easy it is to be your own worst enemy at times. I mean, does the show Bridezillas do so well that someone thought you could make a movie about a warring pair? Who wants to pay to see not just one annoying bitch, but two!?! No to mention none of the jokes in the trailers are funny. You’d think the law of averages would give you at least one, but no. You know how this would really work? If Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway were best friends united against another woman who’d stolen her wedding date that way you get an angry bride but one who is somewhat sympathetic. But no one asked me, which is why most movies suck.

BUT WHERE ARE THE JEWISH VAMPIRE MOVIES?
The Unborn opens at number three and no that is not Megan Fox. It’s Odette Yusman, the answer to the question, “Can we get a less-slutty looking Megan Fox?” This is a rare entry into the Jewish horror genre (and only the third that I know) as the evil is a demon from Jewish mythology. Now, I don’t do the scary, but the idea of a Jewish demon unleashed because of what the Nazis did to them is interesting and it’s surprising that it hasn’t been done before. But this also written and directed by David Goyer, who wrote and directed Blade: Trinity, and that tells you all you need to know. Yeah, he wrote the good Blade movies too, not to mention both recent Batman movies (which would explain why Gary Oldman is here), but you know they’re all still filled with really crappy lines inexplicable bad moments at times and would probably have more if he were in control. Like here.

EMBARRASSING OTHER CELEBRITY KIDS THE WORLD OVER
Marley & Me is down to number four, followed by The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at number five and also in this in a scene-stealing role is Jared Harris, continuing his career of scene stealing supporting roles as the sons of Richard Harris are wont to do. He plays the captain of a tug boat with dreams of being an artist, becoming a surrogate father of sorts for Benjamin when he becomes part of the crew. He takes the technically teen Benjamin to a whorehouse as well, where Benjamin unknowingly actually runs into his biological father who subsequently takes him for his first drink. Solid role models everywhere.

IT’S NICE TO HAVE A PARTNER WHO SHARES YOUR INTERESTS
Bedtime Story is down to number five and here is where I’d begin my rant about Keri Russell being too young (not to mention pretty) to play the love interest of Adam Sandler in this movie, only it was Adam Sandler’s wife who suggested he choose her after she saw Russell in Waitress. Of course Sandler’s wife is a decade his junior and pretty, so I guess it makes an odd sort of sense

EVERYONE IN THIS IS WONDERING WHEN THEY’LL WORK NEXT
Valkyerie is down to number six and this was directed by Bryan Singer, and while they’re dancing around it, the billion dollar gross of The Dark Knight and announcement they’re going to reboot the Superman franchise from scratch has pretty much insured that Singer is not coming back as the director. Maybe this time they’ll actually take time to read the fucking script too, because it’s not that Superman Returns wasn’t well made, it was just poorly written. Superman as a baby daddy simply does. not. work. Not to mention he otherwise Xeroxed the plot of Superman The Movie, a plot Singer was never shy of criticizing.

GNAWING ON MY BONE OF CONTENTION ONE MORE TIME
Yes Man is down to number eight and this I will criticize for pairing forty-something Jim Carrey with twentysomething Zoey Deschanel. I have to ask, did every actress over 35 have something better to do than read for this film or were they simply not asked at all? I think we all know the answer. Did he miss that his last $100M+ films---Bruce Almighty and Fun With Dick And Jane---gave him Jennifer Anniston and Tea Leoni as age appropriate partners?

JESUS WANTS YOU TO BE A FOOTBALL WIDOW
Opening at number ten is Not Easily Broken and this is yet another one of those movies that succeeds because church groups go to see them. Basically, no one you know or would want to know, but if you’re Black expect a relative or two to sing its praises. A lot these seem to stink of trouble that gets solved once a Black woman learns her place. Even the commercials for this are about how she’s not appreciating him. It’s rarely about a woman whose man learns to appreciate her. You’d be shocked at how traditionally conservative both Blacks and Latinos people can be while all the while making jokes about how uptight White people are. Hell, just ask the gay populace of California about Proposition 8. They found this out the hard way.

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER
Finally, Seven Pounds closes out the top ten at number ten and also in this is Woody Harrelson, who actually used to star in movies. What were we thinking to let that happen? One of these movies was The Cowboy Way, which turned up in a calendar about movies in New York I was going buy and was pretty much the reason I didn’t buy it (I vetoed a second straight year of Star Trek and instead went with Bond, James Bond). What makes this especially sad is that this calendar comes from the New York City Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting. Now, out of all the classic films shot in New York, how the fuck does The Cowboy Way make it onto your calendar!?! I mean, who the fuck thinks Marilyn Monroe on a subway grate, Audrey Hepburn in front of Tiffany’s, John Travolta walking through Bayridge and Woody Harrelson on the Brooklyn Bridge? Whoever they are, they need to be fired and I should be given their job.

IT’S A HARD KNOCK LIFE DESI STYLE
Out of the top ten but sure to return is Slumdog Millionaire. I finally saw it and “Dickensian” is the best way I can think of to describe it. After all, it’s a story about an orphan and his brother who survive in one of the most crowded cities on earth on pluck and verve and no shortage of mildly activity. It wouldn’t take much to transfer this to turn of the century London, but of course then you’d lose the whole “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” aspect of it all, which serves as the framing device for the story. While being interrogated for cheating on show, he tells the story of his life, which is filled with experiences that bring him the knowledge he’s employing. It’s not new by any stretch of the imagination, but so well executed you don’t mind it, even if it reduces the role of the female love interest to merely to be saved by him. Though she’s survived all the same experiences he has (if not worse) she seems to be carried along by the currents of life while he and his brother are swimming. And do I have to tell you, that one brother is good while the other is bad, but even through fights and betrayals their bond stays true? This has quickly become the movie to see in the Awards season and bears the rare distinction of being a well-done feel-good movie. But if I’m running tourism in India, I’m not happy. I mean, it opens with the police torturing him and we then follow his life growing up in one of the worst slums in the world, filled with gangsters who deliberately blind children so they’ll make more begging on the streets. No one is making vacation plans there after seeing this. It begs the question why the world isn’t filled with gangsta Indian rap. “R.R.E.A.M/Rupees rule everything around me/Get the money…”

TATTOO YOU
Remember when I said I kept seeing beautiful people jogging and rollerblading as I rode around the city? Well, this being NYC, it’s not a stretch to imagine some of them are professionally so, especially if they’re tall and thin. One such person was jogging on the Lower East Side, and stood out not simply because of her looks, but the large dragon tattoo on her ankle. This means I was hardly surprised to see that tattoo again on the cover of Tattoo Life magazine or to look inside and find out she’s a model named Sophie Miester (though she’s studying to be an actress at Strasberg here in New York). Amongst her other tattoos, she not only has her initials tattooed at the base of her spine, but something on her belly that pretty much goes all the way down to her vagina. Her agency must love that (it both thrills and frightens me). She has no choice but to try to find acting work, because she’s severely limited her modeling options, Photoshop not withstanding.

MEET THE NEW GEEK, SAME AS THE OLD GEEK

1. Marley & Me/Fox Wknd/$ 24.1 Total/$ 106.5
2. Bedtime Stories/Disney Wknd/$ 20.3 Total/$ 85.4
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Wknd/$ 18.4 Total/$ 79.0
4. Valkyrie/UA Wknd/$ 14.0 Total/$ 60.7
5. Yes Man/WB Wknd/$ 13.9 Total/$ 79.4
6. Seven Pounds/Sony Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 60.0
7. The Tale of Despereaux/Universal Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 43.7
8. Doubt/Miramax Wknd/$ 5.0 Total/$ 18.7
9. The Day The Earth Stood Still/ Wknd/$ 4.9 Total/$ 74.3
10. Slumdog Millionaire/FoxS Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 28.8

BAD DOG!
Marley & Me holds onto the top spot and this is a total “three strikes and you’re out” movie for me. Strike One: I hate Owen Wilson. I always have and I always will. He plays that same stoned Texas surfer dude in every movie, but in none of them has he actually been a stoned Texas surfer dude! Strike Two: Jennifer Anniston has yet to make a movie I’m even remotely interested in seeing, period. Everything she does looks so…”safe.” Not to mention, mediocre and this is no exception. A story about a dog who causes nothing but trouble, but they love him. I can understand why it was bestseller and why people are going to see it, but at the same time how the hell was this a best seller and why are people going to see it!?! I guess the answer is the same: they want to see a reflection of their own beloved pet. Well, I love dogs like anyone (cat people are freaks, plain and simple), but evidently my twentysomething years since last having a pet has hardened me, ‘cause I could give a crap about ever seeing this movie, on screen or even on cable. Which brings us to strike three: I don’t care for big goofy-ass dogs like this. I either want the dog tougher (German Shepard, Great Dane) or smaller and smarter (Jack Russell or Boxer) or even painfully cute (Cocker Spaniel), but this big WASPy dog just leaves me cold. I’d even prefer the uber-Yuppie dog of a Labrador Retriever.

I DO NOT THINK FUNNY MEANS WHAT ADAM SANDLER THINK IT MEANS
Bedtime Stories holds at number three and Adam Sandler also annoys the shit out of me, so this is also a no-go, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the idea of it all wasn’t a little appealing, but that’s only because The Princess Bride left such a great impression on all of us. Not to mention the great anthology episodes of the The Simpsons. But in the end, if Adam Sandler is in it, then it probably sucks. This philosophy has served me well over the years, so I think I’ll stick with it.

WILL YOU NEED ME, WILL YOU STILL FEED ME WHEN I’M ONLY FOUR…
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button holds at number three and this is a serious type of Oscar bait movie as we follow someone “special” as they move “through the ages” allowing Award-worthy displays of costumes, make-up and hopefully, acting all shot through a golden hue. Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it’s about a man who is born old and grows younger as he ages and a great make-up job is done, not so much on Brad Pitt because it’s mixed with special effects and other actors, but on Cate Blanchett who goes from her twenties to her sixties very convincingly onscreen. And honestly, I get that’s a young Brad Pitt. Using CGI to stick that little mark under his eye onto a baby, was unnecessary and frankly distracting. Ultimately, however, how it all looked is all you take away from this. I’ve never liked David Fincher as a director for this very reason. He’s big on looks and style, not so much with story and content. The story of two people going in different directions and ultimately only have one brief moment in time to meet in the middle should be gloriously sad and romantic, but all I remember from that time in the movie is just how awesome fashions were in the 50’s and 60’s, especially the casual styles on display here. Seriously. We may have just peaked during that period. And when you stick people who look like Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett into them, it’s just fashion candy. It also falls into the old rule of you can’t tell the story of “special” person as they move “through the ages” without the loving support of a Black person. In this case it’s the woman who adopts the in elderly infant. She just happens to be running a nursing home and cannot have children of her own, so not only does she know better than anyone how to see to his needs, she’s in burning need of a child of her own. Also, because this is kind of a “feel good” movie, you’re not going to see any sort of racism even here in 1920’s New Orleans, much less later. Later, his mother does manage to have a child of her own, a daughter, and if you think she’s going to play a part in his life as he grows older/younger, think again. She kind of disappears. This is especially odd when you see how Benjamin grows to see the tenants of the nursing home as part of his family. Also the pacing is off. Given the meat of the story is the fleeting, yet lifetime love between Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, far too much time is spent on Brad Pitt without her, especially as a child. This limits the time they ultimately do spend together when they “meet in the middle” of their lives…wearing all those great clothes. Again, when it inevitably ends, because he’s going to ultimately become a child, it should have been heartbreaking, but instead you’ve long since become annoyed about the senseless use of Hurricane Katrina as part of the framing device for the movie (Cate Blanchett’s character is dying and her daughter is reading Benjamin’s diary to her in the hospital as the storm approaches). I mean, it was a major fucking tragedy and you’re using it for this lightweight movie for no discernable purpose?

I DON’T THINK THERE’S A POLISH TRANSLATION OF “GOOD NAZI”
Valkyrie holds at number four and this looks like one of those big-budget World War II movies they used to make in the 60’s and 70’s when everyone from Clint Eastwood to Richard Burton made them. I half expected to see Donald Sutherland turn up somewhere in here, but this is only about the Nazis and we know who makes the best Nazis: the English. Tom Cruise has surrounded himself with top English talent, which makes me think they must also all be kind of short. Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Terrence Stamp and even Eddie Lizzard are here. This tells the true story of when some of Hitler’s own officers turned on him and tried to kill him and it’s hysterical how they’re trying to sell this movie as if these guys were somehow a little more decent. Just because you’re not a genocidal nutbag, doesn’t suddenly make you good. They were otherwise fine with their world conquering and anti-Semitism beforehand. The problem is we know Tom Cruise just cannot be allowed to play a proper bad guy. Even in Collateral he wasn’t the bastard he need to be to really make it work (not that anything could have saved that stupid premise). I fear the same here and have no interest.

LIAR LIAR 2: PANTS ON FIRE
Yes Man is down to five and Jim Carrey has reached an apparent level of awareness in his career where he knows he’s just better off making versions of the same thing over and over again. He’s always made mediocre movies, but has learned what people will tolerate from him in a mediocre comedy, they will not abide in a mediocre drama or would be thriller. John Wayne and Clark Gable made new versions of their old films as they got older and now Carrey joins them in this variation of Liar Liar. Funny, but when you think about it, going back even to The Mask but his biggest hits all have some metaphysical twist to them, be it magical totems mystic wishes or God himself. I’ve never found Jim Carrey funny so I don’t see his movies and this is no exception.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON SYNDROME
Seven Pounds is down to number six and can Will Smith take a freaking vacation!?! He’s releasing a new movie like every 3-4 months. In the space of a year it’s been I Am Legend, Hancock and now this and given neither of them were classics, I’m not going to rush out and see this either. It looks like the second half of the title should be “…In A Four Pound Bag.” Yes, it looks like crap to me. So earnest and heartfelt…hell, the only thing they’re missing is a holiday setting. Maybe if they’d done that it would have opened at number one. Also, the fact that it’s some sort of “secret” as to why he’s doing this is simply not tantalizing. No one wants a mystery in a touchy-feely movie.

TOUCHE, MONSIEUR PUSSYCAT!
The Tale Of Despereaux is down to number seven and you know what they would have been better off making? A movie about that little white mouse in the Tom & Jerry cartoons who only spoke French! I’d rather see one of those cartoons than ever see this. The five-year-old in me thinks this just looks dull. But it pulled a better than average cast out to make a quick and easy dollar. Aside from animated voice mainstay, Matthew Broderick, there’s Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Kline, Frank Langella, William H. Macy and in an attempt to get the older kids, Emma Watson, who actually appeared as herself in some of the ads. See, little things like that show you they weren’t out to make a good movie so much as some quick animated kids cash by using a popular book. There was no real inspiration present.

“NO MORE TOUCHING THE BOYS!”
Doubt is down to number nine and while I worship at the altar of Meryl Streep, even I can see from the trailer’s she’s giving a Mommie Dearest type of over-the-top-performance which kills 99% of the motivation I had to see this. But I have to ask: has molestation by priests become the “holocaust” for Catholics to eternally mine for dramatic purposes because it seems like there’s a new one every time I turn around.

BUT YOU KNOW IF UNDERWORLD 3 IS TWO HOURS I WON’T BLINK
The Day The Earth Stood Still is down to number nine, followed by Slumdog Millionaire at number ten and this is something I know I have to see eventually, but the two hour running time is severely hampering my efforts. The call goes out: who will make me see all the overlong Oscar bait this season!?!

THE “JUST A BUM, WHICH IS WHAT I AM” SECTION OF THE VIDEO STORE
Not in the top ten as of yet, but one of the top Oscar bait movies is The Wrestler, which is one of those “lion in winter’ type films that the Academy just loves. It’s also a career revitalizer for Mickey Rourke in the title role of a professional wrestler twenty years after his peak still going at it because he just loves it so much. He’s sacrificed everything for it and now at the end is coming up with nothing. No money, no family and the first thing we see is him locked out of his trailer because he hasn’t paid the rent. The closest thing he has to a relationship is the kindness of middle-aged stripper, Marisa Tomei, who’s also in the “winter” of her own career. But none of this seems to matter so long as he can wrestle, so of course that seems to be over when he suffers a heart attack and has to have a bypass, resulting in a doctor telling him he can’t wrestle. This then causes the self-reflection and move to build a new life before it’s over that are the bread and butter of these movies. Of course he seeks out the daughter he’s neglected for most of her life. Of course he tries to build a real relationship with the stripper who’s a kindred spirit. Of course he tries to get more hours at his real job, sacrificing the thing he loves, but will he really be able to do it? Mickey Rourke puts the sacrifice of his own beauty he made years ago to good use here. To a certain extent he really isn’t acting, just playing himself in a different venue. As this is hardly a particularly new story in any way (a stripper with a soft heart? Why not just make her a hooker?), it really rests on the execution and the execution here is solid, coming from director Darren Aronofsky, so if you think it’s gonna be some Hallmark Hall of Fame touchy feely movie of redemption, think again. That they set it in New Jersey in winter lets you know they aren’t kidding around. This is a seriously hardscrabble life by practically everyone involved but nowhere is it every sentimental, patronizing or condescending. When Rourke and Tomei effuse lovingly over 80’s metal, you never feel they’re being mocked for it. Nor should they be. Who wouldn’t dance in a bar to Ratt’s “Round and Round”? Hell, who hasn’t?

THE FLESH WAS WILLING BUT…
Almost every year for literally the past quarter of a century I go home for Christmas and go to the movies with family and friends and I’d say about 24 of those have been crap. It’s a given: if we’re going to a movie a Christmas, no matter what it is, from indie work to Oscar bait to big budget event, it. will. suck. The only exception to this has been Dodgeball. Yeah. Exactly. This year was back to the rule as we made the trek out to see The Spirit. Now, I have to admit, I knew this was going to blow. Frank Miller has been sucking in comics for the past decade, so I sincerely doubted that he was going to suddenly redeem himself as a writer/director. In fact, he’s sucked as a screenwriter as anyone who sat through Robocop 3 can tell you. He got this gig because he co-directed Sin City. Given the other two co-directors were Robert Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino, there’s a big question as to how much “directing” he really did. Well, this answers that question, because without more experienced hands to guide him, he crashes and burns starting with interpreting The Spirit character like one of his damn Sin City books. I don’t expect the average person to know anything about The Spirit, but know this: this ain’t it. You could argue the character (which has been around for 60 years) varied in style and content from humor to pathos to noir to action so it’s open to varied interpretations, but still this is wrong and stumbles right out of the gate by changing The Spirit’s outfit from blue to black. Miller insists that this is what Will Eisner really wanted but the printing of the time wouldn’t allow for black to work. “cough-cough” BULLSHIT. Eisner was a smart and tough man and owned his character when others like Superman were being stolen outright from their creators. He totally controlled it up until his death a few years back and never did he change the color of the suit. The Hulk was supposed to be gray and not green but the printers screwed up, so it’s like Miller making the The Hulk gray for the movie and defending the change that way. And it’s downhill after that. The modest wattage cast does what it can with Miller’s anemic script, but to no avail. Let me put it this way: the high points of the film are the ass of Eve Mendes double and the goofy comic relief henchmen that villain Samuel L. Jackson literally creates in his lab---and I didn’t find the henchmen funny. And I also think she used a body double because that ass looked kinda flat.

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THE GAY GUEST HOUSE OR BI-SEXUAL ATTIC
My New Year’s Eve is usually spent hiding in my apartment from the chaos of Times Square just a few blocks away. This time however, I opted to go party with my Jezebels (again) in Brooklyn (again). This was the group I call “Jezebel A.” They were the core of the first group and have bonded more as their own group outside of the website. Also, if you’re aware of that sort of thing, they have more of the bigger “stars” amongst the commentators. In fact the #1 commentator on Jezebel was there and seemed very happy to meet me. Now, on Facebook where drinking and party arrangements are made, I don’t use my real name (I’m in contact with everyone from my past I want to be in contact with, thank you very much) and use either baby pictures or comic book characters as my avatar. She tells me she not only follows me on Jezebel when I comment, but has downloaded and collected all my baby pictures to go through. If she weren’t attractive, this would have been a tad creepy, but because she was, it gets a pass. To top it off unlike most of the other Jezebels I’ve met, she’s actually my age. Unfortunately, I thought she was one of the lesbian Jezebels (who made up such a large portion of the party the basement was called “The Lesbian Basement”) and didn’t spend a lot of time with her during the night. Did I mention she was from Canada and wouldn’t be hanging around anyway? Somehow, I find that a very appropriate representation of my life. It takes a special ability to totally blow a golden opportunity like that, but I’ve got that ability in spades. Watch me continue to display it into the New Year. So instead, I spent the bulk of my night drinking and dancing with the Hot Comic Book Girls whose very existence mocks me. There were no Hot Comic Book Girls when I was their age so to meet some now is just cruel. One of them is the girl with the Muscha painting and Dark Phoenix tattooed on her back and she has the knowledge of every dance step in every video ever. She also told me that her older brother and sister were actually in the Rob Base “It Takes Two” video. We wound up sharing dance steps when “Jungle Love” by The Time came up and unfortunately photos of this and more now pollute the internet. It’s not the dancing I mind but that I suffer from “dance face” which is second only to “sex face” in terms of sheer ugliness. The other Hot Comic Book Girl had just gotten off a plane from visiting family in India and jet lag combined with drinking led to her giving lap dances to pretty much everyone present, myself included. This is not to be confused with the bottle-between-boobs feeding drinks to others trick that the 5’10” glamazon delighted in doing (but not to me). But the highlight of my evening had to be the food. Yes, I’ve got strange priorities. Someone introduced me to the disturbingly delicious yet simple cheese on a cracker wrapped in bacon. I will never see my feet again, as I could eat this all day, every day. Then there was the cheese dip made by the girl from Arkansas, which involved lots and lots of Velveeta. So you can keep your potential Canadian one-night-stands, Hot Lap Dancing Comic Book Girls and Booze Dispensing Breasts, and leave me the bacon and the cheese. This bacchanal lasted until the wee hours. I myself didn’t even leave until a quarter-to-five and was greeted by a very New York sight in the subway: a drunk guy with a mannequin leg insisting that everyone autograph it. I was more at home with that than the sight of children on the train. Look, just cough up the dough for a babysitter or stay home, but even on New Year’s, no kid should be riding the train home with a bunch of drunks at 5:00 am!

APPARENTLY DEATH LIKES THE ROLL CALL AT THE OSCARS TO BE LONG
Death went on its typical end of the year tear claiming Van Johnson (whom I thought was long dead), Sam Bottoms and Nobel Prize winning author, Harold Pinter. But on the geek front it was major as Majel Barrett, Eartha Kitt and Bettie Page all died. Majel Barrett was best known as Nurse Chapel on Star Trek and the voice of the computers on Star Trek: The Next Generation. She later became Mrs. Gene Rodenberry (the creator of Star Trek) and has pretty much run the business since he died. Eartha Kitt was probably the most feline actress ever to play Catwoman, though she actually had a real career outside it---one she derailed by getting up in Ladybird Johnson’s face during a White House visit in the 60’s. And Bettie Page was perhaps the most famous pin-up girl ever. She received a new lease on life in the 80’s when artist Dave Stephens modeled one of his characters for The Rocketeer on her. Hipsters rediscovered her and Stephens was such a fan he became friends with Page and taught her how to continue making money off her image. See? It pays to be beloved by geeks. Please us once and we’ll take care of you forever.