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.