GUNS AND 'RHOIDS

1. Knowing/Summit Wknd/$ 24.8 Total/$ 24.8
2. I Love You, Man/Paramount Wknd/$ 18.0 Total/$ 18.0
3.Duplicity/Universal Wknd/$ 14.4 Total/$ 14.4
4. Race To Witch Mountain/Disney Wknd/$ 13.0 Total/$ 44.7
5. Watchmen/Warner Wknd/$ 6.7 Total/$ 98.1
6. The Last House On The Left/Uni Wknd/$ 5.9 Total/$ 24.0
7. Taken/Fox Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 133.1
8. Slumdog Millionaire/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 2.7 Total/$ 137.2
9. Madea Goes To Jail/LGF Wknd/$ 2.5 Total/$ 87.2
10. Coraline/Focus Wknd/$ 2.1 Total/$ 72.8

I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE
Knowing opens at number one and “knowing” this came from the director of I, Robot and “knowing” it starred Nicholas Cage, I was suddenly “knowing” I’d be sleeping in and not wasting my time seeing it. Predicting the end of the world? Sorry, but unless the world actually ends, this will inevitably wind up just being more of the same old, same old. Not to mention, when the director (who obviously got lucky with The Crow, because everything since then has been disappointing) mentioned something about religion being a part of it I knew it was over, because if I wanted that shit I’d be watching the Left Behind series with Kirk Cameron. That was the real killer for me, because then it was no longer science fiction, but some sort of religious tripe under guise of science fiction and having recently endured that in Battlestar Galactica, I wasn’t about to pay for more. Honestly, I’d rather have seen National Treasure 3---and I have no desire to see National Treasure 3.

I’D LOVE YOU MAN…IF YOU WERE BETTER LOOKING
I Love You, Man opens at number two and you’d think a movie about a guy with all girl friends looking for a dude pal would have some resonance with me, but honestly I’m sick of all these man-boy movies. Yeah, yeah, I see the irony in me saying that, but my manchild behavior is limited strictly to my hobbies. I’m not spending hours with other dudes acting like I’m 14. I’m out shoe shopping, goddamnit. And as a guy with a lot of girl friends, I don’t understand why he’d need to have a best man anyway. Why not “Best Woman” or “Best Person”? Why does it have to be some dude he barely knows rather than a woman who knows him well? It pretty much dies right there with me. It actually goes against the very concept of his character that he’d even be doing this and if his fianceé was the one forcing it only him due to her concept of what a wedding should be, then she’d either accept his brother in the role or the movie would be about him falling for someone else because of his annoying, insecure fiancée. Also not helping this movie is that it’s both illogical and long. I’m not spending almost two hours in a mistake. But honestly, if it were at least two good-looking guys it might have made the cut, but Jason Segel is the other male lead I’m not paying money to see a guy I already ignore on TV. Role Models made me realize just how long we’ve been doing without good-looking guys in comedies since this whole Apatow trend started. Honestly, put Ashton Kutcher in his place and it might have opened at number one.

PRETTY ANNOYING WOMAN
Duplicity opens at number three and while I like Clive Owen and wouldn’t mind seeing him in something not so dark and gloomy for once, I’m not putting up with Julia Roberts’ horsy face and jackass laugh for it. Yeah, you heard me. Twenty years I‘ve put up with this moderately attractive, untalented woman being shoved down my throat as a great beauty with amazing talent and I’ve just about had enough. I thought she was retiring! At least when she made a movie with Tom Hanks there was no sense of loss, here it’s just painful to think of her wasting Clive Owen’s time and talent like this.

WHITE BREAD & MAYO VS. GARLIC BREAD AND RED SAUCE
Race To Witch Mountain is down to number four, followed by Watchmen at number five and what do these two have in common? Carla Gugino, who’s underrated TV show, Karen Cisco, I’m still waiting for on DVD. And a smarter director would have had her play the Malin Ackerman role and herself as a younger woman rather than stick her in lousy old age make-up and force us to endure Ackerman’s line readings. But you can’t ask your average white boy to choose between a curvy brunette in her 30’s and a skinny blonde in her 20’s. It’s no choice at all. I guess that’s why she’s also not going to be in the Night At The Museum sequel as Ben Stiller’s love interest. Methinks he finally learned her real age and decided the script “needed to go in a new direction.” Coincidentally, Malin Ackerman also played Stiller’s love interest in The Heartbreak Kid.

JR JR
Last House On The Left is down to number six and speaking of Julia Roberts, also in this is Monica Potter whose initial claim to fame as a “Hot Young Thing” was that she looked like a blonde Julia Roberts. She’s actually less horsy and prettier…for all the good it did her. Her career derailment was almost instantaneous, from the commercially successful but critically reviled Patch Adams, to Along Came The Spider, the sequel to Kiss The Girls which made the horrendous mistake of taking away the strong female co-star so integral to the success of the first. After that was a horrific romcom with Freddie Prinze Jr (Head Over Heels and yes, I saw it) and the next thing you know she’s back on TV and there she remains, currently on the basic cable show Trust Me and I’m still trying to figure out who is supposed to be watching it.

THE RICH, THEY DIE DIFFERENT THAN YOU AND ME
Taken is down to number seven and poor Liam Neeson. I can’t even rag on yet another rich person dying while skiing this is so sad. What’s ironic is that on the same day, a boxer suffered the same injury in a fight and like her he wasn’t taken to the hospital until he began complaining of headaches. The difference being, he was here in NYC and was at the hospital in minutes and they were able to save him. The doctor later remarked that if they’d waited half an hour longer it would have been too late. That’s how small a window of survival is.

THE REST
Slumdog Millionaire is down to number eight, followed by Madea Goes To Jail at number nine and Coraline closing out the top ten at number ten.

MY ASS? GLAD YOU ASKED…
There’s an ancient tradition in mythology and folklore about people asking for wishes and not being specific enough in the details and wind up suffering for it. After my brain bleed in ’07, I quietly wished for a year of good health. Well, fate took me at my word as three months into ’09 I developed a hemorrhoid the size of a golf ball and had to have it surgically removed. Apparently ’08 was my year and now we’re back to my deterioration. Now, the truth is, everyone has hemorrhoids, except they’re supposed to stay inside your ass and not cause you pain. Mine first began popping out sometime last year. No pain, just this odd anal protrusion that I couldn’t explain. I called The Lunatic, who is the mistress of anal issues (none in a fun way). She explained to me that was a hemorrhoid. It receded within minutes of every appearance so I gave it no thought. That changed last week when, after an uneventful toilet trip something large and painful popped out and showed no signs of retreating. I hoped it would go away while I slept, but it was there to greet me in the morning, even angrier. I found a modest relief in Advil and Preparation H, though the latter’s effect is so slight and it’s so ridiculed amongst sufferers I can’t understand how it remains in business. I even went to my kung fu class, because there’s a funny thing about pain; sometimes it hits a level where it just becomes numbing. You acclimate and just keep going. I tried some homeopathic relief but that just served to strengthen my disregard towards that way thinking. Give me guys in white lab coats over hippies with boiled roots any day. What finally broke me was taking a dump after my kung fu class. I was in so much pain I felt my legs go numb. I’d finally reached a level where acclimation was simply not possible. First thing Thursday I called my doctor to see if I could get an appointment. I got one for 12:15, but didn’t see him until almost one because I was a squeeze in. He’d already made a 2:00 appointment for me downtown with a proctologist based purely on the description I’d given him. See, I didn’t just have an external hemorrhoid, but an external hemorrhoid with a blood clot in it, which is why it was HARDENING and INCREDIBLY PAINFUL. Seriously, it looked like I was giving birth out of my ass. The proctologist saw it and almost immediately told me it had to come off and called the anesthesiologist to come over. So, I’d gone from doctor’s appointment at 12:15 to laser surgery at 4:00. While I’m sure being in Chelsea on all fours naked from the waist down in a room with three strange men being given drugs is just another Friday night for some, it was a heavy Thursday afternoon for me. But whatever painkillers they gave me for surgery should have come home. I literally woke up singing show tunes and felt fine, but the doctor quickly reassured, “That’s the drugs, darling. The pain is coming.” He gave me an “Anal Treatment Plan” which is a list of things I have to do every day to recover. They include Metamucil twice a day, stool softener three times a day, soaking in warm water 3-4 times a day, putting hydrocortisone on the wound 4 times a day and most importantly WEARING A MAXI PAD. Yes, today I am a woman. I go through three a day, changing them after every soak. I’m currently using Stayfree with wings, but I asked my women and Always got the big thumbs up. The pain had already stopped me from eating, but afterwards I lived in fear of that next dump, stool softener or no. I tried to keep my diet protein high and roughage free. Grilled chicken, no bread or salad. I lasted three days, but by Saturday night, it could not be denied. That screaming some of you might have heard was me. Expect to hear variations of it over the next month. But what bothers me most is that while the doctor attributed this to reading on the toilet, I’ve done that all my life with no problems. The only thing new over the last year that involves my ass are the hours spent riding my bike. Sigh. Figures. A type of exercise I genuinely enjoy, that gets me out of the house and it hurts me.

HAND ON THE GLOCK
Needless to say, I won’t be attending kung fu for a while but my break comes on a high note with my class: a field trip to a firing range. I suppose it’s the height of irony that my first experience with firearms comes through my martial arts class, but I like to think of it being honest an excellent dose of perspective. After all, from Day One I’ve been told by all my teachers that a wallet is not worth dying for. My first instructor even once told me a black belt was knowing “just enough to go and get yourself killed” so an outing to a shooting range by my martial arts class actually makes perfect sense. It helps that my sifu is a Federal officer (you find lots of cops in martial arts) so it’s not like he’s some gun nut preaching the gospel of firearms. I wanted to go because quite frankly I’ve got a bit of a fear of guns. I’ve no illusion about their raison d’etre and the power to do so in the hands of any idiot anywhere is a bit scary. But while I’m a liberal who believes in gun control, I’m a southern liberal and fully believe in the right to bear arms (the cornerstones to freedom are being well-informed and well armed, which is why these are our first two amendments, kids) but, this doesn’t make them any less scary to me, so I signed up to confront my fears. We were at the West Side Shooting Club, which is on 20th Street near 5th Ave, so “west” is very much a technicality. The range is in the basement and we met in one of the two classrooms for a brief class on gun safety, mechanics and stances beforehand. From there we went off to shoot with our weapons of choice. There were .22s, .32s, .38s, .40s and of course the 9mm. It was $20 for a box of shells and as it was my first time, my sifu recommended I start with a .22 and if I wanted I could try something else later, which 15 years of gangsta rap told me had to be the .9mm (“...’cause when I got my neener then you know I’m straight trippin’…"). Unfortunately, everyone was starting out and the .22 list became too long, so we were advised to move over to a shorter list. This is how I wound up with the .38 Smith & Wesson revolver. Don’t kid yourself. It’s a freaking cannon and it had quite a kick. Movies won’t be quite the same now that I know what a real gun sounds like and they have a scary noise to accompany a scary purpose. I did okay, but my first shot was so off the mark I almost took the target off the top hook (I’m sure the shaking of my hands had nothing to do with that). And I wasn’t alone. A few people shot their targets off for similar reasons I’m sure. On the other hand the girl who had visible erect nipples after getting her rounds did well and between kung fu and firearms, whomever she’s dating had better watch their ass. The 9mm list remained long so I decided my next go round would be with the .40, aka The Glock. Also, one of the other students did pretty well with it (and there’s no shortage of rap tunes about it either). I can understand why now. I did pretty well with the Glock, even scoring one dead center (for a dollar I got one of the human targets this time around and maybe that helped). No wild shots or big misses. Now this is irony: it slightly fueled my fear of guns even more. It was just a too well made a piece of destruction. Light, efficient and easy to use. Potential chaos and slaughter in the palm of your hand should that be your goal. Further irony? I kinda want one anyway. God forbid I’d have actually tried the 9mm. I’d probably be buying one in a backroom in Brooklyn or The Bronx right now. Actually, I have an uncle who’s a cop in Alabama, so I could probably just make a phone call and get it. We don’t shy away from getting guns for our loved ones in the south.

YOU DON’T SEE ME TALKING ABOUT “THE FORCE” IN CHURCH, DO YA?
So, geek life became a bit sadder this week with the end of Battlestar Galactica and…are you FRAKKIN’ KIDDING ME!?! God!?! Angels!?! Is that seriously the answer to all that’s happened over the last five years!?! I do not watch science fiction to be told at the end of the day, “God has a plan and is going to help you follow it” which is what all of this amounted to. There’s only one “god” in science fiction and that “god” is scientific knowledge. Imagine if the key to Captain Kirk’s success was “God told him to fire the photon torpedoes.” Or Ripley defeating the Alien because the android Bishop was actually an angel sent to help her. Or John Connor leading mankind to victory over the Terminators because of a plan that was in a dream god sent to him. Who the fuck wants to see that? In the end, Battlestar Galactica is basically the story of what happens to man when he tries to become god and create life. That life turns on him while emulating him and almost wipes him out, but “God” had a plan for this and it leads man to a new home to start over again. Oh, and he sends angels to help. It’s not mankind surviving by his own wits and intelligence over his experiment gone wrong. Oh, no. This has left such a bad taste in my mouth over what was easily one of the best science fiction shows ever put on TV, right up there with Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. At least on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (the creator of this new Battlestar Galactica was one of the producers of that show), the “gods” in the wormhole where actually just aliens. Here, it’s really fucking god. And the idea that they gave up all their advanced technology to start all over here 150,000 years ago is crap. Yeah, it sounds good until you remember a little something called MEDICAL SCIENCE!!! It’s why 50% of women don’t fucking die in childbirth the way they used to. It’s why measles, smallpox and polio don’t plague mankind. That people would give all that up it utterly ridiculous. Not to mention given their names were “Athena” “Hera” and “Apollo” what the fuck were they doing landing in Africa? They should have been in Greece, or at the very least, Northern Africa, not southwestern. But this is par the course with series finales. I’m still pissed how little Xander cared when Anya died at the end of Buffy. And don’t get me started on The X-Files…

GIMME BACK THAT FILET ‘O FISH/GIMME THAT FISH
I love McDonald’s Filet ‘O Fish. I’ve loved them since I was kid. I don’t even care if there’s little likelihood of there being fish in it. Two Filet ‘O Fish sandwiches, a large fries and a large strawberry milkshake and I was a happy camper. So yes, I’ve been there a few times this week during their 2 for $3 special. Until I remembered however cheap, I’m still poor, so for $5 I bought a bag of filets at the grocery store. But it’s not the same. Sigh.

STUCK IN AN ALBUM YOU JUST CAN’T GET OUT OF
Okay, there’s no two ways around it: the new U2 album blows. It’s boring, depressing and it blows. It’s so sad. This is going over on the shelf next to Pop, their last album of all suck. But hey, it’s only two in over 25 years. That’s not too bad.