1. 17 Again/Warner Wknd/$ 24.1 Total/$ 24.1
2. State of Play/Universal Wknd/$ 14.1 Total/$ 14.1
3. Monsters Vs. Aliens/DreamW Wknd/$ 12.9 Total/$ 162.7
4. Hanna Montana The Movie/Disney Wknd/$ 12.7 Total/$ 56.1
5. Fast and Furious/Universal Wknd/$ 12.3 Total/$ 136.7
6. Crank: High Voltage/LionsGate Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$ 6.5
7. Observe and Report/Warner Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 18.7
8. Knowing/Summit Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 73.7
9. I Love You, Man/Paramount Wknd/$ 3.4 Total/$ 64.7
10. Haunting in Connecticut/LGF Wknd/$ 3.2 Total/$ 51.9
LIKE FATHER LIKE SON HE’S VICE VERSA BIG AT 18 AGAIN ON THIS FREAKY FRIDAY
17 Again opens at number one and it’s time to face facts: the youth/adult body switching genre is here to stay. Basically it’s a sub-division of the high school movie genre and that will never die because everyone goes to see them. Kids because they’re in high school and adults since they were either traumatized either by high school or by being forced to leave it. This taps into both fantasies; going back with what you know now to be cool or returning to the last time in your life when you were cool. And the kids are there to see Zach Efron, who takes his first step towards being a real star and separating himself from Chace Crawford, who is actually prettier in my opinion because he doesn’t look like a brainwashed cult member. Little girls may like that bright-eyed look, but it’s scary to adults. You look like you’re just seconds away from forcing them to take the seminar that changed your life and only cost you $40K. This movie could easily be Big 2: Electric Bugaloo, because it’s the basic set-up: a wish engineers a body change, only this time it’s from old to young (or 18 Again with George Burns) and there’s a little Back To The Future because now he’s got to help out his family, in this case his son and daughter. It also makes me think of a great little underrated movie called Plain Clothes where a cop goes back to high school to clear the name of his younger brother who has been arrested. It had the same joke about him trying to dress like a teenager and blowing it, only to eventually become a cool kid (it also introduced me to the e.e. cummings poem “She Being Brand New”). Also, this wisely dismisses any chance of a romantic sub-plot, which is creepy no matter how a comedy tries to spin it. In retrospect, a 26-year-old Jon Cryer hooking up with 18-year-old (we hope she was 18) Annabeth Gish in Hiding Out was all kinds of wrong. And that he winds up with her at the end in college? Ewwww. Likewise the teacher who is strangely attracted to this seemingly mature student. Even when the truth comes out, there’s still that little matter of YOU WANTED TO BONE ONE OF YOUR STUDENTS! Because I’ve obviously seen so many of these things both good and bad, I could tell this wasn’t going to be one of the better ones. Not to mention, on the best day of his life, Matthew Perry never came close to looking like Zach Efron. Ironically enough, Matt LeBlanc did kind of look like him in his pretty boy prime and would have been a better choice.
THE PARALLAX VIEW OF ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
State of Play opens at number two and this is notable for being a honest-to-goodness grown up type movie not being released to win Oscars. Seriously. When do you usually see movies like this? The fall. Never the spring and god forbid summer. But I can understand why. I had to force myself to see it. Thankfully, it just had too many notable actors (Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, Jeff Daniels, Robin Wright Penn) in it for me to overlook. Not to mention, Rachel McAdams works so damn infrequently you have to see her when you can. This is a remake of a BBC mini-series, so there was the danger of losing impact due to its necessary compression to two hours. I never saw the mini so I don’t know what was lost (though Bill Nighy in the Russell Crowe role must be all kinds of awesome), but this is pretty well done and moves briskly for two hours. I never felt bored or a lull, so sometimes maybe less is more. Unfortunately, I also never felt for one second that Ben Affleck and Russell Crowe were contemporaries (they’re supposedly college roommates). Oddly, Affleck should have gained a little weight the way Russell Crowe obviously did. Though Affleck is in his mid-30’s, he looks like a boy standing next to a man. And Robin Wright Penn is his wife? I want to give them big points for casting an older woman and calling them contemporaries like they do with men all the fucking time, but it’s a problem here for the same reason it’s a problem there: you don’t believe it and it pulls you out of the film occasionally. The movie begins as a murder mystery and quickly becomes a political suspense thriller like the 70’s, when a murder Russell Crowe is reporting on becomes linked to the death of Ben Affleck’s aide and apparent mistress. The movie has some nice twists and turns and understands even though you’re talking about the gravest of matters humor is still present. In fact, it’s the people who deal with the heaviest situations that joke the most. This is why 99% of all indie dramas suck ass. No one smiles. Ever. This could also be a lesson on how to deal with the war. They’re clearly taking a point against corporations making money off the war (can you say “Blackwater”) but it’s just the backdrop of the movie. Be glad Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond, Last Samurai, Glory) dropped out of directing or it would have been a half hour longer, totally humorless and filled with painful liberal whining masquerading as courage. At least here when someone makes something resembling a speech, another character calls them on it, pointing out that it’s bullshit covering for utter selfishness.
MOOKIE WOULD BE UPSET
Monsters Vs. Aliens is down to number three, followed by Hannah Montana: The Movie down to number four and Fast & Furious down to number five and this is the first Fast & Furious movie not to give a job to an R&B star. In the first we had Ja Rule. In the second, Ludacris because Tryese’s musical career peaked with that Coke commercial he did. In the third, Lil Bow Wow was the minority sidekick. Here, no one gets to moonlight and it’s proof that you don’t need them, something that will bring a smile to the faces of Samuel L. Jackson and Nia Long. Ironically, playing the small roles that probably would have traditionally been assigned to bruthas (criminal contact, FBI agent working with Paul Walker) are Asians. Why? Because it’s directed by Justin Lin, that’s way. Looking out for his own and I ain’t mad at him. That’s what you’re supposed to do. He even includes Sung Kang in his role as Han from Tokyo Drift, explaining how that fits into the series (though not why they thought having an ugly male lead in Tokyo Drift would work).
GRAND THEFT AUTO: THE TRANSPORTER
Opening at number six is Crank: High Voltage and this is essentially a movie version of Grand Theft Auto as made by people who learned filmmaking from YouTube. There’s just no other way to put it. The first was disappointing because it tried to be an action movie of sorts and failed. This is a total so-far-over-you-can’t-even-see-the-top comedy that it succeeds. You know what you’re getting when the last few seconds of the first film---where Jason Statham falls to his death from a helicopter---are recreated through the use of 8-bit video game graphics, complete with Statham kicking the other guy in the crotch. From there his body is harvested by the Chinese Mobs and he only gets up when they’re about to chop his dick off. Then we’re back on the same stream of mayhem like the first, where he beats or kills anyone standing between him and the heart that’s been stolen from him, and like the first he needs to artificially be kept at a certain level to stay alive. The first time it was heart rate, but that’s obviously missing this time so he has to use whatever means necessary to physically charge the battery in his artificial heart. This ranges from jumper cables on his tongue to tazering himself to yes, another public sex scene in front of a crowd with Amy Smart (static energy, natch), complete with numerous positions and pixilated body parts. It’s as if due to the greater charge needed, the outputs are proportionately higher. Before he’d just kill or beat someone up; this time he greases up a shotgun with motor oil and shoves it up a man’s ass. And that’s just in the first five minutes. After that you’ll see a gun toting stripper leaking silicone after she’s shot through her breasts, a man get his elbow chopped off, Bai Ling (hysterically sub-titled) hit a man in the balls with a bicycle until they bleed and a gang banger chop off his own nipples as way of atonement. Then there’s the gay sidekick (the brother of the first sidekick) whose plans for revenge are regularly sidelined by “fully body Tourette’s”; the gay leather biker gang he calls in to help, the porn star strike, more gun-toting strippers and hookers and a flashback/delusion where we see Statham as a kid on a talk show with his mom, as played by Ginger Spice herself, Geri Haliwell. It’s not for everyone, but if this type of deliberate cartoon mayhem is your speed, you’ll probably love it. Right now I’m sure Quentin Tarantino is somewhere hailing this as a work of genius.
HE MADE YOUR HEART SING
Observe and Report is down to number seven and how sad is it that Ray Liotta is in this? I don’t think his career ever recovered from the one-two punch of Operation Jumbo Drop and Turbulence. But they’ll never take Something Wild and Goodfellas away from him.
IF ONLY I KNEW
Knowing is down to number eight and now that I know the ending to this movie, I’m doubly glad I didn’t waste a second of my life on it. Hell, I’m even annoyed that I read the full movie synopsis spoiler rather than just jumping to the last paragraph.
AS HE LOOKED UPON THE BREADTH OF HIS EMPIRE ALEXANDER WEPT FOR THERE WERE NO MORE WORLDS TO CONQUER
I Love You Man is down to number nine and let’s total this up: Judd Apatow’s wife is in 17 Again, Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan are in Monsters Vs. Aliens, Seth Rogan is in Observe & Report and Paul Rudd and Jason Siegel are in this which was written and directed by a former director for Apatow’s show’s, Undeclared. Who’s your daddy now, bitchez?
THE END
The Haunting in Connecticut closes out the top ten at number ten.
MORE NEWS FROM MY ASS
So, a month has past and I needed to see my doctor to get my ass checked. Apparently the groundhog living there popped its head out and there’s going to be six more weeks of ass-soakings, maxi-pads and anal cream. Sigh. But I’m not suffering alone. I’m taking you fuckers down with me. If I can’t ride my bike on a beautiful 76 degree Saturday afternoon, then the world will know my pain!
SOLE MAN
So, I bought another pair of shoes. A pair of all black (sole and canvas) PK Flyers. They were only $23, so don’t judge me, monkey.
DUDES DON’T DRESS AS WELL AND THEY SMELL BAD
You know how you laugh when you see Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist in The World is Not Enough or any of the movies or TV shows that has a stunningly beautiful forensic scientist (Men In Black, Bones, CSI, etc)? Well, you have to stop. There was another Jezebel drinking outing and I met this gorgeous, well-dressed woman who told me she was a forensic scientist. Not only that, but she does consulting work for all the various TV shows (she’s also black so no one tell my mom or I’ll never hear the end of it). Needless to say, what you see is borderline science fiction. The FBI has all the good stuff and her advice on how it really works is, “Don’t get killed unless you’re important.” There also was a woman in fashion who I’d met before, who bonded with her over being Columbia alums. Maybe a little too much, as there were jokes about Fashon Woman’s fervor after she left. But I understood. She didn’t like her job and had a day where she was essentially made the babysitter for a 7-year-old French girl because she spoke French. I found it sweet, but as her drink intake increased I could see she didn’t feel the same. She also didn’t care for the typical fashion look she had to maintain: all black, hair pulled back tightly. “Yes, it’s like a Robert Palmer video,” she told me. Again, I loved it because that’s how I view fashion, but I guess living it isn’t as much fun. Because of this when another attractive well dressed woman came in to take her to another party, I assumed she was in fashion as well. “Oh, no. I’m a scientist,” she told me. Out of nowhere I heard the cruel mocking laughter of fate reminding me of how I turned my back on being a science geek over 25 years ago: “So how’s that writing career going? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Thankfully, there was a girl there in an amazing lace dress that brightened up the rest of my night simply by looking at it. It reminded me of the dress Maria de Mederios wore at the end of Henry & June…and that in a nutshell is why I don’t have many male friends and drink with chicks.
AND THE GEEKS ARE 0 AND 2.
Aside from the loss of science fiction author JG Ballard to prostate cancer, there was also the tremendous loss of none other than Marilyn Chambers. The very first x-rated film I ever saw in my life starred Marilyn Chambers, so I can never understate her impact on me. She was a porn star in the 70’s where they threatened mainstream success in a way that wouldn’t be seen again for another 30 years. She also achieved a special notoriety because she was a model who appeared on an Ivory Snow box and the producers exploited the hell out of this. Ironically, she was one of the first ever in porn to shave herself, so while I could blame her for this current plague, I don’t because despite her success no one emulated her at that time. She also cursed me with one of the worst songs in the history of mankind that permeated one of her most famous films, Insatiable. Because she made porn when they actually shot on film, they had to have plots to beat the obscenity laws for better or worse (I say “worse” because you don’t want to see porn stars “acting”) and this led to delusions of grandeur by people involved who created actual soundtracks. “Sometimes love ain’t nothing but a misunderstanding between two fools” is on the soundtrack to my nightmares…as is the sight of John Holmes sodomizing her…which I sold off a few years ago during one of my many DVD purges.
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