13,000 DAYS OF JENNIFER

1. Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince Wknd/$ 79.5 Total/$ 159.7
2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs/Fox Wknd/$ 17.7 Total/$ 152.0
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Wknd/$ 13.8 Total/$ 363.9
4. Bruno/Universal Wknd/$ 8.4 Total/$ 49.6
5. The Hangover/Warner Wknd/$ 8.3 Total/$ 235.9
6. The Proposal/Touchstone Wknd/$ 8.3 Total/$ 128.1
7. Public Enemies/Universal Wknd/$ 7.6 Total/$ 79.5
8. Up/Disney Wknd/$ 3.1 Total/$ 279.6
9. My Sister’s Keeper/Warner Wknd/$ 2.8 Total/$ 41.5
10. I Love You Beth Cooper/Fox Wknd/$ 2.7 Total/$ 10.3

ANGRYGEEK AND THE CONTINUING REJECTION OF BOY WIZARDS
Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince opens at number one and I am not a part of this cult nor will I ever be until the presence of children in my life forces me to. In other words: never.

MUDBONE: THE ANIMATED MOVIE
Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs holds at number two and the B and C listers doing voices here aren’t even worth my time listing. Remember when Dennis Leary was actually threatening to be edgy? Now he’s doing this. Everyone gets old, kids, but you can do it with some dignity. I find myself sadly glad Richard Pryor died before someone could throw money at him to do shit like this because you know he would have. Drug addicts who grew up in whorehouses don’t turn down money made this easily. Not to mention he didn’t give a shit what you thought of him.

IT’S NOT LIKE IT’S CALLED “REVENGE O’ DA FALLEN”
Transformers Revenge of the Fallen holds at number three and there’s a small controversy over the “racist” portrayal of a pair of Transformer twins who are clearly meant to be black (jive talking and one even has a giant single gold tooth). If you haven’t heard of it it’s probably because even the people offended by it realize that the entire movie is an offense to anyone with an IQ above room temperature. It’s all awful and this is just another part of it. It’s not like the movie is enjoyable except for that, like say Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. It’s just another odious aspect to an overall miserable experience.

REUNITED IN DEATH
Bruno is down to number four and if you want to see the Michael Jackson jokes, I guess you’ll have to wait until the DVD since they cut them in wake of his death. I’m not going to point out the full anal-sex scene will probably be restored as well, though I’m sure you see the irony.

HE’S STILL GREEN, BUT FOR OTHER REASONS
The Hangover is down to number five followed by The Proposal at number six and Bradley Cooper has got to be pissed about losing the role of Green Lantern to none other than Ryan Reynolds. I would have preferred Cooper myself, since Hal Jordan is meant to be a cocky fighter pilot, but not an obnoxious wiseass like Reynolds plays all his roles. Of course in a perfect world, a 30-something Nathan Fillon would have been Hal Jordan, because aside from Paul Newman, on whom the character was visually based, it was a role he was born to play. Here’s how strong this belief is amongst the geeks:



AND THE OUT-OF-NOWHERE CAMEO ROLE GOES TO…
Public Enemies is down to number seven and once upon a time Johnny Depp was going to be Speed Racer and that would have been some perfect casting. How we got from him to Emil Hirsch I don’t know. Also in this movie for some odd reason is Leelee Sobieski (whom I mistook for Chloe Sevigny). Yeah, that’s what I thought. She just shows up as one of the girls who accompany Dillinger to his fateful movie trip. Guess she was just trying to get on Michael Mann’s radar for future work.

REPLACING MEGAN FOX IN TRANSFORMERS 3
Up holds at number eight, followed by My Sister’s Keeper at number nine and Abigail Breslin is clearly at the Nicholas Cage portion of her career, aka, “take the money and run.” She’s gotten the critical accolades in indie film and the Oscar nomination, so now it’s money for college with mainstream studio work with big stars. This disappointment comes after such less-than-spectacular work as Nim’s Island with Jodie Foster (whom I’m sure had some solid child star advice to give) and Gerald Bulter; No Reservations with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckart and Definitely Maybe with Ryan Reynolds, Rachel Weisz and Isla Fisher. It’s only a matter time before she’s in something from Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay.

INSERT JOKE ABOUT TRAFFIC ON A ONE-WAY STREET HERE
I Love You, Beth Cooper is down to number ten and right now someone is glad Heroes is getting an undeserved fourth season. And the writer of the book really doesn’t have many people to blame as he also did the screenplay. Of course, when Chris Columbus is your director you’re kinda doomed no matter what. I’m convinced the first movie this hack made is the best movie he ever made: Adventures in Babysitting.

THERE WAS 35 SECONDS OF SUSAN, BUT I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT
Not breaking the top ten is the highly overrated 500 Days of Summer, which is about the 500 days one guy spends thinking about a girl named Summer, before, during and after their relationship (if I did one it would be called 13,000 Days of Jennifer, considering it started when I was in the 7th Grade and won’t seem to fucking stop). Just as your mainstream romcom has its stupid clichés, so do your wannabe-different indie romantic comedies. There’s no “meeting cute” like in mainstream romcoms, but there are things like the painfully overused sardonic narration from the omniscient narrator. When done well, you get things like Mr. Jealousy and even The Royal Tennabaums (which wasn’t that great but the narration was used appropriately), but when the product of a lazy writer you get movies like this, because the narration isn’t consistent. It clearly pops up when they were unable to convey something otherwise. It’s a cheat like a montage. And don’t think there’s not one here either, because there is and it’s as conventional as it gets. It’s the “broken-hearted-person-pulls-themselves-back-together-by-focusing-on-work” montage and like any mainstream film, the character strangely doesn’t have to worry about money after quitting his job. The job, of course he was always over-qualified for, not following his true calling, which he does only in the wake of the break-up. It’s cliché after cliché with nothing really new thrown on top of them. Look, there’s a totally unexpected musical number (complete with an animated blue bird landing on someone’s shoulder) using a top 40 hit, but not an over known top 40 hit ‘cause we’re indie so it’s actually a type of hipster kitschy cool. Yawn. Even the jumping back and forth through time is a cliché and someone needed to watch Annie Hall again to see it done right. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a good actor when given good material but he can’t lift this above what it is and Zooey Deschanel has been an indie “it” girl for so long I can’t even remember why. Was it “almost famous” that gave her this cache that’s she’s never lived up to? All The Real Girls maybe? In either case, it was a long time ago to the point where other actresses are making a living just imitating her like Anna Friel in Pushing Daisies and she’s not really doing anything to set herself above it all.

I REMAIN COMMITTED TO MY NON-COMMITTAL
So, in my continuing non-training for this triathlon I will not participate in, I went to Bally’s Gym and got their 7-day free membership to try the pool to see how long it takes me to do 400 meters. Their pool is 25 meters so it was just a matter of timing 16 laps. I actually did it in about 10-15 minutes which was surprising given I paused after nearly every one and haven’t been in a pool in over a year. In fact, given how cheap the membership is (and probably cheaper for me given my job has discount I didn’t bother looking up) I may just join there so I can swim occasionally, because while I do miss it, the repetition of it reminded me why I stopped. Also, there’s a difference between this gym and Crunch and it ain’t pretty, literally. Crunch tended to get a lot of somewhat attractive people, while Bally’s…not so much. Imagine seeing the male cast of The Sopranos naked and you’ll have an idea of what I saw. Not to mention, the guys who wore bikini briefs at Crunch were clearly gay with the ripped bodies to match. These guys are clearly straight with the paunchy bodies to match. And brutha, please. Take off your fucking doo-rag in the sauna! But as much as I resent my body for its continuing betrayal of me, I have to admit it’s surprised me by not falling completely apart when I started running. I’m not nearly as crippled as I expected to be. Same with the swimming. I expected one lap to do me in, but I did about 30 before leaving. I’ve actually made modest concessions on what I eat and the worst part is seeing results to your effort is you just can’t quit because you want more. It doesn’t help seeing 50-something Billy Idol being all toned, or the guitarist for Def Leppard just as old and equally fit. If they can do that after all the shit they’ve done, I can keep from moving up a jeans size, right (or maybe not because lead singer Joe Eliot is one paunchy bastard). But with this new problems arise, like needing more workout gear, having more laundry to wash and multiple showers in the day is annoying as hell. Sigh. Apparently I only got the fat part and not the jolly part.

MANCHILD IN BON JOVI LAND
That disturbance you felt in the universe was me leaving the isle of Manhattan to visit a friend in New Jersey last week. Alas, the ideal realization of the quarterback and the cheerleader living happily ever after did not happen and with her kids being away with dad for a week, I went out to lend some support. I took the ferry out, which is the way to go to Jersey if you have to go. I actually missed the first one and killed an hour in a nearby bar where I met a nice couple visiting from South Africa who implored me to visit because it was so beautiful there. I must confess to being a typical New Yorker and tried to avoid conversation with them when they first tried to strike it up, but they were too nice and I was actually raised with manners so it was unavoidable. Though was was still enough me to leave as soon as my beer was done to wait in a nearby park. One funny thing about the ferry ride is that I was the only minority on it, which is difficult to do in NYC. Maybe it was just that I was riding it in the middle of the day, but I doubt it. And if you’re wondering about the boat staff, clearly you know nothing of Black people to think they’ve got jobs on the water. I hadn’t seen The Former Cheerleader in a few years and then she’d recently given birth to her second daughter, so I was initially looking for someone a bit heavier, which is why I missed the blonde with the rack waving at me the first time around. As it turns out she’s now teaching dancing at the very school where she learned as a girl so there’s something to that Dance Your Ass Off show. We’d met while working together so a good deal of our conversation was catching up on old gossip and who we’d spoken to recently. She was one of the girls I’d enjoyed discussing movie gossip with (Angelina Jolie Smile was one of the others) and she surprised me by not only agreeing with me that George Clooney was a bit of a douche for his taste in 20-something waitresses, but took it a bit further by saying his whole self-effacing routine was just that: a routine. The man knows he’s the shit, but is smart enough to try and hide it. She also pointed out that Bruce Springsteen never, ever denied boning that guy’s wife, just stating that his own marriage was strong. After buying wine for later---okay, so maybe we had a glass first---we went out to dinner on the ocean where nearby one godawful band was destroying songs like “Bohemian Rhapsody.” When I made note of an older gentleman with a cigar literally about a foot long in the company of an over-tanned blonde with gold lame heels, The Former Cheerleader informed we that this was where Soprano-land came to summer. Ah, Jersey. After dinner, our night was spent drinking and watching TV and movies. Former Cheerleader confessed to a love of reality shows and I introduced her to one of my favorites: She’s Got The Look (aka, America’s Top Over 35 Model) and she loved it immediately. Given that we both worked in movies and she’s seen pretty much seen everything I have, I was surprised to find out she’d never seen Mean Girls, which I’d brought with me along with The Thomas Crown Affair and Center Stage. It’s always fun seeing a good movie with someone who hasn’t. You get to experience things all over again, like the shock when the bus hits Regina George. Afterwards we watched The Thomas Crown Affair, which, like all my friends she loves. In fact, it’s part of the test to see if you’re worthy of knowing me. I also gave her a copy of the movie Fall, which is one of those movies I’m drawn to though it’s because I love to hate it. It’s from Eric Schaffer and if you know who that it is you know what you’re in for. Let me put it this way: you’d be hard pressed to find an ugly man presenting himself to be hot shit any great than outside of a porn movie where the fat old producer/director does all the scenes with young girls himself. He makes Woody Allen casting himself as the lover of Julia Roberts seem modest in comparison. But I watch it whenever it’s on cable and I always think of her because she’s the only other person in the world who even knows that movie exists, much less what it’s about (a married supermodel who falls for a cabbie).

SOMETIMES FRIENDS FIGHT

A recent conversation between my junk and myself:

Junk: Awright, mate. We’re leaving. (my junk is Cockney English)

Me: What!?! Why!?!

Junk: You bleeding know why! You make us ashamed to be here!

Me: I don’t understand.

Junk: Did you have to iron the slip, mate? Bad enough you picked out the dress and ironed that too, but the fucking slip!?!

Me: What? It’s part of the package. Do you know nothing of women’s clothing?

Junk: See? That’s what I’m on about! That’s why we’re leaving! Well that and all the bicycle bollocksing we’re getting.

Me: But I bought a new seat.

Junk: Maybe the arse liked it—

Ass: We do! Thanks!

Junk: ---but for us it’s the difference between being hit with a bat and being hit with a bat with a gel cushion. We’d rather not be hit at all. Whatever happened to swimming?

Me: Get over it. We’re biking now so I can still look down and fucking see you.

Junk: See us do what!?! We don’t do anything because you’re too busy ironing fucking knickers! We. Are. Out. Peace!

Me: It’s not like we didn’t get anything. We got pancakes.

Junk: Yeah, that’s really going to help you see us, fat boy. And until you start shoving them in your knickers what do we get out of it? You ironed a slip, my good son. And don’t think I didn’t see you picking out jewelry too.

Me: Did you also see that the request to iron was made by someone wearing only a towel?

Junk: Really? Oh. Didn’t know that.

Me: Really? You making an uninformed decision before jumping into action. How shocking. Like you haven’t been doing that to me since I was 12.

Junk: Hey, we’ve only got the one eye---

Me: Well, I’ve got two and they decided it was definitely worth a little ironing.

Junk: Okay, but this is the last time. I swear to Christ if we catch you washing hose in the sink with nothing to show for it, you’ll wake up and just find a note between your legs.

THE SUMMER OF DEATH
Death clearly is not taking a summer vacation claiming both Walter Cronkite and author Frank McCourt. But these aren’t so bad as Uncle Walter was 92 and Frank McCourt was 78, so they’d seen some life. And I’m pretty sure every time TMZ or Fox News came on, Walter Cronkite prayed for death.