1. District 9/TriStar Wknd/$ 37.0 Total/$ 37.0
2. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra/Paramount Wknd/$ 22.5 Total/$ 98.8
3. The Time Traveler’s Wife/Paramount Wknd/$ 19.2 Total/$ 19.2
4. Julie & Julia/Sony Wknd/4 12.4 Total/$ 43.7
5. G-Force/Disney Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 99.0
6. The Goods/Paramount Wknd/$ 5.4 Total/$ 5.4
7. Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince Wknd/$ 5.2 Total/$ 283.9
8. The Ugly Truth/Sony Wknd/$ 4.5 Total/$ 77.5
9. Ponyo/Disney Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 3.5
10. (500) Days of Summer/Fox Search Wknd/$ 3.0 Total/$ 18.0
A.W.A AND THEIR HIT “STRAIGHT OUT DA DISTRICT”
District 9 opens at number one and man did I ever need this because I don’t think I’ve seen a movie this good all summer long. Yeah, there were some nice ones (Julie & Julia), some fun ones (Wolverine) but nothing I’d call truly “good” until now. District 9 may seem like a not-too-subtle commentary on the treatment of minorities, but trust me when I say it’s merely part of the set up and not really what the film is all about, despite them setting it in South Africa (and you know it’s killing Charlize Theron to have a good movie made from home and her not being a part of it). There are aliens, there are bad guys trying to harvest alien technology for weapons and shit blows up real good---in addition into learning it’s wrong to abuse living creatures for whatever reasons. There’s even a cute little kid alien to show the movie isn’t exactly breaking new ground here, just showing it’s not so much the ideas, but their execution. This clearly isn’t Alien Nation redux. The people behind this would realize the inherent stupidity in an alien race living in LA if salt water is like acid CONSIDERING YOU CAN SMELL IT IN THE FUCKING AIR!!! It’d be like an acid breeze every morning!!! Sorry, but that still bothers me after all these years. This is also a great use of special effects to tell a story, not the story not simply being a hanger for special effects. If they’d just used human-like aliens with big ears or weird foreheads, the story and its effectiveness would not change. You can always tell how good a movie is when some of its more absurd aspects are accepted without a second thought. You never really think about the absence of the UN or other governments given the main push of the film is taking the alien technology. Wouldn’t everyone want a piece? And if they’ve been in a slum for 20 years, where’s the alien hip-hop? Also, by the last fifteen minutes the movie just flat out turns into Japanese anime when the main character hops into an alien battlesuit and starts kicking ass and taking names. There’s also a hysterical subtext about all the main bad guys being bald, so I’m just dying to see what the director’s dad looks like, because that cannot be mere coincidence.
HERE TO MAKE MICHAEL BAY LOOK SMART AND TALENTED
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is down to number two and the director of this mess is Stephen Sommers, the man who brought us the incredibly competent Mummy series (which is why Brendan Fraser turns up here in a cameo). In fact, it only fell apart when he stopped directing it, so he can do a pretty good popcorn flick. He just decided not to do it this time. Or last time when he helped Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale try to derail their careers with Van Helsing. They were both happy to get back to their respective franchises (X-Men, Underworld) after that. And what’s worse is he’s giving dumbass interviews saying that it’s not his work that’s bad, but it’s the just critics who hate fun movies. Yeah, they so hated the X-Men, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Harry Potter and they’ve stomped Pixar to death for years. Oh, wait… The opening of District 9 at number one to overwhelming good reviews is more proof of what a dumbass he is. Him using Transformers 2 as a positive example only nails that door shut.
I GUESS “TIME AFTER TIME” AS THE SONG WAS TOO OBVIOUS
Opening at number three is The Time Traveler’s Wife and while the combination of both science fiction and Rachel McAdams would seem to be the perfect combination for me, the trailer just left me cold (I never read the book) because what’s the interest here? Okay, so he bounces through time and they fall in love. And!?! There’s got to be something more, because otherwise it’s just a story about a woman who’s husband is always away at work. He’s gotta be saving the world or something else, because this just isn’t floating my boat. It would have helped if it seemed to be about her and not about them because basically he’s not here. And if this movie has a scene where he visits her when she’s old or dying then I was better off not wasting my time. For me this is yet another one-hour Outer Limits episode stretched out to movie length.
Julie & Julia is down to number two and also in this is Stanley Tucci and this is his second movie with Meryl Streep and his second successful food movie, though I have to admit, Big Night left me cold. The food looked good, but it still felt very cold to me. Likewise, Like Water For Chocolate was a miserable experience I hope never to repeat. Any love of food was defeated by a miserable love story. They spend a lifetime apart and then die. Wow. Give me more of that. For me, you can always tell how effective a movie about food is by how hungry you are when you leave. I left this with a craving for anything made in enormous amounts of butter. When I left Eat Drink, Man Woman I needed Chinese food like I needed air. Even coming out of Woman On Top I wanted coconut shrimp and Brazilian jazz. When I finished Dinner Rush I wanted Italian food, but not when I saw Big Night. Likewise, leaving Chocolat I had no desire for chocolate or sex which should have been impossible from a movie about chocolate starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. Hell, the video for “Martika’s Kitchen” made me hungrier and hornier (but Prince did write it).
G-Force is down to number five, followed by The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard opening at number six and believe it or not I’ve seen Jeremy Piven actually try to play other roles than this obnoxious motormouth. But this is what works so I can’t fault him for taking it and running with it, essentially only playing variations of it for the rest of his life. As John Wayne showed, if you do it long enough you might come up with something like The Searchers. Though if you do it too long you also come up with The Green Berets. Actually, if I’d realized this was opening this weekend I might have made an attempt to see it, but I didn’t like most of America apparently. This makes me think of the movie Used Cars with Kurt Russell, which was also a raunchy comedy about warring car lots. You’re probably better off renting that.
PAYBACK IS A BITCH…AND SHE’S BLONDE AND HAS A TV SHOW
Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince is down to number seven followed by The Ugly Truth, still around and kicking at number eight, having made $84M worldwide off a $38M budget. Not epic, but given that Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow were making fun of her during their press tour for Funny People it’s gotta be satisfying for Katherine Heigl. Their film cost twice as much but is already out of the top ten having made about $49M worldwide. See, I’ve got this theory a mediocre movie with two attractive people is easier to watch than a mediocre movie with two unattractive people.
IN AMERICA HE’S THE BIGFOOT OF ANIMATED FILM DIRECTORS
Ponyo opens at number nine and this is from legendary Japanese animation director Hayao Miysazaki and it’s an appropriate title because if something is a legend it means very few people have seen it and despite my geek status neither have I. Sorry, but there’s something oddly creepy about a lot of Japanese animation and this is no exception. It’s a story about a goldfish princess that wants to be human and that’s so sweet it shouldn’t melt in your mouth, but I look at the animation style and something seems…off. Even though it’s far from anime style, I still expect a tentacle to come out of nowhere and go someplace it shouldn’t.
MORE LIKE 90 MINUTES OF CRAP
Finally, 500 Days of Summer is still in the top ten and don’t go see this pretentious, unimaginative shit. Go rent Mr. Jealousy if you want to see a romantic comedy that’s not a bunch of clichés pretending that they’re something different.
UP NEXT: VODKA INFUSED BACON
Bacon infused vodka. Yeah, you read that right. Bacon Vodka. And I had it. Star Trek Woman (who’s been seriously working out and looks amazing) had invited me again to what she calls “beer & bacon” night at a bar with her friends. While it seems like a natural for me, I declined the first one because why wouldn’t I just be my normal anti-social self and eat my bacon at home where I don’t have to share it? Or wear pants. But I decided to override my natural instincts and go, though such an evening clearly required that I work out and since my normal workout time is in the evening, I’d have to do it beforehand. Luckily, I have summer Fridays at my job, which meant I got out at 1:00. Unfortunately, it also meant I got out in the middle of the afternoon heat and strangely, rather than use this as an excuse not to do something, part of me was begging for the opportunity to be a big stinking ball of sweat. So I ran. Yes, ran. I’d biked the night before so I needed to do something different, which is how I found myself the only person risking heatstroke by running next to the Hudson River that afternoon. But I wasn’t the only person out, as the grass in Hudson River Park was filled with stupid sunbathers. Hey, enjoy that skin cancer! And who the fuck are these people who can be laying around in the middle of the afternoon!?! They can’t call be waiters and some of them were far too ugly and fat to be actors. In any case, this was a good preemptive strike against the evening’s activities and I spent the rest of the afternoon napping and watching people go apeshit over Michael Vick on ESPN. The bar is over on the Lower East Side on Avenue A just off Houston and while I was late I arrived just as Star Trek Woman’s friend brought the bacon---before heading off to work at his restaurant. Nice. Now that’s big pimpin’ when you have your bacon prepared by someone who cooks for a living. And it was good. Some of it was even Maple, which is close to becoming a new addiction for me. However, having the bacon before the bacon vodka may have killed the bacon vodka for me, because I couldn’t taste anything. Sigh. And I had such hopes… The bar prides itself on being edgy, so the walls are covered with a lot of graffiti, the jukebox was pretty much punk and not much else and the video monitors ran offensive cartoons, porn and S&M videos. But it was just too calculated an attempt to be edgy. First of all, the bar was clean, well air-conditioned and didn’t smell like puke so how “edgy” could it really be? Not that I’m complaining. There were no frat boys or their ditzy female counterparts and the happy hour special lasted from 6-9 rather than the bullshit 4-7 or 5-8. Also, one of Star Trek Woman’s friends was an actual chef, so she and I talked about Anthony Bourdain and how lucky she was to do something she loved for a living, while the rest of us shovel shit and tell ourselves health benefits makes up for the daily soul crushing that occurs. Even her monotonous task of cutting oranges and grapefruit led to her having a pitcher of fresh juice which she and the staff then laced with vodka. I do expense reports and the end result is hardly a fresh cocktail though I do feel the need for a drink. After the bar, Star Trek Woman and I and another couple went to dinner at a Japanese place on St. Mark’s Place to eat. The other couple was a previously estranged married couple of an Asian woman and her European husband. The estrangement came as no surprise to me when he began explaining how the very tasty Japanese dish we were eating was a result of food being in limited supply after the bombing of Nagasaki. Sorry, but white guy + a little too much knowledge about Asian culture + Asian girlfriend or wife = fetishist. That could be any girl next to him so long as her eyes are almond and her skin is golden. But the dish was excellent. Some sort of combination of egg, lettuce, pork and mayonnaise. The source of his potbelly became clear, as the kitchen staff clearly knew him. And we had eye candy in the form of two models having dinner directly across from us and I dare say he was prettier than she was---but she had the gold Amex card while his was only green letting you know how modeling works. There was a threat of karaoke afterwards, but thankfully a previous night’s drinking had left Star Trek Woman too tired to go, much less pressure me into it. Which was good, because I hadn’t eaten all day and the beers and vodka had me drunker than I let on and I might have done it.
DON’T DRINK AND MAKE PLANS
Speaking of being drunker than I thought, because I wasn’t in a proper state of mind when I got home on Friday I decided, hey, maybe I’ll get up at 8:00 am and ride Summer Streets and stupidly set my alarm clock accordingly. Summer Streets is this city event that started last year where Park Avenue is closed down to traffic from 72nd Street down to the Brooklyn Bridge (though Park ends at 17th, the corresponding streets are also closed) for three weekends in August for people to walk, jog, rollerblade or ride bikes. Now, I didn’t do it last year because it’s from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm and if I wasn’t getting up to see a movie, I wasn’t getting up before noon for anything and I told Chasing Amy as much when she asked me to ride it with her this year. This is why it was somewhat awkward when I ran into her jogging at Grand Central Station. It’s like asking someone to a party, having them decline then see them show up with another date. So clearly it wasn’t the party that was the problem, it was you. But in this case it was actually liquor that did it to me as it was still somewhat affecting me that morning. As it turns out, that awkward moment aside, liquor knew what it was doing, because with each passing hour, the route became more and more crowded with very slow and annoying people, so going early was the right decision. Rather than ride back up with them from the Brooklyn Bridge, I took the bike path back up. And in response to recent crashes, I even got one of the free helmets they offer---and promptly put it right into the free nylon backpack. Sorry, but it just looks so stupid and it’s not my head I’m falling on. Let me know when the free leg pads are available.
MY CRAZY SKANKOS
My Antonio started at this weekend and this was a welcome return to crazy-ass reality show form after the disappointing Megan Wants A Millionaire. You know any woman who wants to fuck Antonio Sabato Jr. so badly she’ll let everyone watch her do it on TV (one girl flat out said as much at the beginning of the show) is crazy as shit. And poor Antonio. We’ve fallen so far since Janet Jackson videos and billboards in Time Square haven’t we? While he’s still in good shape, there’s clearly more of him to love, showing he hasn’t missed much of mamma’s pasta. And those tattoos are horrible because they’re boring and show little imagination He also proves my theory that Blacks, Italians and Puerto Ricans are pretty much the same as he kicks a woman off in the first five minutes because he didn’t like her feet. In my experience only bruthas are so crazy about shit like that. But the real winner was when Mamma Sabato turned up dressed in all black like some angel of death, speaking to her son in Italian, barely controlling her disgust that the show really took off, turning into a bad Fellini film. “You have to go because my mom doesn’t like you.” Awesome. Pure awesome.
I’LL MISS YOU. NO ONE EVER TREATED ME BETTER.
And now a moment of silence for my blender, which suffered a mortal wound (one of the blades broke off) and is now gone from us. I’ll never forget all our times together, beloved---well, if I could remember them to begin with, because we weren’t making protein shakes. And just because I’ll replace you with a younger, fitter, probably sexier model by the end of the week, it doesn’t mean our love wasn’t real. Farewell.
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