ONE WEDDING, NO FUNERAL

1. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs Wknd/$ 24.6 Total/$ 60.0

2. Surrogates/Touchstone Wknd/$ 15.0 Total/$ 15.0

3. Fame/MGM Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 10.0

4. The Informant/WB Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 21.0

5. I Can Do Bad All By Myself/Lions Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 44.5

6. Pandorum/ Wknd/$ 4.4 Total/$ 4.4

7. Love Happens/Universal Wknd/$ 4.3 Total/$ 14.7

8. Jennifer’s Body/Fox Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 12.3

9. 9/Focus Wknd/$ 2.8 Total/$ 27.1

10. Inglorious Basterds/Weinstein Wknd/$ 2.7 Total/$ 114.5

BROKE WITH A CHANCE OF CAR REPOSSESSION

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs holds at number one and lets see who here needs a step up, who’s slumming and who needed a paycheck. Well, the Saturday Night Live people clearly are the first. Bill Hader, Andy Samburg and Will Forte are all trying to break out. Neil Patrick Harris, Bruce Campbell and Ana Faris are indulging themselves, while James Caan, Mr. T, Benjamin Bratt and even Lauren Graham needed a paycheck. You know it’s true. That Gilmore Girls money is running out.

TALKING LOUD AND SAYING NOTHING

Surrogates opens at number two and this is another adaptation of a comic book and like so many adaptations of any work they discard the small details that make a piece work because they think an audience is just too stupid to get them. This is one of those “current future” science fiction movies where everything is still the same except for some culture-changing piece of technology, which strangely doesn’t improve anything else. For example: the same tech that gives us home computers gives us computers in our cars and even coffee makers, but in movies like these, one thing never builds on another, which is why robot bodies strangely don’t have radios built into them or computer ports so people still have to use phones or go through paper files or type into computers rather than just plugging into them. Basically everyone lives through robots in the future and then someone starts killing them through the robots. In the comic they just destroyed the robots because the goal was to free humanity from it, but clearly that’s too nice for an action movie so people have to die, and it’s so clear who’s responsible it’s almost insulting in its simplicity. No one acts in and even remotely intelligent manner. Let’s see, the son of the guy who invented the surrogates but then turned against them is murdered and it doesn’t occur to anyone that his former corporation that ousted him might be responsible? The only intelligent idea even represented in the movie is that everyone goes for the same type of generic pretty look. Aided by CGI, they give all the actors a plastic Barbie & Ken appearance. It’s like the entire world became soap opera actors. But while I’m sure everyone would be good looking and young if they could, I’m also sure not every woman would go around in tight dresses and fuck me pumps the way they are here. Even Bruce Willis’ FBI agent partner is dressed that way. This movie isn’t even dumb fun because it takes on the airs of representing an idea (evils of technology) when in reality it doesn’t have a clue.

YOU WANT FAME? WELL FAME COSTS…AND IS USUALLY R-RATED

Fame opens at number three and I really wanted to see this, but my weekend was actually busy and I couldn’t. I mean, I’m all for a good dance movie, but damnit, there was football on! Besides, there’s something wrong about a PG13 Fame when the original was so NYC gritty, still very much a product of the 70’s though released in 1980. Remember Ralph Garcie going through a part of The Bronx that looked like Beirut on a bad day? You think that’s here? Unlikely, but I will try to see it if for no other reason, Bebe Neuwirth as the dance instructor and Kelsey Grammar as the music teacher. Yes! A Fraiser reunion!

SMART ENOUGH TO HIRE ACTUAL MOVIE STARS

The Informant is down to number four and I’m somewhat impressed by the success of a comedy that seems to take a brain to appreciate after two years of seeing Seth Rogen’s fucking face everywhere I turned. But I still won’t see it.

IT’LL NEVER BE 1986 AGAIN, I’M AFRAID

Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself is down to number five, followed by Pandorum opening at number six and while I do loves me some science fiction, especially when it’s got space ships, I don’t do the scary and putting your scary in space will not get me to compromise myself. Besides, this looks like space zombies loose on a ship and that just looks dumb. And poor Dennis Quaid. The roles he’s taking these days. First G.I. Joe and now this. Wasn’t he having the mother of all comebacks a few years ago? I guess when you decide to pursue fatherhood again at 50 and get twins you can’t be choosey about the roles you take, ‘cause you’ve got twice the normal expense and half the energy.

AHHHH, YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND

Love Happens is down to number seven and in this as “the best friend” is none other than Judy Greer. This makes Anniston the third Jennifer she’s performed this duty for, the other two being Jennifer Lopez (The Wedding Planner) and Jennifer Garner (13 Going On 30). Not to mention Katherine Heigl (27 Dresses) and David Duchovny (The TV Set). Hang tough, Judy. There’s a great indie film coming your way, I just know it. You’ll be the star and briefly get all the attention you deserve…before pissing it away in bad mainstream romcoms for the quick cash.

JENNIFER’S PROFITS

Jennifer’s Body is down to number eight and while there’s been much schadenfreude over the failure of this Megan Fox vehicle, it only cost $16M and has made $12M, so it’s hardly the disaster even writer and producer Diablo Cody is making it out to be. In fact, if she truly feels that way, I’ll take her points from DVD sales.

THE END

9 is down to…yes, nine, followed by Inglorious Basterds closing out the top ten at ten.

MY BEDROOM COMPANION RETURNS

The new fall season has started and while it’s no longer the event it used to be when there’d be special shows by the networks to announce their new seasons, it still retains some allure for me and I try to give most shows a shot…Cougar Town shocked the hell out of me by being as raunchy and as funny as it was, but coming from the guy who brought us Scrubs I shouldn’t have been too surprised. Courtney Cox plays it a little too broad at times and there were a couple of needless speeches about how difficult it is being a 40-year-old single woman (I’m pretty sure it isn’t when you look like Courtney Cox), but the jokes are quick, smart and more often than not, dirty…smarter and funnier still is Modern Family and it reminds me a great deal of Significant Others which was an amazing show on Bravo that never got a chance. This is firing on all cylinders, but what got me was the mom who’s concerned that her daughter will be the wild child she was and every other joke was some account of a past debauchery, my favorite being “One moment you’re watching Falcon Crest and the next you’re under the air hockey table with your bra in your pocket.” Big points for using Falcon Crest…Community peaked with the joke “How’d I know you’d be cool? I mean you look like Elizabeth Shue” but ruins it by having the guy go soft in the end. Why does everyone need to be nice?...I’m a geek, so I have to give my science fiction a try and that was Flash Forward, which has the interesting premise of everyone in the world being unconscious for two minutes and seeing a vision six months into the future. There’s a nice scene of the damage that can occur in those two minutes, but it’s downhill from there, starting with the lead character (Ralph Fiennes) who’s an FBI agent. He sees himself working on the case in six months and the clues he’ll have by then. That’s great, but unless he’s the only one in the world who’s still working on it, which is highly fucking unlikely, then hundreds of government agents and officials and scientists all over the world should have had similar visions of what they’d learned about the “event.” The dumbness continues on from there and how they think this can be an open-ended series is ridiculous. It’s very much a finite story. You figure out the mystery, the end. And how long can you drag that out? You only have six months of time to pass onscreen...I accidentally watched a little of Vampire Diaries and one character briefly conveyed the huge problem with all these teen vampires: if you’re a teen vampire that means you were a teenager who was killed by a vampire, so you’re going to be a teenager forever and probably already are hundreds of years old. So why do you want to hang out at a high school? That mistake won’t happen again....Eastwick is actually the second TV show based on the movie The Witches of Eastwick and it makes that movie look like subtle art in comparison. Lindsay Price continues to develop her reputation as the kiss of death for a show…The Good Wife had two seconds of my time before I realized it was just another lawyer drama, pretty much wasting an otherwise interesting premise…NCIS LA is pretty much NCIS with a beach and a younger leading man, but I don’t think Chris O’Donnell is even remotely a match for Mark Harmon. I guess that’s why they needed another alpha male and partnered him with LL Cool J, while Mark Harmon is surrounded with beta males and the clear star…and I’m avoiding all new medical dramas like the plague. I mean I dropped both Gray’s Anatomy and Private Practice last year, so I’ve clearly had my fill, but thanks for killing off George, the only character I even remotely gave a crap about. You’ve insured I’ll never look back.

IF I ONLY COULD I’D MAKE A DEAL WITH GOD AND I’D GET HIM TO SWAP OUR PLACES…

So Chasing Amy and I have been fighting since June. Well, I’ve been mad at her and she just shrugs and goes back to what she was doing. We have an odd dynamic as I wind up playing the traditional sensitive woman’s role, while she’s the clueless uncaring male (in her own words, “You bring out the man in me more than anyone”). We even play the game of me refusing to tell her why I’m pissed and her not figuring it out which only pisses me off further. Well, Friday was peace offering of sorts when she invited me to see Phoenix in Central Park. I knew of them but had never really listened to them, but suffice it to say they’re like a French version of Rooney. This pretty much meant we were two of the oldest people there. As she gleefully pointed out, our combined age is almost 80. One way you could tell how old we were is that we weren’t texting or talking, but listening to the music. Just why the fuck are you bothering to go out a concert when you’re going to treat the band like it’s a radio at a party!?! And who the hell are these people bringing kids!?! As time passed the weak fell to the side and went home, leaving only the real fans and you could actually feel the energy rise to the point where it peaked during the encore. And while I’m not one for stereotypes, if you were to conclude from the activity that night, that without specific training, White people were incapable of dancing, only jumping up and down like they’re engaged in some sort aerobic activity, you’d be somewhat justified. I finally realized who the audience was for these movies where the best dancer around is some White kid. It’s wish fulfillment. Afterwards we walked down to the Apple store where I saw Lloyd from “entourage.” Normally, this would have been the beginning of drinking, but I had a wedding to attend the next day and honestly I’m still a little pissed, but I’m told the proper way to handle this is to just let it go for now then bring it up further down the road. Seems I still have a lot to learn about being a woman.

GIRL, I HEARD YOU’RE GETTING MARRIED

My Surrogate Sister has gotten married. It was her wedding which cut into my movie viewing time and prevented me from getting drunk on Friday night, because I had to get up the next day and go up to friggin’ Poughkeepsie. Because I’m me, I didn’t reserve a hotel room until a week beforehand, even though we’d gotten an email six months ago telling us all the rooms in town were being filled up. I managed to get a Days Inn nearby the hotel where everyone else was staying and using my AMEX points it only cost me about $50, which is good because I needed a new suit. Seems I’m too fat for my old ones and the one my dad got me for the wedding earlier this year was just too fucking big (like all the clothes my parents buy for me) and I refused to look bad for this. Thank goodness for Syms who just happened to be having a sale. Got a nice enough (Oleg Cassini) Dark Navy Blue suit for $99---well I thought it was Dark Navy Blue. Turns out it was Black after all and even though I was tempted to go with a pink shirt because it was a wedding, I felt that was vaguely “pimpish” and decided to go a little more elegant and wear a silver tie against a white shirt. It’d be amazing if I didn’t look like a little boy playing dress up in daddy’s suit. Not to mention spark plugish. Because I was in the cheap hotel, I couldn’t check in until 3:00, so I took a 1:45 Amtrek up that got in at 3:08 (wedding at 6:00). It was perfect. The ride was more expensive than Metro North, but much nicer and I slept most of the way. I then hopped in a cab, went to the hotel, changed, took another cab to the main hotel (through glorious downtown Poughkeepsie) where we were to catch the shuttle bus over to the winery where the wedding and reception were being held. At the hotel I met the couple who were pretty much going to be my companions for the night: Not Reese Witherspoon and her fiancée. Now, I’ve known Not Reese Witherspoon (she looks like Reese Witherspoon though with a less pointy chin and she hates being told she looks like Reese Witherspoon) for years through Surrogate Sister and while very sweet, she’s a little wacky. I realized this when five minutes after meeting her she was trying to give me a lapdance. Sadly, she’s utterly devoid of rhythm, though very enthusiastic. She’d been married to the brother of Surrogate Sister’s then boyfriend, but after that marriage failed they’d stayed close and apparently she instantly transferred those feelings to me, as I can count the number of times we’ve seen each other but her reaction when we do is like we’ve been friends since childhood. Let me put it this way: at one point I wanted them to take a picture of me in the suit and she replied, “Alone or with me?” I had to beat down the demon inside me to not to reply, “Alone.” I’m getting soft in my old age. The shuttle buses from the hotel to the wedding were actually yellow school buses, which led to the type of high school reference jokes, you can imagine. And since when did they get seat belts!?! These kids today are coddled! The wedding was on the top of a hill, which was beautiful, but a chilly, though thankfully they seemed to realize this and despite their dual Catholicism, we were not subjected to mass and the ceremony was brief. Soon, we were back down the hill and at the bar, I mean the reception. Aw, who we kidding? Free food and drinks are the reason most of us go to weddings. And half her family is Irish, so you know what time it was. I don’t get emotional at weddings and really don’t understand why people do given it’s so utterly planned out, you know what’s coming, so how can it get to you? But I must confess when her dad started talking about the picture he has on his mantle of her in a dress at 2-years-old standing under a table, he almost got to me…but thankfully I wasn’t that drunk. Surrogate Sister had asked me to help her with her music choices and while I don’t remember what of my choices she used, I do know I don’t understand why a DJ needed a live drummer and trumpet accompaniment. I think they managed to sell a million records without you, Tito, so knock off the fucking snare. Not Reese Witherspoon’s fiancée pushed off his dancing duties onto me and like I said, she has no rhythm, but is very enthusiastic. I’m thinking he was more than aware of this when decided to stay with his drink. At one point I wound up dancing with her and the woman who was legend to me through Surrogate Sister: her friend the lawyer whose real name is actually Sue Yu. No, I’m not kidding. She was very pretty and a fun drunk. Likewise was her sister, whose demeanor suggested she’d kept the company of the bruthas on more than one occasion and she confirmed this. It was pretty much a drama free event, with the biggest issue being her father blurting out to one of her friends, “You know, you’re not the nightmare everyone says you are.” In fact the only fireworks were real ones. Yes, fireworks, climaxing in a big fiery heart. Top that. After the reception we headed back to the hotel, again on the buses now filled with drunks, but smart drunks as the topic of conversation was both “Which Historical Figure Would You Like to Punch” and “Which Historical Figure Would You Like To Sleep With” to which one guy replied “Harriet Tubman. I got your underground railroad right here.” Best. Answer. Ever. We hung out in the lobby for a bit before starting to drift off one by one to bed. I went back to my hotel for the night, though returned in the morning for the brunch buffet and to hopefully catch a ride back to the city with Not Reese Witherspoon, only she never showed and I had the Yu sisters drop me off at the train because I had football to get home to. Surrogate Sister is now in Mexico for the next two weeks and hopefully I’ll have her wedding present by then. Yeah, I forgot to get one. Hey, she’s lucky I remembered to show up.