RETURN OF THE EVIL BLOODSUCKERS!

1. Avatar/Fox Wknd/$ 48.5 Total/$ 429.0

2. Sherlock Holmes/Warners Wknd/$ 16.6 Total/$ 165.2

3. Alvin & The Chipmunks 2/Fox Wknd/$ 16.3 Total/$ 178.2

4. Daybreakers/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 15.0 Total/$ 15.0

5. It’s Complicated/Universal Wknd/$ 11.0 Total/$ 76.4

6. Leap Year/Universal Wknd/$ 9.2 Total/$ 9.2

7. The Blind Side/Warner Wknd/$ 7.8 Total/$ 219.2

8. Up In The Air/Paramount Wknd/$ 7.1 Total/$ 54.0

9. Youth In Revolt/Warner Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 7.0

10. The Princess & The Frog/Disney Wknd/$ 4.7 Total/$ 92.6

WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN BLACK PEOPLE CAN’T EVEN PLAY BLACK PEOPLE?

Avatar holds at number one and also in this, kinda, is Zoe Saldana who is rapidly becoming a geek goddess. First, she plays Uhura in the new Star Trek where she gets to hook up with Spock, which guarantees that she has to be upfront in the plot from here on. Then she’s in this, now one of the biggest films in recent history and next she’s going to be in the adaptation of the comic book, The Losers. Oh, and she was actually in the first Pirates of the Caribbean and I would always point out that she got dicked by not being in the sequels. Seems she and her agent knew more than I did, given this has now passed all of them and she’s got a much larger role---though technically she’s never onscreen. Oh, and she’s in my beloved Center Stage. Could we finally have the person ready to ascend to Halle Berry’s throne as “the go-to” black actress? I mean, even though she’s not really black but Dominican? Somewhere Joy Bryant is pissed.

BUT IF SHE WANTS TO PLAY CATWOMAN IN BATMAN 3…

Sherlock Holmes holds at number two and also in this is one of my favorite young actresses, Rachel McAdams as the Catwoman to Sherlock Holmes’ Batman. Based on a real character from the novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, she’s one of the few to actually outwit him and why she’s never been given a more prominent movie role until now is a mystery. It’s ironic as they up the ante on the “bromance” between Holmes and Watson they introduce a truly suitable romantic interest. Or maybe that’s why they did. But honestly, I wasn’t buying McAdams in the role. Her character is supposed to an American, but an American sticks out like a sore thumb here. Not to mention McAdams just feels too contemporary for the role. But I’m glad she’s in a hit. She needed to wash The Time Traveler’s Wife off of her.

SUCK IT!

Alvin & The Chipmunks 2 holds at number three because evil is hard to kill, followed by Daybreakers opening at number four which returns the idea of vampires being evil to the forefront. Enough of these tragic romantic pretty boys! It’s time to return to the idea of bloodsucker bastards who need to be put down! This movie continues the recent idea of vampirism seen as a disease, not a magical transformation and 95% of the human population on earth has been transformed. The rest are either food or headed that way. This of course has lead to a shortage, because without fresh human blood the disease continues and transforms vampires into a bat-like monsters. Ethan Hawke is a vampire working to find a substitute to stop the destruction of all humanity, while Sam Neil is the head of the corporation providing human blood who just wants it to save his business and drive up the price of human blood which he has no intention on ceasing to provide even if an alternative is found. Into this comes William Dafoe as a vampire turned vampire hunter, proof there is a cure and he wants Ethan Hawke to recreate it. If his own conscience wasn’t enough, Ethan Hawke is also motivated by the hot girl with William Dafoe. But I guess Ethan Hawke is still a concession to the modern vampire. He’s moody, self-loathing, hot (though looking more like Josh Brolin than himself), doesn’t drink human blood and turns against other vampires (including his brother) to save humanity. Needless to say, he’s not as much fun as the very thinly veiled character of Sam Neil, a literal bloodsucking corporate head, looking for the short-term money solution rather than the long-term beneficial solution. Oil!?! What’s this got to do with oil?

IN THE GRAND WOODY ALLEN TRADITION, ONLY NOT AS GOOD

It’s Complicated is down to number five and on Saturday Night Live this week Charles Barkley, as his wont, vocalized what many people think about movies like this: they are incredibly White. Not just White, but moneyed white, which begs the question: is it better to be honest about these surroundings or to insist upon a token Black sidekick? This is a story about family and friends. Is it so strange the look all the same or is it strange that there are no equally moneyed minorities the world that Meryl Streep and Alex Baldwin inhabit…which is clearly the same world that Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet inhabited or that Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton inhabited, which is the world of Nancy Meyers’ films.

TWO CAREERS WITH ONE STONE

Leap Year opens at number six and romcom whore I may be even I drew the line here. How is this a valid premise? In the 21^st century since when are women obligated to wait for a proposal? This was based off a film from the 40’s and as such should have been done as a period piece because in a modern setting it makes absolutely no fucking sense. Clearly Amy Adams has no idea what to do with the heat produced by Enchanted and like so many other actors will piss it away on bad romantic comedies. And speaking of not knowing what to do with yourself, also here is Matthew Goode. Tall, good-looking, English and keeps making crap rather than taking the place of Hugh Grant. You know him best from deflowering Mandy Moore in Chasing Liberty. That he was Ozymandias in The Watchmen isn’t something you want to brag about, as he was horribly miscast in a movie filled with horrible miscastings. If you want to see a movie about an American girl who falls for a rakish Irishman, rent The Matchmaker with Jaenene Garafalo. It takes a bit to get started but there are worse ways to waste 90 minutes. And her Irishman is actually fucking Irish.

WHO LAST WON AN AWARD FOR NEGRO SAVING?

The Blind Side is down to number seven and if she gets an Oscar nomination for this piece of shit….

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO

Up in The Air is down to number eight and also in this is…Young MC! Yes, we “Bust A Move” a scene that, in the words of Homer Simpson “Is funny because it’s true” because you know being the entertainment at corporate gatherings doing his one hit is Young MC’s sad, sad fate now.

NICK AND NORA WAS YOUR LAST CHANCE, KID

Youth in Revolt opens at number nine and while I have to admit being somewhat tempted by the premise, I’m just tired of Michael Cera playing this role again. Granted, you only need look at the film just above this one to see that actors do this all the time. But you want to be George Clooney. You don’t want to be Michael Cera. It’s no accident that his biggest films are Juno and Superbad, where he either wasn’t the lead or was paired with someone who made him look good in comparison (it’s hard to look worse than Jonah Hill).

THAT LATIN PRINCESS MOVIE JUST TOOK ONE GIANT STEP BACK

Finally, The Princess and The Frog closes out the top ten at number ten and this is actually a bit of a disappointment for Disney making only $93M so far after a budget of $105M and the question becomes why? The return of singing (which I personally hate)? The return of hand drawn animation? Or, them coloreds being the lead? I’m gonna blame singing. It literally almost put me to sleep and has been clearly absent from almost every single CGI animated film. More comedy adventure of the frogs and less singing and we have something here. The last hand drawn Disney film with singing to do well was Mulan, which also had a minority lead only it had action and at least one good song. This had no action and not one good song. A better villain wouldn’t hurt either as the bad guy here actually disappears for a while. That’s not good. He should be pursuing them throughout the movie.

THANK ‘EAVEN FOR LEETLE GIRLS…

That groan of agony you heard Saturday night was my mother feeling that while I’m giving her no grandchildren, I was entertaining the children of others. This time they were daughters of the Married NJ Housewife (soon to be the Divorced NJ Housewife, unfortunately). Her oldest daughter was turning 9 and the birthday wish had to do with hotels, room service and American Girl dolls, so they came into the city to visit American Girl, stay in a hotel on Park Avenue and I’m gonna guess some room service came into play. Dinner was at a very kid-friendly place in the West Village called Sweetiepie that I recommended after a quick internet search and questioning the NYC mommies that I know. It got rave reviews, as they apparently will treat the birthday girl like a queen and you get to leave with balloons. I’ve only met her oldest daughter at intervals of years, but apparently they stuck, because I’m mentioned regularly. I guess it helps that I’ve sent presents over the years, like a plush Krypto the Superdog, a plush Comet The Superhorse and either a Batgirl or Wonder Woman Barbie. I can’t remember which. Kids always fondly recall the people who give them stuff and little girls seem to love me until they turn 12, then they start throwing rocks at me. Since my presence was requested by the birthday girl, I made it a point to continue the practice of gift giving with a mini-amp for her guitar. It seems she’d begged forever to take lessons and for Christmas got a Hannah Montana guitar, which, despite the clearly merchandising opportunity is an actual Washburn guitar, not a kid’s toy. It’s one of those legit ¾ models that are made for kids to play. Now the last time I saw her she was four and her baby sister had just been born so there was another little person to account for and you know you cannot buy a gift for one sibling and overlook the other. Seriously, you can’t do it at 9 and 5 and you can’t do it at 29 and 25. In fact, it’s probably worse if you do it at 29 and 25 because then one of them will complain about this going on for the last 20 years. One the last times I’d hung out with Married NJ Housewife she’d mentioned the 5-year-old daughter making a CD singing for her father and of her plans to be singer when she grew up. This is how I arrived at a pink t-shirt with Blondie on it. The evening clearly had a theme. In true kid fashion the shirt seemed to go unnoticed for a while then she abruptly got up, went into the bathroom and put it on, let us see it then took it off again. The oldest daughter loved the amp and we bonded over taking guitar lessons and not practicing. Her guitar teacher was taking her along the basics slowly and I find it odd that the impatience of kids wasn’t understood. My instructor tried to teach me a song on my first lesson because he knew that if people don’t see some result they can appreciate they will get frustrated. “Three Blind Mice” is legitimately a walking-before-you-can-run exercise, but what it is not is interesting to someone who wants to play Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” or Kei$ha’s “Tik Tok”---so we used her Disney Princess netbook she’d also gotten for Christmas and I showed her the tab sites where one day she could use them to play those songs exactly, having brought along my guitar for that purpose (after wiping all the dust off). Also, while major chords are beyond her now, she brightened up when I showed her how heavy metal power chords only require the top two strings especially when you filter it through the distortion on the amp (her younger sister was also a big fan of the crunching noise when means if the singer in her isn’t nurtured she might wind up in a fishnets and a mini-skirt backstage in about 12 years). She also liked it when I showed her how to play the Peter Gunn bass line also just using the top two strings. This is probably when my mother felt a disturbance in the force, the “Where the fuck are my grandchildren!?!” force. And if she felt it then, she must have had a “death of Alderan” moment when I was leaving and the 9-nine-year-old ran out to where I was standing in front of the elevator to hug me and tell me she loved me and I just melted. Pretty much any viable woman within 20 feet of me was in danger of becoming a baby mama at that point. Alas, it faded by morning because then once again I realized that children would mean not thinking of myself first and being forced to share my cheese and toys. Sorry, mom.