JUST TWO GUYS WITH GUNS AND NO CHICKS

1. Dear John/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 32.4 Total/$ 32.4

2. Avatar/Fox Wknd/$ 23.6 Total/$ 630.1

3. From Paris with Love/Lions Wknd/$ 8.1 Total/$ 8.1

4. Edge of Darkness/Warner Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 29.1

5. The Tooth Fairy/Fox Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$ 34.3

6. When In Rome/Touch Wknd/$ 5.5 Total/$ 20.9

7. The Book of Eli/Warner Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 82.2

8. Crazy Heart/Fox Wknd/$ 3.7 Total/$ 11.2

9. Legion/SGem Wknd/$ 3.4 Total/$ 34.7

10. Sherlock Holmes/Warners Wknd/$ 2.6 Total/$ 201.6

LOVE ME OR DIE TRYING

Giving the appearance of being a masterstroke of counter-programming, Dear John opens at number one this week, pushing Avatar down to the number two slot. Over the coming year you’ll probably see a half-dozen female-oriented films opening on the weekend of big sporting events hoping to generate a similar result, because it’s not like anyone thinks this movie is good and its initial success is based on quality. But I call this an appearance because the Super Bowl is only on one day, Sunday. So how do you explain box office results on Friday and Saturday? This would have opened big regardless, dooming us I feel to an even worse fate: more Nicholas Sparks books and movies. Let me guess what happens here: boy meets girl, they fall in love, and something tragic happens off-screen in the final act. Given he’s a soldier, he probably dies, because that’s how Sparks appears to work. When your audience is primarily women, you kill the dude. Even in The Notebook, he doesn’t get to outlive her. You’re either loving her or you’re a corpse (can you say “Titanic?”). This is so calculated, so cynical and so clearly effective I almost respect him for it. Almost.

NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH IT.

From Paris With Love opens at number three and this might also be seen as a the result of opening an action movie on Super Bowl weekend, but again, where were the dudes on Friday and Saturday? Seeing Dear John with their girlfriends, that’s where. It’s time to face the fact that John Rhys Meyers is the new Colin Farrell. A short, pretty, not-wholly untalented Irishman who gets many shots at the brass ring with big stars, but just not connecting and this is the latest example of it. Like Farrell, things that should be surefire, don’t make it because there’s just something missing. This is as basic an action movie as you can get. Seasoned pro gets partnered with rookie and they embark on a path of mayhem. The problem with this particular film is that it’s not fast enough to support its non-stop action storyline and simultaneously doesn’t slow down enough to flesh out the characters more. It pushes suspension of disbelief that a secret agent would cause this much public damage with no repercussion. We never feel the sense of urgency it would need to justify it, like say, an episode of 24. Also Travolta is little more than a cartoon character. We know no more about him at the end of the movie than we learn in the first five minutes. We don’t need a crying scene about how he lost his wife and kids or anything like that, but something more than a Pulp Fiction joke two-thirds of the way through the movie. What makes this more inexplicable is that we do get a two-second bit of expository dialogue from Jonathan Rhys Meyers explaining his past, which should have been the cue for a similar response from Travolta, but nothing. Now, a homoerotic angle is part of any buddy action film, but when Travolta has a shaved head, goatee, an earring, designer scarf and complains about Rhys Meyers’ girlfriend you have to ask if they’re finally in on the joke.

GIVE ME PASSION, GIVE ME INTENSITY, GIVE ME OILY!

The Edge of Darkness is down to number four and has Danny Houston ever been in a movie where he wasn’t the bad guy? It seems that he’s joined that elite club of Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper as the go-to villains for A-list stars. It’s more difficult than you know to just “seem” oily, but he does it with consummate ease. Also here is Damian Young and you probably don’t know the name, but again when you need an asshole boss, ex-husband, or in this case politician, he’s made a career out of it. Let me put it this way: he was Mr. Big’s boss interrupting Samantha’s toast in the Sex & The City movie. He was also Karen’s fiancée on the first season of Californication. Now you know him. How can Mel Gibson not be the bestest of good guys when these assholes are on the other side?

MOMMA MONTANA?

The Tooth Fairy is down to number five and also in this is Ashley Judd, rumored to be such a pain some actors refuse to work with her. I can’t say as if I’m all that surprised. She looks very much like someone who thinks they’re easygoing, but is actually a tremendous pain in the ass. She was the “Next Big Thing” for a hot moment with Kiss The Girls and Double Jeopardy under her belt, but instead of wisely sticking with the estro-thriller, she tried to make a series of A-list dramas from Where The Heart Is to Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood and they all died. When she tried to return to the estro-thriller with High Crimes (complete with a reunion with Morgan Freeman) it flopped because it blew the central rule of the genre (SPOILER ALERT): if you’re fighting to save your husband from being framed as an assassin for the military, he can’t wind up actually being an assassin for the miliatry! Add to this one of Hugh Jackman’s many non-X-Men flops (he’s crashed with every leading lady from Halle Berry to Nicole Kidman to Meg Ryan), she’s now here beside The Rock doing kids movies and next will probably be playing mom for Miley Cyrus or someone like that.

THE MAN TO GO TO WHEN YOU WANT TO END YOUR CAREER

When In Rome is down to number six and there is no greater demonstration of the fleeting nature of fame and success than Jon Heder, who is also in this. For one brief, shining moment he was white hot with the cult success of Napoleon Dynamite, but a few bad movie choices later and he’s not even mentioned as a supporting actor in this one. Which, by the way, comes from one of the worst directors in the world, Mark Stephen Johnson, he of the odious Daredevil and Ghost Rider movies. And I never get tired of mentioning that John Irving so knew any adaptation of A Prayer for Owen Meany would suck, he made it a condition that the name be changed to disassociate it from the novel. He even came up with the alternate name: Owen Birch…which also starred none other than Ashley Judd. Honestly, this dude has never made a good movie.

WHAT A FEELING!

The Book of Eli is down to number seven and also in this as the mother of Mila Kunis is…Jennifer Beals? Say whatever you want about Jennifer Beals, but very few actors are still working in A-list films almost 30 years after their only real cinematic success. And the thing that’s most famous about it she didn’t even do! Seriously, what the hell else does Jennifer Beals have in the movie “win” column but Flashdance!?! From 1983!?! Yeah, we all loved The L Word, but it was never a “must see” cable show like Sex & The City or The Sopranos or even Dexter. And this is actually her second movie with Denzel Washington, as she was the namesake of Devil in Blue Dress, playing a role that was practically made for her: the Black woman passing for White. Yeah, I said it.

HEY, THERE’S MORE GOING ON IN TRON THAN YOU THINK!

Crazy Heart finally enters the top ten beginning Jeff Bridges’ long overdue march to the Oscar podium. I like him so much I don’t even have to see this to want him to win for it…and I really don’t want to see it. This is such an old story and we saw it just last year with Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. Sigh. But I probably will.

THE END

Legion is down to number nine, followed by Sherlock Holmes at number ten.

AIN’T NO PARTY LIKE A BACON PARTY

So I was social for a second consecutive Saturday night, heading off to meet with the other batch of girls I know from Jezebel and as a tribute to how well they know me, not only was there bacon, but the bacon didn’t come out until I arrived. Unfortunately the host only had one pound of maple bacon. Fortunately, however, she warned me about this before I came out and I brought a second pound and given how quickly it was eaten, I should have brought two. The difference between the Jezebel groups is that one group is at least 50% lesbian and a party with them is a straight up party with music and dancing and at this last one an actual disco ball. This group is most straight (bisexuality does not count) and it’s a party in the hang out, eat, drink and talk about politics and art sense. I know the lesbian dance party sounds better, but there’s never any bacon there much less maple bacon, so I’m going to have to mark them as equals.

WHAT DO YOU CALL THE BIGGEST BOWLING GAME THEN? THE SUPER DUPER BOWL? ULTRA BOWL?

I’m disappointed the Colts lost because I like Peyton Manning and as an Atlanta Falcons fan I’ve hated the New Orleans Saints all my life, but unlike say, the Vikings who defeated themselves, the Saints actually won this one and this week cannot be over soon enough so all the recaps and analysis on ESPN will stop. But honestly, the game wasn’t all that exciting and sadly this year’s commercials reflected that. Pepsi took the year off to give to charity and the rest all seemed to be about “women are bitches who don’t let us have fun.” The exceptions were the Doritos commercials and they won me with the very first one of the dog who takes off his anti-bark collar and puts it on the guy taunting him, then starts barking. Nothing but win there. The much debated Tim Tebo commercial was funnier and not nearly as polarizing as we’d been led to believe and the “Nothing but net” commercial remake with Lebron James only reminded you how good the original one was. And I hope you people who complain about unrealistic images in TV, magazines and films enjoyed that CareerBuilder.com commercial. That’s what real people look like. Who the fuck wants to see that!?! And then there was the Dockers commercial with more “real people.” In tighty-whiteys no less! As if anyone would choose those horrible pants for any reason. And Half-Time with what used to be The Who was just sad. One old man is deaf, the other old man had throat cancer and his epic voice has long since faded away...I couldn’t even watch it was so painful. I instead made my first sloppy joes in over 30 years. Damn. How have I gone so long without them!?!

NEWSFLASH: FAST FOOD IS BAD FOR YOU. NO, SERIOUSLY. IT’S BAD FOR YOU.

One thing I can go without for another 30 years is KFC. The agency I work for represents them and there was a photoshoot with a couple hundred bucks of it and they gave it out afterwards. I went home with a bucketful (Extra Cripsy, no less), but not your normal bucketful. It was actually a few buckets shoved into one, so no matter how much I ate, it never seemed to make a dent. Its effect on my body was immediate and devastating. Five pounds in three days with actual growth in the already present jelly belly. That’s how dangerous fast food can be. Then there was the mild semi-sick coma I’d be in each time I ate it. There’s a reason I only eat Popeye’s 2-3 times a year and never any sort of large meal. I never want to learn to hate it.