1. Date Night/Fox Wknd/$ 27.1 Total?$ 27.1
2. Clash of the Titans/Warner Wknd/$ 26.9 Total/$ 110.5
3. How To Train Your Dragon/Para Wknd/$ 25.4 Total/$ 133.9
4. Why Did I Get Married Too/Lions Wknd/$ 11.0 Total?$ 48.5
5. The Last Song/Touchstone Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 42.4
6. Alice in Wonderland/Touchstone Wknd/$ 5.6 Total/$ 319.3
7. Hot Tub Time Machine/MGM Wknd/$ 5.4 Total/$ 37.0
8. The Bounty Hunter/Sony Wknd/$ 4.3 Total/$ 56.0
9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid/Fox Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 53.8
10.Letters to God/ Wknd/$ 1.3 Total/$ 1.3
THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS 2: THIS TIME LESS ANNOYING
Date Night opens at number one and can you remember the last time a female comedy superstar was paired with a male comedy superstar? Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn? It would seem to be the easiest and most obvious casting idea possible but there are two problems with it: 1) male ego and 2) middle-aged male ego. Basically, dudes tend not to be want to compete with someone of equal stature, much less a woman their own age. You can have one or the other, but you can’t have both. Just ask Adam Sandler, who strangely has never worked with a female SNL member or Ben Stiller, period. Cameron Diaz wasn’t his equal when they made There’s Something About Mary and once she achieved that, she didn’t rejoin him or the Farrelly Brothers for the Heartbreak Kid. No, they just found someone who looked just like her but younger (but she laughed all the way to the bank when she was paired almost equally with Ashton Kutcher in the disturbingly successful What Happens In Vegas). Luckily, Steve Carell didn’t have thast problem because it’s when you have weak shaggy dog type scripts like this that you need talented comedians who can just take your mediocre material and run with it. Aside from having nice chemistry with one another, both Fey and Carrell are trained comedians who have written their own material, so when this script so clearly falters they more than pick up the slack and if the outtakes are any clue, should have been allowed more of that freedom. The premise is as flimsy as most star-driven works are: married suburban couple out on a “date” is mistaken for another couple wanted by the mob and hilarity ensues. And by “hilarity” I mean enough jokes for 90 minutes that you don’t feel ripped off, but not so many you’re thinking how you just have to have this on DVD. I still can’t get Fey’s line of “I want you to get in there and work that pole like a runaway” out of my mind. Close second is the alternate version in the credits, “I want you to get in there and work that pole like a Russian immigrant.” They’re both fun for the same cruel reason: they’re true.
DROPPING SOME GEEK KNOWLEDGE ON YO’ ASS!
Clash of the Titans is down to number two and also in this is Alexa Davalos who not only looks like she was made from the leftover DNA of Dina Meyer (Dizzy in Starship Troopers) but is clearly on the same career path of science fiction, horror and fantasy. First it was Gwen Raiden on Angel, then it was Chronicles of Riddick, then it was The Mist and now she’s here as Andromeda, who in an interesting turn is no longer the love interest of Prometheus. In a semi-modern turn, the hero gets to fall for Io who is actually helping him on his quest and not spending most of the movie tied up to a rock. Here Io is a woman cursed by a god with immortality for refusing his advances, but if you know anything about Greek Mythology (like most comic book loving geeks), you know she was a woman Zeus was boning whom he turned into a cow to save her from Hera’s wrath. Hera then put Argus the watchman with a hundred eyes on her, trapping her as a cow until Zeus sent Hermes to literally bore Argus to death so she could be freed, though Hera then chased her down into Egypt using gadflies until Io was eventually free of her and bore Zeus a son and become a queen. For his trouble, Hera put the eyes of Argus into the tail of a bird, creating the peacock. Thus endeth the lesson for today!
YOU’LL SEE HIM RIDING A FLYING DRAGON FIRST
How To Train Your Dragon is down to number three, followed by Why Did I Get Married Too and now Tyler Perry is talking about the women he’s dated. You know, the ones he’s never, ever been seen with? Yeah, Ricky Martin would like a word with you about how unconvincing it is to talk about your heterosexuality when you’re rich, famous but strangely not using it to have your pick of women. That’s not something a lot of straight men do.
YOU KNOW HE LOVED THE PIG MORE
The Last Song is down to number five and playing the mother of Miley Cyrus is none other than Kelly Preston who probably looks at every Charlie Sheen news story and wonders, “What the fuck was I thinking?” To be fair, she had him at his bad boy peak in the 80’s which was undoubtedly attractive to a young actress, but the bloom was off the rose when she was “accidentally” shot in 1990. Now, knowing what we know does anyone still believe it was an accident? Hell, I didn’t believe it then. But fate was kind to her. She also got to date George Clooney after that. She’s the one who actually gave him that pig.
DOES THIS MAKE ME KRIS KRISTOFFERSON OR JAMES MASON?
Alice in Wonderand is down to number six and occasionally, I clearly run out of ways to rip a movie apart especially if it just annoys rather than angers me, so to this end I’ve decided to contract out to one of my new crop of geek girls. The old ones have well, gotten old, so I need a new crop. Unfortunately, I wasn’t expecting her to be this smart and this funny, so know now you’ll never hear from her again:
Hot Tub Time Machine (down to number seven this week) is like the George Clooney of Generation XY man comedies. Its simple, attractive package dictates you're supposed to swoon over it (especially because everyone else around you seems to think it's awesome), but you just can't muster a ladyboner over the fanfare (NOTE: Don't hate me for this observation about Clooney. You only like him because you're supposed to. Search your feelings--you know it to be true). Hot Tub Time Machine (hereafter known as HTTM) is a movie about just that---a hot tub time machine. It doesn't pretend to be anything else, which is its most admirable trait. And yet, that's also HTTM's downfall, because in an effort to simplify itself, HTTM does away with smart references involving time travel in favor of pleasing an audience that knows fuck all about Lane Meyer being chased by a psychopathic paper boy while careening downhill on one ski. The movie is rife with nods to pop culture though not sharp satirical manner it should be. As the protagonists realize they've been transported back to their youth (and one back to his nonexistence), the 80's references and actors--George McFly! "Sweep the leg" Johnny!--- smack you in the face like a dominatrix with a PVC glove. But as it drags on, you realize that this is not "nostalgia" as you would see it, but "nostalgia" as seen by a generation of youngsters whose extent of 1980's pop culture knowledge is cleaned from VH1 marathons featuring comedians and actors who can't otherwise get work. The dick jokes, "you're a pussy" jokes, and "fuck your mother" situations scattered throughout the movie indicate that this movie wasn't made for those who relish the comedic value of Hughesian teenage awkwardness and longing, but by people who...well, think dicks and cocks (or, rather, "dix" and "cox") are the golden path to hilarity. Craig Robinson is the emasculated token whose emasculation makes no sense, or at least whose story of "being a pussy" isn't given enough backstory to make any sense. He's a funny guy as his time in Judd Apatow films and on The Office demonstrates, but he’s wholly wasted in moments where a) he’s so afraid to get his dick sucked by Rob Corddry that he faints (you get a homophobia/"black dudes have monster dicks" two-for-one in that scene) and b) he cries as he's getting a hot tub shag from a pair of gratuitous tits attached to someone who warrants billing in the movie for no other reason than flopping her tits. Rob Corddry's penchant for pithy punchlines (wooo! alliteration!), as seen in his "Daily Show" stint, is also wasted, as he's basically a dick who's obsessed with cocks and dicks. He fucks someone's mother, does air drums in his car to a Motley Crue song, and, in a moment that was side-splittingly hilarious to everyone else but me, vomits on a squirrel. That's all you need to know about him. Last but not least, the most emotion I could muster about this movie came from the sobering aspect of John Cusack's role. I know you're wondering where the hell anything "sobering" falls within a pseudo-80's romp, but it's this: John Cusack in a movie about traveling back in time to a decade where he was John Cusack-esque is a sad meta loop. John's made some top-notch efforts at a decent adult career (see Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity), but he could never shake Lloyd Dobler. Even in his most recent hit (2012), he's an older caricature/imitation of his former self. It's a vicious circle that needs to be broken, and yet will never be broken. Put John Cusack out of his misery, or in a David Simon drama. After leaving the theatre, I filed away my moviegoing experience and shrugged HTTM off, like a George Clooney who approached me at a cocktail party with a dick joke as his opening line.
THE MOVIE THAT PLAYS IN MY HEAD
The Bounty Hunter is down to number eight and do you think when Brad and Angelina see what new crap movie Jennifer Anniston has come out with or what celebrity she’s dating, they look at each other and start laughing and then when it subsides then chide each other with, “That’s so wrong. We’re evil” then start laughing all over again before having the godlike sex that only people who look like that can? That’s exactly what I think happens.
SANTA’S MORE LIKELY TO COME THROUGH
Diary of a Wimpy Kid is down to number nine with Letters To God entering the top ten at number ten and this is one of those movies made for super-Christians by super-Christians. It really has no place for the rest of us sinners who think you’d probably be better off writing letters to Santa. Yeah, I said it.
IF YOU DON’T WATCH IT, I’LL KILL YOU MYSELF
Cable is a wonderful dangerous thing because you often find yourself watching things at 3:00 am that you wouldn’t otherwise. In this case it was Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (yes, there was a #2). This not only has the satire of the original, but also has back none other than Johnny Rico, now a colonel. Sadly Doogie Hauser isn’t back and neither is Denise Richards instead we have a new “old friend” (in the same SS getup made even funnier by the fact he’s black and apparently seven feet tall) and a new “old love interest” (played by Jolene Blalock who was a pretty good Vulcan on Star Trek: Enterprise despite the fake boobs) who is now the lover of his old friend. The plot is immaterial. Only know that it’s filled with twice as many Public Service Announcements from the Federation about being a good citizen and supporting the war effort, which is the best part. This time around religion is bad unless it helps the war effort and if you’re a peace protester you’re going to get hung for sedition. And did I mention the new Field Marshall has a Number One hit single “It’s a Good Day To Die For The Federation?” Oh, and the brain bug is back from the first film as well as a bunch of new bugs, who don’t have the big budget SFX of the original, but aren’t done too badly thanks to CGI making effects like this now relatively cheap. It’s not a bad little rental. Plus, for fans of the book, the battlesuits they were always supposed to be wearing finally make an appearance
MIDDLE-AGED, GIFTED AND BLACK
When I got my flatscreen I stopped watching any channel that wasn’t in HD, so I lost VHI, so I had no idea they’d suddenly discovered Black women have a solid, professional middle class that advertisers would like to reach. Why else would they have a block of celebrity reality shows about Chili from TLC, Shaquielle O’Neal’s soon to be ex-wife and Ray J and Brandy? And before this there was a show about Pepa from Salt n’ Pepa. These shows are aimed squarely at women of a certain age (sorry, but if you’re a TLC fan, you gotta be at least 30) and if you’re clearly in certain socio-economic block to relate to women who have made their own money (though in the case of basketball wives, married it). Now, for the sake of curiosity I had to watch the first episode of each. Well, I tried to. I could give a shit about basketball, so you can imagine how I feel about basketball wives, which doesn’t even follow its own title. Shaunie O’Neal is soon-to-be an ex-wife, another one is an ex-fiancée, while still another is an ex-girlfriend and still another is pretty much just a groupie. There are actually only two real wives in the group. That’s when I checked out. I gave Chili the full half hour because, well, it’s only a half-hour, she’s actually accomplished something in her life, she’s easy on the eyes and it takes place in Atlanta. Also, Tionna Smalls is on it and she actually became one of my Facebook friends two years ago when I first signed up. She had a pretty funny “sista girl” type advice column on Gawker for awhile, but clearly she’s hit the big time. Now, I don’t believe in settling, so this whole trend of asking successful, smart women to settle for douchebags is bullshit, but Chili’s list is a bit much. Oh, it’s not the good-looking (better than Denzel), successful, washboard abs, “huge” dick (yes, she said that on national TV) part. She’s gorgeous and in great shape, so she has every right to demand someone gorgeous and in great shape. No, it’s that no pork bullshit. No woman alive is worth giving up bacon, period. And no drinking either!?! You will die alone, woman! On the other hand that Taye Diggs looking guy she went out on a date with needs to meet my sister… I lasted about five minutes in Brandy and Ray J because I don’t care about Brandy and Ray J is annoying. Very. Annoying. Not to mention responsible in part for Kim Kardashian being famous. That’s two strikes by itself. I’ll probably come back to Chili’s show, but that’s it.
CASTING THE GREATEST SITCOM EVER
Okay, now Death took Dixie Carter, aka, Julia Sugarbaker from Designing Women so every sitcom star over the age of 60 needs to watch their back! What’s strange is that she was married to Hal Holbrook who’s like a million years old. Why would she go first?
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