EVEN THREE MORE WORDS: BACON FLAVORED MAYO

1. A Nightmare on Elm Street/WB Wknd/$ 32.2 Total/$ 32.2

2. How To Train Your Dragon/Para Wknd/$ 10.8 Total/$ 178.0

3. Date Night/Fox Wknd/$ 7.6 Total/$ 73.6

4. The Back Up Plan/CBS Wknd/$ 7.2 Total/$ 23.0

5. Furry Vengeance/ Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$ 6.5

6. The Losers/Warner Wknd/$ 6.0 Total/$ 18.1

7. Clash of the Titans/Warner Wknd/$ 6.0 Total/$ 154.0

8. Kick Ass/LGF Wknd/$ 4.5 Total/$ 42.2

9. Death At A Funeral/ Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 34.8

10. Oceans/Disney Wknd/$ 2.6 Total/$ 13.5

SHOULD HAVE BEEN ST. ELM STREET

A Nightmare on Elm Street opens at number one and I was never into the original series for the obvious reason: I don’t do the scary. I don’t care how goofy it eventually was, its intent was to terrify. But believe it or not, I did see the first, which pretty much made sure I saw no others. Teenagers been slaughtered because of something their parents did doesn’t sound like fun to me. Not to mention it’s the perfect revenge, because knowing your kids are being slaughtered because of you is actually worse than death. But I was just hitting stage of my life where I was beginning to question suspension of disbelief in movies and that they thought the first guy murdered his girlfriend when her blood was on the ceiling was just too stupid for me. So, to wrap up, I hate being scared and I hate when they’re stupid about it and I really don’t see how you can have bloody drag marks across the ceiling in this post-CSI world and have anyone think it’s proof of murder. Then there’s the fact they give it the nasty modern twist of Freddie being a child molester, not a murderer, who is murdered by the parents of the children and so it’s those children he molested that he goes after. Now how fucking creepy is that? First you’re bad touched by the ugly kid from Bad News Bears, then one day he shows up to kill you because your dad killed him for raping you. How much did your short life suck? Of course if they had any real balls or imagination, they’d have made Freddy a priest. Yeah, I said it.

SOMETHING THE YOUNG PEOPLE WILL ENJOY

How To Train Your Dragon is down to number two, followed by Date Night at number three and also in this are James Franco, Mila Kunis and Leighton Meester, basically to ease up on that age curve, though James Franco has seemingly been “young” a looooong time now. What, did he start at 14?

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE JOYCES, BABY (JAMES JOYCE IS ON THE IRISH POUND)

The Back Up Plan is down to number four and while I am loathe to defend JLo and her delusions of grandeur (she thinks she was part of the girl pop wave of Britney and Christina when both were well-established a year before her first single) this was hardly some flop. It only cost $35M and made $12M the very first weekend. Also, JLo makes her money overseas. Monster In Law made another $70M overseas after $80M domestic. Shall We Dance made $60M overseas after $58M domestic. And it’s been like this since her first “Me & A White Guy Fall In Love” movie, The Wedding Planner. $60M domestic, $35M international, from a budget of $28M. So she could really give a shit about all of these people saying “It’s over” because at the end of the day, she’s not counting dollars, but Euros, Peso, Lire, Yen, Pounds, etc.

I’D SOONER SEE ENCINO MAN 2 AND I NEVER SAW THE FIRST ONE

Furry Vengeance opens at number five and Brendan Fraser…what the fuck, man? You were never “Mr. Quality” but you could be fun. With no Indiana Jones in the world, your Mummy movies were good for some summertime movie air conditioner watching. There were even stabs at legitimacy, like Gods and Monsters, but at the end the day you clearly lean more toward shit than shinola, even eventually ruining even The Mummy franchise with an ill-advised move to go on without co-star, Rachel Weisz and Stephen Sommers directing. Now, it’s clear you’re not even trying any longer, doing some shit even The Rock would pass on now and he’s clearly doing any family crap that you throw his way. Just get a sitcom already, man.

THIS AIN’T LOSING A DIME

The Losers is down to number six and again, when a movie that only cost $25M and makes $9M it’s opening weekend and is now up to $18M without even a single overseas release where action films always do well if not better, it’s hardly some sort of catastrophic failure. I mean, how do you think Troy became successful? It made almost three times as much internationally than it did in the US. That said, also in this is Chris Evans , picture perfect as one of the wise-ass supporting characters, pretty much solidifying his being cast as Captain America as one of the biggest mistakes since Nicholas Cage was first cast as Superman (then casting him as Ghost Rider). Exactly where in the history of Chris Evans does he demonstrate the ability to be the straight man and not the wiseass!?! Never, that’s where! Captain America is to the Marvel Universe what Superman is the DC Universe: that straight up, stick-in-the mud boy scout with no angst, no suffering and no hesitation to do what is right and always winning. And he’s tall! Not a mere six feet, which in Hollywood parlance means Chris Evans is actually 5’10” – 5’11” at best. Ten years ago, this should have been Paul “Pretty Boy” Walker. He ain’t the best actor in the world, but he’s tall, blonde, good-looking and has that sort of intense gaze that someone like Captain America needs. Chris Evans is Bucky, the sidekick.

JASON & THE ARGONAUTS: PLATINUM FLEECE

Clash of the Titans is down to number seven and they’re talking about making a sequel. Um, how? Greek myths are finite stories for the most part. There really isn’t “Trojan War II: This Time For A Finer Babe.” “Hercules: 12 More Fucking Labors.” Heroes either settle down and get married or die. That’s it. Not to mention the weakest part of this is the story so it’s not like these people have the most vivid imaginations, but I guess they figure throw in some giant monsters and don’t worry about it. I wish I could say they were wrong, but at $427M worldwide off a $125M budget, they’re already turning a profit.

YOUR GIRLFRIEND PROBABLY ALREADY HAS A PURPLE WIG

Kick Ass is down to number eight and we’re going to do this one more time for those in the cheap seats: $30M budget, $71M worldwide. Not even remotely close to a failure. Not that I care. I started forgetting about this movie the moment I left the theater and probably will have totally forgotten about it by the time all the Hit Girl costumes show up at Halloween to remind me.

KINDA LIKE A GHETTO PASS, BUT NOT REALLY

Death At A Funeral is down to number nine and the oddest thing about minority films is, if you’re a white guy in them, you have a lifetime appreciation for it. Judd Nelson can still get some Alize in a club for New Jack City. Simon Baker can get into the VIP section for “something new” and now, both Luke Wilson and James Marsden now have it for this. Sad how easy it is to please us, no?

WHEN GRANDPA WAS BOY THE OCEANS WERE BLUE AND THERE LIFE IN THEM

Finally Oceans holds onto the top ten at ten and given what’s going on in the Gulf right now it’s a good thing this was recorded for posterity.

JUST CALL IT THE DOWNTOWN NY FILM FESTIVAL ALREADY

The Tribeca Film Festival came to a close this weekend and where once upon a time I’d buy my tickets to three or four films in advance, that this had even started escaped me and I wound up only making it to one. It would have been more except this year, choosing not to buy your tickets online because you didn’t want to pay their sphincter violating fees and buying at the gate was impossible because the screenings were held smack dab in the middle of NYU, The New School, and Cooper Union at the 12^th Street Theaters. There’s no competing with college kids who literally live across the street from the theater. It was different when the screenings were actually held in Tribeca or scattered all over the city like in previous years. But in middle of college town there was no chance for the cheap, the lazy or the old, of which I am all three. To see a film I actually had to take a day off from work. I mean, I was going to do it anyway because cabin fever has started to set in and our next holiday isn’t until Labor Day weekend and I couldn’t wait. My initial goal was to find a bar downtown and make camp, taking advantage of those happy hours that strangely start in the middle of the afternoon. I never understood why or who was going to them before, but now they make perfect sense to me. Now I just added seeing a film to the plan. The film I actually got to see was Meskada, a crime drama dealing with class issues in America. I love movies dealing with class differences in the US because while we like to pretend they don’t exist---especially beyond race---The Jersey Shore is proof that they do and people have no problem laughing at those they consider “low class.” In this film home invaders kill a young boy and the detective in charge of this case deduces they come from a economically suffering neighboring town (also in Meskada County). His hometown, in fact. It takes far too long to get there, but the film finally starts moving when the detective finally reveals to his superiors what he knows and the mother of the dead boy who sits on a council determining development in the county uses her influence to stop a factory from being built there and in the best scene in the movie, has a meltdown at townhall meeting where she swears to burn the other town to the ground until she gets her son’s killers. It could have, should have been so much better than it was. Like I said, it takes too long to get to the class struggle and isn’t fully explored like it should have been. Why is it the detective hasn’t been home since his father died? How is he viewed for leaving and never coming back? How the fuck is it he only has two or three people who seem to know him given he grew up there? In a better film he would have known the killers and been viewed with both envy and resentment for leaving. Not to mention it would have been made clear that when he first goes to his hometown looking for suspects on the downlow, he knew what would happen if it got out. And most of all, there should have been a girl left behind. What’s funny is that it was written and directed by someone on-staff at NYU, I’m assuming in film. You’d think he’d know better not to make all these mistakes. Or maybe it’s true what they say: “Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, teach gym.”

ROCK OF LOVE IV: IT’S REAL THIS TIME BECAUSE I ALMOST DIED

Death has slowed down, but only a little. I missed Alex Chilton of The Box Tops (“The Letter”) and Big Star, one of those groups that musicians and music snobs love, but actual people never supported, but was more than aware of Guru of Gang Starr. While I don’t own anything by Gang Starr or Guru’s Jazzmatazz albums, they are still on the soundtrack of my life at that time, as I recall them playing in background all the time. Finally, Death tried to take Brett Michaels the same way she apparently tried to take me and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit this was freaking me out a bit because I never really accepted that I had a potentially fatal problem. Ignorance is bliss, children. But in additional to my doctor’s amazement that I suffered not even a tiny neurological after-effect, I couldn’t help but read about Brett Michaels when the vultures gathered around and listed all the different ways he could develop complications and die (go fuck yourself, Donald Trump). Complications I could have developed. Thankfully, he’s all right now and will be back in the saddle in the next month or so, as I was back at work in September after losing August the last half of July ’07. Now, I’ll just shove all those bad scary thoughts back down into the pit of ignorance and denial where they belong. Bye, bye.

THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING

Yes, I found some bacon-flavored mayonnaise. Life is good.