RETURN OF THE MACK. NOT.

1. Shrek Forever After/Dreamworks Wknd/$ 25.3 Total/$ 183.0

2. Get Him To The Greek/Universal Wknd/$ 17.4 Total/$ 17.4

3. Killers/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 16.1 Total/$ 16.1

4. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time/Touch Wknd/$ 13.9 Total/$ 59.5

5. Sex & The City 2/WB Wknd/$ 12.7 Total/$ 73.4

6. Marmaduke/Fox Wknd/$ 11.3 Total/$ 11.3

7. Iron Man 2/Paramount Wknd/$ 7.8 Total/$ 291.3

8. Splice/Warner Wknd/$ 7.5 Total/$ 7.5

9. Robin Hood/Universal Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 94.3

10. Letters to Juliet/ Wknd/$ 3.0 Total/$ 43.3

WHAT’S UP WITH BITCHES, MAN?

Shrek Forever After holds at number one, followed by Get Him To The Greek, opening at number two and apparently it’s a rule that in any Judd Apatow production there must be a bitch girlfriend, ex-girlfriend or wife. It’s not a spoiler to reveal the reason Russell Brand is an out of control substance abuser is after 7 years of sobriety, his girlfriend became bored. He fell off the wagon, self-destructed and she left him to go bone other famous celebrities. Jonah Hill’s girlfriend is an exhausted resident at a hospital who unilaterally decides they are going to move to Seattle because there’s a program there she wants to be a part of and when he objects she calls for a break---only to later call him a cheater for being with other girls and demand a painful tribute in return. And if you don’t get it there, know that both female characters receive oral sex but never give anything back. Is that a bitch or what!?! Amirite, fellas? High five! I know the best art comes from pain or even revenge, but if you’re going to write about romance even as minor plot, you might want to do so after you’ve gotten a new girlfriend and over the last one. That said, this is basically a spin-off of Forgetting Sarah Marshall using versions of the characters played by Jonah Hill and Russell Brand. This is not only acknowledged in the credits, but there’s an appearance by Sarah Marshall and one of songs Russell Brand’s character plays here is the song from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I guess people realized both Sarah Marshall and her douche ex-boyfriend were not only the least interesting parts of the movie, but were fucking annoying and deserved each other, while the “Wild Man & The Straight Man” is a proven comic formula. Hill’s character here has been made a little more normal and little less obsequious towards his idol to provide the conflicts necessary for humor, such as the reluctant bacchanals in London, New York and Vegas. And while I mock the Apatow clan’s many flaws, especially when it pertains to women, they don’t flinch at some of the more unpleasant aspects if not flat out grosser aspects of people when they make their jokes. And not everything is tied up with a neat little bow at the end. Russell Brand’s mother is loving, but when her son needs words of encouragement they just don’t magically appear in her mouth. Brand isn’t out of control only when it’s funny, but when it’s annoying and damaging as well. He takes Jonah Hill’s trouble with his girlfriend from bad to worse by proposing a threesome she’s all too willing to do and when Brand attempts Jonah Hill’s very Pollyanna ideal attempts at reconciliation with his ex-girlfriend and his father, they both end badly (one incredibly so). But humorously so. Anytime Lars Ulrich gets called “a Danish twat” and P. Diddy gets hit by a car it’s always funny.

MR. & MRS. JONES

The Killers opens at number three and this is basically a textbook example of all that is wrong in Hollywood. Some jackass with a degree in business saw the success of Mr. & Mrs. Smith and decided “Hey, let’s get one too” which is why this has two very pretty leads, a brief early scene in an exotic local before retiring years later to seemingly mundane and then mayhem in the suburbs. The trappings are all there but with none of the core substance and it’s not like Mr. & Mrs. Smith was Citizen Kane to begin with. They didn’t bother to create actual characters to put through the ringer. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were both assassins, but she was a methodical professional while he was more a seat of his pants operative and that reflected their conflicts in the marriage itself. This doesn’t even have that. I couldn’t tell you a thing about their personalities because they don’t really have any. Katherine Heigl does her Type-A routine again (to her credit, she does it well) and Ashton Kutcher is her latest generic pretty boy leading man who does little more than be pretty. His attempts to be James Bond suave at the beginning are nothing short of laughable. It’s almost as if he’s learned the language phonetically, which is one thing when it’s his bad French and quite another when it’s English. It’s only when he comes back down to Michael Kelso-like exasperation with the situation he’s in that he’s even remotely believable or funny. You know when Tom Selleck (not to mention his mustache) is blowing you off the screen comically in a supporting role that you have a problem. But he’s got a definite character as does Catherine O’Hara who makes the most of her one note role as Heigl’s boozy mom. A better movie would have been about how this incredibly structured, humorless guy and this horny drunk got together to begin with and this is only emphasized by a supposed third act twist that any idiot could see coming. The movie is so ill defined I had no idea they were even supposed to be in Atlanta until halfway through and I’m from fucking Atlanta!

ONE FRANCHISE ASPIRATION & NO MOVIE

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is down to four and the director of this is Mike Newell, the man who brought us Four Weddings & A Funeral. I know, right? What the hell is he doing here? This is how bad the economy is when men like this are whoring themselves out to Jerry Bruckheimer. Well, at least we know where Alfred Molina’s funny character comes from.

BEEFCAKE! BEEFCAKE!

Sex & The City 2 is down to number five and it’s hysterical how much the men in this movie are just used to be eye candy. Smith Jarrod shows up pretty much to stand in the middle of the desert and take off his shirt. Anthony suddenly has a smoking hot younger brother for Samantha to bone and later she gets a hot older Danish guy for the same reason. And to top it off, The Australian Men’s Rugby Team shows up at the pool for slow motion ogling of their muscled bodies with no shortage of crotch close-ups. Can you even count how many times you’ve seen that in movies and on TV shows with women? CSI Miami is constantly filled with bikini shots to “establish” it’s Miami (because you clearly couldn’t get that from the title), but muscled men in trunks? Not so much.

WHAT GRANDPA WOULD LOVE TO SEE…IF HE COULD REMEMBER

Marmaduke opens at number six and no…just no. Is there a demand for family films using characters only 70-year-olds would know?

I PREFER BULLETS TO METAPHORS

Iron Man 2 is down to number seven, followed by Splice opening at number eight and as we all know, I don’t do the scary, even when it’s science fiction being properly utilized as a metaphor. Or as David Cronneberg so aptly put when describing the The Fly, “In every relationship, someone becomes the monster.” In this case, two scientists create a new life form that becomes a surrogate child for them with the resulting issues, including resentful non-working mother and most importantly, rebellious teen, which any parent will tell you is a horror story. It seems interesting enough and I like Sarah Polley and Adrian Brody as actors, but I’ll see him fighting Predators this summer and that’s enough.

EVEN THAT DISNEY FOX IS LAUGHING AT THIS

Robin Hood is down to number nine and at $266M worldwide from a $200M budget, this is hardly a rousing success. Why they thought anyone wanted to see a relatively humorless Robin Hood, lacking in either swash or buckle is beyond me. I don’t think he swings from a single rope this entire film. And you can forget about a sword duel in castle, which even Kevin Costner had the common sense to do.

SIR WHITEBREAD

Letters To Juliet closes out the top ten at number ten and also in this is Gael Garcia Bernal as the soon-to-be-single boyfriend. Wasn’t he supposed to be a romantic lead after Y Tu Mama Tambien? Shouldn’t he be the guy getting the girl? And at the very least it should have been to someone hot, not some guy who looks like mayonnaise given human form.

MAKING ME LOOK LIKE A MACK

So, I wound up at another party in Brooklyn after mercifully a week off from being social and while it was thankfully another lower-key Jezebel B party, some of the harder drinkers came round for this one, aka, writers. Just when you think, “Hey, everyone is leaving maybe we should go” they say, “Can I make you another mojito?” It would have been rude of me to refuse. And after the mojito and now you think everyone is going you hear “Hey, let’s open this bottle of champagne!” But the real highlight of the evening was a comedy of errors from a girl who made every conceivable bad decision you could make, but on gave out details piecemeal, which made it all the funnier. It went something like this:

“So a co-worker hit on me and I’m afraid it might make work weird.”

“Isn’t your boyfriend a co-worker?”

“Okay, weirder. But we were at this guy’s apartment…”

“Wait, you were where?”

“His apartment. We went there after the bar.”

“Why?”

“He’s a friend.”

“Um, okay. Then what?”

“Well, he put on that Claire Danes movie, Stardust. He loves it and knows it verbatim.”

“Wait. What?”

“Yeah. Anyway, at one point he did the ‘reach over’ for wine then leaned in. I let it go, but later in the bed…”

“Wait, what? In the bed? How’d you get in bed?”

“It was late and I’d been drinking and I didn’t want to get on the train. I said I’d take the couch, but he insisted.”

“Then joined you later?”

“Yeah, and tried again. But he bought brunch the next day.”

“Wait, what? You still went to brunch with a guy who did all this?”

“Yes. So, should I tell my boyfriend?”

It took her over an hour to tell this story, because every new detail was subject to non-stop ridicule and mocking by the group. It’s a good thing this guy was the most ineffective seduction artist ever (bringing a girl back to your place to watch Stardust? seriously?) because aside from the potentially unpleasant risk, she could also wind up being one of those girls who can’t understand why she spent all night having sex with someone other than her boyfriend. You know, One of those people who always preface something with, “I don’t know how it happened, but…” and then tells you they ended up in a threesome with a dwarf unveiling a laundry list of questionable decisions that any sane person could see were clearly leading to a threesome with a dwarf, but strangely this attractive girl (killing a purple dress) couldn’t see show a brokenhearted dude inviting her back to his apartment and putting on a romantic (supposedly) movie was leading up to him hitting on her. Now do you people believe me when I say I’m like this by choice (and sheer laziness)? Because it’s clearly not difficult.

DOESN’T VH1 DO AWARD SHOWS ANY LONGER FOR OLD PEOPLE?

I’m far, far, far too old to be watching the MTV Movie Awards, but here we go…Tom Cruise is the definition of “trying too hard” in pretty much everything he does and his Les Grossman character from Tropic Thunder is no exception, but other material in the bits are funny…do I really need to point out how the werewolf boy never seems to be with a girl?...I don’t watch Parks & Recreation, so the host’s appeal is lost on me and Justin Bieber should meet Leif Garrett for his own good…Chris Rock standing next to Adam Sandler, David Spade, Rob Schneider and Kevin James is proving that he either invests heavily in skin care or black truly does not crack…somewhere Kristen Stewart’s agent is screaming at her subtle diss of the franchise that made her famous…more Tom Cruise trying too hard, because the number from The Hangover was actually funny and him with JLo is funny for all the wrong reasons and actually a little bit sad…a new Harry Potter movie means nothing to me…I’m pretty sure Bradley Cooper and Jessica Biel need to make a movie where they get naked and fuck. A lot…this so-called instant hit from Katy Perry is like a candy that’s too sweet and like things that have too much sugar it’ll pass through your system faster than you think. And it’s as waste of time calling Snoop a whore. He crossed that river long ago…Sandra Bullock’s career is based upon America’s insatiable need for the utter mediocrity that is Julia Roberts…the funniest part of the Marky Mark and Will Ferrell bit is that one of the “fucks” slipped through…I can’t tell you how much I love the Kia commercial using Black Sheep’s “The Choice Is Yours”…how exactly is Angelina Jolie nominated for a movie that hasn’t come out yet? Oh, I forgot. This show is just one big summer movie promotion. Sorry. My bad…ah, Rain. I’m sorry these silly white girls don’t know who you are and ruined your joke…Jessica Alba and Vanessa Hudgins representing the “Not-Quite-White” hotties…is there anything sadder than an artist coming up with some sort of grand concept then watching it crash and burn? Don’t feel badly, Christina. Everyone tanks at least once. I hope there’s a nice ballad on your album to help make up for your tour being cancelled due to low sales…Peter Faccinelli gets a gold star for singing Dire Straits and acknowledging probably no one onstage had a clue to what he was doing…and I cannot believe I wasted an hour watching this on fast forward when I need to watch the entire last season of Burn Notice.

STORY OF MY LIFE

Well, because I wasted an entire hour watching that, I feel compelled to watch this weird show about a geek in high school with a giant penis. Seriously, how did this past muster? It opens up with him jerking off in bed! And he actually pops because his mom comes in and strokes the covers not knowing what’s going on under them? I’m trying to think about what MTV was like when I was a teenager, but then I remember all they showed was videos. I gave this a shot but when the Asian girl spoke no English and the sound of a gong was used…it was time to go. Maybe if I were 15 this would be the greatest show ever, but I doubt it. 12. It’d be great if I were 12. Okay, maybe 10…