TOTALL RECALL OF MY DREAMSCAPE EXISTENZ

1. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 60.4 Total/$ 60.4

2. Despicable Me/Universal Wknd/$ 32.7 Total/$ 118.4

3. Sorcerer’s Apprentice/Disney Wknd/$ 17.4 Total/$ 24.5

4. Eclipse/Summit Wknd/$ 13.5 Total/$ 264.9

5. Toy Story 3/Disney Wknd/$ 11.7 Total/$ 362.7

6. Grown Ups/Sony Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 129.3

7. The Last Airbender/Paramount Wknd/$ 7.5 Total/$ 114.8

8. Predators/Fox Wknd/$ 6.8 Total/$ 40.1

9. Knight & Day/Fox Wknd/$ 3.7 Total/$ 69.2

10. The Kung Fu Kid/Sony Wknd/$ 2.2 Total/$ 169.2

WHENEVER I WANT YOU, ALL I HAVE TO DO IS DREAM…

Inception opens at number one and there’s a lot of loose praise being thrown around about this, but that’s only compared to most of the crap you’ve seen this summer like Iron Man 2 and Knight & Day. If you’ve seen Dreamscape or even Total Recall, then this isn’t as original as some would like to think. It is, however, very good. It’s one of those “a week from now” type of science fiction movies where something incredible is just treated as a normal every day event. In this case it’s the ability to enter into and manipulate someone’s dreams as both a tool of business and war. After failing one assignment of corporate espionage for a client, which puts him literally on their hit list, Leonardo DiCaprio has to go to work for the person he was trying to steal from (Ken Watanabe) and go after yet someone else, which in this case is to place an idea into someone’s mind rather than steal one. That process is called “inception” where the movie gets its less-than-exciting name. This leads to an Ocean’s 11 moment where Leo now assembles his crack team of dream thieves including Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page. So yeah, basically this is a heist movie. Oh, it’s layered in all kinds of interesting time-jumping storytelling, a ton of special effects and some James Bond level action sequences, but it’s a heist movie and it’s a good thing I deliberately avoided reading anything about it because I fucking hate heist movies and you’d need interesting time-jumping, a ton of special effects and a James Bond level action sequence to make me sit through one. There’s also a touch of the neo-noir that Chris Nolan so enjoys pertaining to a mystery in Leonardo DiCaprio’s past that anyone familiar with noir knows in the first five minutes of the movie. Like I said, there’s absolutely nothing new here. It’s just really, really, really well done and probably the best “big summer movie” of the year.

BITCHES, MAN.

Despicable Me is down to number two and this movie is almost a minor addition to the Judd Apatow group as its cast of voices include Steve Carell, Russell Brand and Jason Segel. Even the fact that mom is a bitch (as well as the woman who runs the girls’ orphanage) figures into the Apatow formula. The fact that it’s Julie Andrews be damned! Amirite, fellas!?!

IT WAS NO “WHAT’S OPERA, DOC” IS ALL I’M SAYIN’.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice opens at number three and yes, this is based in part on that sequence from Fantasia, the most overrated animated film ever. You remember that sequence the most because a) it had Mickey Mouse in it and b) it wasn’t as boring as hell. That scene is in this movie, but clearly they missed the point of it was fun and it comes off more as something obligatory they had to do than a highlight sequence of the power of an apprentice run amuck. The story here is simple and classic: a child predestined to fight evil with great power is found and mentored. It’s one of the classic heroic archetypes, most notably Arthur and Merlin, which is fitting because this story starts with Merlin. Nicholas Cage is actually one of his apprentices. When Merlin is killed by Morgana le Fay, Nicholas Cage imprisons her but doesn’t have the power to destroy her. Only Merlin’s successor can do that and Nicholas Cage spends the next thousand years looking for that successor and fighting those trying to free Morgana and in one of the films more interesting concepts, imprisoning them on top of her in one of those dolls that you open and find another doll inside and so on. Now, the set up isn’t bad and neither is the execution. The problem is it’s all rushed. Everything happens in the space of two days. The film would have been much better served to have Nicholas Cage find his apprentice and train him over a period of months, not 24 hours. Also, there are no less than four villains for them to fight and the two most interesting are given the short shrift (though as he did in Prince of Persia, Alfred Molina makes the most of what he’s given), especially the Salem Witch Girl. You can’t create a better character with a better look and she’s onscreen for literally five freaking minutes. But I will admit a weakness for this for two reasons. One, It’s clearly filmed totally in NYC, making the city a character from Nicholas cage riding one of the eagles from the Chrysler Building to the bull on Wall Street coming to life. I’ve a weakness for NYC films to the point it can be blamed for me actually living here. The other is the use of New York University, my alma mater. The apprentice (Jay Baruchel, the answer to the question “What if Shia Lebeouf wasn’t so fucking annoying?”) is a science major at NYU and while they fail to make the most of his science knowledge in conjunction with magic (which could have, should have been incredibly interesting) it does get used.

BOOKS WITHOUT PITCHERS!

Twilight: Eclipse is down to number four, followed by Toy Story 3 at number five and Grown Ups at number six and I recently read the book Live From New York which is an oral history of SNL with seriously candid interviews with just about everyone save Eddie Murphy---who is famous for being the only person from never to go back for any reason---or Dennis Miller which just seems odd given he’s got nothing better to do. But in the book Chris Rock talks about it as being a bit of a fraternity and when he had a tiny part in the Sgt. Bilko movie with Dan Akroyd, when Akroyd left for the day, he gave Chris Rock, whom he didn’t really know that well, use of his trailer, because they were both in the fraternity. Oh, and Chevy Chase is a dick, but you knew that already.

OR OUTER LIMITS. I’M NOT PICKY.

The Last Airbender is down to number seven and still hasn’t made budget even with overseas kicking in. May this be one step closer to sending M. Night Shaymalan to TV to do the Twilight Zone relaunch he was always meant to.

WHO WOULDN’T LOVE TO SEE SEGAL GET SKINNED ALIVE!?!

Predators is down to number eight and this would have done better to fill itself with more B and C-list stars to help bolster Adrien Brody and Lawrence Fishburne. You know, like imagine if that Expendables movie had them all fighting Predators. Now that would be an awesome, awesome film. I mean, how busy are Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Segal that they couldn’t be cannon fodder for this movie?

BIG TALENT, TINY PACKAGE…LIKE MY DICK. YES, I’M DRINKING.

Knight & Day is down to number seven and also in this for some odd “I’ve-got-a-kid-now-and-accompanying-bills” is Peter Sarsgaard. Yeah, I don’t get it either. But Tom Cruise has a history of putting good actors in his films so long as they’re very short. Think Colin Farrell showing up in Minority Report. So now I’m thinking Peter Sarsgaard has got to be about 5’6” on a good day.

NOT AS IF THE BRUTHAS HAVEN’T BEEN SELLING IT FOR MONTHS…

Finally, The Kung Fu Kid closes out the top ten at number ten and not surprisingly this film has done the best overseas in the Asian countries like Indonesia, Korea and The Philippines. This also means you can probably find the best bootlegs in Chinatown right about now. But not as good as a week after it opens in China.

BASICALLY, I LIKE HOT WOMEN KICKING ASS

In times of strife and uncertainty (which is always) people love things that represent stability and normalcy. This is why crime procedure dramas do so well and why CSI, Law & Order and NCIS have spin-offs. I have to admit, I’ve weakness for these types of shows as well. Not just any, mind you. I cannot stand CSI or NCIS and walked away from Law & Order seven hot Assistant DAs ago. I prefer the USA Network model of the very smart, slightly unconventional character, which is why I tuned in to Rizzoli and Isles and The Glades. Rizzoli & Isles is apparently based on a series of books, which is a good start, but so was the underrated Women’s Murder Club, which was Angie Harmon’s last venture. In fact it was a little too much like it, given there was a serial killer she had a history with and a hot FBI Agent. But you know what? I like hot chicks fighting crime, so I’m down with this for awhile. The Glades was probably rejected by USA, because it’s very much like their shows of smart people doing their jobs well and forgoing the usual idiocy of dumb bosses or co-workers (Royal Pains doesn’t which is why it’s the worst show they have). On The Glades, when our wacky, unconventional cop says he’ll wait for back-up, he actually does, putting it light years ahead of your average cop show. And while we’re still not to the point where a Latino can be the best cop in Florida, his love interest is Latin as is his unofficial partner the coroner and his boss is a Black woman. Diversity…if you like clichés. Not a police procedural, but it might as well be is Covert Affairs from Doug Liman who brought us The Bourne Identity and Mr. & Mrs. Smith (he also brought the world Jumper, but we’re not going to dwell on it). Piper Perabo, whose career was both launched and killed by Coyote Ugly, is the CIA rookie pulled from training like Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs, and for similar less-than-impressive reasons: they need someone to pretend to be a hooker, but apparently despite the list of gorgeous young women who apparently work at the CIA, only a skinny blonde was right for the job. I won’t even get into the inordinate amount of high heels and skin being displayed by the women working at Langley, on top of the saddest of all adventure show tropes: everyone around having to be an idiot so the main character can look smart. What makes this especially sad is after whole sequences showing how smart everyone is. But I like hot women kicking butt and I’ve always liked the pouty-lipped Piper Perabo, so I’ll be with this one awhile too. It’s only a summer show, so it doesn’t require too much commitment.