PRETTYBOY-A-PALOOZA

1. The Last Exorcism/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 21.3 Total/$ 21.3

2. Takers/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 21.0 Total/$ 21.0

3. The Expendables/LionsGate Wknd/$ 9.5 Total/$ 82.0

4. Eat, Pray. Love/Sony Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 60.7

5. The Other Guys/Sony Wknd/$ 6.6 Total/$ 99.3

6. Vampires Suck/Fox Wknd/$ 5.3 Total/$ 27.9

7. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 270.7

8. Nanny McPhee Returns/Universal Wknd/$ 4.7 Total/$ 17.0

9. The Switch/Miracle Wknd?$ 4.7 Total/$ 16.5

10. Piranha 3D/Dimension Wknd/$ 4.3 Total/$ 18.3

AND THE SEQUEL WILL BE, “NO, SERIOUSLY. THIS IS THE LAST ONE.”

The Last Exorcism opens at number one and the plot of this is a reverend who’s lost his faith doing one last scam exorcism before quitting when he actually runs into Satan, but when I hear this title I think of it more from Satan’s point of view. He’s tired of taking over little girls and this is gonna be his last when runs into some religious nut job who actually wants a fight and he rediscovers his passion for the work possessing young girls rather than people wealth or power who could ever really cause worldwide chaos and destruction, because Satan’s not about the big money and never has been.

OCEAN’S UNDER 40

Takers opens at number two and just as “I don’t do the scary” I also don’t like heist flicks and they actually have something in common: people doing something they know is stupid, be it going into that creepy house or doing that one last job that you know is hinky…like this one. But this is following in the spirit of the Ocean’s 11 remake in also being eye-candy for women, because no one talked about this movie coming out more than my sisters and all they could talk about was the hot male cast, starting with Paul “Pretty Boy” Walker, continuing with Iris Elba, to old mainstay Matt Dillon and including Jay Hernandez and Jonathan Schaech. Even T.I. and Hayden Christensen. It’s a prettyboypalooza, which is why it’s already made its budget back opening weekend. Clearly they’re as sick of Josh Rogen and Shia Lebouf as I am.

BECAUSE SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IS STILL GETTING LAID WEARING OLD SPICE

The Expendables is down to number three and believe it or not, you can also thank women for some of the success of this as well, though of a slightly older demographic particularly Dolph Lundgren who though not quite the pretty boy he was, still has his fans. He should send Jean Claude Van Damme a fruit basket because the role Lundgren plays was offered to Van Damme first, but Van Damme thinks he’s an actor now and turned it down, saying Stallone should be playing a tough priest working with gang members. Also reached out to were Steven Segal and Chuck Norris and don’t be surprised if some of those who turned it down show up in the sequel. Personally, I’m hoping for Carl Weathers or Jeff Speakman to show up.

CRAP, SIN, DISLIKE

Speaking of female viewers, they are solely responsible for the modest success of Eat, Pray, Love down to number four. It’s modest because it’s made $60 million off a $60M budget (and you gotta figure at least $20M went to Julia Roberts alone). And there’s zero word on overseas as of yet, so this will sadly continue to cement her superstar status once it and DVD sales come in.

BEETLEJUICE LOVE GETS YOU NOTHING EITHER

The Other Guys holds at number five and also in this is Michael Keaton, who’s had a bit of a comeback this summer having the role of Ken in Toy Story 3 earlier, which just broke the billion dollar mark. Of course, nothing will wash away the sin of this ugly, chinless bastard playing Batman for me. Yes, after 20 years I’m still holding a grudge. That’s how real geeks get down.

BUT WHERE’S BERNIE MAC?

Vampires Suck is down to number six, followed by Inception rising back up to number seven and Christopher Nolan tricked me because for all the science fiction and James Bond trappings, this is a heist flick all the way down to an “assemble the team” sequence. Sneaky fucker.

WHATEVER

Nanny McPhee Returns holds at number eight. Hmm. How ‘bout that? Anyway…

CLEARLY NO ONE TOLD HER THE SUCCESS OF FRIENDS WAS BASED ON HER NIPPLES

The Switch is down to number nine and let me add my voice to those who think Jennifer Anniston needs to take her shirt off already. It’s Halle Berry time, baby! That’s to signify when an actress of “a certain age” finally doffs her top to give her career new life. She’s already supposedly doing a “very sexualized” role, but no nudity. Sorry, honey but you can’t cock tease your way through life like that friggin’ GQ cover. Time to grow up and be a big girl and big girls with no discernable talent other than men want to bone them gotta get nekkid. Better actresses than you have done it, which to say pretty much any actress has done it. There’s nothing you’ve done in your career that your average Cinemax starlet couldn’t do just as well.

WHEN YOU SEE ELI ROTH, YOU KNOW IT’S CRAP

Piranha 3D is down to number ten and to show you the nasty creep level of this film, Eli Roth makes a cameo where he has to motorboat some poor actress (for those of you who don’t understand what that means, it’s to rub your face back and forth between a woman’s breasts and make a stupid noise and no one who knows how to fuck actually does it) and got an eye infection from the suntan oil. And they try too hard with the humor, the pinnacle being Jerry O’Donnell as a Joe Francis “Girls Gone Wild” type who gets his dick bitten off and eaten by the fish. This from a film filled with young starlets whose job is to be half-naked, naked and then die. Self-awareness and irony are unknown concepts to them.

ARE YOU TELLING ME DENISE RICHARDS HAD SOMETHING BETTER TO DO?

Best Buy is having an awesome Blu-ray sale and by awesome I mean the friggin’ prices are slowly but surely dropping. Yes, I realize it’s probably recession-related and the cruel irony is, though prices are dropping, there’s less money to buy them, but I still coughed up $10 to get Starship Troopers. And by $10 I mean $20 because thanks to some memory problem with Panasonic Blu-Ray players, you need an additional ScanDisk to make it work, which cost me $10. But more than worth it when I saw this version of the release has a cast & crew commentary along with the director’s commentary, which was on the initial release. This means my beloved Dina Meyer along with Casper Van Dien and Neil Patrick Harris talking with Paul Verhoeven. Now you expect Neil Patrick Harris to be smart and funny (when Verhoeven introduces him as playing a character who is smart but becomes a fascist he replies, “Just like real life” and at the flogging scene begins singing the GI Joe theme song), but that Casper Van Dien has a brain was a bit of a shock and Dina Meyer demonstrated a sense of humor when she commented that the reason Casper Van Dien chooses Denise Richards over her character is because he was a breast man, then makes the dual layer joke that Neil Patrick Harris’ character liked her was because he was “an ass man.” To which NPH replies, “You know it!” I like to think that she knew he was gay (given she’s admitted to some bisexual tendencies herself) and they were having fun with it. And even if she didn’t, it was still funny. But Casper Van Dien pointing out that Aryans from South America (especially fascist ones) makes perfect when you realize how many Nazis fled there after World War II was a shock. Now, someone lend me some cash, because Secretary, Ghostbusters and South Park were all on-sale for $10 as well.

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NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MAN ACTION MOVIES

1. The Expendables/LionsGate Wknd/$ 16.5 Total/$ 64.9

2. Vampires Suck/Fox Wknd/$ 12.2 Total/$ 18.6

3. Eat, Pray. Love/Sony Wknd/$ 12.0 Total/$ 47.1

4. Lottery Ticket/Warner Wknd?$ 11.1 Total/$ 11.1

5. The Other Guys/Sony Wknd/$ 10.1 Total/$ 88.2

6. Piranha 3D/Dimension Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 10.0

7. Nanny McPhee Returns/Universal Wknd/$ 8.3 Total/$ 8.3

8. The Switch/Miracle Wknd?$ 8.1 Total/$ 8.1

9. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 7.7 Total/$ 261.8

10.Scott Pilgrim vs. The World/Universal Wknd/$ 5.0 Total/$ 20.7

OLD BALLS

The Expendables holds at number one and it would be a misnomer to call this “Menopausal Mayhem” because “menopause” suggests “mid-life” while these fuckers are just plain old. Stallone isn’t middle-aged; he’s just old. And if you doubt it, the painful scenes of him running, using that old man gait will make it clear. I wonder how much they were insured for hip replacement surgery. Jason Statham is clearly here to bring down the age curve of guys who need their kids (or in Stallone’s case, grandkids) to explain exactly what this whole “texting” thing is all about. I’ve seen worse action movies, but that only means it wasn’t as bad as I expected given Stallone wrote along with directing it. The key to enjoying movies like this is to have incredibly low expectations. And I mean subterranean levels of quality, so when it’s above that, you’re good. So when Eric Roberts breaks out into a monologue in the middle of the whole world blowing up around him, I didn’t roll my eyes and groan any more than I did when Mickey Rourke did an even worse one earlier. I just accepted it as part of the price of scenes where shotgun fire literally cuts men in half, which is some of the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. And it happens more than once! It makes me think what would a female version of this be like? Probably some kind of bloated romantic comedy. Wait. Wasn’t that already done in The First Wives Club? This was actually funnier than that. But given how Hollywood treats women “of a certain age” you wouldn’t even have to change the name. “The Expendables” fits it all too well.

SHIT FLOATS, AMERICA

Vampires Suck opens at number two and yes, this is from those same lame fuckers who did Date Movie, Disaster Movie, etc. I fully believe that if it were not for teenagers who are just desperate to see anything on a Friday or Saturday night these things wouldn’t make a dime. If Scott Pilgrim had waited a week to open, it would have crushed this.

GORGE, BLASPHEME, LUST

Eat, Pray, Love is down to number three and clearly there just aren’t enough films about privileged white people who imagine they have problems for this to even exist. As someone said to me, “If you can afford to take a year off, YOU DON’T HAVE ANY FUCKING PROBLEMS.” That Julia Roberts, the smug queen of undeserved success is starring in it, is the nail in the coffin for me. I will never see this. Ever.

HEY, YOU COULDA GONE TO BUSINESS SCHOOL

Lottery Ticket opens at number four and Ice Cube is clearly on his way to being the anti-Tyler Perry. A man making movies for working class black people, but not pandering so much as trying to entertain. I could care less about either of them, but at least this doesn’t offend me with its very presence and allows the very occurrence of Terry Crews having two films in the top ten. Terry fucking Crews. You know right now there’s a black actor who graduated Yale Drama who is downing some very bitter drinks over this. Terry fucking Crews has two films in the top ten and he’s waiting tables. Sorry, brutha.

THAT SHE KINDA LOOKS LIKE CINDY CRAWFORD IS JUST ICING ON THE CAKE

The Other Guys is down to number five and also in this is Eva Mendes who made a bit of a splash with full-frontal nudity next to Denzel Washington’s Oscar-winning turn in Training Day. Since then she’s remained steadily doing A-list films, but through accident or design, has never really ascended to superstar status but hasn’t slipped either. She benefits when Will Smith succeeds with something like Hitch or Paul Walker with 2 Fast 2 Furious, but doesn’t get blamed for what Nicholas Cage does in either Ghost Rider or Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. But seriously, she needs to get nekkid again soon. Doing what Jennifer Lopez won’t do and clearly wouldn’t look as good doing, is how she can stop being “that other Latina.”

KEEPING THE RED DYE AND CORN SYRUP PEOPLE IN BUSINESS

Piranha 3D opens at number six and this looks like a stupid good time gorefest more than something scary, but I could honestly care less. That Eli Roth had anything to do with it means the gore will be utterly devoid of any kind wit or style. Honestly, the film’s biggest joke seems to be that Elizabeth Shue is in it, making it a day late and a dollar short behind Hamlet 2, which at least knew you had to make that joke part of the movie and not just metatextual.

WHY, GOD? WHY?

Nanny McPhee Returns opens at number seven. Really?

THERE’S A SITCOM WITH HER NAME ON IT SOMEWHERE

The Switch opens at number eight and this was on the list…until I realized that Jennifer Anniston makes bad movies. Her career is based not so much on her success, but being the “wronged woman” to actual superstars, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Also that her movies don’t really fail. They don’t succeed, but they don’t crash and burn either. A dubious honor. Jason Bateman, however, deserves better and needs to be hanging more with indie folks than the mainstream. Switch out Jennifer Anniston with Mary Louise Parker and you’ve got something worth seeing no matter what (and probably some gratuitous nudity). This, not so much and clearly many felt the same. The presence of Juliet Lewis is another warning sign and given she’s also an ex of Brad Pitt I wonder a little about onset conversation. Throw in some cameos by Gwyneth Paltrow and Robin Givens and we’ve got something here.

ALMOST AS IMPORTANT AS MONEY. NAH, NOT EVEN CLOSE TO MONEY.

Inception is down to number nine and its success has spawned one of the best rash of online parodies in recent years. Recutting trailers to Pixar films to it is probably my favorite, but the recent “Inebriation” now occupies my heart. This is the real testimony to success, that people not only saw it, not only can’t stop talking about it, but it’s affected them some much they make an effort over it later.

YOU LOSE!

Finally, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World closes out the top ten in its second week of release and this is a failure, but a good one and probably on its way to cult status. The problem is the audience for this film (adapted from a comic book graphic novel series) is for video gamers---who are too busy playing video games to go and see it. It’s truly aimed at the Nintendo generation and to a fault. While the visuals are kick ass the content is repetitive. You know, kinda like a video game. Scott has to fight his new girlfriend’s seven exes, each with more difficulty to advance. Get it? Yeah, while that’s funny, especially the first time, it just happens over and over and over again and quickly becomes tiresome despite attempts to vary them up. Honestly, you’d be better off just hearing of a character’s defeat than being forced to watch another one (geeks will note that Brandon Routh who played Superman and Chris Evans who played The Human Torch have added another comic book failure to their resumes). It’s telling that Rory Culkin, playing the “cool gay roommate” steals the film with just his charm, utilizing no special effects or aspects of gaming culture. It certainly doesn’t help that the lead character of Scott Pilgrim is a complete asshole. You have no interest in this guy getting the girl in the end, much less an entire movie about it. That he has two gorgeous girls on his jock is probably the movie’s best-hidden joke about the appeal of musicians to otherwise rational women.

A RANDOM ASSORTMENT OF BODIES

Patricia Neal, who packed in some classic work for not being a major name passed, as did Robert Wilson, bassist of The Gap Band. Also we lost James Gammon a few weeks back, best known as the whiskey voiced coach from Major League.

ROOTS – THE WRATH OF…SULLIVAN?

So this wasn’t up last week because I went home for vacation. And by “went home for vacation” I mean summoned home because my 90-year-old grandmother had broken her arm and her hip earlier this year and though dealing with some memory can remember me clearly above all, so home I went. And apparently she can remember me a bit too clearly, because even though she sometimes forgets her surroundings and the day, she had no problem giving me shit about not coming to see her earlier within seconds of seeing me, much to the delight of my sister. The guilt came down hard, fast and without mercy in the way only old people and children can do. I’d let my hair grow for a few months for my mom (I have what we in the black community call “good hair” in that it is soft and curly, but I could give a crap and shave it off every chance I get) and this in turn prompted my grandmother to talk about her own, similarly coiffed mother, who I learned was named “Mullen.” Yes, another fucking Irish name. My own Irish name wasn’t enough and apparently neither was my mom’s maiden name being “Kennedy.” Oh, no. I had to go and learn that my great-grandmother was also probably of paddy descent which more than explains that fucking red hair that popped up out of my forearm over the summer (though the hair on my head might also be a result of some Native American blood of which my grandmother is also proud). I also learned that like my maternal great-grandfather, my paternal great-grandfather (“Walker” so now we’re adding limeys to the paddies) was also half-white and also proceeded to marry a very dark woman. Basically, there was a clear attempt by both men to “breed the white out.” My own dating history makes that choice the height of irony. Sorry about your grand plan, ancestors, but I take it as it comes to me. I can’t afford to be picky.

A NEVERENDING SERIES OF GEEK COMPLAINTS

1. The Other Guys/Sony Wknd/$ 35.6 Total/$ 35.6

2. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 18.6 Total/$ 227.7

3. Step Up 3D/Touchstone Wknd/$ 15.5 Total/$ 15.5

5. Dinner for Schmucks/Paramount Wknd/$ 10.5 Total/$ 46.7

4. Salt/Sony Wknd/$ 11.1 Total/$ 92.0

6. Despicable Me/Universal Wknd/$ 9.4 Total/$ 209.4

7. Cats & Dogs 2/Warner Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 26.4

8. Charlie St. Cloud/Universal Wknd/$ 4.7 Total/$ 23.5

9. Toy Story 3/Disney Wknd/$ 3.0 Total/$ 396.3

10.The Kids Are All Right/Focus Wknd/$ 2.6 Total/$ 14.0

UH, NO.

The Other Guys opens at number one and I had zero interest in this because while I find Will Ferrell funny as a supporting character, as a lead he gets old fast. And Marky Mark as his straight man is simply not doing it. There’s still going to be too much of Will Ferrell for me. Hell, there’s too much of him in the commercials for me.

ALL WE’RE MISSING IS SHIRLEY BASSEY SINGING THE THEME SONG

Inception is down to number two and also in this, of all people, is Ellen Page. Yes, Juno herself. So much for those indie days of yore. They probably spent more money just driving the cast to the set than the entire cost of Juno. There’s a nice little understated hint of romance in the movie with another indie kid, Joseph Gordon Leavitt. I’d like to have seen more of that, but god forbid we lose a second of that long-ass arctic action sequence. Seriously. You like James Bond. We get it. Can we move on?

STEP UP 4 IN THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Step Up 3-D opens at number three and there will seemingly never be an end to movies about how white people are the best street dancers in the world. Oh, you people of color are here, but only to tell the white girl/boy just how good they really are. And apparently there’s a handoff system in play. The kid who stars in this was a supporting character in the second film while the star of the first film shows up to hand it off to the lead of the second. Oddly, the women never seem to return, even though one was actually the star of the second film. And while I hate that I even know that, I will give them credit for one thing: none of them have been blondes and two of them have weighed more than a toothpick. In Hollywood that’s fucking revolutionary.

MEANTIME PETER SARSGAARD AND LIEV SCHRIBER ARE UNAFFECTED

Salt is down to number four and this was originally a Tom Cruise vehicle, but instead he decided to play a light-hearted invincible superspy in Night & Day rather than a grim one here and this has made more in two weeks than that did in six. Also, Angelina Jolie is the only star in this whereas he had Cameron Diaz. His only saving grace is that Night & Day made $127M overseas as opposed to the $74M it made domestically, so it wasn’t a complete failure, but still this has gotta sting.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME

Dinner For Schmucks is down to number five and not even Bruce Greenwood could make me see this and I loves me some Bruce Greenwood and to completely digress he recent did the voice of Batman in a Direct To Video animated movie, Batman: Under The Red Hood, and it was perfect casting. As was Neil Patrick Harris as a wisecracking Dick Grayson. What also oddly worked was the guy who does Bender on Futurama doing The Joker. Then again, Bender is essentially a sociopath so a psychopath really wasn’t that much of a jump. And Jensen Ackles played Jason Todd, who geeks know was the second Robin. He was killed by the Joker but came back from the dead (because it’s comics) and returned to Gotham City to start killing criminals and fucking with Batman, which is what this movie is all about.

ONE OF THESE MOVIES IS DESPICABLE. THE OTHER IS CALLED DESPICABLE ME

Despicable Me is down to number six, followed by Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore at number seven and this piece of shit cost $85M to make. Someone seriously needs to be fired for this ever being made.

AND FULFILL THE DREAMS OF MILLIONS…OF MEN

Charlie St. Cloud is down to number eight and we’re counting down the seconds Zac Ephron makes his bid to be taken seriously by playing a gay male prostitute addicted to drugs. You know it’s coming. And his girlfriend will probably be playing a drug-addicted hooker in the same film.

THE PAM GRIER EFFECT

Toy Story 3 is down to number nine, followed by The Kids are All Right re-entering the top ten at number ten and also in this is Yaya Dacosta (seriously? Yaya?), whom I’d never heard of but is apparently well known to fans of America’s Next Top Model. All I know is I love her big sista-girl afro in this movie and I love it even more when she’s naked, thanks to a sex scene with Mark Ruffalo about five minutes in. In fact, it makes me think the afro on women needs to come back. On men, it depends, but a big sexy-ass fro works on just about every woman. Yes even the jew-fro and whatever the hell that is you call it when Italians have one (guido-fro? guifro?) This is why I love that poster for David Barton’s Gym. I don’t care if it’s exploitative and offensive.

JUST LET ME RIDE

So, my descent into madness continues as I got up at 7:00 am on a Saturday to ride Summer Streets, which is when they close down a straight path from 72^nd and Park Avenue to City Hall. And it paid off. It was wonderfully free of the people who annoy me most in my new semi-active life: fellow couch potatoes getting up and out. You meandering idiots. Nothing brings them out more than an event like this. Yeah, I know. It’s supposed to bring them out, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it!!! And of course to balance out my relatively easy ride in the streets, Central Park (where I almost never ride) was filled with a marathon that morning and when I went to the bike paths looking for them to at least be empty I ran into the flip side of the occasional rider: the crazy ass riders who are always up at 9:00 on a Saturday. Seriously, the paths were empty compared to the afternoon, but not as empty as I’d hoped they’d be, especially when it comes to groups of old men blowing past your ass. A guy who looked like Santa Claus not only whipped past me, but going up hill and pausing to make a joke about how tough it was. I get it. You’re old enough to be my dad, but are in better shape. You’re still gonna die first.

STOP CALLING, STOP CALLING I DON’T WANNA TALK ANY MORE

So, I’ve finally entered the 21^st Century by getting a smartphone. An iPhone was out of the question. Aside from AT&T’s shitty network, the iPhone 4 sucks and Apple knows it. You don’t hold a press conference to reassure people something works if it really does. You didn’t hold a press conference about iPhone 3 weeks after its release did you? Exactly. I’m with T-Mobile and I basically told them I wanted the MyTouch phone for free or I was gone because my contract was up. So I’ve got my new phone with the touchscreen and all that shit I’ll probably never use anyway because honestly, I almost never call people and people never call me. I do text, but I didn’t need a smartphone for that. What I did need it for was internet access. Too many times I’ve been out and needed to access my email over something (usually where I was supposed to be and what time). Honestly, it’s faster to check out a movie time online that it is to call 777-FILM and listen to a hundred ads. Now I just have to figure out how to work the rest of this shit. For the first time I’m actually reading the manual on something. And fuck you, T-Mobile, thinking I’m going to pay $20 for a covering for this. I got one of your brand name covers from Radio Shack at a clearance sale for $5.

SHE’S A MAN, BABY! OR A VAMPIRE. OR A ZOMBIE. OR WEREWOLF. SOMETHING’S NOT RIGHT.

You know life is fucking with you when it sticks you at a table with an attractive, drunk 22-year-old who just broke up with her boyfriend, wants to put bacon on her chili cheese fries, speaks openly of preferring older men because of their experience and dressed up like a comic book character for Halloween. I just went home. No good can come of that.

LUNCH FOR DOUCHEBAGS

1. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 27.5 Total/$ 193.3

2. Dinner for Schmucks/Paramount Wknd/$ 23.3 Total/$ 23.3

3. Salt/Sony Wknd/$ 19.3 Total/$ 70.8

4. Despicable Me/Universal Wknd/$ 15.5 Total/$ 190.3

5. Cats & Dogs 2/Warner Wknd/$ 12.5 Total/$ 12.5

6. Charlie St. Cloud/Universal Wknd/$ 12.1 Total/$ 12.1

7. Toy Story 3/Disney Wknd/$ 5.0 Total/$ 389.7

8. Grown Ups/Sony Wknd/$ 4.5 Total/$ 150.7

9. Sorcerer’s Apprentice/Disney Wknd/$ 4.3 Total/$ 51.9

10. Eclipse/Summit Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 288.2

AND DREAMSCAPE AND THE 13^TH FLOOR AND ST. ELSEWHERE AND NEWHART…

Inception holds at number one and if you wonder why some of us are less than impressed by it, it’s because the whole “what’s real vs. what’s a dream” is a concept as old as science fiction. It was the pilot episode of Star Trek and the concept of The Matrix. One thing that gets lost in Total Recall is the possibility that it may have all been a dream, especially when you remember the scene where the doctor tells him all that does actually happens to him after he kills the doctor, including details like “…one minute you’ll be the hero of the rebellion and the next Cohagen’s bosom pal.” And what reason would you have to dump someone on earth as a construction worker when what you wanted him to do was infiltrate the rebellion on Mars? But the best use of this in recent memory was on Buffy The Vampire Slayer when she wakes up in a mental institution and is told her entire existence as a Slayer was merely a delusion. Of course in Buffy’s world it’s a demon making her think that, but in the end she has to accept one as “real” and one as “fantasy” and which ever she chooses the other gets left permanently. What makes it killer is that in the “delusion” her parents are together and she has a normal life and she chooses the “reality” of a life filled with danger and no small amount of tragedy. Now that was a mindfuck. This? Just some mild mind-heavy-petting.

NOT THAT THE FRENCH OR THE ENGLISH ARE AS FUNNY AS WE ARE

Dinner For Schmucks opens at number two and this is a remake of a French film and I’m sure the French probably did it better, because in America there’s this strange need to apologize for being ruthless and mean in our comedy. The French don’t suffer from it nor do the English and that’s why I didn’t see this. I didn’t see the lame-ass director of Austin Powers and Meet The Parents going for the jugular like you need to. I also have this horrible feeling that Paul Rudd ultimately turns on his mean boss for the schmuck who’s not his friend and I have no interest in that kind of bullshit moralizing. And did I mention this guy directed Meet The Parents and its sequels, which are all shit just like the Austin Powers movies, save Dr. Evil? Yeah, it’s rare I just hate a director like this, but he’s on my list.

DROPPING SOME GEEK KNOWLEDGE ON YOU MUTHAFUCKAS. SPOILER ALERT!

Salt is down to number three and I’m going to give away some plot details, so skip this if you care. Now, in Iron Man 2 Scarlet Johansson played The Black Widow and poorly, but I can’t blame her as she was horribly miscast. Blonde hair and big tits doesn’t makes someone perfect for every role, dudes (but ironically enough in the comics there was a second, blonde Black Widow). The Black Widow in Marvel Comics is the best secret agent in the world. She initially starts off a Soviet agent sent after Tony Stark, but later becomes an agent of SHIELD and a superhero (she’s known Wolverine since she was a child, dated Daredevil, briefly made out with Spider-Man once and is now dating Captain America’s sidekick). But the point is, she’s a major league ass-kicker trained in special Soviet facility since childhood to be an agent. In Salt we find out that she is, in fact a Russian sleeper agent, trained at a special Soviet facility since birth to be an agent. Basically everything Scarlet Johansson should have been in Iron Man 2 and wasn’t (including an adult woman) Angelina Jolie is here in Salt.

OH, AND A SIX-YEAR-OLD ISN’T GETTING THE KITTY GALORE JOKE

Despicable Me is down to number four followed by Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore opening at number five and this is bankrupt corporate filmmaking at its lowest. There is no reason whatsoever for this film to exist and when I saw Despicable Me the trailer came up and the kids couldn’t have been more bored. No laughter, no interest and as the box office clearly shows, they’d rather see Despicable Me again than see this, period.

AND WHAT’S WITH THE GAY PORN STAR NAME FOR A TITLE!?!

Charlie St. Cloud opens at number six and judging from the commercials and the trailers, this is about a champion sailor who loses his brother in car accident so he retreats from life, finding consolation in the delusion that he’s playing catch with his dead brother until a girl comes along who’s also a sailor and when she gets lost at sea, he finally rises out of his depression, puts the delusion behind him and goes off to save her. Talk about giving it all away. Not that I would ever see it, but why would I need to now? And this looks like yet another Hallmark Hall of Fame movie that escaped from TV and made it into the wild.

THIS HEAH’S THE NURSERY. WE HAVE A DIFFERENT WAY OF DOIN’ THANGS.

Toy Story 3 is down to number seven and dragging out his Big Easy voice is none other than Ned Beatty as the voice of Lotso and I thought for sure it was going to be John Goodman, who co-starred with him in The Big Easy but he’s already done this once for Disney with The Princess and the Frog. I’m sure if neither was available they would have gone on to Dennis Quaid.

BILLY MADISON AND POOKIE THE LATER YEARS

Grown Ups is down to number eight and honestly this has shown a little staying power and made $150M off an $80M budget, which isn’t gangbusters, but it’s not a failure either. Not sure how many people want to see these guys grown up and domesticated.

THIS IS WHY HE HAS TO TAKE THE IDOL, DR. JONES.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is down to number nine and this is the second “based on a Disney product” Albert Molina has been in this summer, the first being Prince of Persia, which he walked away with. He isn’t quite so fortunate here given he actually has another actor of weight to compete with in Nicholas Cage, but do you think he gets free passes to Disneyland for all this work? Nah, me neither. Those Disney bastards are so cheap I doubt even Tom Hanks get free passes.

BLOOD MONEY

Finally, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse closes out the top ten at number ten and has made almost ten times its cost worldwide and that actually this makes it the least successful installment of the franchise. Can you fucking believe that!?! The first one made more than ten times its $37M cost and the second made fourteen times its $50M budget. No wonder everyone and his mother is trying to duplicate it. It’s also why I’m developing my story of teenage Creatures From The Black Lagoon…

IF MUSIC IS THE FOOD OF LIFE, I’M WEARING EARMUFFS

Okay, so I owe Sandra Bullock an apology. When The Proposal came out I mocked her for talking about how she got into shape for her first big semi-nude scene when instead of looking all taut and toned, she looked, well, normal and soft. See, she’s in her 40’s and basically there’s only so fit you can look unless you’re already unnaturally thin. I know this now having dropped about ten pounds since June thanks to my new unnatural lifestyle and still looking essentially like a wax statue someone left next to a radiator. There’s less of me, yes, but it’s far from rock hard. My man boobies and gut have made it clear they aren’t going anywhere but I hate lifting weight and doing ab exercises, so I’ve just learned to make my peace with that. Sadly, the key was food. Back when I was doing three-hour kung-fu classes three times a week and riding my bike I didn’t see much change because I’d go home and eat a pound of cheese then follow it with ice cream (ah, those were the days). Today can’t even remember the last time I had ice cream and essentially had no cheese for the month of June. I also gave up all the fun snacking at work. I used to have a bag of Reisen in my desk at all times. I had to stop when I got my temporary crown in for obvious reasons, and told myself I was being healthier when I was eating straight chocolate candy instead. Now they’re both gone. My only snack now is a freaking apple. I eat grilled chicken five days a week, twice a fucking day for lunch and dinner. And when it’s not that, it’s fucking turkey. So much fucking turkey. My breakfast is turkey bacon and smoothie made from strawberries, bananas, lo-fat yogurt, 2% milk and orange juice. The remaining half of the smoothie is my dessert. And when I do eat outside of that (weekends are for cheating) there’s something horrible called portion control, which means not eating until your stomach hurts, no matter how good it tastes. Yes, it’s a hellish existence, but I was bordering on having to buy new clothes and I refused to go up another size or be a fucking crazy person and do one of those cleanses. Also, I could not bear the thought of Bobby Brown weighing less than me. Yeah, he was on a TV show with personal trainers and everything, but still, it’s Bobby Brown! You should never lose to Bobby Brown! On the upside, I’ve gained back some clothes, most notably my linen pants, which was perfect timing given we had a heat wave. But I’ve been cracking recently. Cookies are making a small return to my life and I went through a weeklong obsession with donut holes, but honestly it passed after eating them a few times and if you know anything about me, you know my food phases usually go on for weeks, not days. Even when I went by a place that was giving them away at the end of the night, I only took a few and threw half away. Recently, I wanted some of the chocolate fudge brownies I used to make, but in a distinct Freudian turn I “accidentally” overcooked it and wound up throwing most of it out. And worst of all, I start to get anxious when I deviate from the plan. Yeah, I’m becoming one of those people and it’s easy to see how it becomes obsessive, because when you make a small gain, you start thinking, “Well, if I do a bit more, I’ll get a bit more” which is how I went from cranking out 30 laps in the pool in 30 minutes to 40 laps in thirty minutes and I kicked up my bike riding. But what I like most about it is that I’ll probably be at my healthiest at the end of the summer, when it’s time to put the clothes back on. All, delicious irony. The one thing I can still eat limitless portions of.

OH, SPEED

Death came for the 70’s recently with not only the death of Vonetta McGee, she of Blacula fame and pretty much every black TV show you’ve seen over the last thirty years. Also, James Gammon died, best known to you as the crusty coach from Major League. And finally, a personal geek loss Peter Fernandez who was the voice of Speed Racer died.