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.