LOVE IS THE DRUG AND I NEED TO SCORE

1. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Wknd/$ 50.3 Total/$220.4

2. Tangled/Disney Wknd/$ 49.1 Total/$ 69.0

3. Megamind/Paramount Wknd/$ 12.9 Total/$130.5

4. Burlesque/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 11.8 Total/$ 17.2

5. Unstoppable/Fox Wknd/$ 11.8 Total/$ 60.7

6. Love & Other Drugs/Fox Wknd/$ 9.9 Total/$ 14.0

7. Faster/CBS Wknd?$ 8.7 Total/$ 8.7

8. Due Date/Warners Wknd/$ 7.3 Total/$ 85.0

9. The Next Three Days/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 14.6

10. Morning Glory/Paramount Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 26.5

GET HAIRY

Harry Potter holds at number one, with Tangled opening at number two and I actually didn’t mind this so much which is saying a lot given they utterly hid the fact IT’S A MUSICAL! I’m not a fan of musicals to begin with and seriously cannot stand animated musicals. One of the reasons Pixar is so great is that they’ve never made that part of their formula. But Pixar had some input on this and it shows despite being as typical as it gets. You know, beautiful princess, evil stepmother---okay, not so much a step-mother as woman-who-stole-her-at-birth, but Rapunzel thinks she’s her mother and she’s evil, not just in the obvious ways, but in a non-stop display of passive aggressiveness (put-downs followed by “I love you”) that would seem cruel even to the stepmother of Snow White. But at the same time, it’s their refusal to try and be too modern and hip that makes this superior to something like Megamind. It’s got the perfect mixture of modern sensibilities and old-fashioned hokum. Sometimes you just want a movie about a princess who lives happily ever after to be just that. Enough winking at the audience over how silly these old fairy tales are. They’ve survived for a reason. The whole satire thing only worked once with Shrek anyway (unfortunately there were four movies).

TERABYTES AIN’T FREE!

Megamind is down to number three and believe it or not, this just made budget domestically and only has made $30M overseas. Not quite the success it seems to be. People can’t seem to understand all the computers that make this stuff cost money.

THE GAYEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE DENIED!

Burlesque opens at number four and this looks like an amazingly bad fun movie on the level of a new Showgirls (though with people possessing talent somewhere). I had plans to go see it drunk in Chelsea, which would have been perfect. Unfortunately the person I planned it with bailed but made me promise not to see it without her. Sigh. This is why I retired the whole “Movie Buddy” concept.

LOVE IS THE DRUG AND I NEED TO SCORE

Unstoppable is down to number five, followed by Love & Other Drugs opening at number six and this is best known as “The Movie Where Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway Get Naked” neither of which is the whole truth, because no one would have been interested in a movie about “Drug Salesman & A Young Woman with Parkinson’s.” This is probably why they double wrapped it in a satire about the pharmaceutical industry and a romantic comedy drama. Unfortunately they simply do not mix. At least not in the way this would like to mix them. The best you can say about it is that they don’t spring it on you inside the film. We know Anne Hathaway has Parkinson’s even before we see her face, which is different from most “Beautiful Girl With Incurable Disease That Doesn’t Affect Her Looks” movies, which only bring it up in the second act as something that either happens to her of “The Secret She’s Been Hiding From Him.” Like Gyllenhaal, we know going in this will not end well. The question is, are we going to stick with it? Well, we in the audience don’t have choice and I was counting the minutes once we got to the point where Gyllenhaal decided he was suddenly going to find a cure for her. And never, not once do we touch on the irony of a pharma rep looking for an actual cure since that’s not how the business works. We’re so detached from the initial set up we don’t even see him easily getting her the medication she needs that his company makes that he mentioned the first time he meets her! Instead we are subjected to the type of scene the actors get wet over and the audience dread where we see the disease’s full effect on her. And by full, I mean she’s still beautiful but shakes a little more than usual and cries. Then in more acting masturbatory fantasy, she gets drunk and cries a little more, but never with a hair out of place. Yeah, it seriously lacks the courage of its convictions.

NOT ANOTHER SEQUEL TO THE FAST & THE FURIOUS

Faster opens at number seven and this is a lean, mean 70’s style action movie. Or at least it should have been, but gets unfortunately derailed by some need to show the personal lives of the people involved. The Rock---oh, I’m sorry---Dwayne Johnson gives action another shot (after failing miserably and retreating with his tail between his legs to family films) as a man out for revenge on the men who murdered his brother. On his tail are Billy Bob Thornton as a cop and some English guy as a hitman. This collision of three should be car chases and gunfights and we do get them, but what we get far too much of are scenes with Billy Bob’s home life (estranged wife, fat kid) and crazy hitman dealing with---hang on, this is a long one---his complexes of being a kid with polio who has remade himself into millionaire GQ model with a gun. You could drop his character without a single change into a comedy, starting with him talking to his therapist about not taking his meds as he leaves his car to go try and kill someone to the movie stopping to show him celebrate his marriage with him and his new wife shooting bottles in their tux and wedding gown! I get that it wants to be something more than just blood, burnouts and bullets, but you didn’t get money to make an introspective drama, much less a laughable introspective drama (did I mention the bride and groom shooting in the desert?). You got money to make an action movie. Do that first. You realize how off the reservation they’ve gotten when they use the classic action movie setting of a scene in a strip club and not show one. single. boob. I feel sorry for the teenage boys who see action movies today, because when I was a kid this was solid lock, even with a PG-13. How else are Playmates and porn stars supposed to get movie credits?

BECAUSE BEING CRAZY ACTUALLY HELPS YOU IN HOLLYWOOD

Due Date is down to number eight and also in this is Juliette Lewis. Remember her? Brad Pitt’s second girlfriend who was a bigger star than he was (Robin Givens was the first)? After blowing up huge in Cape Fear her role in Husbands & Wives made her white-hot (thanks in no small part to Woody’s own scandal). Then came the one-two punch of Strange Days---which made the huge mistake of casting her as some kind of sex symbol Ralph Finnes would be obsessed with when he’s got Angela Bassett by his side---and Natural Born Killers which pretty much speaks for itself. It was the latter which truly did her in, I feel. She just played white trash one too many times and way too vividly for anyone to ever give her another chance at anything else. It’s not simply her being at bat-shit crazy scientologist who thinks they have musical talent because that’s like a dozen people with better careers. Clearly not an obstacle. But I’m sure the ascension of Hilary Swank as the “Talented Girl Who Isn’t Pretty” didn’t help either. Oh, shut up. You know it’s true.

SUCCEED OR BE DOOMED TO KISS SETH ROGEN FOR ALL ETERNITY

The Next Three Days is down to number nine and also in this is Elizabeth Banks and clearly she’s made the leap to the A-list, working as a female lead to Ryan Reynolds, Russell Crowe, Josh Brolin and even Eddie Murphy but if she doesn’t choose her roles better than this, The Uninvited and Zack & Miri Make A Porno, it won’t be long before she’ll be back supporting Steve Carell. Too bad she didn’t get more notice for her smaller dramatic work like Heights where she was part of an ensemble cast, playing Glenn Close’s daughter (perfect casting when you think about it) and James Marsden’s fiancée who justifies why you should always be suspicious of men who are too pretty.

HE’LL PLAY THE JUDD HIRSCH ROLE IN THE INDEPENDENCE DAY REMAKE

Morning Glory is down to number ten and also in this is Jeff Goldblum who was the master of playing the nerdy leading man when Michael Cera, Justin Long and the cast of The Social Network were mere gleams in their father’s eyes. Maybe now that we’ve seen the long-awaited dream of a Tron sequel we can finally get that Buckaroo Banzai sequel too. And how long is it before he’s playing the father to Jesse Eisenberg anyway? He’s already started playing the “Older Cynic” role as he does here. Like Dustin Hoffman, he can start playing the father to young Jewish actors.

SURELY YOU MUST BE JOKING

Death clearly needed a laugh as it took Leslie Nielsen this week, he of the great Zucker, Abrams, Zucker movies of Airplane and The Naked Gun, which was the big screen adaptation of the Police Files series, so the next time you bitch about your favorite show being cancelled remember that 25 years ago America was too stupid to support getting The Naked Gun every week.

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD

So, this was the year I decided to make my own Thanksgiving dinner. I get tired of playing the orphan having to haul my ass out to someone else’s home (usually outside of Manhattan) and then come back when I’m both drunk and suffering from “The Itis.” This time I’d just be able to stay home, be drunk and fall asleep. Needless to say, I called mom and asked for recipes and bless her heart she delivered, but declined to include little details like portions. She’d say “Sour cream, cheese and eggs” but would say how much of each, so for all I know I’m making a quiche of some sort. And we don’t eat quiche. I’m taking that as a voice of confidence, but the simple fact is, she’s being doing it so long, she really doesn’t know cups or teaspoons. She just “knows” how much to put in and somehow thinks I “know” through osmosis. For example: to make stuffing she told me I’d need celery and bell pepper, but not how much of either, so I just guessed and think it came out okay for the most part. Oh, shut up. I just got lucky. She still should have told me something. I started the night before with anything I’d need the oven for and wound up cooking until 4:00 am. Then I got up the next morning and started with the ham I’d bought, then the macaroni & cheese and then the turkey, while making the greens, yams and black-eye peas on the stove. Don’t ask me why I bought a bird and a pig when I didn’t plan on any guests. It just didn’t seem right without both. In total I made stuffing (from a mix, but punched up with celery & bell pepper), black eyed peas (from a can, but punched up with onions and smoked hamhock), yams (from a can), corn bread (made with leftover bacon grease), collard greens (from scratch because frozen and canned looked sketchy), macaroni & cheese (using a mix but punched up with sour cream, a pound of cheese and then baked), garlic mashed potatoes (from scratch, bitches) and of course a turkey and thank god for the internet or I wouldn’t know about making a mixture of butter and herbs and putting it both under the skin and on top. Mom only told me under and didn’t say anything about using herbs. Oh, and then there was the pie from The Little Pie Company. Because I was too lazy to walk the two blocks from work to pick one up earlier or at least order it, I had to pay their ankle-grabbling “last minute” prices which means you can only buy the large, which cost as much as the turkey and ham combined. I wish I could say it wasn’t worth it, but Sour Cream Apple Walnut with that apple crisp topping is heaven on earth. As it turns out I did have a guest, who was thankfully from Florida so the pork in the vegetables was no mystery to her (nor “The Itis”) and she even put hot sauce on the greens. Still, that left me with a ton of food leftover. I’ll definitely finish the greens, black-eye peas, macaroni & cheese, stuffing and pie, but I made three friggin’ pounds of garlic mashed potatoes and a full bird, not to mention that damn ham. It’s freezer time so I can eat some of this meal again in 2011. Hell, I may just have it around to thaw out for next Thanksgiving.

HOW ABOUT A “HIPPEST TRIP” AWARD?

One of the best nights I spent with my family was oddly around a funeral when all my cousins were gathered in a hotel room ripping apart the Soul Train Awards. That’s when I realized I was far from either the funniest or most ruthless member of my family. Since then, I tend to watch it occasionally. Last night was one such occasion…R.Kelly opens it? Jesus, have we no shame? And apparently he hasn’t missed many meals when out of the spotlight. I’m proud to say I know almost none of these songs. I’ve always hated this reedy-voiced muthafucka…Terrence Howard must also be eating well on the set of L&O: Los Angeles…I was already feeling old. I didn’t need to see Keisha-Knight Pullam aka, “Rudy” from The Cosby Show and Raven Symone as gorgeous young women…“Nothin’ On You” was the song of the summer for me, so I’m glad it won something. Funny how the black guy couldn’t make the Soul Train Awards, but whatever-the-hell-he-is Bruno Mars could…these so-called comedy routines with Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henderson need to stop…on one hand I’m glad Nee-Yo is doing straight-up R&B. On the other hand he’s as boring as hell. I can’t believe anyone has sex to anything he does. But his dancers are killin’…a salute to Anita Baker. Okay, I love her, but she pretty much disappeared after 1990 didn’t she? And where the hell have you been Dionne Farris? The best part of this is watching Anita Baker’s reactions. That she is so touched is touching. But why does El Debarge sing “Sweet Love” her first and biggest hit? But she loves it and gets up to dance with that still pretty muthafucka…and we come back from commerical to Eric Benet hitting the high notes better than anyone we’ve seen before so far…Kim Fields is yet another example of black seriously not cracking. She’s gotta be 50 and looks 30…Eryka Badu is just too fucking pretentious for me. It’s like “What if Sting were a black woman?”…Doug E. Fresh comes out to show people how to do “The Doug E.” as we play the game “laugh at the old white guy trying to dance” the old white guy being Wolf Blitzer for some odd reason…Wolf also accepts the award Eminem wins, which may be the funniest thing you see all night…Cee-Lo comes out doing a whole Issac Hayes level of ridiculousness dressed like Ming the Merciless…SWV reunited on stage…Janelle Monae wins some odd award…I really don’t really care for Bruno Mars, but “Grenade” is tight…a tribute to Ronald Isley and say what you want about Eric Benet, he is a pretty muthatfucka and when sings “Footsteps in The Dark” every woman is up on her feet. Jeffrey Osborne, Pebo Bryson and Freddy Jackson come out to their rendition of The Isley Brothers’ rendition of England Dan & John Ford Coley’s “Summer Breeze” and all the weight everyone else has gained, Freddy Jackson lost. Then Ronald sings “Between Sheets” showing he’s still got it, but then they do that “Mr. Bigg” shit with R. Kelly and not even Cee Lo doing “Shout” can wipe away the stain.

WOAH-OH-OH IT'S MAGIC!

1. Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Wknd/$ 125.1 Total/$125.1

2. Megamind/Paramount Wknd/$ 16.2 Total/$109.5

3. Unstoppable/Fox Wknd/$ 13.1 Total/$ 42.0

4. Due Date/Warners Wknd/$ 9.2 Total/$ 72.7

5. The Next Three Days/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 6.8 Total/$ 6.8

6. Morning Glory/Paramount Wknd/$ 5.2 Total/$ 19.9

7. Skyline/Universal Wknd/$ 3.4 Total/$ 17.6

8. Red/Summit Wknd/$ 2.5 Total/$ 83.6

9. For Colored Girls/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 2.4 Total/$ 34.5

10.Fair Game/Summit Wknd/$ 1.5 Total/$ 3.7

THIS WORLD IS NOW THEIRS

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows opens at number one and I continue to be outside this cult, though strangely a pair of Harry Potter glasses are currently in my apartment. Long story short: drunk girl dressed up as Harry Potter character on Halloween (but not in a good way; I had to put her in a cab home). I keep trying to get them back to her, but every instance usually involves meeting her at some kind of Harry Potter event and that I simply cannot and will not do. I thought comic book geeks were annoying. And weird. This is a whole new animal. When I see them I want to take their lunch money and push them into lockers. I’m through the looking glass, people. Black is white and white is black.

BUILDINGS, WHORES AND DWEEBY ACTORS GAIN RESPECTABILITY AS THEY GET OLDER

Megamind is down to number two followed by Unstoppable at number three and also in this is the bodacious Rosario Dawson whose natural gifts are wasted in the role of Lower Level Employee Whose Sound Advice is Ignored By Higher Ups. Seriously, there’s nothing close to originality going on here regarding characters. Joining her is Kevin Corrigan as Expert Guy Who Just Happens To Be Around That Day and his gray hair made me feel old because I remember when he was the younger, dumb guy who hooked up with Catherine Keener in walking & talking. Now he’s the older smart guy. I’m older and graying too. Does that mean we can all be figures of authority?

THIS COULD BE YOU IN A SECOND, BLAKE LIVELY

Due Date is down to number four and this actually opened at number one over Megamind which I forgot to tell you. Also in this as the pregnant wife Robert Downey Jr is trying to get home to is Lara Flynn Boyle 2.0, a.k.a., Michelle Monaghan whose moment as the “Hot Young Thing” was oddly brief, though she had a solid run through the Hollywood machine. After a stand-out performance in Kiss, Kiss Bang, Bang (also with RDJ) and was soon promoted to love interest in Mission Impossible III for Tom Cruise, was Casey Affleck’s partner in Gone, Baby, Gone; with Shia Lebeouf in the Steven Spielberg produced Eagle Eye, alongside McDreamy in Made of Honor and Ben Stiller’s other love interest in The Heartbreak Kid. Basically not one breakout hit among them, just mediocrity either in production or results and so, goodbye heat, enter new “Hot Young Thing” to be passed along Hollywood’s aging leading men. Bye and thanks for playing!

I PICTURE HIM DRUNK SINGING INXS. YOU KNOW, PLAYING HIMSELF.

The Next Three Days opens at number five and Russell Crowe may need a little career re-evaluation. This opened poorly, Robin Hood wasn’t the hit many expected it to be, State of Play was good, but no one saw it and Body of Lies was both critically and financially disappointing. Before that it was the underperforming American Gangster, 3:10 To Yuma and the miserable A Good Year. Now given other stars in those movies (Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, Denzel Washington, Christian Bale and Helen Mirren) have had success in other films, the one common factor in all those disappointments is him. Basically, when you think of the painfully serious Russell Crowe you don’t think “I’m going to have a good time at the movies no matter what.” Who else could make a Robin Hood movie that wasn’t even fun? Now this is a guy who should have been trying to get a cameo in The Hangover 2.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE. CHRIS TUCKER COULD HAVE BEEN IN IT.

Morning Glory is down to number six, followed by Skyline at number seven and the idiot director/writers of this are acting like victims because they made a crappy movie and got ripped for it. Basically these are special effects guys who were handed the keys and made something impressive-looking for $10M, but couldn’t create characters or plot or logic to save their lives and don’t think they should be judged for it. They even say, “We know it has flaws, but…” But nothing, dickweed! You charged people money and took up two hours of their lives with brain-eating aliens. They have a right to hate you for it. And I’ll say it again, you see Eric Balfour and you know it’s going to be crap. And Brett Ratner was an executive producer!?! Shit sandwich.

SERIOUSLY, YOU COULDN’T THINK OF A BETTER TITLE FOR THIS?

Red is down to number eight, followed by For Colored Girls at number nine and Fair Game enters the top ten at number ten and while I do like Doug Liman, I find Sean Penn insufferable and he’s playing a character who is in the right, so he’s probably going to be even more of a self-righteous ass than usual. Pass. Instead I’ll think about the other movie called Fair Game starring Cindy Crawford and William Baldwin, which pretty much killed both their movie careers. It was a loud steaming turd, but shit blew up, Salma Hayek had a cameo, Cindy took her shirt off and there was a love scene that looked like a music video, so I was happy. What do you want? I’m just a boy.

TRAIN IN VAIN

1. Megamind/Paramount Wknd/$ 30.1 Total/$ 89.8

2. Unstoppable/Fox Wknd/$ 23.5 Total/$ 23.5

3. Due Date/Warners Wknd/$ 15.5 Total/$ 59.0

4. Skyline/Universal Wknd/$ 11.7 Total/$ 11.7

5. Morning Glory/Paramount Wknd/$ 9.6 Total/$ 9.6

6. For Colored Girls/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 6.8 Total/$ 30.9

7. Red/Summit Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 79.8

8. Paranormal Activity 2/Parmount Wknd/$ 3.1 Total/$ 82.0

9. Saw 3D/LionsGate Wknd/$ 2.8 Total/$ 43.5

10. Jackass 3D/Parmount Wknd/$ 2.3 Total/$114.7

SORRY, BUT YOU CAN’T HEAR “PRETTY BOY” IN A VOICE

Megamind holds the number one slot and again, the difference between Pixar and films like this is that the characters come first and the actors come second. The Incredibles is ten times the film this is, but not because Craig Nelson and Jason Lee are ten times the actors Will Ferrell and Brad Pitt are (Holly Hunter, however, is ten times the actor anyone in this film is), but because they hired him solely to fit the role, because no one, not even Craig T. Nelson is going to see a film because Craig T. Nelson is in it, so he had to fit the role. People, however, do follow Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt and Tina Fey, so the role will be changed to fit them. This is not to say Brad Pitt isn’t a good comedic actor. He is. He has excellent timing, but you wouldn’t know that from the small role he winds up having here and you wouldn’t know how small the role is by his presence in the promotion. Might as well have saved the money and gotten John Hamm for it.

RUNAWAY TRAIN NEVER COMING BACK

Unstoppable opens at number two and if you can get one older established star and pair him with one upcoming star and they have actual chemistry, then you should have a license to print money. The key to The Rock wasn’t its by-the-numbers plot, but the chemistry between Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. It’s why it’s still fun to watch at 2:00 am on TBS. Well, Denzel Washington is hitting the Sean Connery phase of his career where he needs some younger buster to help him out and in this case it’s the Man-Who-Would-Be-Kirk, Chris Pine and fortunately they do have chemistry, but it’s sad that it’s not in a better movie. Sorry, but runaway trains are joke to me. It’s a freaking train. You know exactly where it is and where it’s going and stopping one is so blatantly obvious you have to spend the first 85 minutes of this movie dutifully sucking on stupid juice to accept that it doesn’t occur to anyone to do just that until minute number 86. But it’s Tony Scott at the helm, so checking your brain at the door becomes a requirement. The script is as simplistic as it gets. Chris Pine is the rookie going into the family business while Denzel is the old hand being pushed out the door. They’re paired together for the first time on a day where everything that can go wrong does go wrong. There’s a hint Pine’s character didn’t want to go into the family business but wanted something else with his life, but we don’t have time for that. What we do have time for is his estrangement from his wife, setting us up for her watching him be a hero on TV, thus reconciling. How this will magically erase the problems that caused the rift is not explained. Perhaps the cheapest technique is that all of this is being covered by the news, so aside from the audience cheering for them we have other characters in the cheering for them as the media explains what heroes they are and when you should cheer, because the movie assumes you wouldn’t have known this otherwise.

SORRY, BUT “RAY II” IS PRETTY MUCH IMPOSSIBLE

Due Date is down to number three and if I didn’t dislike Jamie Foxx so much I’d feel sorry for him. Oscar Winner for Best Actor a few years ago when all Robert Downey Jr. could do was get fucking arrested and now, third lead behind Zack fucking Galifianakis. In a comedy no less, which is supposed to be what he’s good at. Like I said, if I didn’t dislike him so much I’d feel sorry for him, but since I do…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

WHERE’S WILL SMITH WHEN YOU NEED HIM?

Skyline opens at number four and normally this would have been the first on my things to do this weekend. Big, dumb alien invasion movie. I’m there. But something happened on the way to heaven and I had to weigh out the three movies I wanted to see this weekend vs…working out. Sigh. Yeah. I know. The 14-year-old inside me screamed with frustration, but he can still look down and see his feet after eating a bag of doughnuts. Me, not so much and I don’t even get the doughnuts. Besides, the cast is nothing C-listers and some of the worst. Erick Balfour? Are you kidding me? This dude is synonymous with crap. He peaked as the druggie boyfriend from the first season of Six Feet Under. And Brittney Daniels? Again, peaked as one of the Sweet Valley High twins, now specializing as “The White Girl” in otherwise Black productions (she’s boning Keenan Ivory Wayans). And Donald Faison, we love you Turk/Murray from Scrubs/Clueless, but saving the world from alien invaders? I buy you as much as I’d buy Zach Braff. Then there’s the little matter that part of the crew was working on the bigger, better “aliens invade LA” movie, Battleground L.A. and the trailer for that is nothing short of awesome. Clearly you don’t feel the need to hedge your bets like that if you think you’ve got the winning horse.

HAN SOLO VS. ANNIE HALL WHILE REGINA GEORGE SIGHS HEAVILY

Morning Glory opens at number five and this so much wasted potential it’s not even funny. Aside from the all-star cast of Diane Keaton, Harrison Ford and my beloved Rachel McAdams, the idea of a young producer being given the lowest rated morning show on network TV who forces an acclaimed newsman onto it where he fights with the perky longtime host (whom he once slept with) should have been easy, comedic gold. This is more like bronze. And it fails for the same reason the character succeeds at her job: going shallow. She doesn’t improve the show’s ratings by bringing a unique mixture of quality and fun, but just cheap stunts. This doesn’t throw the slightest bit of shading to its characters. Rachel McAdams had a father who utterly believed in her and a mother who makes it clear she does not. Then she gets a type of surrogate parentage in Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford…and they do nothing with it. Even though Harrison Ford actually brings up her daddy issues! Harrison Ford’s character is there because he lost his prime news desk. Why? We never find out. There’s a romance with Patrick Wilson, but it’s so shallow he might as well be called “Love Interest” he’s so ill defined as a person. And once again, any show that deals with conventional media that shows so little respect for the internet is clearly clueless. There’s a one-line mention of YouTube and that’s it. Bright spot: multiple shots of Rachel McAdams’s exceptional-for-a-white-girl ass in panties. Don’t know what they fed her in Canada, but it works. I guess that’s why they call it “back” bacon.

ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

For Colored Girls is down to number six and for better or worse this will turn a profit. For better, because when was the last time a movie starring half a dozen black women made money (hell, when was the last time you saw a movie starring half-a-dozen black women)? Worse, because, well, it’s Tyler Perry.

ETC

RED is down to number seven, followed by Paranormal Activity 2 at number eight and Saw 3D at number nine.

YOU ONLY WISH THIS WAS THE END

Finally Jackass 3D closes out the top ten and yes, there’s going to be another one.

CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN…BROKE

I need a boot intervention as just a few weeks after buying my last pair, I bought another. But they’re beautiful! They’re gray suede Converse boots. Yeah, I know, but they’re actually awesome. I didn’t mean to buy them, I swear. I was actually looking for winter sneakers (aka, leather sneakers, as opposed to summertime canvas) which were on-sale at Macys and I had coupon which means I was going to make a killing. But of course when you’re average fucking sized like I am, everything your size (in the color you want) is the first thing to go in a sale. So, I’m about to leave when I look to see if these boots are on-sale and voila! They are. Only $10 off, but then I add my coupon to it and it’s $20, which then puts them only $10 above what I was willing to spend on winter sneakers anyway. Of course when you make one significant purchase little ones seem acceptable so, I continued on my quest undo my parents’ obsession with buying me everything in a large no matter how many times I tell them “medium.” I’m convinced because your parents spent a lifetime constantly having to buy you larger and larger clothing, they’re convinced you won’t stop. Of course it’s not all them. I too was guilty of buying clothes a size too large because I was looking at the comfort level and not at the fact it made me look sloppy. But just remember: when shopping from places like H&M and Uniqlo, you have to go a size larger, because we’re a bunch of fat fucks compared to Europe and Asia. I learned that the hard way with my underwear. Also replacing a lot of that…

The Clash on Fridays - "Train in Vain"
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THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

1. Megamind/Paramount Wknd/$ 47.7 Total/$ 47.7

2. Due Date/Warners Wknd/$ 33.5 Total/$ 33.5

3. For Colored Girls/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 20.1 Total/$ 20.1

4. Red/Summit Wknd/$ 8.9 Total/$ 71.9

5. Saw 3D/LionsGate Wknd/$ 8.2 Total/$ 38.8

6. Paranormal Activity 2/Parmount Wknd/$ 7.3 Total/$ 77.2

7. Jackass 3D/Parmount Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$110.8

8. Hereafter/Warners Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 28.7

9. Secretariat/Disney Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 50.9

10. The Social Network/Sony Wknd/$ 3.6 Total/$ 85.0

AN IDEA SO NICE THEY USED IT TWICE

Megamind opens at number one and by my count this is the second film this year that was seemingly borne of someone watching The Incredibles and thinking, “Hey, suppose we did a movie just about the villain? That would be hysterical!” This is how good the Pixar work is, when one aspect of the complete film is enough for another movie entirely. The first was the stylish, yet shallow Despicable me. This isn’t quite as stylized, but more entertaining mainly because it’s not pretending to be anything more than what it is. Despicable Me made pretensions of heartwarming family comedy, while remaining no deeper than a saucer. This is pretty much a spoof of heroes and villains, focusing specifically on Superman and Lex Luthor and succeeds in its modest goals. It’s Superman from jumpstreet as we see both Metro Man and Megamind being the sole survivors of doomed worlds rocketed to Earth, only Metro Man lands in the lap of luxury, while Megamind lands in prison. They meet again in the same elementary school and while trying to emulate Metro Man popularity due to his super-powers, Megamind only causes havoc, so chooses to just indulge in it. A better film (aka, a Pixar one) would have delved more into “nature vs. nurture” and would have followed the Superman/Lex Luthor relationship more closely and made them friends, but this is happy to be all about surface, so when Megamind finally does kill Metro Man (though the commercials give away that he’s only faked his death to get away from the burden of being a hero), he’s lost without someone to fight. This leads to him deciding to create his own superhero to fight, but as we’ve seen before his plans never work and this is no exception. It’s a pleasant enough 90 minutes, but needed a little more bite. When your satirical high point is a spoof of Marlon Brando from Superman, you’ve got problems.

PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES, PART DEUX

Due Date opens at number two and for me Zach Galifianakis is like a funnier Jack Black, which is to say he’s actually funny. But by the same token a little of him goes a long way, so an entire movie with him doing his annoying weird guys shtick sounded like work to me, so I gave Due Date a pass. Let me put it this way: I’ve on seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles once and hope never to see it again before I die and this just looks a bit too much like that. Road movies about being stuck with an annoying person aren’t funny to me. They’re just as hellish as actually being stuck with an annoying person. Maybe if they’d added one more person to it like The Hangover to dilute him by a third, but knowing it would be all about an annoying person was just too much. Not to mention, Robert Downey Jr. as the straight man? Talk about a waste of talent. And the only other star in this is Jamie Foxx who I also find annoying as hell? Seriously passing.

FOR BLACK PEOPLE WHO CLEARLY HAVEN’T SUFFERED ENUF AT THE MOVIES

For Colored Girls opens at number three and I do not give Tyler Perry my money, period. There is nothing sadder than the fact the only way a film like this could be made is with him. And what the hell is Janet Jackson doing in a serious drama anyway? So long as Angela Bassett has breath in her body, there’s no reason she shouldn’t still be at the top of everyone’s list, even if it means working with people like Tyler Perry. And I’m not happy about Anika Noni Rose---who gave the best performance in Dreamgirls and you know it---being here either. I know we all need work, but surely some TV show needs a tough, Black female lieutenant or some white actress needs a best friend. Better to serve in heaven than rule in hell.

IT WAS ALWAYS INTEGRAL TO THE PLOT…ABOUT BEING HORNY AND 17

Red is down to number four, followed by Saw 3D at number five and because I’ve never seen one of these I had no idea they’ve been a bit of a comeback for Betsy Russell, who is best known for being hotter than Phoebe Cates in the infamous 80’s sex comedy, Private School, which is saying something, because Phoebe Cates is imprinted on the adolescence of an entire generation. Then again, Phoebe had stopped her wonderful nudity at this point so Russell had to do the heavy lifting. Or should I say, topless horseback riding.

FINE, SCORSESE. BUT IF I WIN, YOU HAVE TO HIRE JON LOVITZ

Paranormal Activity 2 is down to number six, followed by Jackass 3D at number seven and Hereafter at number eight and how exactly does Jay Mohr wind up in a Clint Eastwood movie? Seriously, who’d he fuck or kill (or both) to get this gig? Or did Clint take a bet to show he could make any loser look like an actor or did he just lose one?

THE END

Secretariat is down to number nine with The Social Network closing out the top ten at number ten.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Yes, I bought a replica of the sword Duncan McCloud used in Highlander. No, I don’t know why. Yes, I was sober when I did it. No, it’s not one of the good $100+ ones made in Spain, but one the cheap made-in-China $30 ones. Yes, the one Duncan uses is different from Conner’s. No, I’m not going to get that one because I don’t like its design. Yes, I did take pictures of myself with it. No, you can’t see them.

DEAR DEATH, I NEVER THOUGHT ANY OF THOSE OBITS WERE TRUE

Death has been busy these last few weeks with the help of cancer, which is insult to injury. Why should someone in their 80’s die of cancer? Tom Bosley and Barbara Billingsley passing makes me think Florence Henderson needs to watch her back. Seeing the new, awful Hawaii Five O probably killed James McArthur. Remember Debra Winger’s slutty best friend in An Officer and A Gentleman? Her name was Lisa Blount and later she actually won an Oscar for a short film. She was only 53. I always thought Jay Ward created Rocky & Bullwinkle, but he only created the show. A man named Alex Anderson (who was Ward’s childhood friend) created the characters and he died at the age of 90. An Unmarried Woman is one of my all time favorite films and I always loved Jill Clayburgh because of it, so her death is particularly sad, but because I’ve been masturbating since I was twelve, nothing hit me harder than the loss of Bob Guccione, the creator of Penthouse and the man who brought full-frontal nudity to mens’ magazines. And let us not forget the greatest gift to men ever: Penthouse Forum with its letters, so popular it eventually became its own magazine, Penthouse Letters, which is also still being published. Guccione lost the magazines a few years ago and they haven’t been the same since. Granted the main magazine went needlessly hardcore (including watersports), but the Letters were hysterically over-the-top and have since been grounded.

THE MAN IN BLACK

1. Saw 3D/LionsGate Wknd/$ 22.5 Total/$ 24.2

2. Paranormal Activity 2/Parmount Wknd/$ 16.5 Total/$ 65.7

3. Red/Summit Wknd/$ 10.8 Total/$ 58.9

4. Jackass 3D/Parmount Wknd/$ 8.4 Total/$101.6

5. Hereafter/Warners Wknd/$ 6.3 Total/$ 22.2

6. Secretariat/Disney Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 44.8

7. The Social Network/Sony Wknd/$ 4.7 Total/$ 79.7

8. Life As We Know It/Warners Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 43.5

9. The Town/Warners Wknd/$ 1.9 Total/$ 87.6

10. Conviction/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 1.8 Total/$ 2.4

WHAT? SHE GETS HER HEAD CHOPPED OFF, RIGHT?

Saw 3D opens at number one and this is the granddaddy of the torture porn movement we’ve been subjected to for nearly a decade…and by “we” I mean you idiots who actually paid to see gross depictions of murder and sadism trying to pass as horror. The only horror is the lack of imagination and talent on display. In the case of the first Saw film, however, I will say the concept of having to do something horrible or die a horrible death is a nice concept for a movie, but it’s clear that’s what the audience loved and not necessarily anything around it. Certainly no one has been able to use this to springboard into something else, not even the producers, who swear this is the last one. Probably because---aside from diminishing returns---it’s not exactly impressive on the old resume. “So you want to remake Anna Karenina. What else have you done? Seriously? Get the fuck out of my office.”

MILD SPOILERS FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T GIVE A SHIT

Paranormal Activity 2 is down to number two and unlike the previous entry, this series is based purely on scaring the shit out of you through technique and I did read Themoviespoiler.com and actually this isn’t so much a sequel, but a prequel. The family in question is the family of the sister of the girl in the first and again at the heart of it is the dickhead they chose to be with. In the first one her asshole boyfriend ignores advice on dealing with the demon and in this one her asshole brother-in-law tries to bury his head in the sand over the fact they’re being tormented by a demon and then does something, really, really stupid that actually causes the events of the first film to occur. The message is clear ladies: the only thing worse than a demon in you lives is a dumbass man.

A MINOR STAR IN THE CONSTELLATION OF GEEK

RED holds at number three and also in this is Ernest fucking Borgnine. Seriously. You have no idea how high the age curve in this goes. And he’s actually fun to see. More of the real old guard in Hollywood needs to be given work like this. They instantly lend a sense of gravity to it, because as much as I like minor geek god, Karl Urban, he ain’t doing it. In fact unless you’re a geek, you don’t know who he is. But if you are a geek you know this dude has been in everything. The Bourne Supremacy (the badass Russian hitman), Lord of the Rings 2 & 3 (um, some guy), Doom (disappointing millions by being the hero instead of The Rock), Star Trek (doing a perfect Dr. McCoy) and my personal favorite Cupid on Xena. No, actually it’s Lord Vakko in Chronicles of Riddick, but it’s hysterical he was once Cupid. Next up in his geek pantheon: he’s going to be the new Judge Dredd, which this role shows he can do quite well.

SOMETIMES SLUT SHAMING IS JUSTIFIED

Jackass 3D is down to number four and I don’t mean to be cruel, but if his simply being famous made you sleep with a guy who calls himself Wee Man, then you’d be better off if your daddy issues only had you stripping. Or doing porn. Seriously.

SERIOUSLY, HE’S A LOSER

Hereafter is down to number five, followed by Secretariat at number six and one thing they have to leave out of a movie like this is that owner of Secretariat had actually won with another horse before Secretariat, so it’s not like she would have been a failure without him. It’s like finding out that Rudy was actually a champion tennis player while trying to get on the Notre Dame football team. He wasn’t. He wasn’t good at anything but being a living representation of “If you throw enough at the wall, something’s gotta stick.”

IT ALWAYS COMES BACK TO THIS

The Social Network is down to number seven and the geek connection in this film is that the actor playing Eduardo, Andrew Garfield, will be the new Spider-Man in the reboot.

TV IS CALLING, DUDE. DON’T IGNORE HER SIREN SONG.

Life As We Know It is down to number eight and also in this is Josh Lucas. Remember him? Seven years ago he would have been the male lead, but now he’s just the cute pediatrician, undoubtedly here as a device to make Josh Duhamel jealous thus propelling the contrived relationship with Katherine Heigl. Where’d it all go wrong, Josh? Sweet Home Alabama put you on the map to being a romantic leading man. Being a less-skeevy version of Matthew McConughey should have been the way to go, but your choices (i.e., your agent) doomed you. I know a movie with Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman directed by Lasse Hallstrom (who is actually a painfully overrated director) sounded good on paper, but the fact that Jennifer Lopez was the female lead should have let you know it was doomed. After all, she couldn’t make a good movie with the real McConughey. Stealth was so bad it cooled off Jamie Foxx’s Oscar heat and a Poseidon Adventure remake? Dude, there had to be a shitload of crazy money on the table for that to seem like a good idea. Now, instead of successful career like Mark Ruffalo of supporting A-list women, you’re the guy who doesn’t even get the B-List lead of Katherine Heigl. You’re the B-list Ralph Bellamy. Somewhere Matthew McConughey sits with his shirt off and laughs.

BECAUSE I’M TOO MATURE TO USE THE TERM “BUTTERFACE”

The Town is down to number nine followed by Conviction, or as I call it The Annual Hillary Swank Oscar Bait Movie That Doesn’t Require Looks For The Female Lead. Oh, shut up. Who are we kidding? Hillary Swank has talent by the ton, but she’s not conventionally attractive so she’s doomed to play shit like this for the rest of her leading woman career. It won’t matter once she starts playing moms, but for now it leads to one of the most morose resumes ever, filled with true life drama after true life drama. Three Hilary Swank movies in a row and you’re ready to kill yourself. Yeah, she tried something more mainstream, but even in P.S. I Love You she’s a freaking widower dealing with the death of her husband. She needs to put that rocking bod to use and play an action hero. She would have been much more believable beating the crap out of people than the stick-figure-armed Angelina Jolie.

HELL NIGHT? MORE LIKE “HECK NIGHT”

So I was actually semi-social this Halloween weekend. Normally, I just board myself up in my apartment like the people in Night of the Living Dead, but this time I went out to Brooklyn for a party thrown by one of the Jezebels. Now, I was never a big partier when I was younger, but when I did nothing really started one before nine and shit seriously didn’t get going until 11:00 or midnight. These kids today are half in the bag by midnight and packing it in around one. Sad. This is the reason the days of Studio 54 can’t come back to NYC. The blood has gotten weak. In any case, by the time I got to 9:00 party at 11:00 the hostess was already drunk and I wind up partially taking care of a girl that I already knew dressed like a Harry Potter character. She told me which one, but I don’t know that cult, so I only know she wasn’t one of the main ones. Between monitoring her I did manage to meet Portia, who was smart, funny didn’t mind tasting my jalapeño margarita and of course there with her own girlfriend of six years. There were also the two girls with unique idea to go as Daria and Jane, but were burdened with having to explain it to everyone. I wasn’t much better. Normally, I just wear a blue suit with a Superman shirt under it and go as Clark Kent, but this time I wore a black suit with a mask and a sword and went as Johnny Mo of the Crazy 88 from Kill Bill. Of course I had to explain it and only then did someone suggest I should have gone one-armed and covered with blood. That’s a better idea, but it also sounds like work. My back up was to have sunglasses in my pocket and go as either Mr. Smith from The Matrix or a Man In Black from Men In Black. I could even be Fox Mulder from The X-Files. A suit is the perfect costume for the lazy man. A guy who tried was the musician who went as The Phantom of Opera from the musical, but he wouldn’t even sing. Whatever happened to commitment to the role!?! Of course many felt no obligation to even try, such is the way of jade Brooklyn hipster. But there was still the generic “sexy” costume on display and we should ask ourselves as a people why so many women flock to this idea? If it’s sheer laziness, I understand, but it strikes me as something more. But if loving the pretty Asian girl in the Sexy Schoolgirl outfit I saw on my way out there is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. Another occurrence which still freaks me out was three sistas discussing Lord of the Rings in detail. Not just geek girls, but geek black girls. As my boy O.G. (Original Geek) said to me, we are men out of time. Such options were not open to us when we were young. Again, because the blood is weaker these days, around about 1:00 am the party began to peter out and even the hostess was surprised. I wound up putting the Drunk Harry Potter Girl in a gypsy cab with the help of NYPD, which quite the feat giving she doesn’t like cops in the way that only an Upper Middle Class White girl can. It’s almost cute. Almost because it’s not her that was going to get shot if she started insulting them like she wanted to. She could pull a gun, but it was still that black guy in the suit going down.

DON'T PRETEND YOU DON'T LIKE IT

Willow Smith's song, "Whip My Hair" is awesome. Don't act like it's not. The only thing better is the remix with Sesame Street.