Angrygeek

SIGNS OF THE INVASION ON INDEPENDENCE DAY

2011-03-14T02:50:00.005-04:00

1. Battle: LA Sony Wknd/$ 36.0 Total/$ 36.0

2. Rango/Parmount Wknd/$ 23.1 Total/$ 68.7

3. Red Riding Hood/Warners Wknd/$ 14.1 Total/$ 14.1

4. The Adjustment Bureau/Universal Wknd/$ 11.5 Total/$ 38.5

5. Mars Needs Moms/Disney Wknd/$ 6.8 Total/$ 6.8

6. Hall Pass/Warners Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 34.9

7. Beastly/CBS Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 17.0

8. Just Go with It/Sony Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 94.0 9

9. The King’s Speech/Weinstein Wknd/$ 3.6 Total/$129.1

10. Gnomeo And Juliet/Disney Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 89.0

DON’T THEY WANT OUR WOMEN ANY MORE?

Battle: Los Angeles opens at number one and while I enjoyed this, it could easily be called “Marines vs. The Alien Invaders” so completely and utterly clichéd it is. Don’t get me wrong. There’s a reason we keep using these stock characters and situations: when done properly, they work very well. But would have killed them to at least try to do slightly original with them? But I guess if you don’t try you can’t fail and they don’t fail in making an entertaining science fiction action movie (though truth be told you could replace the aliens with Nazis and LA with Paris and you’ve got the same movie). We start out with, a 20-year marine about to retire after a tragedy in his last tour; a marine visiting the grave of his brother (gee, think they’re connected?), a young lieutenant with a baby on the way, a kid who signed up at 17 and is a virgin, another Marine out preparing for his wedding with his best friend helping out and into their lives comes a mysterious meteor shower headed to Earth. Of course the retiring marine gets assigned to the unit containing the young lieutenant, the virgin, the bridegroom and the brother of the solider he lost. Of course they get the assignment to go rescue civilians, which includes beautiful vet, Bridgette Moynihan and her niece (not her daughter, because the paternal bonding has to occur between our 20-year vet and a little boy). Of course there are heroic sacrifices, surprise deaths that are actually clichés in themselves because the “Oh, He’s Not Going Do Die” death has also been done to death. In addition heroic rallying speeches and the heroes saving the day in a way that only they can because everyone else in the world took stupid pills that morning. There’s not one ounce of “wink nod” irony in anything they do which is odd given the film is clearly self-aware of being an science fiction action movie, the biggest moment being the reason the aliens have come which appears to be a flat-out middle finger to Signs. They should have quit while they were ahead, because it’s not smarter than Signs for it, only a different kind of stupid. They just could have left it at the aliens invaded us “just because.” I didn’t come for reasons. I came to see aliens being blown the fuck up and this gives me just that.

DOES ANYTHING TRAUMATIZE KIDS LIKE A KID’S FILM?

Rango is down to number two and the “Spirit of the West” which looks and sounds a lot like Clint Eastwood is voiced by none other than Timothy Olyphant. He and Johnny Depp are the flip side of to the coin of falling stars who do shitty animated films for money and people who are clearly on top doing it for the fun of it. This is a wink and a nod to his current success as basically a modern day gunfighter on Justified. But again, no kid in the audience gets that joke (much less the appearance of Hunter S. Thompson). Joining them here are Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton and Ray Winstone. And to his credit and that of the animators, Bill Nighy as Rattlesnake Jake (Based on Lee Van Cleef in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) actually scared me so I can’t imagine what it did to kids.

SO THE SEQUEL IS THE THREE LITTLE PIGS?

Red Riding Hood opens at number three and I had to give this teen gothic adaptation of the classic fairy tale a pass. I was a little curious, but ultimately sleep seemed more appealing. Maybe an “R” rating with the promise of some actual blood and sex could have gotten me in, but not a PG-13. Not to mention, didn’t Neil Jordan do this already in A Company of Wolves? But who would have thought that the dumb blonde from Mean Girls would have a career while Lindsay Lohan floundered? Just say no to drugs, kids.

WHAT SATURDAY NIGHTS ON THE SCI-FI CHANNEL ARE MADE OF

The Adjustment Bureau is down to number four and though I thought it was impossible, I actually seem to care less this week. This is yet another movie based on the work of Philip K. Dick. Other movies include Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, Paycheck, Imposter and Screamers. Yeah, mostly bad movies with big stars (Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzanegger, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Ben Affleck) and big directors (Ridley Scott, Steven Speilberg, John WooA).

OPUS THE MOVIE NEEDS TO HAPPEN

Mars Needs Moms opens at number five and this is based on a book by the creator of Bloom County, Berke Breathed. Now, given his distinct artistic style and the fact you’re using animation, why on fucking earth would you not only not follow it to try and make it look like real people but use soulless motion capture? Oh, yeah. “Directed by Robert Zemeckis.” That explains everything.

AND YOU THOUGHT ZAC EFRON HAD IT BAD

Hall Pass is down to number six followed by Beastly at number seven and as Beauty in this is Vanessa Hudgens and as the witch who curses him is…Mary Kate-Olsen? Is this where kid stars go to die? Well, at least she was able to provide her own wardrobe.

CRASH INTO OBSCURITY

Just Go With It is down to number eight and also hidden in the cast is Dave Matthews as Nicole Kidman’s husband. Now he deserves to be in a movie like this and if nothing else it prevents him from making more of that noise he calls music. It was the music of douchebags before the word became ubiquitous and if auto-tune, Ke$sha and Katy Perry mean less of him then more power to them all.

THE END

The King’s Speech is down to number nine, followed by the blight known as Gnomeo and Juliet closing out the top ten at number ten.

I’M THINKING DOING IT MAKES YOU A TWIT

Yes, I’m Tweeting. I don’t see the point, but I am because the minutia of my life is clearly fascinating. But the upside you get to follow others. Now, anyone can follow Charlie Sheen, but I choose to follow Denise Richards and Bree Olsen (one of the porn stars he’s shacked up with). Ironically, they both talk about puppies and what’s happening in Japan…that is when Bree Olsen isn’t sharing her disturbed sexual fantasies about falling asleep on a beach and waking up to being raped (now you understand why she’s with Charlie Sheen). I also follow William Shatner and this attractive blonde physicist I met at this year’s Oscar party. I figure the physicist alone clears me to follow at least two more porn stars, because what she tweets is in English but it might as well be Vulcan so far is it from my understanding. It gets even crazier when other physicists respond. I like to think they’re talking about time travel.

BECAUSE YOU’RE HERE FOR A PURPOSE

While Mickey Rooney testifies before Congress on elder abuse and prays the trip alone will kill him, Death remains in California and takes Jane Russell.

YOUR FAVORITE 80'S SONG TITLE HERE

2011-03-07T00:40:00.006-05:00

1. Rango/Parmount Wknd/$ 38.0 Total/$ 38.0

2. The Adjustment Bureau/Universal Wknd/$ 20.9 Total/$ 20.9

3. Beastly/CBS Wknd/$ 10.1 Total/$ 10.1

4. Hall Pass/Warners Wknd/$ 9.0 Total/$ 27.0

5. Gnomeo And Juliet/Disney Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 83.7

6. Unknown/Warners Wknd/$ 6.6 Total/$ 53.1

7. The King’s Speech/Weinstein Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$123.8

8. Just Go with It/Sony Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$ 88.2

9. I Am Number Four/Touchstone Wknd/$ 5.7 Total/$ 46.4

10. Justin Bieber/Parmount Wknd/$ 4.3 Total/$ 68.9

WHAT? NO BLAZING SADDLES?

Rango opens at number one and like most non-Pixar animated films, this lacks the cohesion needed to be exceptional but is enjoyable nonetheless, especially if you like or know westerns. It begins almost immediately with a “Greek chorus” of mariachi band playing and narrating much like Nat King Cole did in Cat Ballou. Next a doomed desert frog screams at Rango after being taken by a hawk (wearing a Silver nosepiece like another character in Cat Ballou), “You son of a----“ before being drowned out like the end of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. It all culminates with an appearance by “The Spirit of the West” who looks and sounds a lot like Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name, complete with a bag filled with gold statues. The story isn’t new of someone pretending to be a badass gunfighter and inadvertently becoming sheriff. James Garner made a few movies about it. The problem is the movie can’t decide if Rango is just running a game and merely stumbling into some sort of success as sheriff as when he kills the hawk that attacks the town. Or he actually wants to be who he pretends he is as shown when he demonstrates some degree of deductive skill (which fits because the plot is lifted from Chinatown complete with a character based on John Huston). But while these provided a steady stream of amusement for me, what about the kids who of course have no idea about these things? What’s filling the void of actual storytelling and character for them? Not much.

AS ALWAYS, 12-YEAR-OLD BOYS RUN THE MOVIES

The Adjustment Bureau opens at number two and there are some moments when I become a total 12-year-old geek in spite of myself and this movie is one of them as any interest I had in the science fiction plot was completely destroyed by the movie looking like the most banal of love stories. Of course the irony is, that interpretation is what most likely brought in a female audience that never would have seen it otherwise. But I have to admit, even the plot of a group of secret men (whose fashion sense stopped in 1954) actually controlling everything in the world makes no sense to me given how much the world sucks. It would make them the most colossal of sadists. Also, how do you think a tribesman in the rainforest feels about a white guy dressed like Don Draper controlling his life? And after he’s told that if they stay together it destroys them both but still he fights it without some hint of their fallibility. Which makes me wonder why exactly we’re on Matt Damon’s side. Oh, for love. And the 12-year-old in me again says, “Hell, no.”

NICE TRY, 12-YEAR-OLD GIRLS, BUT NO

Beastly opens at number three and I guess if the females over the age of 21 were in The Adjustment Bureau, then the rest were here in this retelling of Beauty and the Beast which also has to be one of the least convincing given how they “disfigure” him does nothing to alleviate his bone structure or six-pack abs. Now he’s just a hot guy with a bunch of weird tattoos. He could be the guitarist in half-a-dozen bands. He’s supposed to be ugly not a different kind of hot. Hell, he might get more pussy this way. Saturday Night Live nailed this perfectly in its parody where he turns into a dweeb. Just as Dermot Mulroney looks like an uglier Keanu Reeves they should have hired two similar actors to play the character. Of course some poor bastard would have to deal with being called “ugly” but I’m sure his frequent failure to get leading roles would have confirmed that for him long ago. Man up, kid.

REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT THE POWER OF 12-YEAR-OLD BOYS?

Hall Pass is down to number four and who keeps giving the Farrelly Brothers money to make these adolescent comedies? They must really deliver on home video, because theatrically, they disappoint. The Heartbreak Kid was saved by making almost $100M overseas, but Shallow Hal, Fever Pitch, Stuck on You and Osmosis Jones at best didn’t lose money. Not to mention, they peaked artistically with There’s Something About Mary and it’s been downhill ever since. There is nothing about this I find the least bit appealing from the premise of two guys getting a week off from marriage to try and get laid to the casting. First off, who would marry these fucking adolescents to begin with? If they’re like this now, they were worse years ago. And second, since when is being married to Christina Applegate an issue!?! If she only fucks you once a year you’re still better off than 90% of the populace. Not to mention the main reason men want to have sex with hot chicks is so they can brag to other men about having sex with hot chicks, so you’re still able to say you’re banging Kelly fucking Bundy no matter how infrequently.

THE MOST TALENTED WHORES MONEY CAN BUY

The abomination known as Gnomeo and Juliet is down to number five and the list of people who had an overdue car payment to appear in this atrocity is staggering. James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, Ozzie Osborne, Julie Walters and Patrick Stewart!?! Damn. Maybe they were all tricked into thinking they’d actually be doing an animated Romeo & Juliet and then found out it was this shit after the contracts were signed.

GOOD POETS BORROW; THE BEST POETS STEAL

Unknown is down to number six and I’m stealing the best line I read about this from the internet: “I think maybe he really wanted to be the star the Bourne series, but his agent said it wouldn't do very well. So now he's like, ‘You dropped the ball on the Bourne Identity, so I wanna see scripts where I'm in Europe, and I'm beating the living hell out of people.’” I’m man enough to admit when I’ve been out-snarked.

NEXT UP, THE KING’S ESSAY

The King’s Speech is down to number seven and while winning an Oscar didn’t do much for it financially, it didn’t need to. It had already made over $100M off a $15M budget which is the only reason people make movies anyway.

THIS IS HOW YOU TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN

Just Go With It is down to number eight and is there something in Nicole Kidman’s contract that says you can’t advertise that she’s in this movie? If so I can understand. She got paid to go to Hawaii but no one associates her with this. Well played, madam. Well played.

I AM THE SECOND BAD CAREER CHOICE

I Am Number Four is down to number nine, giving the pretty boy two bad movies in the top ten and sadly that’s both better and worse than Teresa Palmer whose second film Take Me Home Tonight, didn’t even break the top ten, but we’ll get to that. It’s better because, well, it’s two films in the top ten. It’s worse because at least she’s not the star of either and in this case is the best thing in it. Timothy Olyphant is technically in two films as he does a voice in Rango, but like Dianna Agron (whose name sounds like she should be questing with hobbits) he’s got a day job. These other two, not so much and pretty boy is one second away from playing the douchebag who loses the hot girl to the less-attractive-but-lovable lead.

THE END

Finally Justin Bieber: Never Say Never Closes out the top ten at number and the Saturday Night Live skit about him was dead on perfect. “Swagger coach.” Don’t make me like you, Miley Cyrus.

I GUESS “HUNGRY LIKE THE WOLF” WAS TAKEN

Not breaking the Top Ten is Take Me Home Tonight (told you we’d get to it) and you know you’re old when your youth is the subject of period films. I was actually working in a video store right after graduating from college in 1988 like Topher Grace. Granted, it was only part time and I didn’t live with my parents, but still. It struck a little too close to home. But honestly, the most 80’s thing about this movie is its lack of originality, which doesn’t stop at the song-based title, itself a very 80’s marketing technique (Jumping Jack Flash, Stand By Me, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, etc). It’s also every 80’s comedy about the dweeb going after the hot girl that you’ve ever seen with absolutely nothing new to add, in fact there’s less. Even the setting at a massive party is lifted directly from Sixteen Candles. There’s so much wrong with this I have to think there’s half-a-script laying in the garbage somewhere---or that the writer is just some middle-aged hack cranking out a fantasy about the girl he never got. Honestly, it could be either one. The girl in question (Teresa Palmer, who needs a new agent) was supposedly the hottest girl in school, but only Topher Grace is after her? If it’s right after college every guy in school should have been at this party should be taking a shot of her, especially if they feel “transformed” after college. In fact, a lot of them should have been his fellow geeks trying to stab him in the back. And the film utterly ignores the irony of him dismissing a girl from high school who was hot for him at the party. Self-awareness is as missing from this as any use of the time period. Honestly, aside from some fashions and pop culture references, there’s no hint of the time frame. Nothing even remotely culturally relevant specifically to 1988. On one hand there are no painful “winking” jokes about things we know are going to happen, but on the other hand, what’s the point in setting it 23 years ago if you’re not going to make use of what happens over the next decade and how it pertains to the main character. There aren’t even the required-by-movie-law scenes at the end that tell the characters’ various fates over the unfolding decades. We’re even hinted at something the first scene with Topher Grace and a classmate who did find his way ultimately pertains to his future, but it’s never followed upon, though he reflects back to it in the film’s final scene. The movie. just. stops. Given that Topher Grace is clearly a slacker the 90’s should have been a golden age for him, but we’re given not a clue. His twin sister was an aspiring writer, his stock movie character best friend (fat, drunken, horny) had just lost his job and was at loose ends and even the girl hates her investment-banking job. All we know is that three of them had breakfast together. The end. Oh, and “Take Me Home Tonight” is never used in the film.

DRIVE BROKE

Gone from the top ten is Drive Angry, the latest entry on Nicholas Cage’s “I’ve got to pay off the IRS” tour." Well at least that’s what we’re blaming his choices on now. Back when he was doing shit like Con Air it was just because he was a whore. The irony is, money from movies like Con Air are what got him into trouble and this movie is actually better than Con Air. Not that it’s saying much. This is very much the type of 70’s grindhouse flick that Tarantinio and Rodriquez keep trying so hard to do as a self-aware exploitation flick, which is why you have sex, cursing, nudity, violence and car chases almost as soon at the lights go down. It’s not a bad plot. Nicholas Cage is such a badass he escapes from hell to save his granddaughter (I guess the marketing team thought saying it was his daughter made a 50-year-old man seem younger) ironically from Satan worshippers---whom Satan himself doesn’t so much care for. We know this from the movie’s best character: The Accountant who is sent to bring Cage back. He has all the best lines and is played to perfection by William Fitchner, the guy you call when Christopher Walken isn’t available because he is the only person who could have done this role better. Honestly, for a B-movie it’s not bad at all and in the hands of someone a tad more talented could have been a true guilty pleasure.

I NEED DUMBER FRIENDS

Another Oscars came and went and as usual I spent it at my traditional Oscar party, though this year the person who always cheats off me, but changes one or two answers to win declined to play. Didn’t save me, though. Every year I make the mistake of voting with my heart instead of my mind and it costs me. This time it was wanting The Kids Are All Right to win something, which was stupid. It was going to be The Black Swan and The King’s Speech all the way. Any idiot knew that. And to top it off I invited an equally knowledgeable friend to the party and she won. Bitch. Okay, it’s been a week, but here’s what I remember…the show itself blew but it being good is the only time it’s remarkable. Sucking is the status quo. Why they decided to go with actors WHO NEED SCRIPTS TO BE INTERESTING is beyond me. There’s a reason stand-up comedians and talk show hosts usually get this job. They know how to think on their feet. And doing the Billy Crystal bit where they insert themselves into other films just fell flat…what the fuck was the normally reliable Cate Blanchett wearing? It looked a giant cameo and there should be a picture of her great-grandmother there…at least we now know who Scarlett Johansson was fucking to get her hair that way….while he had a certain amount of charm, watching Kirk Douglas was painful. We were all afraid he was going to drop dead right there…I’ve no hate for Melissa Leo and frankly she should have been cursing more…Christian Bale didn’t forget his wife or daughter’s names. He tries never to discuss them in public, so get the fuck over it…given that fucking Berlin has an Oscar and so does Lionel Richie, that Trent Reznor now has one should not be shocking. But if you didn’t know GenX was middle-aged before, you sure as shit know it now. Somewhere Courtney Love laughed because she looks a lot better than that…my god. Did Oprah not have the biggest tits in the world?...so sue me. I liked the bit where they turned movies into musicals. It was certainly funnier than anything the hosts did. And how long is James Franco going to insist he wasn’t stoned? It’s better to be stoned than to stand up there and openly not give a shit. Kiss your future Oscar chances goodbye otherwise…unlike the hosts, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law actually had chemistry and I’d rather watch their homoerotic bickering…Randy Newman is a plague on music. But “Short People” rocks…with all due respect to Lena Horne you’d have been better off including more people than giving her a segment of her own. Not to mention her granddaughter Jenny Lumet is an Oscar nominated screenwriter. A little more appropriate than Halle Berry unless your goal was to match up Hollywood’s favorite light-skinned Black women…I was joking for weeks that Annette Benning will never win because everyone is getting back at Warren Beatty for either fucking them or fucking their wives, daughters and girlfriends. It’s getting funnier because it seems to be true…I love those schoolkids from YouTube, but ending with them and the winners was a mistake. They find new ways to fuck it up every year. We got rid of that five nominees presenting bullshit only to do something even more stupid.

I AM THE 400TH RIP OFF OF THIS IDEA

2011-02-22T02:28:00.003-05:00

1. Unknown/Warners Wknd/$ 21.8 Total/$ 21.8

2. I Am Number Four/Touchstone Wknd/$ 19.4 Total/$ 19.4

3. Gnomeo And Juliet/Disney Wknd/$ 19.2 Total/$ 50.3

4. Just Go with It/Sony Wknd/$ 18.5 Total/$ 50.3

5. Big Momma 3/Fox Wknd/$ 16.3 Total/$ 16.3

6. Justin Bieber/Parmount Wknd/$ 13.3 Total/$ 48.2

7. The King’s Speech/Weinstein Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$103.2

8. The Roommate/SGems Wknd/$ 3.9 Total/$ 32.5

9. The Eagle/Focus Wknd/$ 3.6 Total/$ 15.1

10. No Strings Attached/Paramount Wknd/$ 3.1 Total/$ 66.0

THEN HE’LL TAKE ON THE KILLER BEES

Unknown opens at number one and Liam Neeson has begun a second career as an aging action star battling the collective fears of society. First, he stops those dirty foreigners from taking your virginal daughters because the weak-ass French sure as hell can’t do it and now he’s going to snap the necks of anyone trying to steal your identity. In the next one I want him to kill people who steal your wireless internet signal. You can tell he’s a bigger star now because in the last one the 20-something actress played his daughter. Here the 20-something actress plays his wife. Honestly, because this just looked so much like Taken and because they gave so much away in the trailer (it’s clearly a plot against him and apparently he’s got ass-kicking skills no normal doctor would have) sleeping in looked like a more enjoyable option.

THE AMAZING POWERS OF BUFFY ON THE ROSWELL/SMALLVILLE BORDER

I Am Number Four opens at number two and I’ll admit, this was a guilty pleasure to me, but given I’ve watched ten years of Smallville is that a surprise? Superpowered teens have been a part of pop culture since Superboy first popped up sixty years ago and has continued on through Spider-Man, Buffy and technically the Twilight series. That last example is especially relevant when you consider this is based on Young Adult novel from the fiction factory of none other than disgraced novelist, James Fry (by fiction factory I mean his name is on it, but it’s written by one of a group of writers). But the real wonder is how the creators of either the Powers of Matthew Star or Roswell aren’t suing them for essentially copying their idea. Basically, the last members of the elite of an alien race are all hiding on earth and each has a guardian. Judging by the looks of them, this was a planet of supermodels, as pretty boy Alex Pettyfer (who aside from being a model is the son of a model) is the charge and Timothy Olyphant is the guardian. This is what makes their “blend in” strategy so hysterical. Yeah, no one’s going to notice the tall, good-looking father and son duo. Especially when the kid dyes his hair blonde of all colors, because no one notices a tall, good-looking blonde. But on a basic level it works, especially in the last twenty minutes, where all the teen angst stops and the powers, explosions and special effects come out. Just don’t ask yourself logical questions, like, if their guardians know these kids are to be the super-powered defenders against evil why the fuck aren’t they training them? When the kid throws a tantrum and uses his newly awakened powers against Timothy Olyphant, Olyphant the uses a precise strategy to kick his ass anyway. You’d think that lead to a lecture about his powers not being enough against someone used to fighting them (like their enemies clearly did to wipe out their race) but it doesn’t. Little details like that are what prevent this from at least being a decent little teen action movie. Another reason the last half-hour is a lot fun is entrance of the no-nonsense Number Six, a cute blonde on a motorcycle who actually knows how to kick ass using her powers, but a smarter producer would have introduced her to the film midway through, not in the final act. It’s not like it’s a good book you’d be changing.

BLONDE, PRETTY, BIG BOOBS…SINCE WHEN DO PEOPLE LIKE THAT?

The cinematic herpes known as Gnomeo & Juliet holds at number three, followed by Just Go With It At Number four and what is it about Brooklyn Decker that I’m not getting? Even on a purely physical level (not that there’s anything else) what is it about her that makes seeming every male cream in their jeans? Honestly, Bridgette Wilson in Billy Madison was hotter.

MARTIN THE MOVIE WOULD BE BETTER

Big Momma: Like Father, Like Son opens at number five and there just are no words for this…abomination. Seriously, this looks like one of those 30 Rock joke movies that Tracey Jordan has made. As Eddie Murphy said about Beverly Hills Cop 3 “It’s hard to turn down $15M dollars” but there shouldn’t be any amount of money in the world that would get you to do this. Will Smith, you should help your boy out and make Bad Boys 3 to stop him from doing shit like this. No, the world doesn’t need Bad Boys 3 either, but it needed this even less.

POTENTIAL AND FIFTY CENTS WILL GET YOU A CUP OF COFFEE

Justin Beiber: Never Say Never is down to number six, followed by The King’s Speech at number seven and The Roommate at number eight and also in this is Billy Zane who is like a rocket that just simply couldn’t make orbit. He’s been around forever and always seemed like just one step away from being a star, from having a role in Titanic to being the titular star of the potential Phantom movie franchise, but it just never happened to the point he was reduced to a joke about mostly being famous for dating models, as shown in Zoolander. Know who else was in The Phantom? Catherine Zeta Jones. He was also the psycho who tormented Nicole Kidman and Sam Neil in Dead Calm. And was the funniest part of Only You with Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. Yeah, that’s gotta hurt seeing how many of your own generation have succeeded and now you’re just supporting the next generation. Well, at least you’re working. Can’t remember the last time I saw your sister, Lisa Zane. Maybe she’s hanging out with Angelina Jolie’s brother.

MANLY MEN DOING MANLY THINGS

The Eagle is down to number nine and this is the manliest movie in the manliest sense because there are no women in it. I mean there are women of course, but none with an actual speaking role that I can remember, much less a character of any substance or weight. Even the book has at least one woman who actually saves the life of Jamie Bell’s character in the arena. In the movie Channing Tatum does it so the “No Girls Allowed” sign can stay on the clubhouse door. It’s funny because I mocked Centurion for its somewhat forced inclusion of the beautiful woman who helps the lead. You just can’t win with me.

THE SECOND IN THE HISTORY OF STAR WARS

No Strings Attached closes out the top ten at number ten and far from crushing Natalie Portman’s Oscar chances with a Norbit like torpedo, this may actually bolster it by showing her as a successful box office force. It’s made $88M worldwide on a $25M budget without a single special effect and Black Swan has made $200M off a $13M budget. Gasp! Is Natalie Portman finally a genuine A-list star?

I WAS BORN IN A SMALL TOWN

Not in the top ten is Cedar Rapids a comedy about Ed Helms as a small-town manchild who loses his innocence in the wilds of Cedar Rapids. This is one of those films that simultaneously exalt the virtues of middle America but at the same time ripping off the veil. Helms is genuinely a simple innocent, but the film opens with him boning his former 5^th grade teacher, played by Sigourney Weaver. He loves the small insurance firm where he works and idolizes its best salesman---who then dies of autoerotic asphyxiation. He genuinely does not know the girl talking to him in front of the hotel is a hooker and gives her butterscotch but later winds up doing meth and making out with her. Yeah, it’s like that, but believe it or not, it all works thanks in no small part to an army of talented supporters from the aforementioned Sigourney Weaver to Stephen Root to Anne Heche to John C Reilly (as the foul-mouthed agent who helps lead him down the path of awakening) to Rob Corddry to Isaiah Whitlock Jr, providing a meta joke as very square insurance salesman who loves “HBO’s The Wire.”

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

I love you, Judy Greer, but Mad Love is yet another bad TV show you’re on and I cannot put myself through it just for you. I remain eternally sad love monkey didn’t work out. Even that show on ABC with as a guidance counselor was better than this.

DO YOU LIKE MOVIES ABOUT GLADIATORS?

2011-02-14T02:58:00.004-05:00

1. Just Go with It/Sony Wknd/$ 31.0 Total/$ 31.0

2. Justin Bieber/Parmount Wknd/$ 30.3 Total/$ 30.3

3. Gnomeo And Juliet/Disney Wknd/$ 25.5 Total/$ 25.5

4. The Eagle/Focus Wknd/$ 8.6 Total/$ 8.6

5. The Roommate/SGems Wknd/$ 8.4 Total/$ 26.1

6. The King’s Speech/Weinstein Wknd/$ 7.4 Total/$ 93.9

7. No Strings Attached/Paramount Wknd/$ 5.6 Total/$ 59.9

8. Sanctum/Universal Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 17.5

9.True Grit/Paramount Wknd/$ 3.8 Total/$160.3

10. The Green Hornet/Sony Wknd/$ 3.6 Total/$ 92.3

BEAUTIES AND THE BEAST

Just Go With It opens at number one and I’d like to rant on about this as another instance of ugly men with gorgeous women half their ages in movies, but it’s always been like this. Humphrey Bogart is a movie god, but he was not good looking and Lauren Bacall was half his age. Ugly men run the movies and always have. If they were good looking, they’d be in front of the camera. You don’t see Ryan Reynolds making any business decisions do you? No boy from Gossip Girl is going to be deciding who gets hired and fired. No one with an aquiline nose, chiseled jaw, full head of hair and a flat stomach decided, “Hey, let’s put Adam Sandler with a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model.” No, Adam Sandler decided that and his legions of equally aesthetically-challenged fans let the world know it was all right, the same way they did when he cast Bridget Wilson, Julie Bowen, Winona Ryder, Courtney Cox, Jessica Biel, Emmanuelle Chirqui, Kate Beckinsale and Salma Hayek as his love interests. Drew Barrymore, not so much. With the exception of Happy Gilmore, I find Adam Sandler’s humor to be one colossal lowbrow failure and I’ve got nothing against a good lowbrow joke. He’s just not funny. That he’s ugly doesn’t help. Needless to say I did not and will not see this.

NEW EDITION, NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK…THE LIST IS ENDLESS

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never opens at number two and he’s always freaked me out because while it’s a running joke that he looks like a lesbian, I know a lesbian who does in fact look just like him. That said, he doesn’t bother me. Seriously, Katie Perry bothers me more. Bieber is just the latest in a tradition of teen idols going back to Frank Sinatra with everyone from Elvis, Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake in between. People who hate him either have no sense of history or are just painfully stupid. Not to mention, that clip of him drumming at two is better that I can drum right now, so I can’t deny he’s probably more talented on some level than 90% of the populace.

NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS

Gnomeo & Juliet opens at number three and you have got to be fucking kidding me. Just when you think you have hit rock bottom with Alpha & Omega, they clearly have started tunneling with shit like this. But it always makes money because every parent in the country will take their child to this just to have 90 minutes of peace. Not the parent taking them, but the one who gets to stay home, who will owe the other big time.

NO, WE ARE NOT ENTERTAINED

The Eagle opens at number four and what the hell is this return to movies about the Roman Empire? Is this still a residual effect of Gladiator? But it’s not big mainstream work, but smaller indie films that are doing it. Earlier this year it was Centurion, which was about the loss of the legendary 9^th Legion, which was annihilated by the Northern British tribes, without one single survivor to tell the tale. This is about Channing Tatum as the son of the general who led the 9^th into disaster trying to redeem his family’s honor by finding “The Eagle” the symbol of Roman military might. Aiding him in this is his British slave, Jaime Bell, whom he saved from death in the arena when he [Bell] wouldn’t fight to amuse the Romans. Now, I give the film credit for trying to do more than just be an action movie and spending time to show the details of both Roman life and that of the tribes of Britain who justifiably hated them, but that only makes sense if the movie were about Tatum’s growing awareness of the flaws of Rome and his eventual realization of the rights of those people. It’s not. It’s about him finding the fucking Eagle and pretty much killing the people who stand his way. There’s never any real doubt whether or not his slave will turn on him though they give it lip service. Of course he’s so impressed he is with Channing Tatum’s quest for honor he forgets about how his father had to kill his own mother to keep her from being raped by Roman soldiers. How can you give your situation depth but not give your main character the same consideration? There’s even a moment where the beautiful daughter of the chieftain who has The Eagle takes notice of Tatum. You know where this is going, right? Wrong. It leads to nothing. It’s dismissed as quickly as it comes up is the possibility his father didn’t die fighting, something he suggests early in the film. Basically, showing history in more detail is easy, creating a fully realized character is not. And while this is drama and not history (something critics of The King’s Speech need to learn) it still pisses me off that they do so much to show details of life of that period, they still get the fucking “thumbs” wrong. When the emperor wanted someone to die, he gave thumbs up to say “Yes, do it!” Thumbs down was “No, he lives.” One fucking painting has epically defined general knowledge of this.

AND SHE LOOKS KINDA PORNY

The Roommate is down to number five and there are actors who were made for TV and actors who were made for the movies. Alyson Michalka is a TV actor. Tall, blonde and attractive you’d think she have her choice of roles, but the fact is, her look isn’t…innocent enough to be “The Girl” for whom our hero longs for. In this she’s the suspicious best friend who meets a bad end (thank you trailer for giving it all away) and in Easy A she’s the annoying friend who turns on her. On TV, however, where women hold the most viewing power, she’s the lead of her own series. Discuss amongst yourselves.

THERE’S NOTHING WORSE THAN GEEK SLOPPY SECONDS

The King’s Speech is down to number six and I had the worst crush on Helena Bonham Carter beginning back with the still perfect Room With A View (whoever stole my copy, you’ll pay for that in hell) carried on through every other period piece she did and climaxed with a full frontal nude sex scene in The Wings of the Dove. Then Tim Burton tainted her forever with his seed. I know they’ve broken up, but his gothic geek stench remains.

MRS. RALPH BELLAMY

No Strings Attached is down to number seven and also in this is Lake Bell. This is her second movie with Ashton Kutcher and in both she’s the more interesting second banana female. She’s funnier and tougher than Cameron Diaz in What Happens In Vegas and is funnier and more interesting than Natalie Portman here (with a better boobs than both). She was so Meryl Streep’s nemesis in It’s Complicated. Again, on TV she was the lead in her own ill-fated series about weird alien undersea creatures, but in the movies she cannot get the guy.

THE END

Sanctum is down to number eight, followed by True Grit at number nine and The Green Hornet closing out the top ten at ten.

I’M NOT GAY AND DON’T HAVE GOLDFISH

Again, trying to keep to my New Year’s resolution of going out more, I wound up at a karaoke, where everyone now clearly bases their song choices on this week’s episode of Glee (they should really get a cut of how they’ve probably improved karaoke business over the last year). I was at a bar near midtown on 38^th street with a few of the Jezebels though they’re more Tumblr people these days and apparently it’s something I need to be doing. Dunno. Daddy can barely handle Facebook. Tumbling and Tweeting may be a bit much. Besides, none of our lives is actually that interesting. We were doing traditional karaoke this time, $1.50 per song in a bar with others, rather than the painfully expensive private room, but I still made the same mistake as always: too much time talking loudly in a bar before trying to sing. My voice was shot before a single note. I mean it was going to suck no matter what, but now it was going to be execrable. Fortunately, there are songs that don’t require actual singing like Cameo’s “Word Up” and Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back.” Trying to do Maroon 5 “If I Never See Your Face Again” was a mistake, however, though he really can’t sing either. I could oddly hit the high notes however and the group of sistas at the bar helped me out. Of course the best part of any karaoke experience are others, even though their pathetic behavior may strike a bit too close to home. Namely the lonely middle-aged drunk queen who started off by massacring Swing Out Sister’s “Breakout” they proceeded to annoy our group all night. He started by believing the myth that as a gay man he’s got a bond with every larger-sized black woman on the planet and commented on the coat of a girl in our group. Then he starting hitting on one-half of the gay couple until he was told in no uncertain terms to “Go the fuck away.”…which only sent him to try and strike up conversation with the girls in our group. Finally, he left…only to return and continue to annoy everyone around him. Clearly there was no one at home (I’m sure even his goldfish were annoyed by him) and judging by his musical choices his best years were the 80’s. Like I said, pathetic behavior that struck a little close to home. Then he left again…and came back again, only to finally find someone he couldn’t annoy, two guys who were characters in their own right. One was shorter larger-sized guy and the other was his taller, thin longhaired friend. Basically the comic relief sidekicks to the main character in any movie you’ve seen. The thin guy even had a pathetic growth on his face that he was trying to call a goatee. Basically think of that tall geek from Freaks and Geeks. He didn’t seem to annoy them, but we feared for their future if they got too drunk with him. They might wake up the next morning to find their friendship had crossed line. We left karaoke to go another bar nearby but the area between Madison and Fifth is where K-town becomes Murray Hill, is unfortunately filled with the douchebaggery the east side has been known for. It was initially the Upper East Side that was populated with the crowd who can’t seem to leave college, then it sprouted up on Park Avenue in the area between 18^th street and 23d and now Murray Hill fills the gap. The guys who wear Axe and women who get roofied by them. None of us could stand it so we then went to place in K-Town that promised fried chicken with cocktails---only to be disappointed to find it closed. However, there was another Korean fried chicken place just across the street that was open (it was after midnight after all) and yea, it was good. After that we closed the night out at an Irish bar between 5^th Avenue and Herald Square where I continued my new thing of whiskey. Yes, today I have become a man…thanks to the lesbians who made me drink it on New Year’s Eve.

HALF THE MUSIC, ALL THE ANNOYANCE

My DVR is so full it not only wouldn’t record all The Grammys for me, but started deleting stuff on top of it. Sigh. Okay, I came in at Katy Perry and she doesn’t annoy because of her music---which is just recycled 80’s hooks, which is why Nicole Kidman loves it so much---it’s the lyrics. It’s not that they’re bad. I mean, I grew up on Duran Duran, so I know bad, but they’re not even interesting. They’re worst than bad. They’re banal, boring. There is no greater sin in art...Norah Jones, Keith Urban and John Mayer doing his best Johnny Depp doing Dolly Parton ain’t bad at all…If you’d told me 5-6 years ago that Rhianna would still be around and a megastar I’d have called you crazy. And I don’t even know who the second singer with Eminem is. You know you’re old when the Grammys are more current than you…poor Esperanza Spalding, the curse of “Best New Artist” is on you now. Just ask Men at Work, Taste of Honey or even Christina Aguilera who won it over Britney what it means for your future…the musical role call of death…MICK! Clearly doing a tribute to someone who meant something to him. This is what a superstar looks like, kids. Holy shit is that Raphael Saddiq on guitar? You can’t push him like you push Keith. He’s not used to it….Kris Kristofferson when did you get so old?...Babs and another example of what a superstar looks like, kids. Though that dress isn’t doing her any favors…Nicki Minaji clearly loved that Bride of Blackenstein sketch on SNL last week…P. Diddy needs to stick to classic suits. Trying his own edgy style looks like shit…so how is it with all the men Rhianna worked with, none of them beat the shit out of Chris Brown?...JLo is The Bride of The Zombie…it’s okay, Babs. Beyond a bunch of hipsters who are undoubtedly upset that “their” band is even on the Grammys, no one knows or gives a fuck about Arcade Fire. Though I do like the idea that winners get to close the show.

PRETTY AS A PICTURE

2011-02-07T02:20:00.006-05:00

1. The Roommate/SGems Wknd/$ 15.6 Total/$ 15.6

2. Sanctum/Universal Wknd/$ 9.2 Total/$ 9.2

3. No Strings Attached/Paramount Wknd/$ 8.4 Total/$ 51.8

4. The King’s Speech/Weinstein Wknd/$ 8.3 Total/$ 84.1

5. The Green Hornet/Sony Wknd/$ 6.1 Total/$ 87.2

6. The Rite/Warners Wknd/$ 5.6 Total/$ 23.7

7. The Mechanic/CBS Wknd/$ 5.4 Total/$ 20.1

8.True Grit/Paramount Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$148.4

9. The Dilemma/Universal Wknd/$ 3.4 Total/$ 45.7

10. Black Swan/FoxS Wknd/$ 3.4 Total/$ 95.9

SINGLE WHITE COED

The Roommate opens at number one and when I was a boy it was called Single White Female and because you hired actual actors instead of pretty starlets they didn’t have to look exactly alike to begin with. If you do that then where’s the transformation to indicate the descent into psychosis? In the meantime, somewhere Blake Lively is pissed off that she wasn’t the first Gossip Girl cast member to have a #1 as the star.

SPELUNKING SHOULD BE A TERM OF ONLY THE NASTIEST SEX

Sanctum opens at number two and really, without underground monsters to fight, who the hell wants to see a movie about spelunking? With no stars no less!?!

SHE SAID THE SAME ABOUT JOEL SILVER SO YOU KNOW SHE’S RIGHT

No Strings Attached is down to number two and also in this as Ashton Kutcher’s dad is Kevin Kline, which I think is a nice casting move. You get a clear reason where the character’s height and good looks come from. Kline is clearly repaying director Ivan Reitman for Dave, one of the few good movies Reitman has made without Harold Ramis or Bill Murray. His rep is build on movies like Meatballs, Stripes and Ghostbusters, but without them you get Kindergarten Cop, Twins, Junior, Father’s Day, Six Days Seven Nights, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, etc. Big stars with little laughs. In her book, “You’ll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again” the late Julia Phillips called him “another businessman pretending to be an artist” and she was right.

MOVIES FOR THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR

The King’s Speech is down to number four, followed by The Green Hornet at number five and also in this is Christopher Waltz who won an Oscar just last year for Inglorious Basterds. But like Cameron Diaz’s presence, you wouldn’t know it from the advertising. They’re aiming for the odd audience that is interested in neither tall blondes nor talented actors. Strangely, that makes sense for a Seth Rogen movie. They know they aren’t getting laid and don’t want to think.

THE MAN WAS HAWKEYE PIERCE FOR GOD’S SAKE!

The Rite is down to number six, followed by The Mechanic at number seven and Donald Sutherland’s career long ago became supporting the younger leading man actually carrying the movie as far back as Ordinary People with Timothy Hutton on through A Time To Kill with Matthew McConughey, but showing up just to die to propel the movie is just sad. For half a second I expected Mark Walberg to show up in a mini cooper.

DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE LYRICS TO U.N.I.T.Y? DIDN’T THINK SO.

True Grit is down to number eight, followed by The Dilemma at number nine and also in this is Queen Latifah and exactly what is her continued stardom based on? Outside of Chicago she has no real movie hits, her rap career was a loooong time ago and she never enjoyed the success of say, LL Cool J. Living Single? Was it that successful, because I never watched it after the first episode? Somewhere along the line she became famous simply because she was famous.

THE “IN THE BLACK” SWAN

Finally, Black Swan closes out the top ten at number ten and can you believe this thing is about to hit $100M? I didn’t care for it, but it’s returns like these which keep indie film alive $95M for a $13M film means everyone gets cheese on their Whopper and another few works get the green light in hopes of the same high reward for low risk.

GIRLS ON FILM! AND BRIDGES! AND TATTOOED FREAKS!

So, we always talk about the artistic opportunities constantly available in NYC but the truth is we rarely indulge in them. They’ve always been there and will always be here, so we take for granted being able to see it at our leisure. This is how I missed the Gustav Klimt exhibit at the Jewish Museum a few years back. I kept telling myself I’d go see it and then…it was gone. This weekend, however, I continued to make good on one of the two New Year’s Resolutions I made get out more to see some kind of art in the city (the other was get more sleep and I think we all know that was a big failure). I went to see Amel Larrieux at the Blue Note two weeks back and this weekend went to see an exhibit of the photography of Mark Seliger at a gallery on 23^rd street for his book “Listen.” You know his work best from Rolling Stone or GQ or Vanity Fair and he even did a whole book on Lenny Kravitz (he did the shot of Kravitz in the red paint)…which is odd. The recent Glee cover of Rolling Stone? Him. Kim Kardashian on the cover of “W” in silver paint? Him. Katie Holmes trying to look like Jackie Kennedy on the cover of New York Magazine? Him. That “nip/tuck” poster with the girl with sutures up her back that you didn’t know was based on a real person? Him. Brittney Spears for Candie’s ads? Um, yeah. Him too. Gotta pay the bills. Any multi-star Vanity Fair photoshoot? If it wasn’t Annie Lebowitz, it was him. And while we all take pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge or skyline of NYC, it’s the artistry of photography, which makes his photos of the same better, unique, allowing you to see things you never saw before. Of course my favorite shot was of the naked woman with her legs spread, but that’s neither here nor there. There’s still a gorgeous shot of abandoned bridge supports in New Jersey totally validating all I’ve said. All the photography is in glorious black & white lending credence to what Goddard or Truffaut said about color “being” a distraction. And you know how in the movies when our artist hero is an art gallery and two gorgeous, dark and “artsy-looking” women walk in? I can never say that’s just Hollywood fantasy again, because that’s exactly what happened. See, this is why “Californication” exists. Some dude’s fantasy about what would happen if he had a classic “hip” novel and looked like David Duchovny and was in an art gallery and two hot artsy babes walked in. Me, I have no novel, don’t look like Duchovny and was wearing a Superman shirt, so I just left and went down to Chelsea Market to have hot chocolate. ‘Cause that’s how I roll bitchez!

FASTER PUSSYCAT, DIE, DIE

Tura Santana, star of Russ Meyer films like the classic, Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill died yesterday and up until I read her obit I had no idea she was Asian going against that demure bullshit stereotype all along. Represent, sista!

SUPER WHATEVER

So another Super Bowl has come and gone and while I kinda wanted the Steelers to win because my mom has always been a Steelers fan and I like the hold Brett Farve held over Green Bay, I like the fact that serial sex offender Rothlesberger didn’t win. Also, when you turn the ball over three times, get bad calls that go your way and the Packers lose one of their strongest defensive players and you still can’t score, you don’t deserve to win. I pretty much ignored the awful-as-usual halftime show to rewatch the Captain America commercial over and over again and it’s still miscast. Best commercial of the night? Sorry, but it’s Eminem standing up for Detroit showing you can shill for an evil corporation and still maintain your dignity. Not that Danica Patrick would know anything about that with those damn Go Daddy spots. And yes, we all love the kid Darth Vader Volkswagen commercial.

A VIEW FROM THE TOP

2011-01-31T01:17:00.005-05:00

SATAN’S WORKING CLASS LOYALTIES

The Rite opens at number one and notice how it’s only in movies where white, educated, upper-middle-class people get possessed by the devil. In real life it’s minority, uneducated, working-class, heavily religious people who always show up on those TV shows about “actual possessions.” In other words, the people most likely not to seek medical attention or understand what schizophrenia is. I mean if you’re Satan don’t you want to grab someone who could a) actually affect the lives of others and b) won’t think immediately to go get a priest? And while grabbing a priest like the movie suggests is what happens seems “clever” and “ironic” it’s actually as dumb as the usual tact of grabbing the 9-year-old daughter of a migrant worker. Better to grab an agnostic head of a television network and try to influence millions with really, really bad TV. Which may have already happened, because how the fuck else does The World According To Jim run for half a decade?

NOTHING’S MORE AUTHENTIC THAN A BARE BREAST

No Strings Attached is down to number two and aside from the obvious reasons of this sucking, one that personally annoys me is this bullshit of doing an explicit R-rated comedy but with no nudity. What the fuck? Are you concerned about your craft or not, Natalie Portman? I mean, to her credit it’s consistent. She wouldn’t do it for the movie that got her nominated for an Oscar and she’s not doing it here, but I still call bullshit on any and all sex scenes where a woman keeps a bra on. If you can’t fulfill the requirements of the role, let someone less shy and more respectful of the work step in.

REAL MEN USE SQUIBS!

The Mechanic opens at number three and while I never saw the Charles Bronson original, I find it a touch sad that kids today don’t know what an action icon the man once was. His name was synonymous with violence in our society. Now, he’s just one of the guys from The Magnificent Seven. That said, never underestimate how good actors and a little character development can improve an action film. Ben Foster as Donald Sutherland’s wastrel---probably violent sociopath---son who goes into the family business of assassination elevates this movie considerably. Prone to impulse and bad judgment he lends this movie a suspenseful edge because you know he’s going to fuck up and ruin the cold, professional work of Jason Statham, but you don’t know exactly when and where he’s going to do it. Otherwise you have another generic story of super-cool professional assassin betrayed by his bosses, goes for revenge, blah-blah-blah. Probably due to the original source, this has a near-70’s edge to it of gratuitous sex and violence. The only thing that derails it at times is the use of CGI at every seeming opportunity. God forbid you let some fucking stuntmen earn their pay on the top of a Chicago skyscraper or the SFX guys build an actual head that explodes like it was shot. No, we have to have clearly obvious greenscreens and digital blood spatters. Man up, Hollywood!

BECAUSE YOU CAN’T PUT A PRICE ON GOOD WEED

The Green Hornet is down to number four and really, Cameron Diaz? Third lead behind Seth Rogen and an Asian actor no one knows? This must have been a lot of money for about two days work for you to be here. Or, Rogen hooked you up with some really good weed and you owed him. I’m thinking the latter.

PSSST! MEMBERS OF THE BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY RARELY LOOK LIKE MOVIE STARS!

The King’s Speech is down to number five and also in this is Guy Pearce, all but stealing scenes as the wastrel Nazi-sympathizing and eventually abdicating Prince Edward, but only two of those three are in the movie and it’s come under fire for ignoring how Edward was German-friendly and Churchill was a die-hard supporter of him despite it. Well, it’s not about Churchill or Edward so get the fuck over it. It’s also a dramatic story, not a fucking history lesson. If you’re dumb enough to get your facts from movies then you’ve got bigger problems than historical inaccuracy or not understanding the term “dramatic license.”

AND SHE’S A DAMN SIGHT BETTER THAN NATALIE PORTMAN

True Grit is down to number six and Hailee Steinfeld is the fucking lead of this movie. Her Best Supporting Actress nod is studio bullshit hedging their bets by with the age-old practice of shoehorning actors into the categories where they have a better chance of winning.

FUCK YOUR CAREER GENTLY WITH A CHAINSAW

The Dilemma is down to number seven, followed by Black Swan at number eight and Winona Ryder is in both. Clearly she’s starting to work again, but sadly no longer in leading roles and not getting the hot dudes and when she does it’s part of a joke because she’s also married to someone like Kevin James. Also, the Black Swan is an unintended statement of her place in Hollywood. There was a time she was the crush of an entire generation (that would be “X”) just as Natalie Portman is now. Now her roles can best be described as “blowsy.” The hard-drinking promiscuous aunt of the lead character roles. Yeah, you know ‘em. Well, at least even at her most desperate they never did that damned Heathers sequel they kept talking about.

I’D MAKE A LIL’ ABNER JOKE, BUT NONE OF YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH TO GET IT

The Fighter is down to number nine and again, this is drama, not a documentary---which is a good thing for the sisters of Mark Walberg’s character, because they are basically white trash cartoons in this movie. One of the actresses I actually recognize from playing a variation on this years ago, as “Italian Girl In The Background” in Goodfellas. She was also one of Madonna’s girlfriends in the “Papa Don’t Preach” video and has the sad infamy of being the girl who blows Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant.

YOU KNOW, SOMETHING YOU REGRET THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN FUN THAT WON’T GO AWAY?

Finally, Hollywood’s version of a cinematic venereal disease, Yogi Bear, hangs around at number ten.

NO ONE TOLD YOU IT WAS GONNA BE THIS WAY

I got Showtime back solely because I love to hate on Californication. Fortunately, it doesn’t feel like a total waste because Episodes is actually funny. It’s a sitcom about two British writers who are asked to reproduce their hit English show in Hollywood with predictably disastrous results. Matt LaBlanc stars as (I hope for his sake) a slightly more obnoxious version of himself, yet not a total cartoon character. I wonder if he finally realizes from the quality of these scripts how much “friends” sucked? Fairly Legal had me the moment they cast Sara Shahi in San Francisco, but it’s spectacularly clichéd and mediocre. She’s a lawyer---oh, no! twist---she was a lawyer, but now she’s a mediator who hates the legal system, but of course finds herself drawn into cases that she’s mediating, seeing things that no one else does because no one else cares as much. And of course she constantly gets drawn into mediating in the street for ordinary people like cab driver vs. bicyclist or shop owner vs. guy trying to rob him. It’s. Awful. The highlight of the first two episode as been her coming out of her houseboat (get it!?! it’s quirky!) braless into the cold harbor air and then realizing her nipples were clearly visible she goes back in to put on a sweater. Aside from the cheap thrills that was a genuine moment in 45 minutes of artifice and contrivance.

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

Okay, that picture is from Casey Jordan, one of the porn stars paid to hang out with Charlie Sheen. Okay, first, what kind of celebrity has to “pay” a porn star to hang out with them? If that isn’t a clue to how far you’ve fallen, then I don’t know what it is. I guarantee you no male member of the Gossip Girl cast would have to pay a porn star to hang out with him. Secondly, he didn’t have sex with them. He would instead drink, do drugs and watch porn in his home theater and talk about it with them. Finally, that photo is…actually pretty good. The composition is strong and it tells a story, summing up the entirely of Charlie Sheen’s life. Honey, you don’t have to suck dick for a living. You can be behind camera…capturing other people sucking dick.

THE POSTMAN MAY NOT HAVE STOPPED, BUT DEATH SURELY DID

Death continues taking Gladys Horton of The Marvelettes. She sang lead on their most famous track, “Please Mr. Postman” and if you don’t have their Greatest Hits you’re missing some great stuff.

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST

There is no greater enemy than Haagen Daz Dark Chocolate ice cream. Not since the late Ben & Jerry’s Deep Chocolate Fudge (which was chocolate ice cream with a thick fudge swirl in the middle) has there been such a threat to me seeing my own feet. And fucking Food Emporium keeps putting on sale! Usually being cheap saves me from my baser impulses.

SOMEBODY'S SLEEPING IN MY BED

2011-01-24T02:06:00.006-05:00

1. No Strings Attached/Paramount Wknd/$ 20.3 Total/$ 20.3

2. The Green Hornet/Sony Wknd/$ 18.1 Total/$ 63.4

3. The Dilemma/Universal Wknd?$ 9.7 Total/$ 33.4

4. The King’s Speech/Weinstein Wknd/$ 9.2 Total/$ 58.6

5.True Grit/Paramount Wknd/$ 8.0 Total/$138.6

6. Black Swan/FoxS Wknd/$ 6.2 Total/$ 83.6

7. The Fighter/Paramount Wknd/$ 4.5 Total/$ 73.0

8. Little Fockers/Universal Wknd/$ 4.4 Total/$141.2

9. Yogi Bear/Warners Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 88.9

10. Tron Legacy/Disney Wknd/$ 3.7 Total/$163.3

WHEN CLICHÉ MET CONVENTION

No Strings Attached opens at number one cementing Natalie Portman’s status as a star. Notice as I said “Natalie Portman” and not “Ashton Kutcher” because he’s not in any critically acclaimed Oscar bait or has a history and future of blockbusters (Star Wars, Thor). This movie is hers. I wish I could say I was surprised by this success, but the large number of young women in the theater in groups let me know this was going to do well. It only cost $25M and made $20 its opening weekend. Any potential for this to be her “Norbit” and fuck up Portman’s Oscar chances were washed away by the mounds of cold, hard cash that are coming in. See, the Oscars needs movie stars at the ceremony and not a bunch of indie people you don’t want to see, so if anything this just guaranteed her nomination. Yeah, nobody ever said life was fair. But it’s not so much bad as it is just not good. Basically, it’s mediocre and clichéd to the point of being offensive in its unwillingness to deviate from formula. At least bad can be interesting. This isn’t even that. God forbid we ever have a film where the friends who are fucking, just remain friends! It was supposedly the premise of the shithole that was When Harry Met Sally, but in the end they had to be a couple and like this, in the end they have to be a couple. And in the most annoying Hollywood cliché anyone who appears might get in the way of this has to be punished. Yes, Lake Bell is smart, funny, a bit quirky, works in the same business as Ashton Kutcher and helps him achieve his life-long professional goal (not to mention being taller with larger breasts, thus looking more like a woman than a girl), but she dares briefly distract him by being infinitely more appropriate for him than Natalie Portman so she has to be humiliated twice. First by being abandoned by Ashton Kutcher, then in the closing credits by whom she winds up with. Same for Portman, who of course cannot be with the tall, good-looking, crew-rowing, Harvard-educated doctor she works with and he too has to be abandoned by her and in the closing credits to be shown to be less of a man than Kutcher. Even Ralph Bellamy was treated better.

LOOKS ARE ALL THAT MATTER AND STOP TRYING TO TELL ME THAT THEY DON’T!

The Green Hornet is down to number two and nothing with Seth Rogen in a starring role will get my money ever again. Like Jack Black, he’s a fucking sidekick and an annoying one at that. Luckily, I was never so much a Green Hornet fan that this would bother me too much. Yes, I get it. Everyone knows Bruce Lee was the star of the old show so this movie makes Kato the real hero and The Green Hornet a bit of a fuck up. That doesn’t make the presence of Seth Rogen any less annoying. I see him? I hear him? No.

REMEMBER WHEN DANNY DEVITO WAS BRIEFLY A STAR? (SHUDDER)

The Dilemma is down to number three and ugly guys with beautiful girls have always been a part of storytelling because ugly guys are the ones telling the stories. Hell, if I looked like Taye Diggs do you think I’d be writing this!?! No. But it’s still annoying seeing movies like this where women like Jennifer Connelly and Winona Ryder are either wan to marry or are married Vince Vaughn and Kevin James, respectively. In real life Jennifer Connelly is married to Paul Bettany and Winona Ryder fucked Johnny Depp. And no, the fact that she’s cheating on Kevin James with Channing Tatum does not make up for it (though it does make perfect sense). What makes no sense is that he has her to begin with. Needless to say, I will never see this. I like equally pretty people onscreen. If you’re going to do “beauty and the beast” acknowledge the beast as being “the beast.”

APPARENTLY EVERY GENERATION GETS ONE

The King’s Speech is down to number four, followed by True Grit at number five and The Black Swan at number six, giving Natalie Portman two films in the top ten this week…neither of them all that good, but oddly very successful. Clearly the movie gods hate me. Just when I thought I was rid of Julia Roberts and her plague on cinema with movies being critically praised and successful no matter how bad they were, this happens. Well, at least Portman’s genuinely pretty.

BAHSTUN

The Fighter is up to number seven and finally Christian Bale’s weight loss movies might pay off, because this is pretty much a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actor and the proof is in the appearance of the real life person he plays appearing in the closing credits. His portrayal is dead fucking on. It’s an old story of “the fighter with one last shot who makes good” but has the virtue of being based on real life events (notice I didn’t say an actual “true story” because who knows what shit they changed). It’s not revolutionary filmmaking but it’s told in a way that doesn’t insult you. My only quibble with the film is how it seemingly exploits the lower class nature of the sisters of Mark Walberg’s character. They aren’t people but caricatures to be laughed at. Basically, the same thing that was exploited in Flava of Love, Rock of Love and currently on The Jersey Shore, because this is an arthouse film, meaning it was made by people who pride themselves on their intellectualism. They clearly know better. Or maybe it was just the Upper West Side Manhattan audience I saw it with who took too much joy in laughing at these people. When one Mark Walberg’s sisters dares to side with him against their domineering mother, she crushes her daughter with the fact that the daughter owes her money. It’s not so much funny as utterly sad, but there were nothing but gales of laughter from the audience. Fuckers.

WE’RE ALL WHORES

Littler Fockers is down to number eight followed by Yogi Bear at number nine and didn’t Anna Faris give the illusion of being a comedic leading woman recently. What happened that she’s doing this? Clearly someone need to buy their parents a house.

IT’S WHAT 30 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE GETS YOU

Finally, Tron Legacy closes out the top ten at number ten bringing us to the end of Jeff Bridges having two completely different films in the top ten. As diametrically opposed as Natalie Portman’s two films, not all that remarkable in either case like Natalie Portman’s two films, but nonetheless better than Natalie Portman’s two films.

BEST DAMN R&B SONG OF THE 90’S

So I actually left the house on all three days of this weekend. Part of my new 2011 philosophy. Friday night I saw Amel Larrieux play at the Blue Note. Because I stopped going to see live performances back in…well, I was never one for live performances, so this is remarkable on a basic level. But when I saw this listed in the Friday paper and saw it was only $20 to sit at the bar, well I was in. I even overcame my anxiety at not working out that day to it (seriously, where the fuck did that come from?). I don’t think I’ve been to The Blue Note in over 20 years and my own reclusiveness aside, part of it is that smaller A-list clubs like this are usually very expensive, so I figured whatever they charged for beer of food I could swing for a $20 cover. I got there around 7:30, not expecting much of a crowd on such a cold night and I was right, though the place eventually filled up. Had I gotten there 15 minutes earlier I might have even gotten a seat at the bar, which was filled with 30-something females. It threw me for a loop for a second, but then I realized Groove Theory was big about 15 years ago, which would put it squarely in the middle of their teen years. What was interesting was that the bulk of the people at the bar were not black, but the bulk of the people seated were---but of course the largest group was all Asian. I love New York. And seeing so many good looking Black people (seriously, it was annoying) just reminded me the reason I don’t see more is because---for better or worse---it’s rare I’m even in a majority Black environment. A multi-cultural environment, yes, that’s not the same as being in a place where you are prevailing standard. A deep thought for another day. As most of you know, Amel Larrieux was the voice of Groove Theory, which had one good R&B album back in the mid-nineties then broke up. Amel then started her solo career while he tried to briefly replace her. She’s fared a bit better with her third album coming out this March and who knows what the fuck he’s doing. Still, I can’t pretend Groove Theory wasn’t her peak. For some reason she thinks she’s a Jazz singer. She’s not. She’s not even an R&B singer; she’s a lightweight R&B singer, which is why Groove Theory was so perfect for her. But few people are going to tell someone that pretty they’re wrong, least of all her producer husband, so more than a little bit of the show was dull, from her own music to her uninspired covers of jazz standards and Joni Mitchell. However, her upcoming album shows more pep and she threw in a small tribute to Teena Marie, covering “Square Biz.” Again, Teen Marie was no hardcore R&B singer either, so she fit Amel Larrieux like glove. Of course the show ended with “Tell Me” but she would have done better to include more of her peak years. One interesting note was that her incredibly gorgeous keyboardist was actually her 16-year-old daughter (she had to have been born right when they blew up). If dad doesn’t own a gun already, he needs to invest in one. Seriously. He’s in the music business. He knows what’s going to be coming her way. Rappers, lead singers and guitarists. Very few of whom will be 16 or care that she is.

NO ONE EVER SEEMS TO VISIT WHEN IT’S WARM

Saturday and Sunday I actually ventured outside to meet with visiting friends. Saturday was one of the Jezebel girls I met online who actually lives in London (though she’s from Australia). Her boyfriend brought her to America “on holiday” so we met for a cup of coffee in SoHo. Well, she had coffee. I don’t drink it so I had a cup of hot chocolate on Prince and Mulberry that was so good I wanted to bathe in it. And it was in a combination bookstore and café, which is exactly what you imagined should be in SoHo. And everyone inside it looked like someone who should be in a café in SoHo, being either gorgeous or perfectly styled in a downtown fashion. Seriously, I felt like a fucking country troll. Next time I go, I’m going to be better dressed. Sunday night Angelina Jolie Smile (and rack) was in town taking a break from suburban life. We occasionally get together to watch a football playoff game since no one in her immediate family understand how she can sit there from 1:00 to 11:00 pm every Sunday watching games (and her screaming makes her young daughter cry). We went to a sports bar in my neighborhood where we were fortunate enough to find seats in front of one of the 20 flatscreens they have to watch both the Jets and the Bears learn you just can’t play the last two quarters and hope to win. You have to play all four. During the game we discussed our mutual passion of movies, TV and celebrity gossip and were both amused by the continued existence of “the bar girl.” You know, that moderately attractive girl who is in every bar, drinking a little too hard, trying a little to hard for attention. Except that these two were well into their 30’s and quite frankly too old to be doing this shit especially on a Sunday night. Did they not have jobs!?! Only the unemployed can do the walk of shame on a Monday morning. The rest of us have to get the fuck up. They were eyeing our seats the entire time they were there and we actually spoke briefly before they resigned themselves to the fact we weren’t giving them up and left with some poor bastard who clearly thought this was going to be the best night of his life, but was more than likely going to buy a lot of drinks for two women who would either be too drunk to fuck him or would abandon him at the drop of a hat for someone better. Which wasn’t hard, because he was kind of a dweeb. Trust me. We can smell our own.

DEATH’S GETTING A GUT

Clearly Death needed a personal trainer, as she took none other than Jack LaLanne, America’s first fitness guru. She also took Susannah York and none other than Don Kirschner of Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert to finally mount a show with all those dead musicians.

IT’S WHERE I SPEND 100% OF MY TIME

Finally, I have a new bed. Well, a new bed frame. A NoHo or a SoHo depending on who's selling it. Seems I was being an immature loser to still have the futon sofabed I bought when I got out of college, like it was on the fucking floor or something. But that’s okay. Fine. Just know that I got it because it bothered me that I was sleeping on 20-year-old wood, not to please the judgmental bitches I call friends who roasted me over it. After all, none of them will ever be in it. Bitches. I looked into regular mattresses, but after being on the futon so long, I prefer it. I like the way it gives, but is still firm. Mattresses either give too much or not at all. Yes, I know. It doesn’t bounce back when you fuck on it, but it hasn’t exactly slowed down the population of Asia, now has it? Not to mention there’s something called “doggiestyle.” Still, this mattress is a few years old, but a new one, a good new one, will cost pretty much as much as the bed frame, because it’s a queen so it’s gonna have to wait. And I’m not exactly thrilled with this duvet either (it turned out to be yellow instead of gold, remember). Damn it! I hate these types of grown up purchases. I should be spending my money on blu-rays and videogames. You know, insuring that no one is ever in this bed but me.

SILLY KUH-NIG-ITS!

2011-01-10T02:41:00.004-05:00

1. True Grit/Paramount Wknd/$ 15.0 Total/$110.4

2. Little Fockers/Universal Wknd/$ 13.8 Total/$124.0

3. Season of the Witch/ Wknd/$ 10.7 Total/$ 10.7

4. Tron Legacy/Disney Wknd/$ 9.8 Total/$147.9

5. Black Swan/FoxS Wknd/$ 8.4 Total/$ 61.5

6. Country Strong/ScreeGems Wknd/$ 7.3 Total/$ 7.4

7. The Fighter/Paramount Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 57.8

8. The King’s Speech/Weinstein Wknd/$ 6.8 Total/$

9. Yogi Bear/Warners Wknd/$ 6.8 Total/$ 75.6

10. Tangled/Disney Wknd/$ 5.2 Total/$175.9

TECHNICALLY A WESTERN

True Grit jumps to number one and I tried to watch the original this weekend but couldn’t. The monologue about his ex-wife and that Jeff Bridges gives in the new version gives is a corny conversation between John Wayne and Kim Darby in the original and the sad thing is, Wayne was not a bad actor. He could have done justice to the dialogue without any simplistic cornpone help. If you’ve ever seen him slow go mad in Red River you know what I’m talking about. Granted he always played the same role, but he knew how to mold it and create variations on it, which is why the obsessed man in Red River is not the obsessed man in The Searchers. But those were actual westerns, which this is not. It’s a western like Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman was a western.

WHEN SHE’S DRUNK I’M SURE SHE RAGS ON BOOGIE NIGHTS

Little Fockers holds at number two and poor Teri Polo aka, The Girl You Once Called When Heather Graham Was Busy (now you don’t call either, but Amanda Seyfried). Meet the Parents gave her a second shot at the brass ring (Mystery Date and Aspen Extreme didn’t quite do it for her) and she tried to make the most of it, but the sitcom (based on the life of Brooke Shields no less) didn’t take and the movie choices, though with A-list stars didn’t pan out. Now every other year between steady TV work she looks to this dung heap for an easy payday. But I must admit, without these crummy movies, she probably never would have posed for Playboy, so I’m grateful for that at least. What can I say? She made quite the impression on me in her checkered short-shorts in the movie Quick. You just don’t expect ass like that on a skinny blonde white girl.

WE’RE TO THE POINT WHERE JUST HIS NAME MEANS IT’S GOING TO BLOW

Season of the Witch opens at number three and it’s easy to say Nicholas Cage only did this because he has IRS bills to pay, but he’s been doing shit like this for the last 15 years which caused the bills. Pretty much as soon as he got his Oscar he decided, “Do ‘em all. Let history sort it out.” And honestly, he’s made worse films (yes, Ghost Rider, I’m looking at you). This is just a made for SyFy channel movie that somehow escaped into theaters. It’s cheap and looks it and is fairly low-key action-wise. One of the bigger sequences is them taking a heavy across a rickety bridge. You only wish I were kidding. It’s ridiculous, because there’s no suspense. Nicholas Cage is on the bridge with the wagon and since you know he’s not going to die and the girl accused of being a witch can’t die either, what’s there to worry about? It’s just money and time wasted to watch guys roll a wagon slowly over a bridge. Then they fight wolves. Not werewolves or monster wolves, just wolves. That’s worse than bad. It’s dull. It would have been more fun had it been worse, campier, something you could yell at the screen over. That he doesn’t even attempt an insanely bad English accent was a great disappointment to me. Of all the time he chooses not to go over-the-top, a move about disillusioned Crusader knights escorting a witch is it!?!

ARE WE MEN OR ARE WE COMPUTER PROGRAMS!?!

Tron Legacy is down to number four and also in this is Michael Sheen, in danger of becoming a minor geek god. He was Lucien in the Underworld series, he’s a vampire in the Twilight series and channeling David Bowie here he’s the most interesting non-CGI thing about it. Apparently he’s the only person who thought maybe it should be fun, clearly having learned on Underworld how to take lemons and make lemonade because he and Bill Nighy chewing the scenery were the best part of those films.

TO YOUR RIGHT HAND SHE’LL ALWAYS BE VERONICA SAWYER

Black Swan is up to number five and the most accurate criticism I’ve heard of it recently is that Natalie Portman is the only person who didn’t know this was joke and looking back over the campy performances, it’s true. It’s damn clear Winona Ryder as a boozy-over-the-hill dancer knew. And what must that have been like for her to play a version onscreen of what happened in real life? Of her little doppelganger, Portman, taking her place in the minds and pants of men and boys who love women who look like young girls? Though Alicia Silverstone and Britney Spears both occupied that role between them, they were on another level thanks to their work in geek films.

WE’RE ALL JUST LINT IN HER BELLY BUTTON. IF HER BELLY BUTTON HAD LINT.

Country Strong enters the top ten at number six and I’d wonder how Gwyneth Paltrow felt when the film’s advertising changed from being about her to being about the Gossip Girl and Tron Boy (giving him two films in the top ten) with little mention of her---if I didn’t know she was utterly oblivious to anything about her that’s not about her. You know, like when she talked about how she got in shape for Iron Man 2 OBLIVIOUS to the fact she has no real action scenes in the movie. But I love her still and there’s nothing you can do about it. I will see this. I fucking hate country music and bad southern accents and this promises to have plenty of both, but I will see this.

NEXT UP: CHELSEA HANDLER AND ELIZABETH BANKS NEED TO PLAY SISTERS

The Fighter is down to number seven and we missed casting greatness when Matt Damon dropped out as Mark Walberg’s brother. Yeah, I’m sure Christian Bale is great, but that’s right up there with Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire playing brothers. All they needed was Joaquin Phoenix and then they could have played triplets because they’re all the same kinda fugly Frankenstein-headed dude.

F-F-F-FUNNY

The King’s Speech is up to number eight and despite the look of the “Oh-so-important-historical-drama” this is surprisingly light, so if you’re putting it off for that reason, don’t worry. He has a stammer, not polio and the film is aware of this. Everyone has a wonderful dry British wit and it is often on display.

WE CALL IT A BAD FILM; HE CALLS IT PURGATORY

Yogi Bear is down to number nine and in this as Ranger Smith is Tom Cavanagh and remember when his show Ed was going to be the new Northern Exposure? Yeah. Betcha he does too. But Love Monkey was an awesome show that I watch on the ION Networks since music licensing means it’ll be a cold day in hell before it hits DVD. Know who else was on Ed? Justin Long and Julie Bowen. I’m sure that’s gotta sting.

IF COMPUTER STUFF WEREN’T EXPENSIVE, ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL WOULDN’T HAVE NEEDED HER UNDERPANTS.

Finally, Tangled closes out the top ten at number ten and at $322M worldwide, this just basically didn’t flop because it cost $260M. Why? Well, they tried for years to make it and so those development costs got tacked onto the final budget. Also, a new computer program had to be developed for that fucking hair and that’s not cheap.

EVERY MAN’S FANTASY: TO BE AN UNPUNISHED DOUCHEBAG

Californication started up again and while I hate that show, I am compelled to watch it as I am most shows about writers. It’s why I watched every single episode of the odious October Road. Luckily it was a free Showtime weekend to kick off its latest attempt to catch-up to HBO’s original programming so I won’t have to pay for this shit until next week. Yeah, Showtime’s got half a dozen channels, but they’re filled with utter shit so I can wait. This latest season improved dramatically simply because none other than Carla Gugino is now on the show, suggesting she’s got a taste for stories about douchebags, having also been on “entourage.” But it’s still the same menopausal male fantasy piece of shit it has always been. He’s an asshole who says and does whatever he wants, fucks every hot woman who looks at him and still maintains the love of his girlfriend and their daughter in the end despite of all the destruction he leaves in his wake. Let me put it this way: in this season’s opening episode, some 20-something actress wants to fuck him (of course his love for his girlfriend and daughter is what seals the deal for her) and she’s wearing a Foreigner t-shirt, quoting CSN lyrics and The Rolling Stones “Sympathy For The Devil” plays in the background. How the fuck does that appeal to any male under the age of fifty? Hell, I’m in my forties and it screams pathetic to me. But I’ll watch every fucking episode.

I GUESS “THE CODPIECE” DIDN’T HAVE THE SAME IMPACT

TV’s latest attempt to have superheroes is The Cape and while this initially seemed awful, more recent commercials suggested a show more gleefully over-the-top than the underwhelming blandness initially on display. It knew what it was, but respected it. Surprisngly, the show is the same. It knows it’s a superhero show occasionally joking about its conventions (the name “The Cape” is mocked, a man gives a heartfelt dying speech then pops up a few seconds later pissed he’s not dead), but plays it mostly straight. The setup is a mixture of a half-dozen comic book clichés, but they’re clichés for a reason: they work. I mean, it’d be nice if they didn’t test your suspension of disbelief so heavily by having him walking around unnoticed when his face is on the cover of every paper. Seriously would it have been so hard that he used to have a beard and mustache and shaved it off? Or dyed his hair? But again, it’s a knowingly silly action show and a miracle it’s as entertaining as it is.

SHE’S FUNNIER WHEN SHE HATES HERSELF AND NOT OTHER PEOPLE

So, I’ve actually been making use of my instant Netflix through my Playstation 3. Comedy specials mostly, because I can’t decide of the dozens of films I’ve always wanted to see that I can now watch instantly. There are just too many choices. So instead I’ll give up 45 minutes for a comedy special. I can watch it and do other things because listening to jokes doesn’t exactly require a lot of focus. The Kevin Hart special was okay and I’ve seen Kathy Griffin before, but I just wanted to hear it uncensored. It was, however, nice to see Jaenene Garafolo return to form after years in the wilderness of being a humorless harpy intent on screaming politics to her audience. Granted it showed up, but it was only a tiny peace of her act. I guess Obama’s election calmed her down a bit (hopefully it had the same impact on Margaret Cho). In fact I’ll give her the biggest compliment I can in saying it briefly reminded me of Richard Pryor in Live on the Sunset Strip when she did bits about her drinking problem and basically confessed to her ideal life would be as functioning alcoholic. The difference is Richard Pryor would have done a beautifully mastered bit about the whole intervention process as he did with Jim Brown trying to intervene with him. Garafalo only gives us a small taste of what could have been great.

ONE OF THE REASONS I HATE QUENTIN TARANTINO

Finally, Death hits the ground running in 2011 with Pete Postlewaite, Gerry Rafferty and Peter Yates, who brought the world Bullitt.

NOW AMY CHASES ME

2011-01-03T02:43:00.006-05:00

1. Little Fockers/Universal Wknd/$ 26.3 Total/$103.2

2. True Grit/Paramount Wknd/$ 24.5 Total/$ 24.5

3. Tron Legacy/Disney Wknd/$ 18.3 Total/$130.9

4. Yogi Bear/Warners Wknd/$ 13.0 Total/$ 66.1

5. Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of Wknd/$ 10.5 Total/$ 87.1

6. Tangled/Disney Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$168.0

7. The Fighter/Paramount Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 46.4

8. Gulliver’s Travels/Fox Wknd/$ 9.1 Total/$ 27.2

9. Black Swan/FoxS Wknd/$ 8.5 Total/$ 47.4

10.The King’s Speech/Weinstein Wknd/$ 7.6 Total/$ 22.8

AND LO, THE BEAST COMMISSIONED A SEQUEL. AND THEN ANOTHER.

Little Fockers holds at number one proving once and for all there is no God, so stop pretending there is. I hated the first one, never saw the second and damn sure will avoid this one at all costs----as sure as I will avoid the next three when we follow the kids to college and DeNiro to the grave. I mean how sad is it that Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel are together in a film and it’s this piece of shit. If this were 1976 that would be the mother of all gritty, dramatic New York castings. Now it’s just pathetic, one-note fluff. I mean, Jessica Alba is in it. Jessica Alba sharing screen time with Barbara Streisand. What more do I need to tell you? No. God.

THE DUKE WOULDN’T PLAY SECOND FIDDLE TO A GIRL

True Grit holds at number two and never having seen the first I can’t tell you how this measures up in comparison, nor can I tell you how it compares to the book. All I can tell you is that the title refers to not so much Jeff Bridges’ character (even though it’s used in reference to him within the film), but to the young girl at the center of the film (actress Hailee Steinfeld), whose own “true grit” in search of justice for her father’s murder propels it. It’s Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon who are supporting her as she proves as tough as every man she encounters, her force of will beating back every one no matter what the disadvantage. And this is the core of the film, so if you’re expecting a typical western think again. This is more a character study that happens to have a plot and for that it makes 90 minutes feel like 120. As good as all the performances are and as much I normally enjoy the patois of the Coen Brothers---which is on full display here as well as their penchant for odd facial hair and at least one fat man screaming (all that’s missing is John Goodman who could have easily have been Rooster Cogburn)---I could have used a little more “bang, bang” and a little less “talky, talky.” You get her will is pretty much a force of nature the first ten times it’s displayed. You don’t need ten more. This is more Coens’ workmanship than inspiration. Which reminds me I haven’t seen Miller’s Crossing in awhile.

GEEK LEGACY

Tron Legacy holds at number three and listening people bitch about this I have wonder what film are they comparing it to because it’s just like the minor cult classic that comforted a generation of lonely computer-loving geek boys (shut up!) in pretty much every way. What you want to see is more of someone fighting computer games for real---especially the awesome light cycles---and what happens is you get precious little of it and at the end of the day it’s just pretty, though this did get the superior soundtrack thanks to the epically inspired decision to have Daft Punk do it. They were made to score films like this. But I must admit that it misses the conceit of the first film in that the computer world Jeff Bridges traveled to mirrored the real world he left. The programs looked just like their users and played similar roles. None of that is to be found here which makes me think that like the whining audience, the producers of this didn’t see the first film either. The film is at it’s best in the few moments when Jeff Bridges is just allow to show his laid back charm. Like the light cycles, there’s just not enough of it.

HELL, ISN’T A PLACE; IT’S ENDLESS CRUMMY CGI MOVIES

Yogi Bear is down to number four and remember what I said about there being no God? Exhibit #2. This fucking thing shouldn’t even exist. Even as cartoons the Hanna Barbera group were weak sisters to the legendary Warner Brothers characters (thanks to their epic cheapness), which is probably why they were never really passed down to more recent generations. Any 5-year-old knows who Bugs Bunny is, but ask him about Snagglepuss and see what happens? But I will admit, the casting of Justin Timberlake as the voice of Boo-Boo is perfection. Cry me a river, Yogi. Cry me a river.

MORE LIKE THE LOWER ARCHDUKE OF THE RINGS

Down to number five is The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyages of the Dawn Treader and who the fuck is still seeing these films for them to keep making them!?! Are you so desperate between Harry Potter installments and still hung up on Lord of the Rings that you people are keeping this alive? And how the fuck do they keep getting reputable directors for it? Michael fucking Apted did this? Yeah, the man behind 7 Up, 14 Up and 21 Up. Then again he did do The World is Not Enough, so he put on the metaphorical fuck-me pumps a while back.

AMIEE MANN AND MICHAEL PENN THEY ARE NOT

Tangled is down to number six and the voice of Rapunzel here is none other than Mandy Moore, so a decade later all the four top little blonde pop stars are still around and working---though Britney is the only one still making a living as a pop star. What’s really sad is that this is Mandy Moore’s most successful film and it’s the one where you don’t see her at all. Hint, hint. Sorry, but I have no sympathy for her. She treats her big hit “Candy” like some sort curse, like she’s got other hits that anyone knows or gives a shit about. This is why fate won’t give you another. Your utter lack of appreciation. That’s why it made you marry Ryan Adams.

NOT SINCE JURASSIC PARK MAKE DINOSAURS WALK…

The Fighter is down to number seven and the Oscar this should be up for is Best Make Up for making Christian Bale look less attractive than Mark Walberg, which is definitely not the case. Seriously, I’m thinking some sort of CGI had to be involved, like the kind that makes Jeff Bridges look 26 in Tron.

AND LO, THE BEAST WAS NOT DONE WITH ITS EVIL MOVIE MAKING

Gulliver’s Travels holds at number eight and remember what I said about there being no God? I rest my case.

SHE’S DANCING AS FAST AS SHE CAN

The Black Swan is down to number nine and yes, I am among the minority who was less-than-impressed by this overripe melodrama and I knew going in it was going to be an overripe melodrama about an artist descending into madness. Actually for me it wasn’t over-the-top enough. I mean, if you’re going to do this, do it! Don’t half-ass it and for me they half-assed it. Give me a gritty movie about dance or give me a baroque nightmare. Even Natalie Portman’s performance was just looking worried for two hours to me and Mila Kunis is getting kudos for simply being a break from all the strum und drang with a bit of comic relief. She still delivers her lines like she’s still surprised to even be making a movie. But do not for one moment think this is some kind of horror movie about her being stalked, much less being stalked by Mila Kunis. I cannot believe the level of deception in those commercials. I mean, you don’t even need them. People are going to see it to watch Mila Kunis go down on Natalie Portman. An entire generation of men dropped a load just hearing about that and then another when it actually happened onscreen. You’d think it’d be a problem given neither actress does nudity, but you have to realize they’d been imagining it for so long the blanks had already been filled.

NAZIS COUNTS AS HOLOCAUST. I’M JUST SAYIN’.

Finally, The King’s Speech closes out the top ten and let’s just give Colin Firth his Oscar now. Seriously. This has “Oscar Winning Prestige Film” written all over it. Period piece, true story, English accents, wartime, Nazis…all that’s missing are cute kids and a Fallen Woman who dies. Whoops, we see Elizabeth as a cute little girl, so it’s only the “Fallen Woman” who’s missing. And what’s sad is that it’s actually very good. It’s not some over-the-top art piece, but simply and directly told with just enough artistry so it doesn’t look like a made-for-tv film. And Colin Firth is simply as good as everyone keeps telling you. It doesn’t hurt that surrounding him are Geoffrey Rush, Derek Jacobi, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Jennifer Ehle (that actress who looks like a clone of Meryl Steep down to her talent) and Michael Gambon. Guy Pearce is a scene-stealer as the soon-to-abdicate Edward and Gambon shows there are no small parts only small actors as their father, King George.

WHERE’S TRON WHEN I NEED HIM?

So, this has been gone awhile thanks to my yearly computer meltdown. Seriously, at least once a year something happens. Literally moments after my last posting, I heard a dreaded grinding noise from my hard drive and that was all she wrote. And all I wrote. Massive troubleshooting to no avail, then buying a new one, then thankfully the old one coming back to life long enough for me to restore all the data I thought I’d lost, which is incredibly scary in this time of only digital pictures. Seriously. For the last 150 years you had to have a fire to lose photos, now one stray magnetic field and kiss the first five years of your child’s life in photos and movies goodbye. Though I’m by no means a hardcore computer geek, I do know enough that visits to both Tekserve and the Genius Bar at Apple resulted in them either doing what I’d done or saying they’d only do what I’d done and then telling me for $200 they could at least rescue my lost data. Thankfully, I have no children, so fuck that.

BECAUSE I’M NOT SOCIALLY ISOLATED ENOUGH

So I bought a Playstation 3. Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve bought Playstations at least three times before this one and each time I wound up selling them because of the enormous wastes of time and money they wind up becoming. Unlike a computer, which actually serves a purpose, you can’t do anything on a Playstation that doesn’t result in money and time lost and I have precious little of either to spare. It was my sister’s Wii that did me in. Not having to pay for it, I enjoyed it. Then came Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit for the Playstation 3. Need For Speed was always one of my favorite games right next to Midnight Club (basically the same thing; illegal street racing) and seeing the new one just pushed me over the edge. Still, I couldn’t rationalize coughing up $300 for a gaming system that would be gathering dust in a few months so when asked what I wanted for Xmas I said Best Buy gift cards which offset the bulk of the cost and I’m selling off my blu-ray player since the PS3 has one. But then you factor in the additional shit you have buy (another controller, games, etc) and you’re counting the minutes until I sell this fucker off again. Though I must admit, the whole Netflix on-demand function is pretty sweet. I thought I’d never use it, but have already done so and the more silly crap they put on there the more it will get used.

WHEN PUSH COMES SHOVE, WHEN YOU NEED A LITTLE LOVE

We lost Teena Marie. Fuck you, Death. You had to get that last one in before the New Year. Bad enough you took Steve Landesberg too, but “Lovergirl” had to go too? And somewhere Mickey Rooney weeps and begs for sweet release.

NOW AMY CHASES ME

“I’m hopelessly gay, but we should hang out.” That in a nutshell sums up not only my New Year’s Eve, but pretty much my social life since I was 15 and a girl in my class chose me to be her buddy and my friend to deflower. Seriously. One of our first conversations was how she was going to pop his cherry. “Well, what about me?” “Oh, don’t be silly. We’re friends.” I’m sure he hasn’t seen her since their brief relationship in high school. I, on the other hand, had dinner with her when she was in New York on business. In any case this was the annual New Year’s Eve party in Brooklyn with the girls I’d met on Jezebel. Now, the first year, there was joke that the basement was “The Lesbian Basement” because three of the four girls crashing there were gay. The second year this took on a new life thanks to the fact they invited their friends and a disco ball and a DJ (gorgeous lesbian of course) was added. This year the party was 99.9% gay women, now co-hosted by the DJ’s equally hot girlfriend and unlike straight people, the gays actually go to the parties they’re invited too. I learned a great many things that evening. That gay women party as hard as the men I’d learned long ago, but what I didn’t know was that after a certain time they had the same disregard for wearing shirts and there’s apparently a Rat Pack like subculture amongst lesbians, because there was a group of them dressed like they were shooting Ocean’s 11 in Park Slope. But though the straight populace was small, we still managed to out-sleaze them. The guy the host invited to her hook-up that night wound up making out in front of her with her friend, a tall, attractive blonde lawyer who was one of the four straight women there. Now, we (me, Hot DJ’s Girlfriend, Random TV Loving Bisexual) initially thought Lawyer Barbie was just doing that just to have someone to make out with on New Year’s then go home alone. That’s before he started finger fucking her against a pillar in the basement, which was also the middle of the dance floor. Then they vanished into the bathroom for about a half hour. Now we (me, Hot DJ’s Girlfriend, Random TV Loving Bisexual) thought given she was a lawyer, she was not going to fuck this guy in a bathroom and just blow him, but there was far too much bumping around going on for too long for a hummer, but who knows. It could have just been dry humping. I just give lawyers more credit. Clearly our host was offended and the lesbians began to ask me just what I was going to do about it as the other straight guy there. I protested that she was my friend and I couldn’t fuck that up…leaving out my half-hearted pursuit of yet another friend of the host’s. A drop-dead gorgeous, the full-blooded Greek girl I’d recently given a Wonder Woman t-shirt too for her birthday because she’d talked about dressing up like her for Halloween. I’m not above drunkenly hooking up with anyone, but not at the chance of jeopardizing something potentially awesome. Luckily it worked itself out as one of the lesbians had invited her straight co-worker, a nice guy who looked like a young Aidan Quinn and that’s who the host wound up in a bathroom with at the end of the night, so she traded-up big time, as the guy who blew her off for the Lawyer Barbie I found quite ordinary and tad be schlubby, making me wonder why the fuck I’d bothered going to the gym just that morning. You can still be a schubbly douchebag and bone hot, blonde lawyers in the bathroom, so why sweat and eat turkey bacon? Though at the end of the night when she left, Lawyer Barbie left alone. He tried to go with her, bringing me back to no actual intercourse in the bathroom. If he’d hit it, he wouldn’t have been so desperately after her. Sorry, but that’s just how men are. But the lesbians won out in obviously in sheer numbers of making out and grinding pretty much everywhere. It was a party after all. Now you’d think watching gorgeous women make-out on the dance floor would be hot for a man, but actually it’s very depressing, because these are women who have no interest in you whatsoever, though there were kindly enough to include me in the various group dancing on the floor. But unlike one dude, I knew the sweaty grinding and making out was not for me. It was for The Hot DJ. And her girlfriend. And the Hot Blonde Doctor who joined them. Actually the girlfriend and the Hot Blonde Doctor were going at it first which I thought was going to cause a problem of obvious reasons, not the least of which being I also know Hot Blonde Doctor’s girlfriend, but clearly there were different rules going on there. As I said there were actually other straight guys there, but we thought they were gay. You only knew they were straight by the fact that, despite the fact this was BIG LESBIAN PARTY, they were still trying to get some. Dude, she’s not taking off her shirt to dance with you. She’s taking off her shirt to dance with the other shirtless girl. That’s when it was time for me to go, so as not to be one of those guys. Thankfully, I’d stopped drinking long before, with the exception a shot of whiskey, served to me by girl who while “hopelessly gay” still wants to hang out with me. I said yes and we exchanged numbers but it’s doubtful. My dance card of women who have no interest in my dick is pretty full and I don’t know if I’ll have time for her. Especially since now I have a Playstation again.

LOVE IS THE DRUG AND I NEED TO SCORE

2010-11-29T02:08:00.003-05:00

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!

2010-11-22T00:37:00.004-05:00

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

2010-11-15T01:40:00.005-05:00

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!

2010-11-08T01:51:00.004-05:00

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

2010-11-01T01:33:00.005-04:00

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.

ME NO LIKE SCARY

2010-10-25T01:55:00.005-04:00

1. Paranormal Activity 2/Parmount Wknd/$ 41.5 Total/$ 41.5

2. Jackass 3D/Parmount Wknd/$ 21.6 Total/$ 87.1

3. Red/Summit Wknd/$ 15.0 Total/$ 43.5

4. Hereafter/Warners Wknd/$ 12.0 Total/$ 12.0

5. The Social Network/Sony Wknd/$ 7.3 Total/$ 72.9

6. Secretariat/Disney Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 37.4

7. Life As We Know It/Warners Wknd/$ 6.2 Total/$ 37.6

8. Legend of the Guardians/Warners Wknd/$ 3.2 Total/$ 50.2

9. The Town/Warners Wknd/$ 2.7 Total/$ 84.7

10. Easy A/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 1.8 Total/$ 54.8

NO, PART 2

Paranormal Activity 2 opens at number one and I don’t do the scary and like the first one this actually looks scary, so there’s no way in hell you’re going to see me in this. But because I have dark curiosity, I’ll be reading Moviespoiler.com on Monday to find out what happens. Also, I’m not a big fan of movies where evil wins and clearly the only way you have this is if evil won in the first movie. It’s another reason why I hate all those series like Jason and Freddie and Saw. I know the bad guy will kill with impunity and return for more.

WHAT’S WORSE THAN GROWING OLD? GROWING OLD AND STUPID.

Jackass 3D is down to number two and old age is going to be a bitch on these guys. They were already going to pay for the stunts they did in their 20’s, but shit you do to your body in your 30’s sticks around. There’s a reason 30 is old for an athlete and these boys ain’t no athletes. I sincerely doubt there’s much physical therapy after a day of them beating this shit out of each other; just junk food and weed. And are we kidding ourselves to think this would even be in existence if Johnny Knoxville’s career as a leading man had taken off? Why did anyone think an untalented ugly guy could be a star? Ugly and talented have always had a place going back to Humphrey Bogart (I love him, but he was ugly). Nicholas Cage can act when he wants to. Knoxville just gets hit with shit. Not a talent.

BUSHY-TAILED GOES WITHOUT SAYING

Red is down to number three and shouldn’t this actually be called R.E.D.? Just saying. It’s an acronym (Retired and Extremely Dangerous) not a word. In any case, also in this is Mary Louis Parker who is pictured in the dictionary under the expression “bright eyed” which adds a subversive level to this because what she’s bright-eyed about is hanging out with a bunch of professional killers. Similarly, she’s bright-eyed on Weeds about selling drugs to support her family, which helps that story and character. Though not enough for me. Hell, even the fact she’s naked on the show constantly couldn’t make me keep watching it. Especially when fleshbot.com would post her sex scenes the day after, saving me from having to even record the show, much less watch it.

NOT EVEN WITH A MAGNUM .44 IN HIS HAND

Hereafter opens wide at number four and I stopped seeing Clint Eastwood's stoic, overlong Oscar bait movies a long time ago and this doesn’t change my view. Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon, period piece, true story, adapted from a novel…I don’t care who he casts or what it’s about. I just know it will be long, slow, dry, humorless and whatever the hell it’s about, it will take fucking forever to get there. I also know that the members of the Academy will somehow equate that with excellence so look for nominations at Oscar time.

GOOD ENOUGH FOR FRANK AND ELVIS, GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, KID.

The Social Network is down to number five and providing solid support here is Justin Timberlake, playing Napster creator, Sean Fanning, as a smarmy, paranoid douche. I’m never surprised when someone from the music business knows how to do this. Chances are he’s just doing an imitation of someone he knows. But it shows that those leading roles that went straight-to-video may have been a mistake. He’s much better supporting actual actors than he is carrying an entire film. Unless he’s singing and dancing he needs to leave that to professionals. Come to think of it, why the hell hasn’t he made a movie where he’s doing just that? Elvis and Sinatra were good actors too, but they knew which side their bread was buttered on.

SOMETIMES NOT LOSING IS AS GOOD AS WINNING. NO, NOT REALLY.

Secretariat is down to number six followed by Life As We Know It at number seven and has just about made budget continuing Katherine Heigl’s streak of either making money or just not losing any. Even with The Killers she doesn’t have any flat-out flops and honestly that’s pretty good, so the haters can suck it.

IT’S NOT LIKE THEY’RE REAL PEOPLE

Legends of The Guardian: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is down to number eight and also in this is Helen Mirren, meaning like John Malkovich, she has two films in the top ten. Other than her, however, it’s just Australians, even if it means first class Aussies like Sam Neil.

TINY TALENTED PEOPLE

The Town is down to number seven and also in this is Jeremy Renner who is now making Mission Impossible IV with Tom Cruise, which is no surprise to anyone aware of how short Jeremy Renner is. Let me put it this way, when he and Colin Farrell are fighting in SWAT it looks like midget wrestling. And who else made a movie with Tom Cruise? Colin Farrell. That’s right male actors 5’7” and less, you’ll always have A-list films to work in so long as Tom Cruise remains a star.

THERE’S ALSO THE MATTER OF A RACK…

Finally Easy A closes out the top ten at number ten and while this has been successful for Emma Stone ($55M from an $8M budget) it’s not her Mean Girls. It’s had no cultural impact (“mean girls” is now part of the national language) and didn’t really propel her into superstardom the way it did Lindsay Lohan, not to mention establishing Tina Fey as a force in movies and bumping Rachel McAdams up. This pretty much helped only Emma Stone…and anyone who put money into it.

STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF 10^TH AVENUE MICKEY

Usually when you see streetfights, they’re wild drunken messes. Most people don’t know how to fight so it quickly winds up in a messy wrestling match fueled by booze and fear. Occasionally however, someone makes the makes the mistake of fucking with someone who actually knows how to throw a punch, like on Saturday night on 10^th Avenue and 52^nd Street. Two middle-aged men bordering on actually being old men facing off in front of a closing bodega. The smaller, fitter looking guy is trying to talk it down, while the taller, lankier guy, thinking his height guarantees him victory keeps pushing. I shook my head sadly and walk around them, avoiding all eye contact, expecting that to amount to nothing when I hear the proverbial two thuds: the thud of one man being hit and then hitting the ground. I turn to see the taller guy on the ground not moving and the smaller guy picking up his jacket muttering how he tried to warn him before strolling casually off into the night. New York City. Only the strong, baby. Attitude is good, but if you can’t back it up it’ll only get you killed. Or punched out on 10^th Avenue. We keeps it real in Hell’s Kitchen.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW RHIANNA WITH PANTS ON?

I admit it. I’ve been sleeping on Janelle Monae. I know of her, but never really listened to her music, despite the fact she brings back the lost of art of the science fiction concept album (killed single-handedly by Styx in the 80’s). There’s a reason Prince plans to have her opening a few of his dates. She’s out there by herself doing what she wants regardless of what anyone else is doing. She actually reminds me a lot of Grace Jones. But what’s really shocking about her is that you’re suddenly made aware of just how many young female artists are incapable of performing without selling sex. Men do it in equal amounts. Some just perform, others give you what Robert Plant calls “cock rock” but with young women---especially black women---they’re all selling sex to get you to listen. Of course this only matters to me now that I’m old. Were I younger I’d be thinking she needs to get that top off.

IT'S ABOUT BOOBS. ALWAYS.

2010-10-18T01:09:00.006-04:00

1. Jackass 3D/Parmount Wknd/$ 50.0 Total/$ 50.0

2. Red/Summit Wknd/$ 22.5 Total/$ 22.5

3. The Social Network/Sony Wknd/$ 11.0 Total/$ 63.1

4. Secretariat/Disney Wknd/$ 9.5 Total/$ 27.5

5. Life As We Know It/Warners Wknd/$ 9.2 Total/$ 28.9

6. Legend of the Guardians/Warners Wknd/$ 4.2 Total/$ 46.0

7. The Town/Warners Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 80.6

8. My Soul To Take/Universal Wknd/$ 3.1 Total/$ 11.9

9. Easy A/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 2.4 Total/$ 47.9

10. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps/Fox Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$ 43.7

LET NATURE TAKE ITS COURSE…PLEASE

Jackass 3D opens at number one causing a decrease in stupid testosterone-fueled crimes over the weekend as those morons who’d commit them were clearly watching this and then going off to hurt themselves and not others. Personally, I think this should be called the “The Darwinism Taunts” because if someone gets killed doing this, it’s not like we’re losing a valuable contributor to the gene pool. If Jessica Simpson were smarter, she’d be shaking her head somewhere over the fact she boned one or two of these guys. But she’s not, so she doesn’t and was probably sexually excited to see this movie.

SOMEWHERE A FILM SNOB WONDERS WHERE IRENE JACOB IS

Red opens at number two and this could have easily been called “Old Guns” and I’m sure some dickwad from marketing suggested it. A group of retired CIA agents find themselves on a hit list from the Agency itself which finds it a lot tougher than expected to kill them off. It’s an old story and this time it comes courtesy of a comic book and no, I’ve never read it (I need tights, flights and fights to hold my interest). Because of the slight story (though the sad irony is the comic book was probably infinitely more complex) this rests solely on the shoulders of its stars. Bruce Willis plays his role perhaps a bit too well of an agent a little depressed in forced retirement. It’s almost like he’s sleepwalking through this, but Mary-Louise Parker brings the same wide-eyed joy she’s been doing for most of her career. Morgan Freeman’s ability to bring wicked charm is wasted in a too small role, but it’s picked up by the great John Malkovich and Helen Mirren, who seem delighted to be back in the world unleashing mayhem. And unlike a half-dozen male action stars I can name, Helen Mirren doesn’t blink when firing automatic weapons the size of trucks. It’s so hot, you wish she’d been the center of the movie and not Bruce Willis. Given that the plot is hardly important they could have sacrificed some time spent on it for the real meat, which is the stars of the movie together. The director has no real flair for action so we could have sacrificed a couple of rounds for more of the glee both Parker and Mirren display towards a life of action or a nice little flashback sequence showing them all in their youth.

EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO COMICS. EVERYTHING.

The Social Network is down to number three and the geek connection here is Armie Hammer, who plays the Winklevoss twins (CGI and a body double) was cast as Batman in the abandoned Justice League movie and they even got as far as to create his costume. I have to admit, it’s not bad casting at all and he’s got one of the best lines in the movie: “I’m 6’5”, 220 pounds and there’s two of me.” Why these guys who rowed crew in the Olympics would need a website to get girls is a testament to how dumb they are. Or at least how dumb they are depicted in the film.

STEPPENWOLF, BITCHES!

Secretariat is down to number four and this gives John Malkovich two films in the top ten and two where’s he’s playing a crazy old guy. I wish I could say he was acting, but if you’ve ever read an interview with him, you know it ain’t that much of a stretch for him. And you kids won’t remember but there was a brief time this lizardly fellow was a leading man, convincingly seducing Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman onscreen. I personally have a weakness for Making Mr. Right, a flawed but entertaining movie I’ll watch on cable anytime it comes on. In the end a combination of The Sheltering Sky and The Object of Beauty did his brief leading man career in. Well, that and he’s fucking ugly.

LIKE A MOUNTAIN PASS

Life As We Know It is down to number five and as the doomed mother in his is Christina Hendricks, best known as the secretary from Mad Men and what is all this “curvy” bullshit? It’s about tits and since when has someone with big tits becoming a sex symbol been unique? There was none of this “Oh, we’re back to curves” talk when Salma Hayek blew up and she’s built like an hourglass. Also, Katherine Heigl, the star of this isn’t exactly flat-chested herself and her character on Gray’s Anatomy was former lingerie model and within the first three episodes her goods were firmly on display. This is just business as usual, kids. And if it’s so great, why isn’t she starring in something, rather than dying in the first five minutes? Oh, that’s right. She’s not blonde with big tits (can you say, “Scarlet Johansson?”). My bad. This is America after all

TOO BAD THEY’RE REMAKING FRIGHT NIGHT WITHOUT YOU

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is down to number six, followed The Town at number seven and my soul to take at number eight and Wes Craven needs to find a new shtick, because clearly just his name ain’t cutting it any longer. How about a comedy? You can even make it a horror comedy if you like.

WHERE’S CHUCK’S MOVIE?

Easy A is still hanging around at number nine giving another Gossip Girl cast member a successful film they didn’t have to carry. Get used to it, kid.

AND DON’T GET STARTED ON HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW

Finally, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps closes out the top ten at number ten and this means only one member of the Josh Brolin/Diane Lane household will have a movie in the top ten. And she’s the star of hers. Well, I guess the horse technically is, but she’s the top human star. Brolin, not so much.

DEATH AND STUFF

Death took a minor god last week in the form of Barbara Billingsley. Yes, Mrs. Cleaver is gone. America just lost one of its greatest parents. Now it’s all in your hands, Florence Henderson.

YOU CAN GET PORN ON BLU RAY, BUT NOT HIS GIRL FRIDAY

Borders is overpriced as hell when it comes to pretty much everything outside of books, but they also tend to give out great coupons, so every week I check and this week was another 40% off anything in the store making it possible to add the Criterion Edition of Charade to my collection. There just aren’t enough classic films on blu-ray (there are only two Cary Grant films) and yes, the definition also improves the black & white features, though Charade is in glorious, glorious color. Also thanks to this wonderful ridiculousness of coupons I’ve been able to add Terminator 2, D.O.A.: Dead Or Alive, and The Losers. Hey, I paid a lot of money for this damn TV and need movies that make the most of it, like special effects and explosions…and kung fu girls in bikinis. And it’s not like Bridget Jones’s Diary or Four Weddings & A Funeral is available for me to buy anyway. Fuckers. Stallone’s goddamn arm wrestling movie, Over The Top, is on blu-ray, but they aren’t.

MR. ED THE MOVIE

2010-10-12T01:12:00.006-04:00

1. The Social Network/Sony Wknd/$ 15.5 Total/$ 46.1

2. Life As We Know It/Warners Wknd/$ 14.6 Total/$ 14.6

3. Secretariat/Disney Wknd/$ 12.6 Total/$ 12.6

4. Legend of the Guardians/Warners Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 39.4

5. My Soul To Take/Universal Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 6.9

6. The Town/Warners Wknd/$ 6.4 Total/$ 73.8

7. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps/Fox Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$ 43.7

8. Easy A/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 4.2 Total/$ 48.1

9. Case 39/Paramount Wknd/$ 2.6 Total/$ 9.6

10. You Again/Touchstone Wknd/$ 2.4 Total/$ 20.7

THE TRUTH SUCKS

The Social Network holds at number one and I pretty much expected a few women would be pissed about this movie, because basically it’s about a bunch of dudes being dickheads, which really doesn’t lead to strong female roles, but not being able to see the forest for the trees always surprises me. Did you miss the song used the trailer was Radiohead's "Creep"? I mean why would there be a strong female role in a movie about dickheads? It’s like there being no strong minority roles in movie about Nazis. And then there’s the criticism about it now being factual. No shit. A Hollywood film based on real events uses almost none of those real events. Know why? BECAUSE A MOVIE ABOUT A FUCKING WEBSITE BEING BUILT WOULD BE AS BORING AS SHIT! Next you’re going to tell me that Joe Montana came out and revealed that Rudy was jack shit. That said, Jesse Eisenberg is the dark Michael Cera. He’s a master of these geek characters who are in their own way as mean as the frat types who wind up bullying them. But while Cera plays these guys for laughs in increasingly poor films (Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist, Youth In Revolt, Scott Pilgrim Saves The World) Eisenberg’s films get better and better (Adventureland, Solitary Man, Zombieland). But they’re both playing the roles that Topher Grace has grown too old for.

A RANGE FROM A TO A

Life As We Know It opens at number two and given Katherine Heigl is producing this she might want to give herself a role that for once isn’t an uptight career woman. Yes, she does it effortlessly and stretching might end in disaster (think Michael J. Fox when he tried to play working class rather than smart, upcoming business guys), but please put some kind of spin on it. Make the character darker, dumber, something. I like her as an actress but even I wasn’t going to see this shit. First of all, the contrived set up. “Hey, honey, if we die let’s leave our baby to our two closest friends together, even though one is an aging manchild and the other is a repressed workaholic and they hate each other. It’d be a cute movie one day.” Secondly, we get it. You will never let someone who looks like Seth Rogen touch you on film again. Since that movie it’s been vapid pretty boy after vapid pretty boy (Ashton Kutcher, James Marsden, Josh Duhmael). And while I applaud your stance on principle, you might want to at least get pretty with substance like, Josh Duhmael’s dark twin, Timothy Olyphant. That I would have paid to see.

A HORSE IS A HORSE, OF COURSE OF COURSE

Secretariat opens at number three and didn’t we just see this? A nice-looking period piece about a horse? Oh, that was Seabiscuit. Same thing. Which is why I didn’t bother to see this even though I like Diane Lane a helluva lot more than I do Tobey Maguire. That it’s a flat out Disney production also suggests a lack of three dimensions which something like this desperately needs to save itself from being a dull bio-pic…about a horse.

OWLS, SCHMOWLS. LET’S DISCUSS SOMETHING IMPORTANT LIKE SUPERMAN.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is down to number four and clearly God hates me because the director of this, Zack Synder, is the director of the next Superman movie. God forbid there be a director with an actual imagination for one of pop culture’s greatest creations, the character that gave birth to an entire genre. Looking forward to Jor-El kicking Zod into the Phantom Zone screaming “This…is…KRYPTON!!!”

WE’VE GOT A BURN VICTIM WITH CLAW FINGERS SHOT TO DEATH IN SOUTH CENTRAL…

My Soul To Take opens at number five and is even Wes Craven so afraid of Saw that he won’t open his film on Halloween? Here’s the scenario, kids: Saw is the Halloween movie and everyone will try to go see it. Everyone will not get in, so where will they go? To your scary movie also opening on the same day. Damn, it’s not rocket science. What fucking good is your story-killing, logic defying degree in Marketing for any goddamned way? Oh, this about teenagers being killed by a dead serial killer from their small town. Same old, same old. Notice how this shit never happens in New York or LA. Teenagers there wouldn’t be going down without at fight.

WHEN IN DOUBT ALWAYS CHECK THE DRAPES!

The Town is down to number six, followed by Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps at number seven and Easy A at number eight and in more geek news, Emma Stone will be the new Gwen Stacy in the Spider-Man reboot. Okay, so I’ll sum it up for you. Natural blonde Kirsten Dunst was made into a redhead to play Mary Jane, while natural redhead Bryce Howard was made into blonde to play Gwen Stacy. Now natural blonde Emma Stone who has been dying her hair red all this time will let it return to its natural blonde state. Got it? Good.

WE LIKED YOU JUST AS YOU WERE

Case 39 is down to number nine and also in this is current “it” boy, Bradley Cooper. You’d think they’d be making a little more of that given how under the radar this film has been. Also, isn’t Renee Zellweger a star in her own right? An Oscar winner? Why is it then it feels like she either rarely works and when she does it barely gets noticed? Will we need a third Bridget Jones movie for her?

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD WOMEN

Finally, You Again closes out the top ten at number ten and enough with the Betty White already, okay? She’d probably appreciate a little rest at her age. And if you want to see her do this old lady with a wicked tongue thing right, check out the underrated horror comedy, Lake Placid.

[PARENTAL ADVISORY] Radiohead - Creep
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NOT COMING ANYTIME SOON: MYSPACE THE MOVIE

2010-10-04T01:29:00.006-04:00

1. The Social Network/Sony Wknd/$ 23.0 Total/$ 23.0

2. Legend of the Guardians/Warners Wknd/$ 10.9 Total/$ 30.0

3. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps/Fox Wknd/$ 10.1 Total/$ 30.0

4. The Town/Warners Wknd/$ 10.0 Total/$ 64.3

5. Easy A/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 42.4

6. You Again/Touchstone Wknd/$ 5.6 Total/$ 16.4

7. Case 39/Paramount Wknd/$ 5.4 Total/$ 5.4

8. Let Me In/ Wknd/$ 5.3 Total/$ 5.3

9. Devil/Universal Wknd/$ 3.7 Total/$ 27.4

10. Alpha and Omega/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 3.0 Total/$ 19.0

DON’T FORGET TO SEND ME A LAWSUIT REQUEST

The Social Network opens at number one and this is a good, well-made film. I know that sounds like it should be redundant, but honestly you don’t see films that this flawless on virtually every level: script, performances, direction and overall technical sheen. Now, Fincher has always had the latter. His films always look good, but he’ll sacrifice story in a heartbeat for it. It’s simply not what he’s about. Fortunately for him he met his match in Aaron Sorkin who is one of the few powerful writers in Hollywood though not without his own flaws. His tendency is to being pretentious and treacley without much to back it up (sorry, West Wing fans, but quick dialogue on current events does not equal “smart” and I don’t care what your junior college film professor told you). Somehow the two managed to offset each other perfectly and come up with an exceptional film making the story of a website being created with (Justin Timberlake as a star, no less), which should have gotten someone fired at the Monday morning meeting for new projects, one of the best movies of the year. The crucial decision to not tell the film chronologically is what makes it work. Rather than start at the beginning, we start at the end with the infamous lawsuits, which is to be expected from any company created by 20-somethings that’s worth a billion dollars. The film jumps back and forth through time showing us how we got there and the anchor of the film is Jesse Eiseneberg who is thankfully willing to play a totally unlikable character. Mark Zuckerberg apparently doesn’t care for this movie and I don’t blame him, considering it makes him out to be a bit of a genius but a lot of an insecure jackass and if any kind of star had played this role there would have been the temptation to “soften” him up because you cannot have your audience disliking your star, but another good thing about Fincher’s films it’s that he likes unlikable characters and doesn’t cut them any slack. Zuckerberg is a jerk, his nice best buddy is weak, Sean Fanning (Justin Timberlake) is oily and the Winklevoss twins need to stop saying this film is fact because the makes it clear their idea was dumb (a website to date Harvard guys) and limited (again, a website to date Harvard guys) and they look especially dim taking forever to finally sue Zuckerberg. So whether it was planned or not, the end result of watching this story of the rich, smart and motivated makes you feel a little bit better about being broke, dumb and lazy because at least you’re not them.

JUST NOT BUYING IT

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole holds at number two and seriously, owls? Owls at war?

I THINK SHE’S MADE A FILM OR TWO

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is down to number three and also in this is Susan Sarandon and don’t you think you might want to tell someone this? Famous Academy-award winning actress and she’s nowhere to be seen in commercials or trailers? I mean, I still don’t want to see it, but it lowers my disinterest a tad.

DO WHAT YOU’RE GOOD AT

The Town is down to number four and also in this is Jon Hamm, who like Blake Lively is making the smart transition to film in a strong supporting role that’s not too like their TV persona, yet still kinda the same. Serena is a slutty drug user too, so it wasn’t that much of a change for her, and Hamm here is a tough, alpha-male FBI Agent capable of ruthlessness to get what he wants, so he’s also staying close to his wheelhouse. His Brokeback Mountain is a bit further down the line. Oh, come on. You know it’s coming.

EASY MONEY

Easy A is down to number five and $42M box office off an $8M budget means this is already a serious moneymaker. Given that 3x budget is the rule of thumb, 5x means you can get some extra cheese on your whopper. Hell, it means you can skip Burger King entirely. And now Emma Stone may be the new Mary Jane in the Spider-Man reboot. Finally instead of hiring blondes and making them redheads (Kirsten Dunst, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlet Johansson) someone thought, “Hey, let’s just hire a redhead this time.”

ALSO LESS SUCCESSFUL. COINCIDENCE? I DON’T THINK SO.

You Again is down to number six and no, that’s not Megan Fox. It’s her less-slutty-looking look-a-like, Odette Yustman, who fifty years ago would have had to change her name to Megan Fox for a career in Hollywood. Ironic, isn’t it?

CHILDREN ARE EVIL. YOU READ IT HERE FIRST.

Case 39 opens at number seven and Let Me In opens at number eight and you have to wonder about the strategy of releasing them the same weekend. I think if I heard there was another horror movie centering on a child I’d move. Especially if that move put me closer to Halloween! Hello!?! We’re a little early aren’t we? Opening at Halloween is easy money. You’re a fool not to do it. And haven’t we seen this movie with Renee Zellweger a dozen times before? Supernatural entities after some kid and some woman stands in their way? Clearly we have because not too many people wanted to see it again. And Let Me In is the American remake of Let the Right One in which was loved pretty much by any person whoever saw it. Unfortunately it wasn’t in English or America, so it had to be remade, though it seems people weren’t going to watch this no matter what language it was in. Now somewhere the producers of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo are freaking out, because they’re also remaking a Swedish film that seems to have a built-in audience and it promise you it cost more than $20M.

THE END

Devil is down to number nine followed by Alpha & Omega at number ten.

LESS THAN FANTASTIC FOUR

TV premieres continued last week with No Ordinary Family, which is basically The Incredibles as a live action series. But before anyone wonders where the lawyers are, remember that this is ABC, which is Disney, so it’s all in the family. It’s not bad, but it’s not that good either. Where The Incredibles was inspired, this is repetitive having been done better with Heroes in its first, best season. I won’t even get into how The Incredibles themselves is just a version of The Fantastic Four, the first family team of superheroes, whose movie ironically starred Michael Chiklis who is once again the strong guy in such a group. But his time he doesn’t have to wear an uncomfortable rubber suit, so you know he’s glad. They also make sure to have one member of the family a scientist like the Fantastic Four, so we can have someone around to explain things to us ‘cuz we’re dumb.

NO GIRLS ALLOWED IN THE BATCAVE!

In the world of real superheroes Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is the latest release in their direct-to-video series of animated movies. It’s an adaptation of the story that reintroduced Supergirl to the mythology after killing her off 20 years ago. The story itself was horrible and poorly illustrated, but like the saying goes in Hollywood “bad books make good movies” so this wasn’t half-bad. But they have the worst marketing people on earth. This is the story of Supergirl. Wonder Woman is also in it, but they are nowhere to be seen on the cover. The two most famous female superheroes on the planet and they go unadvertised. This is why you don’t have a Wonder Woman movie, kids. Dumb ass dudes who don’t think people will buy a something if women have a prominent role. Clearly the belief in cooties continues beyond elementary school.

ONCE MORE A GLIMPSE OF PARIS

One of the friends I made through Jezebel.com sent me a three-day pass for the Equinox gym. Actually she sent it to me over the summer, but being the procrastinator that I am, didn’t use it until last week. Also, I was saving it for something special. You know, like the Bliss spa pass I’ve had for two years. In any case, the expiration was for September 30^th, so I walked in on the 27^th to use it, pretty much solely for the pool. There are two Equinox gyms near me, but only one has a pool and of course it’s the one in the AOL Time Warner Center which made it extra special. Having spent the last year in the ghetto gym of the Bally’s in the basement of Worldwide Plaza I was looking forward to a beautiful, bright open aired space. So of course the Equinox in the AOL Time Warner Center is---you guessed---underground. Somewhere Fate was laughing her ass off at me. Still, it was gorgeous, though smaller than I expected. One single long floor with everything from free weights to machines to stretching areas to rooms for classes, etc. But I was only there for the pool, so I didn’t care either way. The pool itself was again, ironically smaller than the one at Ballys, three lanes to four, but the atmosphere was completely different. It was more like the pool at luxury hotel with soothing music being piped in and comfortable wicker chairs on which to sit. The Ballys one, on the other hand, is like something from 1962 Soviet Russia. Which brings me to the cruel, ugly cherry on top of my entire visit: an absence of ugly people from the staff (the guy who signed me up for the pass had his headshot up right behind him) to the clientele. This is not to say they were all supermodels and bodybuilders, but it’s an odd sociological fact that the people who have more reason to flaunt do less of it. So instead of middle-aged doughboy Europeans in bikini briefs, I got relatively young, fit people in designer workout gear and swimwear. Like me, most guys in the pool wore jumpers to the knee and the only guy in a shorter speedo (though not bikini) looked like he was carved out of marble. And the lack of repugnance carried to the immaculate locker room. Obviously because these people could afford that particular gym (not to mention neighborhood) they could dress themselves better, hence again the lack of ugly, saggy men in fucking tighty whiteys (when I become king no one old enough to vote will be allowed to wear those fucking things under penalty of death), but apparently a higher income means you know how to work out, hence the decrease in the Jabba The Hut quotient of bodies. My company actually gets me a discounted rate at Equinox, but not only is it still three times what I’m paying at Ballys, but not at the one with the pool, so even if I were willing to bite the bullet and pay it and walk the ten blocks, I couldn’t get what I wanted so I remained consigned to the basement. Heavy sigh.

WORTH IT

The Gap had a sale over the weekend so I replaced an old pair of jeans with a new pair in the exact same style and cut...but two sizes smaller. While on on hand I'm clearly delighted, on the other I'm realizing the ten pounds I dropped was literally my fat ass. No wonder the gut's not going anywhere. All the results went to my fat ass! Well, that and I don't do any kind of ab workout because I hate it so much. The other downside is, I can never stop now. Seriously. My old "standard jeans" have now become my new "fat jeans" and unless I want to go back to them I have to keep this shit up. Sigh. This was the first summer in my life I went without ever touching ice cream. I'm still not sure it was worth it.

YOUR WORLD IS POORER

Death came big this week, taking from film, TV and music. From film, the great Tony Curtis, husband of Janet Leigh and father of Jamie Lee, further taunting Mickey Rooney with the sweet release he longs for. From music she took Dick Griffey who founded SOLAR aka, Sound Of Los Angeles Records, home to Shalamar, The Whispers, Midnight Star and The Deele, whose members included one Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, and it was Dick Griffey who told him to start producing and we know how that worked out. SOLAR was also where Terry Lewis & Jimmy Jam started producing and we really know how that worked out. And from TV she took Stephen J. Cannell, the man who brought us everything from The Rockford Files to Greatest American Hero to 21 Jump Street to Castle, as well as smaller gems like Stingray and Tenspeed & Brownshoe.

WU TANG IMPROVES EVERYTHING

2010-09-27T01:27:00.004-04:00

1. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps/Fox Wknd/$ 19.0 Total/$ 19.0

2. Legend of the Guardians/Warners Wknd/$ 16.3 Total/$ 16.3

3. The Town/Warners Wknd/$ 16.0 Total/$ 49.1

4. Easy A/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 10.7 Total/$ 32.8

5. You Again/Touchstone Wknd/$ 8.3 Total/$ 8.3

6. Devil/Universal Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$ 21.7

7. Resident Evil: Afterlife Wknd/$ 4.9 Total/$ 52.0

8. Alpha and Omega/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 4.7 Total/$ 15.1

9. Takers/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 1.7 Total/$ 54.9

10. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 1.2 Total/$287.1

WALL STREET: C.R.E.A.M. STARRING THE RZA.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps opens at number one and I passed on this because I remember all too well the suckage that was Wall Street 20 years ago. It was the most heavy-handed morality play you could ever dream of, with poor Hal Holbrook being forced to give the very definition of a one-note performance. Favorite bad part: while Hal Holbrook is spouting off another one of his homilies, Charlie Sheen is looking at his reflection and they literally “darken” it. Get it!?! He’s following the dark path! Get it!?! It’s so bad I’ve never, ever had any interest in watching it again. Subtlety has never been a part of Oliver Stone’s oeuvre and he hasn’t gotten any better with age, especially when he feels he’s teaching his audience a lesson like here. Casting Shia Lebouf didn’t help as I’d rather not see his face onscreen. It’s sad too, because I love when New York is made to seem like a playground for the rich and glamorous. It’s the only reason I put up with the anemic Gossip Girl every week.

WHOOOO ARE YOU? HOO-HOO, HOO-HOO (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)

Legend of the Guardians opens at number two and computer animated owls at war directed by the man who brought you 300 and Watchmen? Again, I think I’ll sleep in instead. Yeah, it looks pretty, but that’s a given with a Zack Synder movie and it’s simply not enough if you don’t care about the subject matter. I mean seriously, it’s not like it’s cool like eagles or falcons or ravens; it’s freaking owls. I mean, they may technically be birds of prey, but know of any football teams named “The Owls”? Exactly.

YEAH, IT USUALLY MEANS YOU’RE NOT GOOD LOOKING ENOUGH TO LEAD, BUT STILL

The Town is down to number three and Ben Affleck knows how build a solid supporting cast. This is filled with recognizable faces, but they are people who are as solid as fucking oak. You’ve not only got Chris Cooper as Affleck’s father (he instantly elevates anything he appears in because the man apparently never heard a “B game” only it bringing it A-style), but his usual drawl gone and replaced with a “Bah-stun” accent. Also here is Pete Postlewaite as an Irish mob boss, again providing a solid foundation for other people to work with. And sorry, as much as I like Blake Lively and that she’s trying to broaden by playing roles like this, she needs all the help she can get from the people around her.

THEY SHOULD HAVE GIVEN BEN AFFLECK A CALL

Easy A is down to number four and speaking of solid supporting casts, there’s a great one here with Stanley Tucci gone from being a dependable weasel to the supporting male of choice for actresses young and old. Great with Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada. Great with just Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia and will probably be great in the upcoming attempt to duplicate The Devil Wears Prada with Cher and Christina Aguilera in Burlesque. But while that looks like crap, he’s got an easy chemistry here with Patricia Clarkson and Emma Stone and more should have been done with it. Also wasted is the comic timing and deadpan of Thomas Haden Church, while Lisa Kudrow as his wife makes the most of her small role as his wife a far-from-perfect guidance counselor. And Malcolm McDowell is given one moment to shine and never used again. What the fuck!?!

JUST BECAUSE IT WORKED WITH LINDSAY LOHAN, JAMIE…

You Again opens at number five and I couldn’t be more disinterested completing the hat trick of mainstream releases I could give a rat’s ass about. Seriously, I’ve no patience for people dealing with high school issues after high school. It’s over. Get over it. It’s made doubly pathetic by the oh-so-clever idea that the mother still has high school trauma from a relative of the girl who caused her daughter’s trauma. Ooh, so clever! So now you get two generations of actresses being utter wasted. A better film would have had the character be over it, but when she meets her old nemesis finds out that she’s just as evil as she was in high school but is only hiding it. That way your protagonist isn’t pathetic but forced back into a situation. And honestly, I just don’t like Kristen Bell. She’s a TV star, not a movie star. There’s a sitcom somewhere with her name on it.

AND MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL!

Devil is down to number six and also in this is Parker Posey and remember when she was the indie “It” girl? Do they even have “Indie It Girls” any longer? Oh, yeah they do. That’s what Zoey Deschanel was and kinda still is. Sadly, like so many “It” people Parker never ascended like we hoped like we hoped and instead winds up doing mainstream crap like this to pay the bills. How crappy is it? She’s not even credited for this on IMDB. It’s as if the shame were too much. If that’s the case she should take Blade: Trinity and Superman Returns off as well.

WHORES, EACH AND EVERY ONE

Resident Evil: Afterlife is down to number seven, followed by Alpha and Omega at number eight and is there anything sadder than this being the last film of Dennis Hopper? Pray there’s something else in the can. At least we know why he did it (golddigging young wife), but let’s take a look at who else is here going for an easy paycheck… Justin Long and come to think of it I haven’t seen any Mac commercials recently…Hayden Panttiere and she’s about two seconds from soft-core porn her fall from “Hot Young Thing” to “Who?” has been so drastic…Christina Ricci, who could explain to Hayden how precarious it is to be a frat boy sex symbol and how you really can’t make a career on it…Danny Glover, which just makes me sad…Chris Carmack, who had the immortal line of “Welcome to The OC, bitch” but again, you can’t build a career on it and he hasn’t…and finally Vicki Lewis, who once jokingly said she was going to sue Kathy Griffin for copying her NewsRadio personality. She might want to look back into that. Kathy’s got some loot now and could it be worse than doing this?

LOOKS LIKE THIS COULD BE THE END

Takers is down to number nine, followed by Inception, finally closing out the top ten. But we’ve said that before.

OOH, YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND

The new TV season has started up in earnest this week and we should be ashamed as a nation that we can’t find a better show for the greatness that is William Shatner. Shit My Dad Says, an adaptation of a fucking Twitter blog, sucks as much as you’d expect an adaptation of a fucking Twitter blog to suck. It’s simple: the Tweeting is funny because the shit his father says actually is funny. This show is not funny, because none of the shit any of the characters says is funny. Undercovers is the continuation of a tradition going back to Hart To Hart and The Thin Man of a sexy couple having adventures (Mr. & Mrs. Smith didn’t create it, kids, they just added firepower). And boy did they up the sexy. You will not find a prettier couple on prime time TV. And I’m thinking they got a pretty writing staff too, because ugly people write better than this. But if they give me shots of her amazing ass with that British accent every week, I promise I really won’t care. Equally pretty but not playing it up is Chase, the new show about a blonde US Marshal (In Plain Sight is the other one). Aside from the striking blonde lead, the cast includes Cole Hauser, Jesse Metcalfe and the chick who played Tasha on The L Word. She finally gets to smile. Hawaii 5-0 is also very pretty, but it still sucks. It’s every dumb action movie you’ve ever seen in your life, note-for-note, cliché-for-cliché but lacking in any sort of appeal from the actors that makes it tolerable. Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger made dumb action movies, but carried them off due to their movie star charisma. Alex O’Loughlin (as Steve McGarrett) is a pretty boy with zero charm or personality so he can’t even begin to carry this off (he’s also lacking Jack Lord’s amazing hair) and is getting no help from the writing. His father is murdered (action movie plot cliché), but despite being a native of Hawaii (thank you clunky expository dialogue), there’s no one at his funeral at Pearl Harbor (where his grandfather died, thank you again, clunky expository dialogue) that Steve knows, but a high school buddy working nearby as a security guard!?! Scott Caan has second generation personality as his reluctant fish-out-of-water partner (action movie character cliché), but he’s not the star and isn’t helped by the pretty but bland Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park who is as only as good as her material, because she was a lot better than this on Battlestar Galactica. Also the costumes hid how freaking skinny she was, so if you’re going to keep stripping her down, give her a sandwich. But hey, points for casting two Asians from the same ethnic background as relatives (they’re both Korean). This pilot was actually directed by Len Wiseman, who directed the first two Underworld movies and Live Free or Die Hard and it’s becoming more and more apparent how lucky he got with Underworld (yes, this includes stealing Kate Beckinsale from Michael Sheen), because it remains the best thing he’s ever done (yes, this includes Kate Beckinsale). Best part of the whole show was the re-creation of the opening credits with McGarrett on the balcony. I gave Detroit 1-8-7 five minutes before checking out never to return. Just can’t do another police procedural. And you know, people have made music in Detroit other than Motown, so enough on the goddamn Temptations.

GRATEFUL DEAD

Death once again taunted Mickey Rooney with the release he so desperately craves by taking Eddie Fisher (father of Carrie and all around douchebag) and Kevin McCarthy, who starred in one of the best science fiction films of the 50’s if not of all time: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He also made a cameo in the excellent 70’s remake playing a character with the same name. And he was in the very underrated Innerspace.

A MOVIE STAR AND A GUN

2010-09-19T22:52:00.006-04:00

1. The Town/Warners Wknd/$ 23.8 Total/$ 23.8

2. Easy A/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 18.2 Total/$ 18.2

3. Devil/Universal Wknd/$ 12.6 Total/$ 12.6

4. Resident Evil: Afterlife Wknd/$ 10.1 Total/$ 43.9

5. Alpha and Omega/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 9.2 Total/$ 9.2

6. Takers/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 3.0 Total/$ 52.3

7. The American/Focus Wknd/$ 2.8 Total/$ 32.9

8. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 2.0 Total/$285.2

9. The Other Guys/Sony Wknd/$ 2.0 Total/$115.4

10. Machete/Fox Wknd/$ 1.7 Total/$ 24.3

YOU CAN GET MORE WITH MOVIE STAR AND A GUN…

Softhearted men who commit violent crimes are a staple of films and The Town, opening at number one, adds another one with Ben Affleck as the kindest, smartest armed robber in all of “Baahstun.” And of course, where you have smart guy looking to get out, you have his violent, hair-trigger best friend since childhood and yes, there’s one here too (played by Jeremy Renner). And of course Smart Guy was once involved with Hair Trigger’s hot, slutty sister, played by Blake Lively in her best “I wanna come wit youse” working class accent (and by “best” I mean “inadvertently funniest”). We even have Jon Hamm as the squared jawed G-man out to get them. And in the thankless role of the higher social class good girl he hopes to leave all this for is Rebecca Hall. Oh, and did I mention “the last big job” that of course goes wrong? Between this and Gone Baby Gone, Affleck clearly wants to be the Scorsese of Boston and he’s not bad at it, but if he really wants it he’s going to have to embrace the darker side of everyone’s nature. Some much-needed grit is loss with Ben Affleck’s character being so saintly (did I mention he’s also a recovering substance abuser, so he’s not drinking or doing drugs either). After all, he’s walking into a bank with a loaded assault rifle. He’s clearly taken on the concept he might kill someone. And he says repeatedly he’s willing to die rather than stay, but shouldn’t that mean he’d also be willing to kill to get out? Even when he does something bad like assault and battery, it’s to a bunch of punks who threatened his new girlfriend and trashed her car. And even then his best friend shows us what real bad is by shooting one in the kneecaps. He’s doing bad things, but he doesn’t own them which is a bit disingenuous as a filmmaker and clearly playing to guaranteeing audience sympathies for his lead character. Jon Hamm as the FBI agent conveys more menace as the good guy than he does. He makes it clear he’s willing to hurt people to get what he wants.

SIXTEEN MEAN GIRL CANDLES DAY OFF

Easy A opens at number two and this should have been better. A teen movie with a smart female lead mocking the idea she’s a tramp should have been ripe with opportunity for satire and social commentary and while it starts well, it loses its way with wasted characters and worship of 80’s teen movies. The burden of having started off with a smarter-than-average movie is you have to keep it up until the end and this just doesn’t do that. Emma Stone is a smart, softhearted girl who decides to parlay a rumor about her being slutty into helping a gay friend hide in the closet. Wait. It’s 2010 and this is in California. Why the hell is he going back into the closet? How is he the only gay kid in school? Also, is she the only girl in school having sex that it even matters? Aren’t the kids today having blowjob parties? Why would this even remotely be an issue? Okay, fine. I’ll just go with it. As it happens, he tells some of his friends the truth and they go to her for similar lies seeing help for their social status and despite an ugly threat to just slander her anyway, she decides to accept payment for faking hooking up with them in some manner---which leads to rumor she’s not just a slut but a hooker. Now that’s just a little too sordid to be taken as lightly as she takes it and that’s pretty much when the movie goes off its smart rails. Even when a rumor of an STD comes up she decides to take the hit in order to help someone and she’s just too smart for us to believe she’d be that stupidly nice (or that the school wouldn’t have called her parents by this point with her wearing bustiers with a Scarlet A on them). Also beyond the annoying self-righteous Christian clique this high school is strangely devoid of any others. How can you make a movie about a girl mocking or challenging social order is you don’t show what the social order is? And they’re just shrill prudes with no more to them, much less hypocrisy, which makes no sense if you know anything about these purity types. They’re usually fucking more than anyone. Also, short shrift is given to other characters, starting with her hot, yet equally virginal blonde friend who seemingly becomes upset that Emma Stone’s new slut status makes her the “alpha” in their relationship. This might have been interesting if she or the movie seemingly given a crap about. Given that smart people usually have smart friends, it makes no sense her Blonde Friend wouldn’t have been a partner somewhat in all this, but seems no more connected to her than anyone else at school, which also brings up the question why is someone so nice and conventionally pretty seemingly friendless? Answers like these we don’t have, but we’re got time for a montage of the best teen movies of the 80’s. And I take fucking issue with Can’t Buy Me Love being included as one of them. No, sir! Not even a little. Though given that was about a guy paying a girl for an imaginary relationship to improve his social status it should have had greater meaning to this movie.

SUBMITTED FOR YOUR APPROVAL, A ONE TRICK PONY GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER

The Devil opens at number three and how long is M. Night Shamalayan going to get away with dragging out Twilight Zone episodes into full-length films? Seriously, this is nothing but a Twilight Zone episode. Why the fuck would I pay to see this!?! Not to mention it stinks of “twist” and you can usually see them coming for a mile. He didn’t direct it, but it “comes from his mind” which means he fell asleep watching a Twilight Zone marathon again and woke up with an idea.

LUCKILY KATHERINE HEIGL NEEDS BLAND PRETTY BOYS FOR HER MOVIES

Resident Evil: Afterlife is down to number four and also in this to show you how brief “heat” can be is Wentworth Miller. Yeah, smoking hot for a hot second with Prison Break (and was even playing a young Anthony Hopkins in The Human Stain) and now he’s the fourth lead behind Mila Jovovich, Ali Larter and the use of 3D. Choose wisely when you’re on top, kids. Choose wisely.

BECAUSE DOGS AND CATS DIDN’T CONSUME ALL THE NO-TALENT HACKS

Alpha & Omega opens at number five and again, this is why Pixar rules. This is an abomination of imagination, made clear in every single second of the trailer and don’t think kids can’t tell the difference. There was zero laughter when this ran before Despicable Me. But because parents will always need a big screen babysitter, crap like this will continue to be made.

IF LOOKS COULD KILL, FASHIONS WOULD ANNIHILATE

Takers is down to number six, followed by The American at number seven and also in this is Thekla Reuten whom you’ve no real reason to know but is notable here for her super-chic wardrobe. It’s not often you see a female assassin who looks like she walked off the pages of Vogue. Wait a minute. Actually you do. They’re always beautiful and well dressed. Never mind.

IT ALSO STOPS WHEN THE LIGHTS COME ON

Inception actually rises to number eight and this is clearly the cockroach of summer movies, impossible to kill.

HOPE THAT FUNNY OR DIE THING IS WORKING OUT FOR YOU

The Other Guys is down to number nine and can you believe this cost $100M? Which means that at $118 worldwide it is far from any kind of blockbuster hit. At best it didn’t lose any money. Now can we return Will Ferrell to supporting status behind Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn?

HOLLYWOOD: WHERE FUGLY MEN GET THEIR HIGH SCHOOL REVENGE IN CASTING CHOICES

Finally, Machete closes out the top ten at number ten and I was talking a young woman who was horrified at the fact that fugly-ass Danny Trejo gets to bed down every woman he meets in this movie. I tried to explain to her those were the rules of the 70’s exploitation film (not to mention hard core porn). Guys like Joe Don Baker and Rudy Ray Moore were getting laid all the time onscreen. But she was only 23 and had no idea who they were, much less what they did, so I took my Geritol and sat in silence.

Mötley Crüe - Looks That Kill
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HOTTIES: THE NEXT GENERATION

2010-09-13T02:00:00.004-04:00

1. The American/Focus Wknd/$ 13.1 Total/$ 16.3

2. Machete/Fox Wknd/$ 11.4 Total/$ 11.4

3. Takers/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 10.9 Total/$ 37.4

4. The Last Exorcism/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 7.4 Total/$ 32.2

5. Going The Distance/WB Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 6.9

6. The Expendables/LionsGate Wknd/$ 6.7 Total/$ 92.2

7. The Other Guys/Sony Wknd/$ 5.3 Total/$106.8

8. Eat, Pray. Love/Sony Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 68.9

9. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$277.1

10. Nanny McPhee Returns/Universal Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 22.4

FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU; FOOL ME FOUR TIMES AND YOU’RE A CLEVER HACK

Resident Evil: Afterlife opens at number one and I saw the first and it sucked. I was sucked into the second by the promise of hot women in short skirts with guns and it still sucked. And it had Mike Epps. I decided not to be a three-time sucker and passed on Resident Evil even though I later discovered Mike Epps died, and I’d have paid money to see that. Now we have the fourth film and even though there’s no Mike Epps, Paul W.S. Anderson remains a crap filmmaker successfully keeping his wife, Mila Jovovich, on the B list with his B-list movies. All his movies are movies that had the potential to be much, much better. Even if they were enjoyable like Mortal Kombat and Death Race, they were still screaming out to be so much more and that it happens with every film shows you it’s him and no one else. And now his next film---one of the Three Musketeers movies coming---is a stab at “A-list” status with Orlando Bloom. I guarantee it will be the suckiest of the two. That Mila Jovovich is in it as M’Ladyt De Winter pretty much guarantees this. She should have been The Black Widow over Scarlett Johansson and saved from her husband.

DARWIN WOULD BE PROUD

Takers is down to number two, followed by The American at number three and here we have an instance of déjà vu as the beautiful Italian actress who is nude (and how) conducting a romance with a mysterious American on the run is Violante Placido, who is the daughter of Simonetta Stefanelli (man, these names are great) who played the doomed Apollonia in The Godfather, who was nude and conducted a romance with a mysterious American on the run. Some of us are just born hot and it then their duty to be naked as much as possible (they also both posed for Playboy). And she is. And curved like a mountain pass, looking like a woman, not a little girl. Actual pubic hair helps.

TRULY A NATIONAL TRAGEDY

Machete is down to number four and Steven Segal chose this over The Expendables? He can go sit in the corner with Jean Claude Van Damme who at least is going to be a voice in the Kung Fu Panda sequel. What’s Segal got going? Lawman on A&E? What kind of law enforcement entity lets this buffoon and a bunch of cameras represent them on nationwide television? Louisiana? Jesus, just when you thought you knew how bad Katrina hit them, you realize it was even worse than that. So bad they have to whore themselves out to Segal, probably just to buy bullets.

ORIGINALLY THEY ATTENDED A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS CONCERT

Going the Distance holds at number five and you can tell how long a script has been sitting around based on how much modern technology plays into it. In this for example, Drew Barrymore is trying to become a newspaper reporter and Justin Long works as an A&R man and while they give lip service to newspapers being in trouble the word “blog” literally comes up only once. Once. She’s person dying to be a reporter where newspapers are in trouble and working for a website never, ever comes up. And while they at least give lip service to the trouble facing newspapers, everything is peachy in the world of music for Justin Long, which is odd given it was the internet that killed the music business as well. He’s also the world’s dumbest A&R man given he’s trying to find a job closer to her, but he only looks in San Francisco where she lives, rather than say Seattle or LOS ANGELES!!! I’m figuring this script is from the early 90’s. Yes, there’s some token texting and videoconferencing, but when it comes to the phone sex scene it makes zero sense they wouldn’t have used it for the video conferencing. Unless, of course, you know it was written when Bill Clinton was in office. His first term, given how they don’t seem to acknowledge Seattle as a place where music is made, putting this pre-grunge.

REMEMBER WHITE TIGER? OF COURSE NOT.

The Other Guys is down to number six, followed by The Last Exorcism at number seven and The Expendables at number eight, and I have to give Stallone points for having C-List action star, Gary Daniels in this. If you know anything about straight-to-video action, you know this dude had his own minor career in the early 90’s actually appearing in the film version of Fist of the Northstar (it’s okay if you don’t know what that is). He was like an English Jean-Claude Van Damme in that he actually competed in kickboxing in real life. He was also about the same type of quality actor. But if you dug up Gary Daniels, where are Michael (American Ninja) Dudikoff, Sho (Enter the Ninja) Kosugi, Jeff (The Perfect Weapon) Speakman, Cynthia (Too Many Crap Movies To Mention) Rothrock and Don “The Dragon” (Bloodfist) Wilson!?! If we’re gonna do this, let’s do this!

HERE’S WHERE I MAKE MYSELF ANGRY OVER THINGS THAT HAVEN’T HAPPENED YET

Inception is holding at number nine and from a $160-200M budget has made over $700M worldwide. Profitable even before DVD and it needed to be given it only made $200M domestically. I can’t even say this is the future of movies, because it’s been like this forever. But this second massive hit makes me fear for the next Batman movie and the next Superman movie, which Christopher Nolan will be overseeing, but not directing. This much success means a lot of creative freedom and even in the The Dark Knight you saw far too much self-indulgence and not enough critical scrutiny. Also here, things just go on a leeeeetle bit too long. Seriously, if I had to watch that van fall backwards one more time…

THE END. THANK GOD.

Eat, Pray Love closes out the top ten at number ten.

MY BEST FRIEND HAS RETURNED

The new TV season has started, which is bad news for me given my DVR is already at 92% (I’m trying to clear it out as I write this). First up is Hellcats and grown women in cheerleading outfits is a recipe for heaven for me. At least I thought it was before I saw the very porn-star looking lead actress. Sorry, but she’s a little too hard looking to be playing a college girl and they needed to dial her look back about a thousand percent. Yeah, she’s playing a tough girl, but there’s a difference between “I’ve seen some pain” tough and “I’ve seen a lot of ball sack” tough. Also, out of all the actresses and dancers in LA, you couldn’t find people with actual dance and athletic ability to play these roles? It’s made even worse by the presence of people with actual skill being shown in the “audition” scene. I suppose hers is a name to get the kids in, but Ashley Tisdale talking about how she can bench twice her body weight (which admittedly would only be about fifty pounds) is about as plausible as her discussing her doctorate in micro biology. Not to mention this all takes place in a mythical Memphis where only one person has a southern accent and I find myself torn between not hearing bad accents as opposed to ridiculously not hearing any at all. Also I was expecting some trashy soap opera fun, but this likes to pretend it respects cheerleaders as athletes but didn’t bother to hire any and the plot requires her to beat out dozens of trained cheerleaders because she watched a video one afternoon. Also starting up this week was Nikita, the third American incarnation of the French film, La Femme Nikita (Point of No Return, La Fenne Nikita The Series came before it). In this one we pick her up after she’s escaped from the government rather than watching her act as a secret agent. Shows about secret government groups that kill foreign leaders crack me up because when was the last time you ever heard of a diplomat dying period, much less on American soil? The fact of the matter is, governments have an odd gentleman’s agreement not to bump each other off, because they don’t want to be bumped off. Maggie Q is the star this time around and she seems poised to take away the title of “The Hot Asian” from Lucy Liu. It was much better than I expected, mainly because a lot of the footage shown in previews hadn’t been processed yet giving it that professional sheen. Also, there’s a nice twist at the end and given how much Covert Affairs wound up sucking, I need a new show where a woman kicks ass. Terriers also started up and it’s nothing new. An alcoholic ex-cop turned private detective in LA. You’ve seen it before, but it’s all in how you do it and this does it well. In this case they’re so scruffy they’re not even legally private detectives, but it goes classic Raymond Chandler in the first episode with a case of missing girl turning out to be about corruption and the rich and powerful and it looks to be a continuing plotline. Also, I like Donal Logue and Chandler’s legendary “knight in tarnished armor” character suits him.

AND GET OFF MY LAWN WITH YOUR AUTO-TUNE!

Why do I watch the MTV Awards? I don’t know anyone any longer and the people onstage are literally young enough to be my children. Where are the VH1 Awards so I can feel like I belong?...so we open up with Eminem and to show how quickly the transition happens, when he first blew up I was well aware of him and all his music. Now, this is probably the second time I’ve heard this song…why is Rhianna dressed like Madonna? And I hope this song of domestic abuse is cathartic for her, because it’s a little creepy for me…Elizabeth Banks is hosting? Oh, no. It’s Chelsea Handler…glad to see someone gave Lindsay Lohan a job…“Hi, mom. I got a dancing job. Yeah, I’ll be the guy on Chelsea’s left grinding on her! Is dad there? Why doesn’t he want to talk to me!?!”…seriously? A Justin Bieber lesbian joke? Time to fast forward…My god. How much botox is in Elle Degeneres’ face!?! And I never notice these things…how long have they been promoting this Brett Michaels reality show about his kids?...Jared Leto’s shitty little band is still around and getting recognition!?! Do the kids know this fucker is like 35!?! Yeah, I guess he’s still pretty…honestly, Justin Bieber does not bother me. Every generation has one. Getting mad at him is like your great great grandparents getting mad about the Frank Sinatra kid that made your great grandmother swoon. And he did single-handedly get rid of The Jonas Brothers who did truly suck, even for teen pop idols…I won’t lie. I hate Trey Songz simply because I hate his name. I’ve never heard him sing a note, but I hate that dumbass name. And dressing like Ming The Merciless won’t change my mind…Usher bores me performing. There’s no love lost for the late Michael Jackson, but they’re all really poor imitations of him. Hell, he was a poor imitation of himself by the time he died. And when did Usher stop doing R&B for this generic dance music?...how old am I? I’ve read about Florence and The Machine, but never heard them. That’s old, baby. But I like this, so the night hasn’t been a total waste…I liked Gym Class Heroes, but the front man’s solo work sucks balls…is this weird ass performance commercial by Pharell and I think Ciara (remember her) really going to convince some kid to convince their parents to buy them Chevrolet?...Taylor Swift really needs to write Kanye West a check. He did more for her than her songs…do you know how wussy you have to be to make Justin Timberlake look like a man? Well, you succeeded, Jesse Esienberg...I hate Swizz Beatz for the same reason I hate Trey Songz even though he’s a producer. Drake I’m indifferent to…let’s call it like it is: Sofia Vegara is the new Charro…I do like B.O.B. and his song with Bruno Mars was the song of the summer for me, not that “California Girls” bullshit. And I’ve always loved Paramore so this is the highlight of the show for me…ROBYN!!!! I can’t believe she only got a minute while we got half an hour of Usher Aerobic Workout...You know why Linkin Park is elsewhere? Because they didn’t want to feel old either…and then my DVR stopped recording and I don’t care what happened next.

MY OTHER BEST FRIEND HAS RETURNED

Football started! And my Falcons lost to the fucking third string quarterback!?! Are you shittin’ me!?! Well, at least Dallas lost.

B.o.B - Nothin' On You [feat. Bruno Mars]
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BECAUSE NO ONE TAKES "THE CANADIAN" SERIOUSLY

2010-09-07T00:52:00.003-04:00

1. The American/Focus Wknd/$ 13.1 Total/$ 16.3

2. Machete/Fox Wknd/$ 11.4 Total/$ 11.4

3. Takers/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 10.9 Total/$ 37.4

4. The Last Exorcism/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 7.4 Total/$ 32.2

5. Going The Distance/WB Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 6.9

6. The Expendables/LionsGate Wknd/$ 6.7 Total/$ 92.2

7. The Other Guys/Sony Wknd/$ 5.3 Total/$106.8

8. Eat, Pray. Love/Sony Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 68.9

9. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$277.1

10. Nanny McPhee Returns/Universal Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 22.4

ALSO EUROPEAN: EXCESSIVE FEMALE NUDITY

The American opens at number one and this is a very “European” effort from George Clooney, which is to say, it’s a tad slow, lacking in pyrotechnics and filled with lots of music-free scenes with people who stare ominously at one another and almost never smile. I’m not talking about just the main characters, which are obligated not to embrace a happy emotion, but extras sitting in cafes. We’re very, very serious here, people. Not like that Hollywood silliness. This very serious motion picture is about the lion in winter, in this case a professional assassin who finds himself in the odd position of being hunted, not knowing whom or why. Taking refuge in a small Italian town, he finds himself still breaking cardinal rules by starting a small friendship with a priest and an unlikely romance with a prostitute, because even in take-themselves-too-seriously art films, hooker still have hearts of gold and fall for the leading man. Especially if said leading man looks like George Clooney who goes down on them and sodomizes them in rapid succession. Don’t try this at home, kids, because I really don’t think any amount of head is going to get you spontaneous anal sex and trigger romance no matter what you look like. They probably should have looked at that scene one more time because I don’t think they realized how ultimately silly it was. Also, we’re supposed to feel his paranoia at not knowing whom to trust when it’s pretty clear where the threat is coming from and even he knows it as evidenced by his actions. Also all the hit men are Swedes, so basically any blondes who show up are best shot on principle.

SOMEWHERE THE PRODUCERS OF BLACK DYNAMITE ARE PISSED

Machete opens at number two and this is basically a joke that took a life of its own. Originally a faux trailer from the Grind House movie from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, someone thought it would be a good idea to make it for real, but as we’ve seen recently even with Grind House there’s really not that big an audience for spoofs of 70’s exploitation films from competent directors, much less Robert Rodriguez who just sucks as a filmmaker and I’m tired of giving both him and Kevin Smith my money hoping they’ll get better. They’ve never really risen above their amateur origins of with films borne of credit cards and moxie filled with promise. Now it’s just incompetent water treading. I’m pretty sure “introducing Don Johnson” is probably as funny as this gets and given there’s no superstar presence like Johnny Depp or Antonio Banderas, that’s not really Lindsay Lohan nude and neither Jessica Alba (finally playing Latina) and Michelle Rodriguez get nude, there’s no need for me to see this. But the trailer made specifically in the wake of Arizona was funny.

FUNNY HOW CHICKS DON’T DIG GUYS WHO BEAT THEIR GIRLFRIENDS

Takers is down to number three and this was supposed to come out last year, but Chris Brown single-handedly fucked that up. Though honestly it’s probably for the best, because at that point he was at the height of his fame and it probably would have been pushed as the “Chris Brown” movie, whereas the commercials today steer the look of film firmly in the direction of T.I. and Paul “Pretty Boy” Walker, clearly to the film’s benefit.

SAVING MILLIONS ON TRIPODS

The Last Exorcism is down to number four and this is yet another film shot with the nausea inducing shakey cam, faux documentary style and given it’s made thirty times its budget, you can bet your sweet ass more are coming so grab your nausea bags.

FUCKING ROMANTIC

Going The Distance opens at number five and romantic comedy whore that I am (especially when they’re made in NYC), I saw this mainly because unlike far too romcoms this one was rated “R” and wholeheartedly embraced that. People forget the first five minutes of Four Weddings & A Funeral consisted of the word “fuck” being said over and over again. Also, while Drew Barrymore and Jason Long “meet cute” over the arcade game of Centipede (glad to see the classics are still around for you fucking hipsters), there’s no pretense or bullshit romance about them hooking up just hours after they meet (after getting stoned no less!). Little touches like this and the hint of rawness make the clichés that do happen (seriously, a montage of dating?) bearable and give the movie a spark of energy it might ordinarily lack, because it’s not reinventing the wheel here and doesn’t really go anywhere you don’t think it might, though one really obvious cliché is mercifully overlooked, both times you see it up the road. Still, someone needs to tell Drew Barrymore she ain’t one of the young people any longer and even though they play lip service to her age (you ain’t 31 either, sweetie), it’s made clear every time she stands next to someone legitimately young how old she really is. This is the same sandtrap Jennifer Anniston has been in for a few years now which is why her movies blow. She’s clearly a full grown adult, but playing a role that belongs to someone a decade younger and no one is buying it. It’s like watching George Clooney playing a slacker. By a certain age, you just don’t deal with romance the way did when you were a kid and you look silly trying to. But again, to this film’s credit they aren’t playing people who are that young and so they deal with the situation of being apart somewhat maturely. Maybe that’s why it didn’t do better. People want stupid wacky hijinks in their romcoms like painfully contrived situations and old people who say outrageous things. Yes, Sandra Bullock, I’m looking at you and the steaming pile of shit that was The Proposal.

THE 90’S WERE SOOOO LONG AGO

The Expendables is down to number six and also in this is Charisma Carpenter, better known to Buffy and Angel fans as Cordelia. She should consider herself fortunate that she’s here as Jason Statham’s love interest and not Stallone’s, because usually a woman in her late 30’s, early 40’s almost always has to prop leading men in their 50’s and 60’s. Also, she’s not required to do a “I don’t see anyone else giving you a job” nude scene, which is a massive failing on the part of this film (she’s already done Playboy). If she refused, I’m sure Denise Richards would have stepped right in with no complaints.

ETC…

The Other Guys is down to number seven, followed by Eat, Pray, Love at number eight and Inception still around at number nine.

THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK!

Finally, Nanny McPhee closes out the top ten at number ten and for those like me who laughed, this fucker has made $86M worldwide off a $35M budget, pretty much guaranteeing McPhee 3.

LIKE I NEED A REASON TO WANT TO SEE EXCALIBUR

Not breaking the top ten any time soon is Centurion, a story about the legendary 9^th Calvary of the Roman Empire who disappeared during their failed attempt to pacify England. Basically, The Picts wiped them out. I do believe it was only a few years ago they finally found their remains. But rather than an action film about seven survivors trying to get back home, it’s more a thinly veiled analogy about Vietnam. The Picts use guerrilla tactics to fight a technologically superior military force and eventually wear them down. Sound familiar? Even though end credits thank director Walter Hill, suggesting The Warriors (which itself is base on a story from Ancient Greece), it’s clearly aimed at modern empires that send their men off to fight and die for little more than the pride of a country. We know this because the narrator and star (Michael Fassbender) speaks ruefully how soldiers are sacrificed. I’m sure the producers were a bit shocked to get such a downbeat actioner from the Neil Marshall, the man who brought the world the over-the-top Doomsday. But despite its weighty subtext, it’s still got it’s heart in Hollywood, with no small amount of bloodletting and the lead Pict hunting them being the gorgeous former model Olga Kurylenko whose troublesome Russian accent is neutralized by her character being mute. Not to be confused with the bloodthirsty beautiful blonde Pict (the director’s wife) or the beautiful exiled Pict who, of course, falls for our kind hero. In a way this can be seen as the prequel to the recent King Arthur movie that starred Clive Owen. While this ends at Hadrian’s Wall being built to keep The Picts out as Rome pulls back, that begins at Hadrian’s Wall as Rome flat out plans to leave. Also, here we have a romance between a Roman and a Pict, while Arthur in that film is the son of a Roman and a Pict. There’s also The Last Legion, which is also about King Arthur and also has a sub-plot about what happened to the 9^th Calvary. This actually made me want to see either of those again, just to lighten the mood.

PRETTYBOY-A-PALOOZA

2010-08-30T02:37:00.005-04:00

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

2010-08-23T01:25:00.004-04:00

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.