GODLY CINEMA

1. Prince Caspian/Disney Wknd/$ 56.6 Total/$ 56.6
2. Iron Man/Paramount Wknd/$ 31.2 Total/$ 222.5
3. What Happens In Vegas/Fox Wknd/$ 13.9 Total/$ 40.3
4. Speed Racer/Warner Wknd/$ 7.6 Total/$ 24.4
5. Baby Mama/Universal Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$ 47.3
6. Made of Honor/Sony Wknd/$ 4.5 Total/$ 33.7
7. Forgetting Sarah Marshall/Univer Wknd/$ 2.5 Total/$ 55.1
8. Harold & Kumar Escape Wknd/$ 1.8 Total/$ 33.9
9. The Forbidden Kingdom/LGF Wknd/$ 1.0 Total/$ 50.3
10.The Visitor/ Wknd/$ .7 Total/$ 3.4

WHAT MOVIE WOULD JESUS SEE?
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian opens at number one so I guess this means “Extended Fantasy Metaphors for Christ, 1” and “Extended Metaphors for Atheism, 0” because The Golden Compass is not going to have a sequel and this is the second movie of The Chronicles of Narnia. I didn’t see the first and I won’t see this. I can barely stomach all this kind of kiddie fantasy, or Christianity so as far as I’m concerned this sucker is “0 and 2.”

BRETT RATNER MORE EVIL THAN MAGNETO? GEEKS SAY “YES!”
Iron Man is down to number two and word has it the sequel is already in trouble because Paramount strangely neglected to lock in director Jon Faverau to a multi-picture deal, so now they have to re-negotiate his contract. Now, if Batman and The X-Men have taught us anything, the proper directorial pairing in these suckers is critical. You get Christopher Nolan or Bryan Singer and you’ve Batman Begins and the first two X-Men movies. But if you put Bryan Singer on Superman or Ang Lee on The Hulk (or Mark Stephen Johnson on anything) and you’ve got butt-numbing exercise in tedium and CGI. And then there’s the mess that was X-Men 3…

DON’T YOU WISH YOU HAD A DOUBLE VOWEL NAME?
What Happens in Vegas holds at number three which is actually somewhat impressive. Also in this as Cameron Diaz’s galpal is Lake Bell, best known for that lame science fiction show that no one watched called Surface. And earlier this year she had the indignity of competing the ghost of Eva Longoria in Over My Dead Body, make the list of her starring work that no one ever sees longer by the day. But she does have one of the movie’s funnier bits, which is being obsessed with punching men in their “junk” and it does have a pretty funny payoff in the end. But don’t let this sway you into thinking this is a particularly good or funny movie, ‘cause it ain’t. It’s just not as awful as others.

MY PRETTY…
Speed Racer is down to number four and as it turns out, this was actually the number three movie last week, having been beaten out by What Happens In Vegas. And you know what? I’m okay with that. See, now that it’s a failure, it’s mine. Mine! Mine! Mine! I don’t have to share it with you fuckers the way I have to share Iron Man now. I won’t have to talk about it with you people and answer your inane questions about how the Mach 5 can do what it does and if Speed and Trixie ever get it on (nightly, bitches, ‘cause that’s how Speed literally rolls!). It’s going back to its cult status and I’m okay with that. There’ll be a few other people who’ll understand, but the same fuckers who love American Idol won’t be among them. Now, my only goal is to upgrade my DVD player and TV to HD by the time it comes out on DVD this fall so I can see it how it was meant to be seen.

MEAN GIRLS 2: ELECTRIC BUGALOO
Baby Mama also holds at number five and at the very least it’s made more than its budget, so while not a blockbuster success, it’s no failure either. Tina Fey doesn’t need Lindsay Lohan nearly as much as Lindsay Lohan needs Tina Fey, but it obviously wouldn’t hurt.

APPARENTLY HE’S HUGE IN THE NETHERLANDS. NO, NOT A JOKE.
Dropping to number six is Made of Honor and also in this is Kadeem Harrison!?! Dwayne Wayne!?! Man, what the hell happened to you!?! Shouldn’t “Black Best Friend” be something you started playing 15 years ago? Yeah, you played it to Wesley Snipes in White Men Can’t Jump, but that doesn’t count and you were tossed aside for Woody Harrelson in the end anyway. How cruel is that? Replaced as a basketball buddy by a White guy. Oddly, he was in a science fiction B-movie that I liked called Drive about a cybernetic super assassin on the run and Kadeem Harrison is the guy he kidnaps to help his getaway. It’s pretty funny, the action sequences are good and has the strange plot complication of Kadeem Harrison fending off the advances of…Brittney Murphy? The shit you find on 3:00 am cable.

NEXT WEEK WE’LL TALK ABOUT THE BARTENDER
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is down to number seven and also in this is Jack McBrayer also known as Kenneth The Page from 30 Rock or the computer repairman in Mariah Carey’s video. He plays a part of virginal Christian couple and while his wife is ready to get down, he’s having reservations. He turns to the hedonistic rocker dating Sarah Marshall who then gives him a crash course in sex on the beach using giant chess pieces and this is one of the funniest bits in the film.

SPECIAL CRAZY “THUMPER” EDITION!
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay is down to number eight and this actually gives Rob Corddry two films in the top ten and I’m sure he’s probably the funniest thing in this one too. I’ll know in a year when it’s on cable or if I rent the inevitable “Unrated Special Edition.” For all you suckers who think you’re getting something extra depraved when you see that, all it means is that it wasn’t submitted to the MPAA for a rating. Technically, every movie released without a rating is the “unrated edition” even if it’s just Bambi.

OH, IMBLEE-BLEE, YOU’VE TAUGHT ME TO APPRECIATE BUTTERFLIES AGAIN!
The Forbidden Kingdom is down to number nine followed by The Visitor entering the top ten at number ten. This is the story of a college professor sleepwalking through life who comes to his apartment in New York to find it occupied by a Syrian drummer and his Senegalese girlfriend who were the victims of a real estate scam. He lets them stay and of course these warm foreigners soften his heart with their music and kind ways. Yeah, I’m mocking a film the world probably needs at this place and time, but even sweet clichés are still clichés and this sucker’s giving me a cavity just reading it. Did I mention the part about the drummer being arrested and scheduled for deportation and when his mother comes to help a romance develops with the professor? Again, we probably need something like this, which according to critics is a very well-made slice of sweetness, but in the end it’s nothing new and is yet another movie about a White person who rediscovers the meaning life thanks to the big-hearted brown people he encounters who lead a simpler, happier life not filled with books or higher learning. Oh, no. That’s what brings you down. I want to see this like I want to see another true story about a White teacher in the ghetto helping the kids. Let’s see a disillusioned Black man rediscovering what life means after spending a weekend with a rich WASP family in The Hamptons. Now that’s a movie!

I ONLY DRINK MODERATELY. GOT A CASE OF IT IN THE CAR.
Okay, let me clear up something right now. I do not booze it up with gangs of women every single weekend. Yeah, they’re having a boozy barbeque even as I write this, but notice I’m not there. I just couldn’t see myself getting drunk in Brooklyn on a Sunday night (not that Brooklyn becomes more likely on a Friday or Saturday night). Unfortunately, “I stayed sober” does not make interesting reading. That said, Chasing Amy was having romantic difficulty and I got the call. We started off at this great little Mexican place on Sullivan just above Houston. She was late, so while I stood outside and waiting, playing the Breakout-type game on my iPod, I had a semi-sad encounter with the woman who thought I was her blind date. If I’d know I was going to be standing there for half an hour I might have agreed to be “Tom.” The place was great and will now be our new “go-to” spot for starting a night of drinking. Aside from some nice kick ass drinks (East LA Margarita, baby) the food was good (so that’s what a taco salad is supposed to taste like!) and there was the additional entertainment of the group of Jersey chicks celebrating their friend’s birthday with a girl’s night out) and the bartender whose iPod was very 80’s Lite FM. Remember last week when I said Player’s “Baby Come Back” Ambrosia’s “How Much I Feel” and Paul Davis’s “I Go Crazy” were all the same song? Well, he played two of the three in addition to Ambrosia’s other two hits with some Joe Jackson and Ray Parker JR with Raydio on the side. Chasing Amy joked that if The Jets “You’ve Got It All Over Him” came up we had to leave. Sure enough it came up and I told the bartender to skip it or we were gone. We’d just ordered another round, so he complied. On the downside they close around midnight, which just sucks. So we began the bar hop down into SoHo, first at some place that was a bit Eurotrashy and basically playing the entire Thriller album. Some girl had her mom out or aunt out with them and while she was ready to party, when they left she was put into a cab so the girls could be free to be trampy as the purple suede pumps one of them was wearing would allow. Again, this pussy bar was doing last call around 1:00 am so we wound up at the wine bar nearby where our evening’s drinking was curtailed by an all cash policy and a lack of nearby ATM machines. When we finally left to go home who do we see but Purple Suede Pumps on Houston near West Broadway, and her galpal is making out furiously with some slightly butch blonde chick! No wonder mom had to go home! Couldn’t let her see where the night was really heading! I got home around 3 (strangely with hiccups I that continue to plague me). But I swear this rarely happens! There’s not a chick gathering, broken heart or visiting NJ housewife every weekend. I’d be dead or in rehab if there were. Of course now that Chasing Amy is single again, she wants to hit the streets, so by the end of summer that may change. Oh, Hung Ga Kung Fu, save me!

MUSIC BUSINESS COMPLAINT #4058920
Okay, this crap has bothered me since the 80’s, but now everyone is doing it and I will continue to follow the path I set in the 80’s: if I buy your fucking album, I’m not paying again for your celebrity filled remix of the single! That’s getting downloaded for free online, so suck it! You shouldn’t dick over people like that. Yes, I’m looking at you Maroon 5, who redid “If I Never See Your Face Again” with Rhianna, who oddly compliments the lead singer’s nasal whine quite well.

I’VE GOT MY OWN MTV
So, one of my bosses gave me a little gift packet for Administrative Assistants’ Day, which simultaneously helped to take the sting out of the sad fact that I’m once again an administrative assistant while reminding that I’m once again an administrative assistant. Nonetheless, she’s my favorite because not only does she remind me of Debra Messing, but she curses like a sailor, which always endears me in women. One of the things was an iTunes gift card and since it was money to burn I used it to buy something I normally wouldn’t: videos. The selection is odd and kinda limited on iTunes. How can you have Duran Duran’s “Planet Earth” but not “Girls on Film”? If you have nothing else by them, you have “Girls on Film.” Because I did get things like “If It Isn’t Love” by New Edition, “Every Little Thing You Do” by Christopher Williams, “Do Me Right” by Guy, “Poison” by Bell Biv Devoe, and other stuff with Jeff Buckley, Daryll Hall, George Michael’s “Freedom 90” (with real supermodels, goddamnit), the last two Wham videos and a total throwback to my youth, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” with Elton John and Kiki Dee. I remember watching that on the fucking Midnight Special and Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert. If you don’t know what they are, well then run to the store and get grandpa his medicine and he’ll explain it to you.