EXCESS & THE CITY

1. Sex & The City/New Line Wknd/$ 55.7 Total/$ 55.7
2. Indiana Jones 4/Paramount Wknd/$ 46.0 Total/$ 216.9
3. The Strangers/Rogue Wknd/$ 20.7 Total/$ 20.7
4. Iron Man/Paramount Wknd/$ 14.0 Total/$ 276.6
5. Prince Caspian/Disney Wknd/$ 13.0 Total/$ 115.7
6. What Happens In Vegas/Fox Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 66.1
7. Baby Mama/Universal Wknd/$ 2.2 Total/$ 56.1
8. Speed Racer/Warner Wknd/$ 2.1 Total/$ 40.6
9. Made of Honor/Sony Wknd/$ 2.0 Total/$ 43.0
10. Forgetting Sarah Marshall/Univer Wknd/$ 1.0 Total/$ 60.5

EXCESS & THE CITY
Sex & The City opens up at number one and this is pretty much been the female equivalent of the Super Bowl. Weeks of relentless hype for something that couldn’t possibly live up to the anticipation, so basically it becomes just and excuse to hang with your friends and party. And that’s what this was. An excuse for women to get together with their best gal pals (or best gays) and party (with the odd affect pissing off a lot of very insecure men). I went to a 10:15 am Saturday show to avoid this party---only to walk into a theater three quarters full with packs of chicks. At least they were sober. At least I thought they were sober until they started applauding the scene where Sarah Jessica Parker wears a wedding dress from every major designer alive. But you know what? It was totally appropriate because that’s part of what this movie was all about anyway. Unfortunately, it’s a bigger part than it ever was before. Initially the fashion was icing on the cake, now it’s like one of those cupcakes from Magnolia (which is the only thing this show actually ruined) where you have to wipe half the icing off because it’s too much. Aside from pretty much every location scene taking place in a major designer’s store or prominent New York restaurant, we get no less than two fashion montages, one funny, appropriate and actually too short as when Carrie cleans out her closet of 20 years of fashion, and the other the aforementioned wedding dress parade, which wasn’t funny and too long. I’d rather find out something the show actually never gave us LIKE CARRIE’S MOTHER! Yeah, Carrie---who is now a successful author, working on her third book---is planning to marry Mr. Big and not one mention of her mother or his, whom we actually met. Apparently they both died during the last five years. Likewise, Charlotte gets pregnant, but do you think her family shows up? Nope. What makes things like this maddening is when they do good things, like not pretending for one second that Carrie isn’t 40. Also, that this is his third marriage becomes a bone of contention for Big. And my personal favorite is, when upon learning that Steve has cheated on her, Miranda tells him “I changed who I was for you!” Damn right and it bothered the hell out me every step of the way that she’d hook up with that one-balled lisper and move to Brooklyn. If you’re looking for an extended episode of the show with an extra emphasis on the fashion thanks to a movie-sized budget, then this is for you. If you hoped that the over two hour running time would give you a little more depth, then you should let that fantasy go now. Now there are some bitching quite loudly that Jennifer Hudson plays yet another “Magical Negro” who helps a White person make it through. These people need lives and should just go back to complaining that a Black guy betrayed Hal Solo in The Empire Strikes Back. What they need to be pissed about is how Jennifer Hudson took this job from a real actress, because Best Supporting Oscar or no, she sucks. All she really does is her fucking job as an assistant. She really doesn’t go above and beyond the call of duty in any respect personal or professional, though it might have been nicer if we found out why Carrie of all people would even get a personal assistant. She’s not the type and it would make more sense if it were pushed on her by her publisher, with Carrie having no clue to what exactly a personal assistant does. But ultimately I’m most disappointed in myself, because no straight man should recognize Anna Wintour’s cameo in this film, especially when they don’t even show her face! When does football season start?

WHY THERE MUST ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is down to number two and if nothing else the Indiana Jones moves have a solid history of getting some of the best old English actors alive to appear in them. This time around Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone and John Hurt join the list of Denham Elliot, Sean Connery and John Rhys Davies. How Richard Harris or Peter O’Toole never showed up is beyond me. If George Lucas didn’t have his head up his ass, he might have noticed that Lawrence Kasdan, the screenwriter of Raiders of the Lost Ark, deliberately left open the possibility of Marion’s father, Abner Ravenwood, being alive (he even said so in interviews) and that would a been a great role for an old English actor. But that would be admitting Kasdan was a better writer and that he himself sucks, and that’s something Lucas will never do.

THE ONLY THING STRANGE IS HOW THIS GOT MADE
The Strangers opens at number three and who the fuck cares? I’m sorry, but could this film look dumber? Two girls and one guy without guns, take on a guy and a girl with a gun. This should not be a struggle. Any idiot would know to just put your back to a solid wall and kill anyone or anything that comes at you. Anyone except these two idiots, because if they did, you wouldn’t have a movie. Not to mention, the physical odds are hardly threatening. One more person? That’s it? It’s not even two guys and a girl? Just one guy and two girls and everyone is the same age. If the coupler were older it might have made it more threatening. Seriously, who cares? It’s not so much scary now as stupid and that old, “Bad guy appears silently in the background” has just been run into the ground at this point.

MICKEY D’S DON’T PLAY THAT SHIT!
Iron Man is down to number four, followed by The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian at number five and the mea culpas have begun. The head of Disney said they screwed up by releasing this in the summer rather than at Christmas, which was the original plan. It seems their partners on this were releasing Water Horse at the time and they didn’t want it to conflict. Um, you chose instead to risk the $200M franchise film? Honestly, how do these people manage to keep their jobs? How do you fuck up a $200M investment and still have a parking space on Monday? Lose $200 working the register at McDonalds and see if you still get to keep your paper hat.

NOT FAR FROM THE TREE
What Happens In Vegas is down to number six, but it’s actually done well. Also in this as Ashton Kutcher’s dad is Treat Williams which is the perfect role for the aging leading man. You expect Ashton Kutcher’s dad to look like something like this the same way it always makes sense that Blythe Danner is a movie star’s mom (and why Harrison Ford is unacceptable as Shia Lebouf’s dad).

NOT FAR FROM THE TREE PT. 2: ELECTRIC BUGALOO
Baby Mama is down to number seven followed by Speed Racer at number eight and speaking of movie star parents, Susan Sarandon and John Goodman play Mom & Pops Racer. The irony is, John Goodman’s a big enough star that he will probably never actually have to play the father of kid whose body actually resembles his. His movie kids will all strangely fail to inherit his fat gene. Susan Sarandon proves she’s perfect movie star mom by giving birth to hot actress daughter in Eva Amurri.

NOT FAR FROM THE TREE PT. 3: RETURN OF THE JEDI
Continuing our topic of movie star onscreen parents, Made of Honor is down to number nine and you don’t know how much it hurts me that this piece of crap is Sidney Pollack’s last film, appearing as Patrick Dempsey’s dad. At least it could have been Michael Clayton, or The Sopranos, or even Will & Grace, but no, it’s this. This is like Wicked Stepmother being Bette Davis’s last work. He wasn’t the most prolific director who ever lived with only about 20 or so films to his credit, but among them are Three Days of The Condor, The Swimmer, They Shoot Horses Don’t They, The Way We Were, Out of Africa and my personal favorite, Tootsie. I’m going to pretend that his remake of Sabrina just didn’t exist, ‘cause this is just about the good times.

“WE TOOK ‘EM IN THE BACK AND PLAYED RICKY-TICKY ON THEIR SKULLS, BARN”
Finally, closing out the top ten is Forgetting Sarah Marshall and also in this is none other than Steve Landesberg who ruled as Dietrich on Barney Miller. His delivery was the driest of the dry and one of the reasons it was flat out one of the funniest sitcoms and greatest sitcom casts ever. Ever, muthafuckas! Ever!

FIST FULL OF YEN STILL RULES
Not breaking the top ten is Foot Fist Way, which is pretty much the literal translation of Tae Kwon Do. This is appropriate because it’s about a buffoon of a taekwondo instructor in an Alabama suburb. Normally, I can’t stand movies about watching an idiot act like an idiot. It’s why I have a low tolerance for Will Ferrell, why I don’t like either version of The Office and why I cannot stand Jack Black in a lead role, but the martial arts aspect drew me in…and my position remains unchanged. YOU NEED A STRAIGHT MAN! The entire world cannot be your straight man! This would have been immeasurably better if the lead character, the buffoon were a supporting character in the story of a suburban taekwondo instructor and his odd students and staff (someone like Broken Lizard who did Super Trooper would have done amazing things with that). That way you’d be looking forward to every appearance he makes instead of ultimately just getting tired of him. This was an indie film that appeared at Sundance two years ago and ultimately found release appropriately enough through Will Ferrell. I’m sure they also debated remaking it with Ferrell in the lead before giving this guy his shot, because it’s a Will Ferrell role. Ben Stiller is also a fan and that makes sense too (the actor playing the buffoon instructor will not only be in Ben Stiller’s movie this summer, but the next Judd Apatow movie as well). Imagine if there was a movie about just his Dodgeball gym owner character. Yeah, it would be funny, but how soon before it grew old? Especially when they don’t develop any secondary characters, beyond an equally buffoonish adversary---which in this case is a B-movie martial arts action hero he idolizes, whom he’s too dim to see is actually goofy reflection of himself. This is probably why he has sex with the instructor’s slutty wife, who should have had a larger role, because her appearances are funny, but brief, so you anticipate her return with tales of her latest indiscretion.

THEY SHOULD CALL THE BAND CHEESE EATING SURRENDER MONKEYS
Remember that French Guy in college? He wasn’t that good-looking, a completely obnoxious asshole, never stopped talking about how much America sucks, yet he still managed to fuck everything that moved, including the girls who said they hated him and never would have anything to do with him. Now, imagine if he started a band and sang about being a dick. That band would be called The Teenagers. And they don’t so much sing as talk in a thick French accent over the music. Now, every song pretty much sounds the same, so by the end of the album it’s like you listened to one really long song, but individually they’re not bad. Bear in mind, they’re not totally serious as they write songs about Scarlett Johansson and fucking their American cheerleader step-cousin. They’re actually making fun of the obnoxious French guy stereotype in songs like “Homecoming” where we actually hear the story of their hook-up from both sides, his crude hers, romantic (“I fucked my American cunt/I loved my English romance”).

DEATH NEEDED SOME LAUGHS
So not only did Sidney Pollock die, but a god of comedy has shuffled off this mortal coil. Harvey Korman died and that means pretty much the major leads from Blazing Saddles are all gone, but for Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, who sadly looks like he’s going to outlive everyone. And the comedy hits keep on coming with the death of Dick Martin of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Sadly, I thought he was already dead. It’s hard to explain Laugh-In to the kids today, but suffice it to say, they had a counter-culture comedy show on TV long before Saturday Night Live, but it was truly groundbreaking and revolutionary when they did it. And if you think Kate Hudson has a nice body, you should have seen her mother, Goldie Hawn, dancing up a storm in a bikini as a go-go dancer on the show. What’s a go-go dancer? Sigh. It’s a club dancer. Now go get daddy his medicine.