THE CRAP IS OUT THERE

1. Batman: Dark Knight/WB Wknd/$ 75.3 Total/$ 314.2
2. Step Brothers/Sony Wknd/$ 30.0 Total/$ 30.0
3. Mamma Mia/Universal Wknd/$ 17.9 Total/$ 62.7
4. The X-Files: I Want To Believe Wknd/$ 10.2 Total/$ 10.2
5. Journey To The Center… Wknd/$ 9.4 Total/$ 60.2
6. Hancock/Sony Wknd/$ 8.2 Total/$ 206.4
7. Wall-E/Disney Wknd/$ 6.3 Total/$ 195.2
8. Hellboy II/Universal Wknd/$ 4.9 Total/$ 65.9
9. Space Chimps/Fox Wknd/$ 4.4 Total/$ 16.0
10. Wanted/Universal Wknd/$ 2.7 Total/$ 128.6

THE JOKER’S NOT HIS ONLY PROBLEM
Batman: The Dark Knight holds on to the number one spot and now that we’ve discussed what’s good about it, let’s talk about what sucks. First, there’s that needless 20 minutes that kicks off the final act and drains the film of momentum. That’s a problem but it obviously only happens once, while what’s consistently bad throughout the film is Christian Bale’s “Batman voice.” It’s fine in small doses, but when he goes on and on in that forced gruffness, it becomes….well, kinda stupid. He overdoes it to begin with, so when he’s forced to spout these bad soliloquies, you keep expecting him to start coughing and ask for a glass of water so he can finish. Again, we look to the best Batman ever, Kevin Conroy, as the voice from the animated series who was smart enough to lighten Bruce Wayne’s voice a just a bit so that when he was Batman, just going a notch below his regular voice was impressive. Then there’s the simple fact that almost every superhero costume ever looks stupid when not in motion. This crippled that rooftop encounter between Spider-man and The Green Goblin and it ruins scenes here. They should have read more comics to see that Batman is much more impressive and intimidating when his cape is closed around him, so he’s like this mass of darkness. And speaking of intimidation, another low point is Batman’s supposed interrogation of the Joker. Basically, he slaps him around a police interrogation room while the cops watch. Yeah, that’s it. No building dangling or anything like that. I kept waiting for one cop to say, “Um, we coulda done that.” They don’t even go for drama and have it done by Batman in the dark. It’s in a light-flooded room so we’re back to two guys dressed up weird talking. And what’s worse, it’s for nothing. The Joker isn’t intimidated, has no fear of Batman and only tells him what he was going to tell him anyway. And you know what? Christopher Nolan and Christian “I Punched My Mom & Sister In The Face” Bale (okay, so he only pushed them out of a hotel room ‘cause they hit him up for cash) can suck my nuts when it comes to their dumbass “No Robin” policy. Robin matters and is important to Batman’s survival, not just in terms of popularity, but also in rescuing him from his own darkness.

I DO THIS FOR FREE EVERY DAY
Step Brothers opens at number two and sadly this is a great opening for the Judd Apatow machine. Yes, it’s another entry into their highly successful “man-boy” franchise. It’s also the latest entry into Will Farrell’s own “emotionally retarded males” series. I won’t even watch this on cable. If I want to see an emotionally retarded middle-aged manchild, I’ll look in the mirror, thanks. And how fucked up is it that Mary Steenburgen is playing Will Ferrell’s mother? She’s only 14 years younger than he is and while possible and sadly a reality for some, did every actress in her 60’s suddenly drop dead that she was the best choice!?! If you saw Life Is A House a few years ago, you know this woman is still smoking hot and should be doing more than playing the mom to a middle-aged man. She knows it too, which is why she still does nude scenes.

LIVE AND LET THOUGHTS OF SINGING DIE
Mama Mia is down to number three and in the brief clip I saw it was confirmed what everyone else is saying: Pierce Brosnan can’t sing worth shit. He subscribes to the Ewan McGregor school of somehow thinking that if you sing louder you’ll somehow get in key. You won’t. You just make it easier for the people in the next county to hear how badly you sound. And getting the short shrift in the ad campaign is Stellan Skarsgard. It doesn’t help that they make him look like Randy Quaid. Supposedly it was surprising to people that, with Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth onset, the hot dude was Stellan. Uh, no. Not if you’ve seen him in the original Insomnia, the movie that Christopher “I’m Too Stupid To Understand Robin” Nolan fucked up when he remade it with Robin Williams of all people.

I WANT TO LET IT GO
The X-Files: I Want To Believe seemingly opens poorly at number five, but given it only cost $30M to make (and looks it), this actually isn’t bad. But I cannot stress this enough: wait for DVD. Unless you’ve access to matinees that are about the same cost as a rental, wait. It’s just another X-Files episode. And not even a good one. None of the mythology of the series is addressed at all, leading me to believe that Chris Carter has the biggest fucking balls of any human alive to ask people to pay to see something that doesn’t even resolve the storyline. So, no. No “black oil”, no Krychek, no aliens, no government conspiracy, no nothing (not even their son, though he is mentioned…once). Just another case where the only strange thing is a pedophile priest who claims a psychic connection. And while on The X-Files, what limited the conventional authorities was a refusal to accept the paranormal, here it’s flat out stupidity. An FBI agent is missing. They find an arm from one of the supposed kidnappers. It was surgically removed and has an animal tranquilizer in it. At no time does anyone, not even Mulder and Scully suggest, “Hey, let’s look at animal hospitals.” Not even when the psychic says he hears dogs in his vision. Know why? BECAUSE THIS FUCKING MOVIE WOULD HAVE BEEN OVER IN FIVE MINUTES IF THEY HAD! Oh, and supposedly the FBI can’t find Mulder so they ask Scully. It turns out Mulder and Scully FUCKING LIVE TOGETHER, so maybe this FBI is run by the dumbest people alive that they can’t find him. Stay home and watch a good X-Files rerun on TNT. I mean if they’re running a good one. It seems to me like they run the same lousy six or seven all the time. Never the roaches, never the guy who can change shape or the serial killer who eats livers, or even the tattoo episode. Usually, it’s the crappy ones with Annabeth Gish and Robert Patrick.

YOU’LL MISS US WHEN WE’RE GONE
Journey To The Center of the Earth 3D is down to number five, followed by Hancock at number six and Wall-E at number seven and I’m not going to point out again just how many films are science fiction or fantasy. And you’ll miss these days when the fall comes and every other fucking film is a two-and-a-half hour piece of Oscar bait about some working class single mother with drug addiction, or some warts-and-all bio pic or adaptation of a depressing novel which is twice as depressing onscreen (yes, Atonement, I’m looking at you). You’ll wish you had superheroes, cute robots and yes, even monkeys in space.

FOR GUYS WITHOUT GIRLFRIENDS, GEEKS LOVE LONG AND LOVE HARD
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is down to number eight and playing Abe Sapien (the fish guy) is Doug Jones who has secured his geek convention future because he also played The Silver Surfer (though Lawrence Fishburne did his voice just as David Hyde Pierce did the voice of Abe Sapien in the first Hellboy). He was also The Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth. Hell, he was even in the first episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Homeslice can lay around Monday through Friday for the rest of his life. He just has to talk to geeks on the weekend and his financial future is set.

BROADWAY & TV; TWO OUTTA THREE AIN’T BAD
Space Chimps is down to number nine and Stanley Tucci, Jeff Daniels and Kristen Chenoweth are the poor bastards who whore themselves out for this, hoping it might lead to a Pixar gig of which they can be proud. Well, Kristen Chenoweth got a much deserved Emmy Nomination for Olive Snook on the utterly amazing Pushing Daises, so hopefully that eases the whoring pain.

WANTED: A NEW BADASS CHARACTER TO CARRY THE SEQUEL
Finally, Wanted closes out the top ten at number ten and this has hit $224M worldwide fulfilling the 3x budget needed to turn a profit so maybe all that sequel talk wasn’t just blowing smoke. Sadly, the most interesting and most badass character doesn’t see the end of the movie, so who the fuck wants to see just James McAvoy in the sequel? I mean other than the legions of women who love him.

PREY YOU DON’T HAVE TO WATCH THIS
Also trying to cash in on the release of Batman: The Dark Knight is the DVD release of Birds of Prey, the horrible TV series of a few years ago that initially tried to cash in on Smallville, but learned the hard way all the stupid changes idiot producers make will cost you. Now you’re going to get some geek history so stay with me. In the 50’s the decision was made that all the characters that existed in the 30’s and 40’s and were in WWII actually lived on another Earth, called Earth-2. The modern Superman and Batman were on Earth-1. In the early Superman stories, Clark Kent worked at the Daily Star, not the Daily Planet so it was the Earth 2 Superman who worked at the Daily Star, get it? Now, on Earth-2 Batman married Catwoman and they had a daughter, Helena Wayne, who later grew up into a superhero herself, The Huntress. On Earth-1 obviously Batman and Catwoman haven’t gotten married, so The Huntress there is Helena Bertinelli, daughter of a murdered mob family, inspired by Batman to put on a costume and go after the mafia. She eventually joins Barbara Gordon (who was Batgirl until The Joker crippled her with a bullet to the spine) and Black Canary as The Birds of Prey. An all-female superhero team of total ass-whoop. It’s been a successful comic book series for years and since they couldn’t have Batman for TV (trivia fact: Smallville actually sprung from A Young Bruce Wayne TV series idea), they decided to go with the next best thing, his daughter, so they put the Earth-2 Huntress into the Earth-1 Birds of Prey. But that’s not where they fucked up five ways to Sunday. No, that starts when they give her super-powers, which is stupid, and ruins the thing people like about the whole Bat-family, which is that they don’t have superpowers. Then Black Canary is actually the Black Canary’s daughter and they have her as a lost teenager with psychic powers, while her mom who shows up for one single episode is the butt-kicker with a sonic scream we know and love. Then there’s Shemar Moore who pretty much turns up to just be pretty and take off his shirt (not that there’s anything wrong with that). It sucked, sucked, sucked. Not to mention the best thing about the show (besides the female cast) was the theme song. It’s not here.

BREAKING AWAY
I am now officially obsessed with my bike. "I want to ride my bicycle/I want to ride my bike/I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like." I ride it every day that I don’t go to kung-fu because my legs are barely holding up as it, but I will never again complain about the sturdy thighs my mom gave me. They haven’t given out yet. So yes, I’m doing something active six days a week now and while going home afterwards and eating potato chips with French onion dip then washing it down with a coke (for some reason, riding makes me want soda) kinda undoes what good I’ve done, but I’m not getting worse. And also, it’s making me love the city all over again. I go places I either have never been or haven’t been to in years. My location is ideal, because riding up and down along the west side highway along the bike/jogging/skating paths at sunset is a singular sublime pleasure. Say what you want about the city, some things they get right and crafting the various bike paths and recreation areas was one of them. They are an amazing feat of civil engineering and design. It’s even better in the summer now that the douchebag population leaves the city on the weekend, leaving it free for the real New Yorkers. And me. Saturday I rode down the west side, into Battery Park City, which is also gorgeous. I rode through there in into Battery Park itself…which is not so gorgeous. In fact, it’s so ugly and crowed I left it to ride around in the deserted canyons of Wall Street. I then went across the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn then over the Manhattan Bridge and came back across it into the city. That lets you out in an area that is what’s left of the real Chinatown, where men sell fresh produce under the bridge and shops and restaurants don’t have English translations because they don’t want your gwailo tourist ass down there anyway. I then rode up the east side under the FDR up to the Williamsburg bridge where I came across Houston, up Broadway, over though the West Village to the Meatpacking District then back up the west side. It took about two hours and I can’t wait to do it again, though I’m thinking next week I’ll ride up to the Cloisters. But first I need a water bottle holder and a gel seat cover (my crotch!!!) and a chain so I can actually stop occasionally. Then and only then can I get the Captain America jersey. And it’s gotta be soon, because I feel this enthusiasm will fade with the summer warmth.

SADLY, NO GOPHER SIGHTING
If you follow tabloids, pretty much every celebrity seems to be in Italy, hence the lack of star sightings, so while he’s far from A-list I have mention that I saw Michael O’Keefe walking down 9th Avenue, because I love Caddyshack.

DELTA OF VENUS
Now, it’s no secret I’m a long-time enemy of Brazilian waxing. I’ve no desire to see a woman look like a prepubescent child and you should be suspicious of any man who does. So, to that woman walking down 9th Avenue in the white pants so translucent her full black pubic triangle was easily visible to all…I salute you!!!