BLUE EYES

1. Eagle Eye/Par-DW Wknd/$ 29.2 Total/$ 29.2
2. Nights In Rodanthe/Warner Wknd/$ 13.6 Total/$ 13.6
3. Lakeview Terrace/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 25.7
4. Fireproof/Gold Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$ 6.5
5. Burn After Reading/Focus Wknd/$ 6.2 Total/$ 45.5
6. Igor/MGM Wknd/$ 5.5 Total/$ 14.3
7. Righteous Kill/ Wknd/$ 3.8 Total/$ 34.8
8. My Best Friend’s Girl/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 3.8 Total/$ 14.5
9. Miracle At St. Anna/Touchstone Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 3.5
10. The Family That Preys/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 3.2 Total/$ 32.8

I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE, HOT SHICKSAS EVERYWHERE
Eagle Eye opens at number one and I almost saw this mainly because of Michelle Monaghan, who is pretty much the Lara Flynn Boyle of the new millennium, minus the eating disorder and daddy issues. What stopped me? 118 minutes. This is a stupid movie from almost the first frame of the trailer and so has no business being almost two hours long. Two hours gives you too much time to realize just how stupid a stupid movie is, starting with a super secret organization being able to slam a crane into a building then send a message over a giant teletype on a building. Unless the fucking city was empty, then someone else saw the message, which immediately clears Shia LeBeouf, but I’m sure in this movie, no one saw the message so he remains a suspect. Then there’s the whole slamming a crane into a building thing. You’re hardly a secret bad guy organization when you’re doing over-the-top shit like that. My other reason not to see it was, of course, Shia Lebouf. I overlooked him in Transformers because I was there to watch giant robots fight. I overlooked him in Indiana Jones because I was there to see, well, Indiana Jones. Here, he’s the main star and Michelle Monaghan or no, I just cannot stomach that. Not since Skeet Ulrich has a young leading man left me so utterly cold towards a concept I might otherwise tolerate. And god knows I don’t want to see him kiss Michelle Monaghan. But you know who’s the executive producer on this, right? Steven Spielberg, who will never stop trying to make a geeky Jewish kid into a leading man (who doesn’t kiss Jewish women).

BETTER TO END ON MUST LOVE DOGS
Nights in Rodanthe opens at number two and while normally I’d be all over a reunion of Richard Gere and Diane Lane (pretty people together; this is what the fuck I’m paying for), two words stopped me dead in my tracks: Nicholas Sparks. This ridiculous hack and his drippy novels have infected the big screen like a venereal disease. That he wrote it utterly killed my enthusiasm. First of all, you know someone’s got to die. That’s a given. And they pretty much give this away in the trailer, so the incompetence began with the written word and continued on to the creation of the promotional campaign. And worst yet, it’s the straw that broke the back of Diana Lane who is sick of playing nice girls and has more or less announced her retirement after playing it again here. Apparently, like the viewing public she’s forgotten about a little film released earlier this year called Jumper, where she was the bad guy. And given that Jumper wound up with a $222M worldwide gross, a sequel has been announced so maybe the idea of hunting down Hayden Christensen will keep her working.

REMEMBER THE DUDE FROM SAVE THE LAST DANCE? ME EITHER.
Speaking of hunting down Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson was the person doing it in Jumper and his latest, Lakeview Terrace, is now down to number three. Also in this is Kerry Washington who will always have a special place in my heart for her “sista girl” portrayal in Save The Last Dance and if you’re a black actor who wants an Oscar, she’s your girl, as she’s been the female lead in both Ray and The Last King of Scotland. Terrence Howard and Don Cheadle should be calling her daily.

BUT NOT MORONPROOF
Fireproof opens at number four and this is a “God doesn’t want you to get divorced” movie starring none other than Kirk Cameron, who will not kiss any woman other than his wife, so for the kissing scene they had to dress her up like the actress and shoot the scene so that her identity could be hidden. Yeah, he’s crazy. Ironically, I believe this is one of the movies they make you watch in hell. Call me crazy, but if you can only save your marriage through a mutual love of Christ and not a love of each other, then that marriage is just about done. It’s like me maintaining a relationship based on a mutual love of cheese. “I hate the way you brush your teeth, but you know how to pick a good gouda, so let’s have kids.”

ANOTHER WHO’D BE BETTER OFF WITH MUST LOVE DOGS…
Burn After Reading is down to number five, followed by Igor at number six and once again let’s count the falling stars doing voices in an animated movie for a quick boost or an easy paycheck: John Cusack, Molly Shannon, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Eddie Izzard, Sean Hayes (Jack from Will & Grace), Arsenio Hall and Christian Slater. Yeah, I thought Arsenio Hall was dead too.

IT’S EVERYONE’S FAULT BUT MINE
Righteous Kill is down to number seven and also in this is Donnie Wahlberg and how much do I hate myself for liking the New Kids on the Block song “Single”? I’m crediting Polo Da Don, the man behind Fergie’s “London Bridge” and “Glamorous” for it, since this is his tune. Having Ne-Yo on it doesn’t hurt. And I give them credit for dressing like men in the video and not trying to dress whatever the hip kids are wearing, because a bunch of guys in their 30’s trying to wear white belts and skinny jeans would have been sad (just ask New Edition who tried to look hip on their last disappointing album, when twenty years ago for their best, most successful album they all wore suits on the cover). After a certain point in your life, the best thing a man can wear is a suit, especially a nice one. But when did the little one turn into a little Hugh Grant clone?

NOT THAT YOU NEED ANOTHER REASON
My Best Friend’s Girl is down to number eight and if you need another reason this film sucks aside from the big three, it was directed by Howard Deutch, whom I remember as part of the downfall of John Hughes. It was his direction of Pretty in Pink that was the beginning of the end. After that he did Some Kind of Wonderful. Other notches in his bedpost include Grumpier Old Men, The Odd Couple II and The Whole Ten yards, showing if you want a crappy sequel, he’s the man to go to.

SOMEWHERE CLINT EASTWOOD IS LAUGHING
Miracle At St. Anna opens at number nine and I was actually making plans to get up early to go see this when the little old man who lives in my finally spoke up and said, “What the fuck are you doing? Spike Lee directed this and it’s almost three hours long. Spike Lee could share every interesting thought in his head and it wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.” And he was right. The last thing this world needs is a three-hour movie about Black soldiers in World War II from Spike Lee, because you know he throws in a lot of unnecessary shit. Now, the world does need a movie about Black soldiers in World War II just as it needs a movie about the Japanese American soldiers in World War II, but it seriously doesn’t need them to either bad or preachy, because it pretty much insures that one will be the last. You can only hope HBO will eventually get around to it and that they will be directed by who can spell subtlety. I mean, Spike Lee needs someone to hold him back, but he’s still better than say, Tyler Perry, whose The Family That Preys closes out the top ten at number ten. Not only would it have been awful in his hands, but one of the soldiers would strangely have been a dude in drag.

WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST CALL IT “BRAINS”?
New shows continue to start and The Mentalist has potential based purely on the charm of Simon Baker as man whose ability to observe and process information puts him on a Sherlock Holmes level of deductive skill. He also revels in saying inappropriate things based on the information he’s garnered. Yes, they burden the show with what has become the biggest cliché on cop shows---an ongoing sub-plot about a serial killer---and they don’t even pretend to connected with any sort reality regarding law enforcement, but like Bones it rides on the charm of the people involved. I find Jay Mohr to be charm free, so for him to be the sympathetic protagonist of Gary Unmarried is an exercise in futility. He was never better than as an obnoxious movie executive in Action. You know the routine Jeremy Piven does as Ari on entourage every week that wins him Emmys? Jay Mohr did it first on Action.

ROCK IS DEAD
Sad but true: every Chris Rock special is less funny than the one before it. The first, Bring The Pain, was great. The second, Bigger & Blacker, may have been both, but one thing it was not was funnier. Now, Kill The Messenger shows that was not just a fluke. The only thing more shocking than a Black man running for president with no David Chapelle at all, is that Chris Rock couldn’t do more with that. After starting strong, the show quickly goes to hell with a long, unfunny routine about the word “faggot” where he showed an uncommon lack of empathy. That it never crossed his mind that “faggot” was for gay men what “nigger” is for Black people was as disappointing as hell. There’s also an unfunny bit about the word “nigger”, which makes no sense given that Chris Rock had actually stopped using it until David Chapelle did so without apology and became the biggest comedian working. Let me put it this way: D.L. Hughley does a better routine about it. Finally, he falters where he has for the last few years: jokes about relationships. Just get a divorce already. Seriously. Every show has some bit about how women make life hell, especially Black women. He made it work the first time, but since then it’s just been unfunny complaining. A promising bit about how Michelle Obama would make a bad First Lady because Black women won’t stay and in the background or play nice is lost to him ranting about Black women being pushy and leads to another unfunny bit about what is obviously his unfulfilled desire to date a White woman. Just get the divorce and do it. In this land of Obama-mania there are more White women ready to bone a brutha for political reasons since the 60’s, so you won’t be alone very long. I mean, you gave your marriage a good try. Spare your daughters any further damage from them having to watch daddy hate mommy on a daily basis and get a divorce.

DEATH, YOU BITCH
Death took a god this week in the form of Paul Newman. Sadly, it was not unexpected. Earlier this year when he backed out of directed Of Mice & Men onstage, it was pretty much known the cancer was closing in on him. My favorite Paul Newman films are not Cool Hand Luke or Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid or The Hustler, but The Young Philadelphians, Harper and The Verdict, for which he deserved the Oscar, not The Color of Money, which remains a dull as dishwater movie. I’m also a fan of The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, which I’m sure even he didn’t like. Can you believe that anyone ever once suggested that Matthew McConughey would be the next Paul Newman simply because he was blonde and pretty? Geek trivia: Paul Newman was the original artist basis for the Silver Age Green Lantern, Hal Jordan.

STRANGELY, I REMAIN A FAT BASTARD NO MATTER WHAT I DO
Fall is officially here! I know because I fell off my bike again. One of the hazards of riding at night. But I’m getting better at it, because once I felt the fall, I jumped off and landed on two feel with barely a bruise. However, I popped my tire and had to walk my bike back from 72nd street. The irony being, when I wound up riding at night in rain with a headwind so strong it was practically like I wasn’t moving, I was fine. Sigh. The days to ride are rapidly ticking away, but the upside is I’ve found a place to swim. The Riverbank Center up on 145th is a massive complex open to the public and they have an Olympic sized pool you can swim in for $2, and at 5:00 on a rainy Saturday afternoon in September it was all but empty. But my swimming muscles are long gone. The pool at Crunch was about half Olympic sized and I could do ten full laps on the sucker without pause. I managed about two laps in the Riverbank pool before a near collapse, which is even less than half of my peak performance. Needless to say Sunday was Advil day.