THE BAT DANCE YOU PRAYED YOU'D NEVER SEE

1. High School Musical 3/Disney Wknd/$ 42.0 Total/$ 42.0
2. Saw V/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 30.5 Total/$ 30.5
3. Max Payne/Fox Wknd/$ 7.6 Total/$ 29.7
4. Beverly Hills Chihuahua/Disney Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 78.1
5. Pride & Glory/Warner Wknd/$ 6.3 Total/$ 6.3
6. The Secret Life of Bees/Fox Wknd/$ 5.9 Total/$ 19.2
7. W./Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 5.3 Total/$ 18.7
8. Eagle Eye/Par-DW Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 88.3
9. Body of Lies/Warners Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 30.9
10. Quarantine/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 2.6 Total/$ 28.8

BAT-DANCE INDEED.
High School Musical 3 opens unsurprisingly at number one, but what’s surprising is that it took Disney until the second sequel to start charging people for it. You’d think those mercenary bastards would have made them start paying the moment the first one became a phenomenon. Not being a kid and not having a kid, this has thankfully blown past me for the last few years. I only know what I read in the papers about this pretty boy with man-bangs who suddenly seems to be everywhere, his disturbingly hot, ethnically ambiguous girlfriend who seems to be bucking the trend of taking off all your pubic hair and their co-star who has already begun to destroy her career by getting a nose job and removing what made her look unique. Because I’m old, my only connection to this film is that it, like the first two, was directed by Kenny Ortega. Yes, the choreographer of Dirty Dancing. Better still he was a choreographer on Xanadu. I won’t say “the” choreographer of Xanadu, because you don’t tell Gene Kelly how to dance. You just suggest to him. And of course he was also the director and choreographer of Newises, but I’m pretty sure both he and Christian Bale are trying to forget that one. He also choreographed all the dancing in Ferris Bueller’s Day off. Again, the cast of High School Musical was either in diapers or not even born when most of this occurred.

A REAL HORROR CHOICE: APPEAR IN A GENRE MOVIE OR DO DINNER THEATER
Saw V opens at number two and the father of all the torture porn horror you’ve seen over the last few years is still going strong mainly because it genuinely has a cringeworthy and unique conceit---do this horrible thing or die this horrific death---whereas all the others are simply about watching people die horribly with not even an attempt at wit behind it. This has also become the franchise to hop on for C-list stars, with Julie Benz (best known as Darla from Buffy and Angel and now on Dexter as Rita) and Megan Good (best known as the Hot Black Girl in any number of films) hopping on the gravy-train this time around. Before them you’ve had such luminaries as Betsy Russell (Private School), Donnie Walberg (yep, New Kid himself), Angus McFayden (Robert The Bruce from Braveheart), Dina Meyer (Dizzy from Starship Troopers), Beverly Mitchell (7th Heaven) and its two biggest stars Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride) and Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon).

GOOD GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN. BAD GIRLS DON’T SEE THE FINAL REEL.
Max Payne is down to number three and also in this is Mila Kunis, playing her native Russian for the very first time. Though you know you’re dealing with fantasy when she’s the boss of a Russian gang in New York, prone to carrying an Uzi around at all times. But I have to say, a hot girl with a firearm still works wonders and another flaw of this movie is that they didn’t have more of it. Like Max, there’s a noticeable lack of bloodshed on her part. First, we don’t see the hot sister of her character naked and second we don’t get enough of her kicking ass. Do they not know what to do with women in an action movie? Oh, wait. They kill the “bad sister” horribly. Yeah, they do know.

NOT EVEN THE LUCK OF THE IRISH COULD HELP
Beverly Hills Chihuahua is down to number four, followed by Pride & Glory at number five and this was my big “almost saw it” movie of the week. What stopped me? Well, first of all the new trailers pretty much let you know that Colin Farrell is a dirty cop from the beginning, whereas the original trailers left it ambiguous. Not a good move. Second, it’s over two hours long and I just didn’t see two hours worth of film in the trailers. I just didn’t. Third, Colin Farrell is in it, so how good could it be? Seriously, the Curse of the Vanity Fair “Next Big Thing” Cover has dogged this man so relentlessly we had to go and get a new hot, short Irishman to replace him (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). I mean, has he made a good film since? He first turned heads in Tigerland, but since then it’s been S.W.A.T., Phone Booth, The Recruit, The New World, Ask The Dust and most noticeably the disaster that was Alexander (he wasn’t the star of either Daredevil or Minority Report, not that they were good). And while I enjoyed Miami Vice, I won’t pretend it wasn’t flawed. He, Matthew McConughey and Gretchen Mol should form a support group.

NOTICE CLONE WARS WASN’T ALLOWED TO HANG AROUND THIS LONG
The Secret Lives of Bees is down to number six followed by W at number seven and Eagle Eye down to number eight! Eagle Eye is still around!?! Seriously!?! What the fuck? Everyone is sucking Spielberg’s dick for this to still be given theater space.

THANKS, BABE. WHAT WAS YOUR NAME AGAIN?
Body of Lies is down to number nine and where’s Sharon Stone? Considering the only reason both Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio were in the woefully underappreciated Spaghetti Western homage, The Quick & The Dead, is because as producer she fought for both of them, they should have put in a word for the woman who paid their rent for awhile 13 years ago when she was the bigger star. Ungrateful bastards.

THE OLD GENERATION OF PRETTY BOY
Finally, Quarantine closes out the top ten at number ten and also in this looking for a little career boost are Jay Hernandez (who went down this road before with Hostel, showing you how little it can actually do you) and the former Mr. Christina Applegate, Jonathan Schaech. Let this be a warning to you, Zach Efron.

DEATH SAID, “MUTHAFUCKA, CAN’T YOU SEE? YOU STANDING ON MY GODDAMNED FEET.”
Blaxploitation lost a legend with the passing of Dolemite himself, Rudy Ray Moore. If you don’t know who he is then I want you think of the dumbest Black exploitation film of the 70’s, then think of one of the ugliest black men you’ve ever seen as the star speaking regularly in rhyme (he’s now considered a godfather of Rap) and add an all-girl kung-fu army. And that still doesn’t do it justice. At least it was meant to be funny, as it was based on Rudy Ray Moore’s stand up routine.

ANOTHER MYTH BITES THE DUST: NOT ALL BLACK PEOPLE ARE FUNNY
The new fall season’s rollout has finally come to an end and it’s not on a high note. Chocolate News is the latest attempt by a Comedy Central to duplicate a successful show. They say they’re not going to be like The Daily show, which is their first mistake, because there’s a lot you can do with a show that specifically focuses on mocking news with a minority involvement. I mean, you’ve got a Black guy who might just become president. You’d have to be incompetent not to have a field day with that. I personally would do a regular feature about how pissed off Jesse Jackson is that it’s not him. It would write itself! Instead it’s just a bunch of dumb sketches the world could have lived without.

A DIRTY DEED DONE DIRT CHEAP
I won’t pretend I’m the biggest AC/DC fan in the world, but it is nothing less than blasphemy that its new album can only be found at a Wal-Mart. If you didn’t know just how dead the music industry was, now you do. You’d think they’d have the dignity to just give up rather than go this route.