THE RIGHT (WING) KINDA LOVE

1. High School Musical 3/Disney Wknd/$ 15.0 Total/$ 61.8
2. Zack & Miri Make A Porno/Weinstein Wknd/$ 10.7 Total/$ 10.7
3. Saw V/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 10.1 Total/$ 45.8
4. Changeling/Universal Wknd/$ 9.4 Total/$ 10.1
5. The Haunting of Molly Hartley/Free Wknd/$ 6.0 Total/$ 6.0
6. Beverly Hills Chihuahua/Disney Wknd/$ 4.7 Total/$ 84.1
7. The Secret Life of Bees/Fox Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 25.3
8. Max Payne/Fox Wknd/$ 3.7 Total/$ 35.6
9. Eagle Eye/Par-DW Wknd/$ 3.4 Total/$ 92.5
10. Pride & Glory/Warner Wknd/$ 3.3 Total/$ 11.6

WHEN HARRY FUCKED SALLY
High School Musical holds unsurprisingly at number one while on the opposite end of the spectrum, Zach and Miri Make A Porno opens at number two and the title gives you a heads up as to the biggest problem with this movie: it’s dated. From the title on down this feels very much like an idea Kevin Smith had in 1995 but is just getting around to making. He says he just told Harvey Weinstein the title and got a greenlight and that makes sense, because it doesn’t feel as if anyone thought this through. First of all, the current vernacular is actually “sex tape” and if it’s of the more professional variety, people say either “porno movie” or “porn.” And if you were being cutesy, you’d say “dirty movie” but that wouldn’t cause the very mild controversy this film desperately needed for some extra attention. But beyond that, the very plot makes no sense. They’re broke and need money, so they decide to make a porn movie. Um, it costs money to make a movie and you won’t see a return for months, which isn’t going to help if your power is out right now and you’re literally building a fire in your living room like they are. But even though they do hit up a friend for money, why not just do it online? It’s 2008. How does an online site never enter into this? Also, Seth Rogan’s initial selling point is that their former classmates would be their initial source of revenue, but we see they were either barely remembered or unpopular to begin with, so why would anyone pay to see them? It would be different if Miri were the former prom queen or Zack was the class brain everyone thought would ultimately be successful. Everyone loves to see the top dog fall. And Miri is unwilling to fuck a stranger on film, which is why it has to be Zack, but she’s won’t simply go to the local strip bar for quick loot? This plot hole is made even more apparent when they go to strip club to recruit talent. And even when we overlook all these plot holes, the initial story is a stock-in-trade cliché. Once they have sex, things get complicated between the friends-since-first-grade. God forbid maybe it’s Miri who decides she likes fucking on film and it’s only Zack who feels the stirrings of romance. Or how about no fucking romance at all!?! As someone with 99% female friends I assure you it is possible to know someone attractive and not harbor some lingering torch for them. This annoyed me with When Harry Met Sally and it annoys me now. God forbid anyone make a movie where friends bone and remain just friends. If Kevin Smith were operating in the here and now rather than the 90’s, he’d know of the concept of “friends with benefits” which two people in their late 20’s like Zack and Miri would be very familiar with and probably practiced it so fucking on film would hardly cause complications. Of course we need to suspend our disbelief that someone who looks like Elizabeth Banks would fuck someone like Seth Rogen under any condition. This is unintentionally tested by Elizabeth Banks lusting for literally Superman, as Brandon Routh turns up as her high school crush who is now gay and dating a male porn star---and if you thought that logically, they’d both be involved with their, you thought wrong. That makes too much sense (the porn star should have been the one to come up with the idea and convince them to do it) and given how funny it would have been, would have needlessly improved this film. The simple fact is, Judd Apatow has totally replaced Kevin Smith and his amateur hour productions (you’ve been doing this for 15 years! If you’re not a director now, you never will be so let someone else do it!) and co-opting a few of his stars is not going to help you. The only advantage Smith still has is that he gives more weight to his female characters---which is to say any at all.

MOVIE VS. ANOTHER DRINK? GUESS WHO WON?
Saw V is down to number three which is a sign this franchise might finally running out of gas given this was a Halloween weekend. If you can’t get money out of drunks in costumes, then you can’t get money.

YOU THINK GUESS HE FEELS LUCKY, PUNK?
The Changeling opens at number four and no, this is not a remake of that horror movie with the rocking chair that no one saw, but Clint Eastwood’s annual Oscar-bait movie. Every fall he releases something that is a seemingly attempt to Academy voters want to cream in the jeans, and this year is no exception. Angelina Jolie is a mother-fighting-the-system in this “based on a true story” offering and the real question is how was this not a Lifetime/Oxygen TV movie before now? I like Angelina Jolie, but am no fan of Eastwood’s sparse direction. For some movies it’s best to just let things unfold with little fanfare, but other times we need a vision and Eastwood rarely (if ever) offers you one. Oh, and it’s over two hours freaking long. That’s a lot of dry toast to eat.

PRETTY SCARY
The Haunting of Molly Hartley opens at number five and again, how sad is it to open this poorly on a Halloween weekend? Granted this had next-to-no advertising, which is surprising given the Gossip Girl pretty boy, Chace Crawford is in it, not to mention of the new 90210 girls. You’d think that alone would have been enough to leverage out a few more ducats for advertising, but apparently not. I personally would have gone back for reshoots and included a shower scene with him so useless and gratuitous, you’d think it was gay porn.

HOLY CAREER DERAILMENT
Beverly Hill Chihuahua is down to number six, followed by The Secret Life of Bees at number seven and Max Payne down to number eight and I can’t decide who is more surprising to see onscreen in this, Chris O’Donnell or Nelly Furtardo? Yeah, that Nelly. I’m gonna go with Chris O’Donnell because once upon a time he was a leading man. Or, was supposed to be. He was part of the School Ties crew, which included Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. He then blew up in Scent of A Woman (a horribly overrated movie) and the godforsaken Three Musketeers remake that I’m sure everyone is trying to forget, including Rod Stewart and Sting, who did that awful song with Bryan Adams. His heartthrob status was cemented with of the worst “Oirish” accents in history in Circle of Friends. Then came the beginning of the end: Batman Forever. After that came Mad Love, Love & War (where they had the nerve to cast him as Ernest Hemmingway), Batman & Robin and the final nail in his coffin: The Bachelor. Zach Efron, are you paying attention? One minute you’re on the top of the world and the next you’re lucky to be the guy who can’t bone Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy.

I HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND SHE IS ME
Eagle Eye is still hanging around at number nine and Pride & Glory closes out the top ten at number ten and also in this is Carmen Egojo and she’s best known to (if at all) as Eddie Murphy’s girlfriend in the underrated Metro. She might have had a better career had it not been for Thandie Newton, who was also an insanely pretty, half-African, half-English actress (though technically Carmen’s mother is Scottish) who also played Sally Hemmings (Thandie on the big screen, Egojo on TV) blowing up at the same time in the late 90’s---except Thandie Newton’s buddy was none other than Nicole Kidman, who had Tom Cruise put her in Mission Impossible 2 (though he should have remembered her from Interview With A Vampire). This is why Thandie Newton is playing Condoleezza Rice right now and Carmen is…here. I’m pretty sure Thandie being skinnier and willing to do full frontal nudity had nothing to do with it.

THEY CALL ME THE SEEKER…
It seems there was one last TV show to roll out: The Legend of The Seeker, based on the Sword of Truth series of books by Terry Goodkind, but without its gore or sadomasochistic sex. I’ve never read the books because 1) I don’t read books, 2) I’m not a lonely chick or gay 15-year-old boy and 3) fantasy sucks. But I did enjoy the show. It comes from the production team that brought you Hercules and Xena, so expect a lot of Australian accents slipping on regular basis, but the production values seemed to have improved and I actually enjoyed the cheesy slow motion sword fights (but I’m a sucker for a sword fight to begin with). They also realize how important their female audience is, as not only is the female lead the first character you meet, but the first thing you see after the title is the hero shirtless, showing us his 2% body fat because that’s apparently the only way to build a bridge in fantasyland. The story is the same as always: evil wizard, heroic prophecy, goofy-ass names, blah, blah, blah, but once you accept that it’s not a bad way to spend 45 minutes a week. Just give me my slow motion sword fights and I’ll be back.

NOW I KNOW HOW MARIA SHRIVER FELT
I’ve actually managed to see Dorito Cheeseburger Woman (Karyn Plonsky) twice in year without being in a hospital bed. We had dinner last week (cheeseburgers, naturally) where I learned that not only was she a Republican, but a pretty hardcore one at that. She actually “came out” as one in New York Magazine last in a feature on the supposed rarity of a Republican in New York (alongside her brother). You wonder how any actor can be that way given that show business is filled with two things: Jews and gays and the right wing has never been a big supporter of either, but it happens. In fact, it’s because of this that douchebags like director David Zucker calls it “the new gay” because you feel pressed to hide it. I advised her to qualify it in terms of working when she quoted him in the future, because it’s a little offensive to compare yourself to people who are literally killed for being the way they are. But she’s so down, she actually got to drive around the McCain press corps when both he and Sarah Palin were in town. You know how freaking squeaky clean you have to be to get that job? Oddly, enough this makes me more attracted to her because now it’s wrong. I’m thinking I should call up T-Pain and cut a single, “I’m N Luv Wit A Republican.” I’m working on the lyrics:

Out of all the girls she be the hottest
Trying to stop gay marriage, I see u girl
No right to choose
And she lookin at me
Wants prayer in schools
The poor suffer the pain
Yea yea yea
From cuttin’ capital gains
I need to get her over to my crib and do that night thang
Cause I'm N Luv Wit a Republican

She bannin’ them books that she burnin’
She startin two wars and
I'm N Luv wit a Republican
She deregulatin so stop hatin’
I'm not goin nowhere girl I'm stayin
I'm N Luv with a Republican

THE GOOD DEATH
Death decided she needed new books, because she took Studs Terkel and well as mystery writer Tony Hillerman. She also wanted to get her freak on, because recently she’s taken porn directors Henri Pachard and Gerard Damiano, director of the legendary Deep Throat. Bear in mind a lot of these guys were in their 80’s, so it’s not quite the tragedy you might think.