REMEMBER SANTA IS "SATAN" MISSPELLED

WHILE YOU'RE BUSY LOOKING FOR A TOP TEN THIS WEEK, I'M STEALING YOUR PRESENTS TO SELL FOR CHEESE MONEY. SEE YOU NEXT WEEK.

STILLEARTHED

1. The Day The Earth Stood Still/ Wknd/$ 31.0 Total/$ 31.0
2. Four Christmases/WB Wknd/$ 13.3 Total/$ 88.0
3. Twilight/Summit Wknd/$ 8.0 Total/$ 150.1
4. Bolt/Disney Wknd/$ 7.5 Total/$ 89.0
5. Australia/Fox Wknd/$ 4.3 Total/$ 37.9
6. Quantum of Solace/Sony Wknd/$ 3.8 Total/$ 157.7
7. Nothing Like The Holidays/Over Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 3.5
8. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa/DreamW Wknd/$ 3.3 Total/$ 170.0
9. Milk/Focus Wknd/$ 2.6 Total/$ 7.6
10. Transporter 3/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 2.3 Total/$ 29.3

STILLEARTHED
The Day The Earth Stood Still opens at number one and this is actually two movies: the first half, is a perfectly serviceable remake of a classic science fiction movie, while the second half is a piece of crap science fiction with lots of special effects and no logic. Now the original film was a very Cold War motivated film (this time it’s about the environment) whose message of peace was so out of place, the government refused to help them make it while they were filming in Washington D.C. It’s so well done you overlook some of the sillier aspects of the film, like only two guards on giant spaceship and robot in the nation’s capital. And believe it or not, I didn’t lose my geek shit over the announcement of a remake, because I was interested in seeing perhaps a more realistic take on government response and the role of our now 24/7 media. The movie immediately scored points with my by shifting the location from DC to New York, because why would you go DC if you wanted to speak to all the nations of the world? But some of the flaws of the original unavoidable, such as, if you have all this technology, why don’t you just broadcast to all nations of the world yourself? ‘Cause then you’d have no film. As I said, the first half is fine. Klaatu lands, the world freaks out, but in a nice modern touch, scientists are organized, not just the military. The stupid “shoot the alien” scene remains and it’s stupid because even amongst other countries the orders are always, “do not fire unless fired upon” but we’re going to risk an interstellar war from a guy offering a handshake? Even in the first they at least had device in his hand that could be mistaken as a weapon. Here it’s just contrived. But other than that, it’s still enjoyable---until it utterly falls apart in the second half. The title comes from the moment Klaatu stops all electricity on the earth to show them just who they’re fucking with. That still happens and you know what happens next? The credits roll. I shit you not. Unless a reel was missing from my theater, we’re just supposed to assume that the power comes back on and this teaches humanity a lesson, (otherwise they knocked us back into the dark ages). Well, that and Gort wiping out half of New Jersey. What makes the first film work is that Klaatu goes undercover and forms a human bond. Not here. Granted modern technology and attitude has the US Government putting out photos of Klaatu as one of America’s Most Wanted, so he can’t just blend in like the first film. But it doesn’t really matter since they made the decision to keep him as a total alien (something Keanu was born to do). He doesn’t really bond with Jennifer Connelly and her stepson. In fact, they make the stepson hostile to aliens, further hampering any sort of bonding moment, making Klaatu’s inevitable decision not to destroy the earth mystifying because we see absolutely no reason for him to change his mind. Another addition to this misstep is that there’s a second alien who has been here for 70 years and fathered children. Now he has a bond and even while he insists that humanity is beyond redemption, he will stay with them in their destruction because he loves them. Again, it would be different if he insisted we had the capacity for change, but he does not so I wonder what was even the purpose of his role. Watching this I got the feeling it was made by people who’d never really seen the original, but had only read a synopsis which is why they had zero idea of what made the first one work.

FOR CHRISTMAS THEY’D LIKE A LITTLE OVERSEAS BANK
Four Christmases is down to number two and even more mysterious than the people who are still seeing this is that even at $88M, it still hasn’t turned a profit. The thing about Christmas movies about families is that your biggest expenses are the actors involved and fake snow. That’s it. There are no special effects and no one really cares about shooting on location. It’s all just one set of a house. Maybe two. So why did this cost $80M? Well, Vince Vaughn was proven last year to be one of the most profitable actors around, so you figure he’s getting $20M+ and Reese Witherspoon hit the highest paid actress mark a few years back at $25M, so we’re talking $40-50M before one foot of film has been shot! This means it’s pretty much a $40M film, which would have made double its cost by now. You could have hired Teri Polo and John Cusack and saved yourself a lot of money.

THE TITLE NOW APPLIES TO HER BANK BALANCE
Twilight is down to number three and apparently the director isn’t coming back due to the fact she was “troublesome.” Now usually what that means with a woman is that she dared to have an opinion, but we’re not talking any major artistic talent here so eventually I predict you will find out that the studio had no idea what kind of back end deal she’d be getting for sequels (they’re already going to be coughing up eight figures to get the two leads back) and decided she had to go. Terrence Howard to cut loose from Iron Man for also being “troublesome” but as it turned out he was the highest paid cast member and they could get another Oscar nominated Black guy (Don Cheadle) a whole lot cheaper.

ART IMITATING LIFE
Bolt is down to number four and believe it or not, the hamster is voiced by a guy who actually looks like him (an animator who was only doing the voice temporarily but they liked it so much he got the gig). That’s hysterical, cute and very sad.

BAD TO WORSE
Australia is down to number five and somewhere Russell Crowe is laughing that he dropped out of this because they weren’t paying him enough. Until someone reminds him what he did do instead was Body of Lies.

LOVELY RITA METER MAID WILL HAVE A BLADE IN HER SHOE
Quantum of Solace is down to number six and it wasn’t until after the film was over that I realized that the name of the redheaded girl Bond sleeps with was Strawberry Fields. Take that you fuckers who think these new Bond films are too serious. I’m looking forward to such characters as “Abby Road” “Penny Lane” and of course “Eleanor Rigby.” And yes, they will all die in an interesting manner.

PELICULA ESTUPIDA DE LA NAVIDAD
Nothing Like The Holidays opens at number seven and I will not see my beloved Debra Messing sullied by playing the wife of John Leguizamo. Where the fuck is Easi Morales? Benjamin Bratt? Not this fugly little bastard with his weird teeth. But what really turned me off was the exchange over the dinner table when she asks why are they all fighting? “They’re not fighting, they’re conversatin’” Oh, ho-ho-ho. The earthy wit of those passionate Latinos, learnin’ the silly White girl about how a real family behaves with made up words that supposedly better convey emotion that real ones. This is such sad fucking cliché that’s used constantly and it’s not always about race. This could just as easily be an exchange between a Jewish guy and his WASP girlfriend, the working class guy with his rich girlfriend, or the bohemian guy with his lawyer girlfriend. This is an utterly bankrupt imagination at work. And what the fuck is up with the casting? Elizabeth Pena and Albert Molina as John Leguizamo’s parents? They’re too young! Were Hector Elizondo and Maria Conchita Alonso too busy? And if Luis Guzman is also playing her son, we should just give them jet packs and ray guns because then it’s completely divorced from reality.

YES, EVERY INCH THE DOUCHEBAG YOU THINK HE IS
Madagascar: Back To Africa is down to number eight followed by Milk back into the top ten at number nine as its roll to Oscar glory continues. And apparently Sean Penn thinks he’s going to save Lindsay Lohan from herself. Given Penn always tends to go boff a younger woman whenever he separates from Robin Wright, I’d say he’s got another brief split on his mind in the near future.

THE END
Finally, The Transporter 3 closes out the top ten at number ten.

OCEANS 5
So apparently the new TV season never stops as Leverage started on TNT with yet another Oscar winning actor finding a new life on the small screen, Timothy Hutton. The basic premise is that he’s an ex-insurance investigator using a team of the very people he used to chase to right wrongs of evil corporations after his very own insurance company refused to cover the treatment to save his son’s life. The first episode was interesting enough, especially the team members of the insane thief and the hacker. Their flashbacks were high point of it all. With the thief we see her at six with her father telling her she’d either better not cross him or become a better thief as he takes her bunny. The next scene she’s standing outside hugging her bunny smiling---while her house blows up behind her, presumably with mom and dad inside. The computer hacker is shown at16 using Mick Jagger’s credit card in a luxury hotel where he’s filled it with hookers dressed as Princess Leia in the Slave Girl outfit fighting each other with light sabers. When security bursts in he says, “These are not the droids you’re looking for.” That he’s black only adds to his geek appeal for me. There are other team members, but not nearly as much fun. But their personalities aside, it turns into a con/heist flick and I hate those and cons and heists are what they’ll do in every episode. Also, in the pilot they’re doing it for money and revenge. First for money, then for revenge when they’re double-crossed. Now, they’ve all got millions but are doing this for the greater good? A bunch of people who are shown to be sociopaths? I don’t think so. I’m gonna have to be pretty desperate for entertainment for me to watch this again.

IT’S SO EASY TO MAKE ME HAPPY
But you know what is good? Batman: Brave & The Bold on The Cartoon Network. This is the latest Batman animated series and they get progressively lighter each time, but they still manage to maintain the same level of quality. This is based on the longtime team-up book from DC Comics. It started off telling the stories of The Silent Knight and Robin Hood, then became a book about various superheroes who lacked their own book, as well as being a jumping off point for new creations like the Justice League of America and the Teen Titans. It later became a book teaming up various superheroes until ultimately becoming a book where Batman teamed up with various superheroes and sometimes supervillains. What makes this show work is that it is done just for fun and quite frankly had the best interpretation of Aquaman I’ve seen in a long time as a boisterous good-natured person who likes telling you the tales of his adventures, which he’s prone to naming rather obviously (his adventure with the sunken nuclear sub is called “The Adventure of the Sunken Nuclear Sub”). And for hardcore geeks, the art style is based on Dick Sprang, who help define the look of Batman in the 40’s and 50’s.

KUNG FU, BROADS, BOOZE AND CUPCAKES. THAT’S HOW I ROLL.
Now, two weeks in a row with the Jezebel girls is unusual. I mean, frankly I’m just too damn old do it, but one of the girls from online was going to be in town so we had little meet and greet and again I was forced to go to Brooklyn. I’m always late to these things because they take place on Friday and that’s my kung-fu night. This night in particular was the filming of a video to be shown on public access about our particular style. No, I’ll never tell you when it airs because I look particularly fat in my kung fu pants with the sash. Especially when standing next to one of the instructors, who looks like a combination of Taye Diggs and Don Cheadle and has absolutely no bodyfat as far as I can tell. After that, I ran down to the lower East Side to pick up the cupcakes I was bringing. Yes, those cupcakes. Those wonderful lemon cupcakes, which are probably why I look like a whale in my kung fu outfit. The gathering was also partially to cheer up another Jezebel whose boyfriend not only decided he wasn’t ready to be a father (she’s four months pregnant) but also that he’d been cheating on her. With other men. He’s also black and a cop. Yes, it’s one of those trashy “downlow” novels come to life and is so absurd you almost have to laugh. I promised her first choice of cupcakes because in my mind that cures everything. The Jezebel visiting from out of town had her own story as her father is a major honcho at an oil company in Alaska and utterly despises Sarah Palin’s husband because he’s basically a moron who was given a job as union rep as a political favor. She also thought I was 29, so she’s my bestest friend ever. But the best part of the night was that there were still cupcakes leftover. I’m eating one as I write this.

HELP FOR THE ELDERLY
Because I’m not 29, I have no idea what the new music is and am so dependant on shows like Fearless Music and sadly, TV commercials, which is nothing short of embarrassing. People like me are how artists justify letting their stuff be used to sell shit. “Let It Rock” by Kevin Rudolph is used in the commercials for the new season of “24.” Apparently this was already a hit for the real kids, which is why I’m just finding out about it. His whole album sound pretty much like that and that’s okay by me. Sometimes all you want is half an hour of semi-cheesy pop rock with a slight hip-hop influence and that’s all it is. Now, Cornershop is nowhere near new and when I heard them a decade ago, I didn’t care for them. I thought they were a little too pop-cutesy. So imagine my surprise that’s them doing "Candyman" in the Nike commercial with LeBron James and from the very album I dismissed. Who knew an Indian guy from England in a pop band could get funky like that? I thought for sure because Lil’ Wayne is in the commercial that it was once of his songs. Ironically, Kevin Rudolph is on his label and he’s in that song.

LEMON CUPCAKE IS ANOTHER NAME FOR HEAVEN

1. Four Christmases/WB Wknd/$ 18.2 Total/$ 70.8
2. Twilight/Summit Wknd/$ 13.2 Total/$ 138.6
3. Bolt/Disney Wknd/$ 9.7 Total/$ 79.3
4. Australia/Fox Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 30.9
5. Quantum of Solace/Sony Wknd/$ 6.6 Total/$ 151.5
6. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa/DreamW Wknd/$ 5.1 Total/$ 165.7
7. Transporter 3/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 4.5 Total/$ 23.4
8. Punisher: War Zone/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 4.0 Total/$ 4.0
9. Cadillac Records/Sony Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 3.5
10. Role Models/Universal Wknd/$ 2.6 Total/$ 61.7

YOU REALIZE THERE’LL BE ANOTHER VINCE VAUGHN XMAS MOVIE NEXT YEAR, RIGHT?
Four Christmases holds strangely at number one and you people have no one but yourselves to blame with all the crap holiday films that come out every year when you keep making them successful. This isn’t awful, but it’s not two-weeks-at-number-one good. In fact, the best thing about it is how it’s giving good older actors some exposure. There was a time when Sissy Spacek was “the shit” so I enjoy seeing her whenever she pops up from time to time. I just wish it was in better stuff. Like Robert Duvall and Jon Voight and even Mary Steenburgen, she seems to realize this is just an easy payday and goes with it. At least she’s not playing a grandmother…yet.

YOU’LL NEVER BE TREKKERS, YOU PUNKS
Twilight actually rises to number two and the kids must have heard me ranking on them for not supporting this film more and went out for another round.

MAYBE ALL THE BOTOX USERS IN THE WORLD SUPPORT HER
Bolt is down to number three, followed by Australia at number for which is now shaping up to be a yet another failure for Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, which is totally disproportionate to their fame. You look over Hugh Jackman’s resume beyond X-Men and you’re going to see one failure after another. Similarly, you look at Nicole Kidman’s history and you’re not going to find a lot of money-makers either. How do they remain stars? Apparently it stopped being the measure of a movie star long ago. I understand Hugh Jackman’s success is partially because every woman and quite a few men want him, but I don’t think every man and a few women want Kidman. I mean, I’m actually kind of a fan and she annoys even me.

THE “M” IS FOR “MOM”
Quantum of Solace is down to number five and are there no other double-O agents that M has so much time do devote to James Bond? She flies to Italy, Bolivia and Russia in this movie because of him. What happens to all the other agents who need her in this time. “I need to speak with M only! It’s vital!” “Sorry, M’s away with 007. Can I help you, 008? Hello? 008? Hello? Sigh. We need a new 008!”

BISHOP 2.0
Madagascar: Back To Africa is down to number six, followed by Transporter 3, down to number and I don’t watch Prison Break, so I have no idea what it means to have the actor who plays Tea Bag (perhaps the greatest name for a character in prison, ever) here or how different or alike the characters are. All I know that is whenever Lance Henriksen can’t make it or turns someone down or needs someone to play his brother, this is guy you call. Hey, this opens any Alien movies to him!

BUT THE KING WILL ALWAYS BE “DAMN, TERMINATOR.”
A man’s existential crisis is not among the things to expect to find in The Punisher: War Zone, opening at number eight this week, but there it was. Some dude who at first seemed to be your typical moron yelling out his comments at the screen during the previews, suddenly became introspective when he said, “I ain’t gonna say another word in the movie, y’all. I ain’t gon’ ruin it for you…just know you die, they look over your body say ‘I’m sorry’ and then they gone. Just keep going.” I was torn between yelling at him to shut the fuck up and yelling at him, “That’s what they’re supposed do. You mourn and you move on. You don’t dwell. When you dwell, in your own way, you die too.” But he was as good as his word and was pretty much quiet for the rest of the movie. Or maybe it was stunned silence over how they cannot get something as simple as The Punisher right. This is the second best Punisher movie ever made, but given that only puts it above the Thomas Jane version, isn’t saying much. That it’s still behind the Dolph Lundgren version says even less. At least they finally get the casting right with none other than Titus Pullo himself, Ray Winstone, a man who looks like he’d kill you for even jaywalking. It’s sad it took them 20 years to cast a dark and dangerous looking man to play a dark and dangerous man and not some fucking blonde. Also they finally get the amount of bloodletting right, as when The Punisher truly ascended in the 80’s to the point where he had a couple of comic books (they even released one just about his weapons) he was as noted for how he killed criminals as anything else, sometimes in a darkly comedic fashion. Let me put it this way: one of The Punisher toys we sold at St. Mark’s Comics was of him torturing a guy. The freaking toy! That’s here in spades, reaching a peak when he kills an acrobatic criminal in mid-leap with a rocket launcher, blowing him to bits (at one point he also punches his way through a man’s head). But like every Punisher movie to date they maintain a total disregard for the intelligence of the audience, starting with the depiction of the criminals, which looks like a Godfather parody, but sounds like a 30’s gangster parody with every actor speaking in terms of “Dese, dems and dose.” At any minute I expected to see either Sonny Corleone or Edward G. Robinson pop out---then get blown to bits with a rocket launcher. I mean, is it so much to ask that you not have The Punisher walk down the street in full regalia, with weapons exposed and not have anyone notice him!?! And if you’re looking for a criminal who’s doing a deal about a weapon being brought into the country, you’d think that place WITH HIS NAME ON IT IN NEON BY THE DOCKS would be the first place you’d go, but not the law enforcement here. It’s only in scenes where the movie seems to embrace its own absurdity that it works, such when the lead criminal, Jigsaw (one of the rare Punisher villains to live in order to make repeat appearances) begins recruiting gangs to help him fight The Punisher, under the twisted premise that they are an minority that no one cares for and the only way to achieve “justice” is to take upon themselves to do so---just like The Punisher. He does in front of an American flag with music swelling behind him. It the entire movie had just run with that-over-the top approach it might have been a better film.

I SPELL T-Y-P-I-C-A-L
“I’m the muthafucka!?! I’m the muthafucka!?!” Now I love that Cadillac Records (opening impressively at number nine while in less than a thousand theaters) went balls out for the “R” rating in terms of sex, violence and language in its depiction of the rise and fall of Chess Records, in contrast to movies like Ray and Walk The Line where it seems men could be rich and famous womanizers and/or drug addicts and not curse once or see a naked boob (Chuck Berry has no less than six in once scene here), but “I’m the muthafucka” as the dramatic anguish of a character simply does not work and borders on parody. Sex, language and violence aside, this is just a typical bio pic, depicting an enormous amount of time and numerous events with as little depth as possible, so one minute Adrian Brody is a polish immigrant (with a New York accent) living in barely a shack unable to marry the girl he loves, the next minute he’s running a club and has a totally different girl as a wife. One minute Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright who apparently can’t do a bad job in anything) is playing on the street, just talking to Gabrielle Union, the next he’s in her bed and the next they’re married. I understand you can only show so much, but in this case the movie has a narrator who could and should easily fill in all these blanks. Also, almost every artist shown had a recording career before showing up at Chess, but this movie makes it seem like Leonard Chess discovered them. But this does avoid the most common bio-pic commit the sin of not putting the accomplishments of the characters in any sort of context. While Walk The Line appropriately showed Johnny Cash as an initial contemporary of Elvis Presley, they ignored just where his accomplishments stood in light of the events of the 60’s. Ray was even worse, because you wouldn’t even know any musician besides Quincy Jones existed in Ray Charles’ lifetime by that movie. This is better because it has to be: Chuck Berry (wonderfully played by Mos Def) is defined by his times as is his story. You have to mention Elvis and The Beach Boys because one stole his rightful title as the King of Rock & Roll and the other ripped him off. Similarly, The Rolling Stones make an appearance here (the movie’s only truly poor casting) because they took their name from a Muddy Waters song. This actually three movies crammed into one. The first part of the movie is the best, The Muddy Waters Story. It contains the most detail (and I use that word loosely) and the best performances including Wright as Muddy Waters, Eamonn Smith as Howlin’ Wolf and Columbus Short as the self-destructive Little Walter. Cedric The Entertainer continues his journey to be a real actor as the film’s narrator, Willie Dixon (but if he really wanted respect he’d drop that stupid stage name). This story pretty much ends when rock & roll and Chuck Berry’s story begins and the movie would have done better by itself to give him a similar amount of detail, as the few bread crumbs they throw out are pretty interesting (Berry is initially booked into a club that thinks he’s a white country singer). Like his initial career, Chuck Berry’s story is cut short by his arrest, which is where Etta James and her story begin. Beyonce is…not as bad as you might expect and it helps that the entire film is not about her, but you aren’t going to get the kids in to see this with a real actress. Like the others, they not only ignore Etta James already had a significant career before she wound up at Chess, but they use the legend of her discovery, and stick Leonard Chess into it. Also, her drug problem most likely came from being on the road with Little Richard doing that time, so how could you miss out on putting Little Richard in your movie? And creating some sort of fictional romance with Leonard Chess was unnecessary and always begs the question: if you have make things up, why are you doing a bio pic anyway? Finally, I get you put Beyonce in the movie to get the kids in. We didn’t need to end with Q-Tip crapping, I mean rapping over a “Mannish Boy” sample in Chess Studios to show the music “mattered.” That’s as insulting to the intelligence as The Punisher walking down 6th Avenue.

THE END
Finally, Role Models closes out the top ten at number ten.

LEMON/SEE THROUGH THE SKYLIGHT…
I won’t try and describe the immense pain that went through my body upon receiving an invitation to a “My Last Night As A 23-Year-Old Party.” Let’s just say that grandpa made sure to take a nap beforehand. And of course this was the night that it started snowing. And I missed my subway stop. Then walked in the wrong direction. See, you shouldn’t let grandpa out without his medicine or a nurse. He’ll just get lost. This girl was of course one of the Jezebels, so it was like a mini gathering of them. Actually it was more Jezebel A, as since our first big initial gatherings we’ve kinda split off into two groups. The group I’ve been drinking with the most and with whom I watched the elections, is Jezebel B. Jezebel A is a very appropriate designation, because they are more “Alpha” and the “B” group is more laid back. As it was, the evening was short because, like true Alphas, more than a few were tired from an “Alpha Saturday” of running around. But before that two wonderful things happened: 1) a friend of one of the Jezebels from Virginia told the most amazing stories of bad southern weddings, including one with a---wait for it---Civil War Reenactment theme (sadly they didn’t go the extra mile and make the differing sides of the families wear Blue and Gray), and 2) we went for cupcakes on the lower east side at one of the Magnolia offshoots and I had a lemon cupcake that has changed my life. I have to have more. The only thing saving me is that they are so far away.

THE FOREST GETS EMPTIER EVEN WHEN THE SMALL TREES DIE
And so Death begins her year-end rush to get people in. Minor stars Nina Foch and Beverly Garland died. They were both in their 80’s so it was nice long life. Nina was Bithia in The Ten Commandments, while Beverly Garland was most famous for Roger Corman movies Swamp women and Not of This Earth, and continued the geek into her later years, playing Lois Lane’s mom on Lois & Clark. Speaking of which, Patricia Marand, who played Lois Lane on Broadway in “It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane, It’s Superman” passed away. And speaking of the geek, none other than Forrest J. Ackerman also passed away. Also gone is Paul Benedict, who aside from playing Mr. Bentley on The Jeffersons, was The Mad Painter on Sesame Street