WU TANG IMPROVES EVERYTHING

1. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps/Fox Wknd/$ 19.0 Total/$ 19.0

2. Legend of the Guardians/Warners Wknd/$ 16.3 Total/$ 16.3

3. The Town/Warners Wknd/$ 16.0 Total/$ 49.1

4. Easy A/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 10.7 Total/$ 32.8

5. You Again/Touchstone Wknd/$ 8.3 Total/$ 8.3

6. Devil/Universal Wknd/$ 6.5 Total/$ 21.7

7. Resident Evil: Afterlife Wknd/$ 4.9 Total/$ 52.0

8. Alpha and Omega/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 4.7 Total/$ 15.1

9. Takers/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 1.7 Total/$ 54.9

10. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 1.2 Total/$287.1

WALL STREET: C.R.E.A.M. STARRING THE RZA.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps opens at number one and I passed on this because I remember all too well the suckage that was Wall Street 20 years ago. It was the most heavy-handed morality play you could ever dream of, with poor Hal Holbrook being forced to give the very definition of a one-note performance. Favorite bad part: while Hal Holbrook is spouting off another one of his homilies, Charlie Sheen is looking at his reflection and they literally “darken” it. Get it!?! He’s following the dark path! Get it!?! It’s so bad I’ve never, ever had any interest in watching it again. Subtlety has never been a part of Oliver Stone’s oeuvre and he hasn’t gotten any better with age, especially when he feels he’s teaching his audience a lesson like here. Casting Shia Lebouf didn’t help as I’d rather not see his face onscreen. It’s sad too, because I love when New York is made to seem like a playground for the rich and glamorous. It’s the only reason I put up with the anemic Gossip Girl every week.

WHOOOO ARE YOU? HOO-HOO, HOO-HOO (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?)

Legend of the Guardians opens at number two and computer animated owls at war directed by the man who brought you 300 and Watchmen? Again, I think I’ll sleep in instead. Yeah, it looks pretty, but that’s a given with a Zack Synder movie and it’s simply not enough if you don’t care about the subject matter. I mean seriously, it’s not like it’s cool like eagles or falcons or ravens; it’s freaking owls. I mean, they may technically be birds of prey, but know of any football teams named “The Owls”? Exactly.

YEAH, IT USUALLY MEANS YOU’RE NOT GOOD LOOKING ENOUGH TO LEAD, BUT STILL

The Town is down to number three and Ben Affleck knows how build a solid supporting cast. This is filled with recognizable faces, but they are people who are as solid as fucking oak. You’ve not only got Chris Cooper as Affleck’s father (he instantly elevates anything he appears in because the man apparently never heard a “B game” only it bringing it A-style), but his usual drawl gone and replaced with a “Bah-stun” accent. Also here is Pete Postlewaite as an Irish mob boss, again providing a solid foundation for other people to work with. And sorry, as much as I like Blake Lively and that she’s trying to broaden by playing roles like this, she needs all the help she can get from the people around her.

THEY SHOULD HAVE GIVEN BEN AFFLECK A CALL

Easy A is down to number four and speaking of solid supporting casts, there’s a great one here with Stanley Tucci gone from being a dependable weasel to the supporting male of choice for actresses young and old. Great with Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada. Great with just Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia and will probably be great in the upcoming attempt to duplicate The Devil Wears Prada with Cher and Christina Aguilera in Burlesque. But while that looks like crap, he’s got an easy chemistry here with Patricia Clarkson and Emma Stone and more should have been done with it. Also wasted is the comic timing and deadpan of Thomas Haden Church, while Lisa Kudrow as his wife makes the most of her small role as his wife a far-from-perfect guidance counselor. And Malcolm McDowell is given one moment to shine and never used again. What the fuck!?!

JUST BECAUSE IT WORKED WITH LINDSAY LOHAN, JAMIE…

You Again opens at number five and I couldn’t be more disinterested completing the hat trick of mainstream releases I could give a rat’s ass about. Seriously, I’ve no patience for people dealing with high school issues after high school. It’s over. Get over it. It’s made doubly pathetic by the oh-so-clever idea that the mother still has high school trauma from a relative of the girl who caused her daughter’s trauma. Ooh, so clever! So now you get two generations of actresses being utter wasted. A better film would have had the character be over it, but when she meets her old nemesis finds out that she’s just as evil as she was in high school but is only hiding it. That way your protagonist isn’t pathetic but forced back into a situation. And honestly, I just don’t like Kristen Bell. She’s a TV star, not a movie star. There’s a sitcom somewhere with her name on it.

AND MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL!

Devil is down to number six and also in this is Parker Posey and remember when she was the indie “It” girl? Do they even have “Indie It Girls” any longer? Oh, yeah they do. That’s what Zoey Deschanel was and kinda still is. Sadly, like so many “It” people Parker never ascended like we hoped like we hoped and instead winds up doing mainstream crap like this to pay the bills. How crappy is it? She’s not even credited for this on IMDB. It’s as if the shame were too much. If that’s the case she should take Blade: Trinity and Superman Returns off as well.

WHORES, EACH AND EVERY ONE

Resident Evil: Afterlife is down to number seven, followed by Alpha and Omega at number eight and is there anything sadder than this being the last film of Dennis Hopper? Pray there’s something else in the can. At least we know why he did it (golddigging young wife), but let’s take a look at who else is here going for an easy paycheck… Justin Long and come to think of it I haven’t seen any Mac commercials recently…Hayden Panttiere and she’s about two seconds from soft-core porn her fall from “Hot Young Thing” to “Who?” has been so drastic…Christina Ricci, who could explain to Hayden how precarious it is to be a frat boy sex symbol and how you really can’t make a career on it…Danny Glover, which just makes me sad…Chris Carmack, who had the immortal line of “Welcome to The OC, bitch” but again, you can’t build a career on it and he hasn’t…and finally Vicki Lewis, who once jokingly said she was going to sue Kathy Griffin for copying her NewsRadio personality. She might want to look back into that. Kathy’s got some loot now and could it be worse than doing this?

LOOKS LIKE THIS COULD BE THE END

Takers is down to number nine, followed by Inception, finally closing out the top ten. But we’ve said that before.

OOH, YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND

The new TV season has started up in earnest this week and we should be ashamed as a nation that we can’t find a better show for the greatness that is William Shatner. Shit My Dad Says, an adaptation of a fucking Twitter blog, sucks as much as you’d expect an adaptation of a fucking Twitter blog to suck. It’s simple: the Tweeting is funny because the shit his father says actually is funny. This show is not funny, because none of the shit any of the characters says is funny. Undercovers is the continuation of a tradition going back to Hart To Hart and The Thin Man of a sexy couple having adventures (Mr. & Mrs. Smith didn’t create it, kids, they just added firepower). And boy did they up the sexy. You will not find a prettier couple on prime time TV. And I’m thinking they got a pretty writing staff too, because ugly people write better than this. But if they give me shots of her amazing ass with that British accent every week, I promise I really won’t care. Equally pretty but not playing it up is Chase, the new show about a blonde US Marshal (In Plain Sight is the other one). Aside from the striking blonde lead, the cast includes Cole Hauser, Jesse Metcalfe and the chick who played Tasha on The L Word. She finally gets to smile. Hawaii 5-0 is also very pretty, but it still sucks. It’s every dumb action movie you’ve ever seen in your life, note-for-note, cliché-for-cliché but lacking in any sort of appeal from the actors that makes it tolerable. Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger made dumb action movies, but carried them off due to their movie star charisma. Alex O’Loughlin (as Steve McGarrett) is a pretty boy with zero charm or personality so he can’t even begin to carry this off (he’s also lacking Jack Lord’s amazing hair) and is getting no help from the writing. His father is murdered (action movie plot cliché), but despite being a native of Hawaii (thank you clunky expository dialogue), there’s no one at his funeral at Pearl Harbor (where his grandfather died, thank you again, clunky expository dialogue) that Steve knows, but a high school buddy working nearby as a security guard!?! Scott Caan has second generation personality as his reluctant fish-out-of-water partner (action movie character cliché), but he’s not the star and isn’t helped by the pretty but bland Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park who is as only as good as her material, because she was a lot better than this on Battlestar Galactica. Also the costumes hid how freaking skinny she was, so if you’re going to keep stripping her down, give her a sandwich. But hey, points for casting two Asians from the same ethnic background as relatives (they’re both Korean). This pilot was actually directed by Len Wiseman, who directed the first two Underworld movies and Live Free or Die Hard and it’s becoming more and more apparent how lucky he got with Underworld (yes, this includes stealing Kate Beckinsale from Michael Sheen), because it remains the best thing he’s ever done (yes, this includes Kate Beckinsale). Best part of the whole show was the re-creation of the opening credits with McGarrett on the balcony. I gave Detroit 1-8-7 five minutes before checking out never to return. Just can’t do another police procedural. And you know, people have made music in Detroit other than Motown, so enough on the goddamn Temptations.

GRATEFUL DEAD

Death once again taunted Mickey Rooney with the release he so desperately craves by taking Eddie Fisher (father of Carrie and all around douchebag) and Kevin McCarthy, who starred in one of the best science fiction films of the 50’s if not of all time: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He also made a cameo in the excellent 70’s remake playing a character with the same name. And he was in the very underrated Innerspace.

A MOVIE STAR AND A GUN

1. The Town/Warners Wknd/$ 23.8 Total/$ 23.8

2. Easy A/Screen Gems Wknd/$ 18.2 Total/$ 18.2

3. Devil/Universal Wknd/$ 12.6 Total/$ 12.6

4. Resident Evil: Afterlife Wknd/$ 10.1 Total/$ 43.9

5. Alpha and Omega/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 9.2 Total/$ 9.2

6. Takers/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 3.0 Total/$ 52.3

7. The American/Focus Wknd/$ 2.8 Total/$ 32.9

8. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 2.0 Total/$285.2

9. The Other Guys/Sony Wknd/$ 2.0 Total/$115.4

10. Machete/Fox Wknd/$ 1.7 Total/$ 24.3

YOU CAN GET MORE WITH MOVIE STAR AND A GUN…

Softhearted men who commit violent crimes are a staple of films and The Town, opening at number one, adds another one with Ben Affleck as the kindest, smartest armed robber in all of “Baahstun.” And of course, where you have smart guy looking to get out, you have his violent, hair-trigger best friend since childhood and yes, there’s one here too (played by Jeremy Renner). And of course Smart Guy was once involved with Hair Trigger’s hot, slutty sister, played by Blake Lively in her best “I wanna come wit youse” working class accent (and by “best” I mean “inadvertently funniest”). We even have Jon Hamm as the squared jawed G-man out to get them. And in the thankless role of the higher social class good girl he hopes to leave all this for is Rebecca Hall. Oh, and did I mention “the last big job” that of course goes wrong? Between this and Gone Baby Gone, Affleck clearly wants to be the Scorsese of Boston and he’s not bad at it, but if he really wants it he’s going to have to embrace the darker side of everyone’s nature. Some much-needed grit is loss with Ben Affleck’s character being so saintly (did I mention he’s also a recovering substance abuser, so he’s not drinking or doing drugs either). After all, he’s walking into a bank with a loaded assault rifle. He’s clearly taken on the concept he might kill someone. And he says repeatedly he’s willing to die rather than stay, but shouldn’t that mean he’d also be willing to kill to get out? Even when he does something bad like assault and battery, it’s to a bunch of punks who threatened his new girlfriend and trashed her car. And even then his best friend shows us what real bad is by shooting one in the kneecaps. He’s doing bad things, but he doesn’t own them which is a bit disingenuous as a filmmaker and clearly playing to guaranteeing audience sympathies for his lead character. Jon Hamm as the FBI agent conveys more menace as the good guy than he does. He makes it clear he’s willing to hurt people to get what he wants.

SIXTEEN MEAN GIRL CANDLES DAY OFF

Easy A opens at number two and this should have been better. A teen movie with a smart female lead mocking the idea she’s a tramp should have been ripe with opportunity for satire and social commentary and while it starts well, it loses its way with wasted characters and worship of 80’s teen movies. The burden of having started off with a smarter-than-average movie is you have to keep it up until the end and this just doesn’t do that. Emma Stone is a smart, softhearted girl who decides to parlay a rumor about her being slutty into helping a gay friend hide in the closet. Wait. It’s 2010 and this is in California. Why the hell is he going back into the closet? How is he the only gay kid in school? Also, is she the only girl in school having sex that it even matters? Aren’t the kids today having blowjob parties? Why would this even remotely be an issue? Okay, fine. I’ll just go with it. As it happens, he tells some of his friends the truth and they go to her for similar lies seeing help for their social status and despite an ugly threat to just slander her anyway, she decides to accept payment for faking hooking up with them in some manner---which leads to rumor she’s not just a slut but a hooker. Now that’s just a little too sordid to be taken as lightly as she takes it and that’s pretty much when the movie goes off its smart rails. Even when a rumor of an STD comes up she decides to take the hit in order to help someone and she’s just too smart for us to believe she’d be that stupidly nice (or that the school wouldn’t have called her parents by this point with her wearing bustiers with a Scarlet A on them). Also beyond the annoying self-righteous Christian clique this high school is strangely devoid of any others. How can you make a movie about a girl mocking or challenging social order is you don’t show what the social order is? And they’re just shrill prudes with no more to them, much less hypocrisy, which makes no sense if you know anything about these purity types. They’re usually fucking more than anyone. Also, short shrift is given to other characters, starting with her hot, yet equally virginal blonde friend who seemingly becomes upset that Emma Stone’s new slut status makes her the “alpha” in their relationship. This might have been interesting if she or the movie seemingly given a crap about. Given that smart people usually have smart friends, it makes no sense her Blonde Friend wouldn’t have been a partner somewhat in all this, but seems no more connected to her than anyone else at school, which also brings up the question why is someone so nice and conventionally pretty seemingly friendless? Answers like these we don’t have, but we’re got time for a montage of the best teen movies of the 80’s. And I take fucking issue with Can’t Buy Me Love being included as one of them. No, sir! Not even a little. Though given that was about a guy paying a girl for an imaginary relationship to improve his social status it should have had greater meaning to this movie.

SUBMITTED FOR YOUR APPROVAL, A ONE TRICK PONY GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER

The Devil opens at number three and how long is M. Night Shamalayan going to get away with dragging out Twilight Zone episodes into full-length films? Seriously, this is nothing but a Twilight Zone episode. Why the fuck would I pay to see this!?! Not to mention it stinks of “twist” and you can usually see them coming for a mile. He didn’t direct it, but it “comes from his mind” which means he fell asleep watching a Twilight Zone marathon again and woke up with an idea.

LUCKILY KATHERINE HEIGL NEEDS BLAND PRETTY BOYS FOR HER MOVIES

Resident Evil: Afterlife is down to number four and also in this to show you how brief “heat” can be is Wentworth Miller. Yeah, smoking hot for a hot second with Prison Break (and was even playing a young Anthony Hopkins in The Human Stain) and now he’s the fourth lead behind Mila Jovovich, Ali Larter and the use of 3D. Choose wisely when you’re on top, kids. Choose wisely.

BECAUSE DOGS AND CATS DIDN’T CONSUME ALL THE NO-TALENT HACKS

Alpha & Omega opens at number five and again, this is why Pixar rules. This is an abomination of imagination, made clear in every single second of the trailer and don’t think kids can’t tell the difference. There was zero laughter when this ran before Despicable Me. But because parents will always need a big screen babysitter, crap like this will continue to be made.

IF LOOKS COULD KILL, FASHIONS WOULD ANNIHILATE

Takers is down to number six, followed by The American at number seven and also in this is Thekla Reuten whom you’ve no real reason to know but is notable here for her super-chic wardrobe. It’s not often you see a female assassin who looks like she walked off the pages of Vogue. Wait a minute. Actually you do. They’re always beautiful and well dressed. Never mind.

IT ALSO STOPS WHEN THE LIGHTS COME ON

Inception actually rises to number eight and this is clearly the cockroach of summer movies, impossible to kill.

HOPE THAT FUNNY OR DIE THING IS WORKING OUT FOR YOU

The Other Guys is down to number nine and can you believe this cost $100M? Which means that at $118 worldwide it is far from any kind of blockbuster hit. At best it didn’t lose any money. Now can we return Will Ferrell to supporting status behind Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn?

HOLLYWOOD: WHERE FUGLY MEN GET THEIR HIGH SCHOOL REVENGE IN CASTING CHOICES

Finally, Machete closes out the top ten at number ten and I was talking a young woman who was horrified at the fact that fugly-ass Danny Trejo gets to bed down every woman he meets in this movie. I tried to explain to her those were the rules of the 70’s exploitation film (not to mention hard core porn). Guys like Joe Don Baker and Rudy Ray Moore were getting laid all the time onscreen. But she was only 23 and had no idea who they were, much less what they did, so I took my Geritol and sat in silence.

Mötley Crüe - Looks That Kill
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HOTTIES: THE NEXT GENERATION

1. The American/Focus Wknd/$ 13.1 Total/$ 16.3

2. Machete/Fox Wknd/$ 11.4 Total/$ 11.4

3. Takers/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 10.9 Total/$ 37.4

4. The Last Exorcism/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 7.4 Total/$ 32.2

5. Going The Distance/WB Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 6.9

6. The Expendables/LionsGate Wknd/$ 6.7 Total/$ 92.2

7. The Other Guys/Sony Wknd/$ 5.3 Total/$106.8

8. Eat, Pray. Love/Sony Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 68.9

9. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$277.1

10. Nanny McPhee Returns/Universal Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 22.4

FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU; FOOL ME FOUR TIMES AND YOU’RE A CLEVER HACK

Resident Evil: Afterlife opens at number one and I saw the first and it sucked. I was sucked into the second by the promise of hot women in short skirts with guns and it still sucked. And it had Mike Epps. I decided not to be a three-time sucker and passed on Resident Evil even though I later discovered Mike Epps died, and I’d have paid money to see that. Now we have the fourth film and even though there’s no Mike Epps, Paul W.S. Anderson remains a crap filmmaker successfully keeping his wife, Mila Jovovich, on the B list with his B-list movies. All his movies are movies that had the potential to be much, much better. Even if they were enjoyable like Mortal Kombat and Death Race, they were still screaming out to be so much more and that it happens with every film shows you it’s him and no one else. And now his next film---one of the Three Musketeers movies coming---is a stab at “A-list” status with Orlando Bloom. I guarantee it will be the suckiest of the two. That Mila Jovovich is in it as M’Ladyt De Winter pretty much guarantees this. She should have been The Black Widow over Scarlett Johansson and saved from her husband.

DARWIN WOULD BE PROUD

Takers is down to number two, followed by The American at number three and here we have an instance of déjà vu as the beautiful Italian actress who is nude (and how) conducting a romance with a mysterious American on the run is Violante Placido, who is the daughter of Simonetta Stefanelli (man, these names are great) who played the doomed Apollonia in The Godfather, who was nude and conducted a romance with a mysterious American on the run. Some of us are just born hot and it then their duty to be naked as much as possible (they also both posed for Playboy). And she is. And curved like a mountain pass, looking like a woman, not a little girl. Actual pubic hair helps.

TRULY A NATIONAL TRAGEDY

Machete is down to number four and Steven Segal chose this over The Expendables? He can go sit in the corner with Jean Claude Van Damme who at least is going to be a voice in the Kung Fu Panda sequel. What’s Segal got going? Lawman on A&E? What kind of law enforcement entity lets this buffoon and a bunch of cameras represent them on nationwide television? Louisiana? Jesus, just when you thought you knew how bad Katrina hit them, you realize it was even worse than that. So bad they have to whore themselves out to Segal, probably just to buy bullets.

ORIGINALLY THEY ATTENDED A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS CONCERT

Going the Distance holds at number five and you can tell how long a script has been sitting around based on how much modern technology plays into it. In this for example, Drew Barrymore is trying to become a newspaper reporter and Justin Long works as an A&R man and while they give lip service to newspapers being in trouble the word “blog” literally comes up only once. Once. She’s person dying to be a reporter where newspapers are in trouble and working for a website never, ever comes up. And while they at least give lip service to the trouble facing newspapers, everything is peachy in the world of music for Justin Long, which is odd given it was the internet that killed the music business as well. He’s also the world’s dumbest A&R man given he’s trying to find a job closer to her, but he only looks in San Francisco where she lives, rather than say Seattle or LOS ANGELES!!! I’m figuring this script is from the early 90’s. Yes, there’s some token texting and videoconferencing, but when it comes to the phone sex scene it makes zero sense they wouldn’t have used it for the video conferencing. Unless, of course, you know it was written when Bill Clinton was in office. His first term, given how they don’t seem to acknowledge Seattle as a place where music is made, putting this pre-grunge.

REMEMBER WHITE TIGER? OF COURSE NOT.

The Other Guys is down to number six, followed by The Last Exorcism at number seven and The Expendables at number eight, and I have to give Stallone points for having C-List action star, Gary Daniels in this. If you know anything about straight-to-video action, you know this dude had his own minor career in the early 90’s actually appearing in the film version of Fist of the Northstar (it’s okay if you don’t know what that is). He was like an English Jean-Claude Van Damme in that he actually competed in kickboxing in real life. He was also about the same type of quality actor. But if you dug up Gary Daniels, where are Michael (American Ninja) Dudikoff, Sho (Enter the Ninja) Kosugi, Jeff (The Perfect Weapon) Speakman, Cynthia (Too Many Crap Movies To Mention) Rothrock and Don “The Dragon” (Bloodfist) Wilson!?! If we’re gonna do this, let’s do this!

HERE’S WHERE I MAKE MYSELF ANGRY OVER THINGS THAT HAVEN’T HAPPENED YET

Inception is holding at number nine and from a $160-200M budget has made over $700M worldwide. Profitable even before DVD and it needed to be given it only made $200M domestically. I can’t even say this is the future of movies, because it’s been like this forever. But this second massive hit makes me fear for the next Batman movie and the next Superman movie, which Christopher Nolan will be overseeing, but not directing. This much success means a lot of creative freedom and even in the The Dark Knight you saw far too much self-indulgence and not enough critical scrutiny. Also here, things just go on a leeeeetle bit too long. Seriously, if I had to watch that van fall backwards one more time…

THE END. THANK GOD.

Eat, Pray Love closes out the top ten at number ten.

MY BEST FRIEND HAS RETURNED

The new TV season has started, which is bad news for me given my DVR is already at 92% (I’m trying to clear it out as I write this). First up is Hellcats and grown women in cheerleading outfits is a recipe for heaven for me. At least I thought it was before I saw the very porn-star looking lead actress. Sorry, but she’s a little too hard looking to be playing a college girl and they needed to dial her look back about a thousand percent. Yeah, she’s playing a tough girl, but there’s a difference between “I’ve seen some pain” tough and “I’ve seen a lot of ball sack” tough. Also, out of all the actresses and dancers in LA, you couldn’t find people with actual dance and athletic ability to play these roles? It’s made even worse by the presence of people with actual skill being shown in the “audition” scene. I suppose hers is a name to get the kids in, but Ashley Tisdale talking about how she can bench twice her body weight (which admittedly would only be about fifty pounds) is about as plausible as her discussing her doctorate in micro biology. Not to mention this all takes place in a mythical Memphis where only one person has a southern accent and I find myself torn between not hearing bad accents as opposed to ridiculously not hearing any at all. Also I was expecting some trashy soap opera fun, but this likes to pretend it respects cheerleaders as athletes but didn’t bother to hire any and the plot requires her to beat out dozens of trained cheerleaders because she watched a video one afternoon. Also starting up this week was Nikita, the third American incarnation of the French film, La Femme Nikita (Point of No Return, La Fenne Nikita The Series came before it). In this one we pick her up after she’s escaped from the government rather than watching her act as a secret agent. Shows about secret government groups that kill foreign leaders crack me up because when was the last time you ever heard of a diplomat dying period, much less on American soil? The fact of the matter is, governments have an odd gentleman’s agreement not to bump each other off, because they don’t want to be bumped off. Maggie Q is the star this time around and she seems poised to take away the title of “The Hot Asian” from Lucy Liu. It was much better than I expected, mainly because a lot of the footage shown in previews hadn’t been processed yet giving it that professional sheen. Also, there’s a nice twist at the end and given how much Covert Affairs wound up sucking, I need a new show where a woman kicks ass. Terriers also started up and it’s nothing new. An alcoholic ex-cop turned private detective in LA. You’ve seen it before, but it’s all in how you do it and this does it well. In this case they’re so scruffy they’re not even legally private detectives, but it goes classic Raymond Chandler in the first episode with a case of missing girl turning out to be about corruption and the rich and powerful and it looks to be a continuing plotline. Also, I like Donal Logue and Chandler’s legendary “knight in tarnished armor” character suits him.

AND GET OFF MY LAWN WITH YOUR AUTO-TUNE!

Why do I watch the MTV Awards? I don’t know anyone any longer and the people onstage are literally young enough to be my children. Where are the VH1 Awards so I can feel like I belong?...so we open up with Eminem and to show how quickly the transition happens, when he first blew up I was well aware of him and all his music. Now, this is probably the second time I’ve heard this song…why is Rhianna dressed like Madonna? And I hope this song of domestic abuse is cathartic for her, because it’s a little creepy for me…Elizabeth Banks is hosting? Oh, no. It’s Chelsea Handler…glad to see someone gave Lindsay Lohan a job…“Hi, mom. I got a dancing job. Yeah, I’ll be the guy on Chelsea’s left grinding on her! Is dad there? Why doesn’t he want to talk to me!?!”…seriously? A Justin Bieber lesbian joke? Time to fast forward…My god. How much botox is in Elle Degeneres’ face!?! And I never notice these things…how long have they been promoting this Brett Michaels reality show about his kids?...Jared Leto’s shitty little band is still around and getting recognition!?! Do the kids know this fucker is like 35!?! Yeah, I guess he’s still pretty…honestly, Justin Bieber does not bother me. Every generation has one. Getting mad at him is like your great great grandparents getting mad about the Frank Sinatra kid that made your great grandmother swoon. And he did single-handedly get rid of The Jonas Brothers who did truly suck, even for teen pop idols…I won’t lie. I hate Trey Songz simply because I hate his name. I’ve never heard him sing a note, but I hate that dumbass name. And dressing like Ming The Merciless won’t change my mind…Usher bores me performing. There’s no love lost for the late Michael Jackson, but they’re all really poor imitations of him. Hell, he was a poor imitation of himself by the time he died. And when did Usher stop doing R&B for this generic dance music?...how old am I? I’ve read about Florence and The Machine, but never heard them. That’s old, baby. But I like this, so the night hasn’t been a total waste…I liked Gym Class Heroes, but the front man’s solo work sucks balls…is this weird ass performance commercial by Pharell and I think Ciara (remember her) really going to convince some kid to convince their parents to buy them Chevrolet?...Taylor Swift really needs to write Kanye West a check. He did more for her than her songs…do you know how wussy you have to be to make Justin Timberlake look like a man? Well, you succeeded, Jesse Esienberg...I hate Swizz Beatz for the same reason I hate Trey Songz even though he’s a producer. Drake I’m indifferent to…let’s call it like it is: Sofia Vegara is the new Charro…I do like B.O.B. and his song with Bruno Mars was the song of the summer for me, not that “California Girls” bullshit. And I’ve always loved Paramore so this is the highlight of the show for me…ROBYN!!!! I can’t believe she only got a minute while we got half an hour of Usher Aerobic Workout...You know why Linkin Park is elsewhere? Because they didn’t want to feel old either…and then my DVR stopped recording and I don’t care what happened next.

MY OTHER BEST FRIEND HAS RETURNED

Football started! And my Falcons lost to the fucking third string quarterback!?! Are you shittin’ me!?! Well, at least Dallas lost.

B.o.B - Nothin' On You [feat. Bruno Mars]
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BECAUSE NO ONE TAKES "THE CANADIAN" SERIOUSLY

1. The American/Focus Wknd/$ 13.1 Total/$ 16.3

2. Machete/Fox Wknd/$ 11.4 Total/$ 11.4

3. Takers/ScreenGems Wknd/$ 10.9 Total/$ 37.4

4. The Last Exorcism/Lions Gate Wknd/$ 7.4 Total/$ 32.2

5. Going The Distance/WB Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 6.9

6. The Expendables/LionsGate Wknd/$ 6.7 Total/$ 92.2

7. The Other Guys/Sony Wknd/$ 5.3 Total/$106.8

8. Eat, Pray. Love/Sony Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 68.9

9. Inception/Warner Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$277.1

10. Nanny McPhee Returns/Universal Wknd/$ 3.5 Total/$ 22.4

ALSO EUROPEAN: EXCESSIVE FEMALE NUDITY

The American opens at number one and this is a very “European” effort from George Clooney, which is to say, it’s a tad slow, lacking in pyrotechnics and filled with lots of music-free scenes with people who stare ominously at one another and almost never smile. I’m not talking about just the main characters, which are obligated not to embrace a happy emotion, but extras sitting in cafes. We’re very, very serious here, people. Not like that Hollywood silliness. This very serious motion picture is about the lion in winter, in this case a professional assassin who finds himself in the odd position of being hunted, not knowing whom or why. Taking refuge in a small Italian town, he finds himself still breaking cardinal rules by starting a small friendship with a priest and an unlikely romance with a prostitute, because even in take-themselves-too-seriously art films, hooker still have hearts of gold and fall for the leading man. Especially if said leading man looks like George Clooney who goes down on them and sodomizes them in rapid succession. Don’t try this at home, kids, because I really don’t think any amount of head is going to get you spontaneous anal sex and trigger romance no matter what you look like. They probably should have looked at that scene one more time because I don’t think they realized how ultimately silly it was. Also, we’re supposed to feel his paranoia at not knowing whom to trust when it’s pretty clear where the threat is coming from and even he knows it as evidenced by his actions. Also all the hit men are Swedes, so basically any blondes who show up are best shot on principle.

SOMEWHERE THE PRODUCERS OF BLACK DYNAMITE ARE PISSED

Machete opens at number two and this is basically a joke that took a life of its own. Originally a faux trailer from the Grind House movie from Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, someone thought it would be a good idea to make it for real, but as we’ve seen recently even with Grind House there’s really not that big an audience for spoofs of 70’s exploitation films from competent directors, much less Robert Rodriguez who just sucks as a filmmaker and I’m tired of giving both him and Kevin Smith my money hoping they’ll get better. They’ve never really risen above their amateur origins of with films borne of credit cards and moxie filled with promise. Now it’s just incompetent water treading. I’m pretty sure “introducing Don Johnson” is probably as funny as this gets and given there’s no superstar presence like Johnny Depp or Antonio Banderas, that’s not really Lindsay Lohan nude and neither Jessica Alba (finally playing Latina) and Michelle Rodriguez get nude, there’s no need for me to see this. But the trailer made specifically in the wake of Arizona was funny.

FUNNY HOW CHICKS DON’T DIG GUYS WHO BEAT THEIR GIRLFRIENDS

Takers is down to number three and this was supposed to come out last year, but Chris Brown single-handedly fucked that up. Though honestly it’s probably for the best, because at that point he was at the height of his fame and it probably would have been pushed as the “Chris Brown” movie, whereas the commercials today steer the look of film firmly in the direction of T.I. and Paul “Pretty Boy” Walker, clearly to the film’s benefit.

SAVING MILLIONS ON TRIPODS

The Last Exorcism is down to number four and this is yet another film shot with the nausea inducing shakey cam, faux documentary style and given it’s made thirty times its budget, you can bet your sweet ass more are coming so grab your nausea bags.

FUCKING ROMANTIC

Going The Distance opens at number five and romantic comedy whore that I am (especially when they’re made in NYC), I saw this mainly because unlike far too romcoms this one was rated “R” and wholeheartedly embraced that. People forget the first five minutes of Four Weddings & A Funeral consisted of the word “fuck” being said over and over again. Also, while Drew Barrymore and Jason Long “meet cute” over the arcade game of Centipede (glad to see the classics are still around for you fucking hipsters), there’s no pretense or bullshit romance about them hooking up just hours after they meet (after getting stoned no less!). Little touches like this and the hint of rawness make the clichés that do happen (seriously, a montage of dating?) bearable and give the movie a spark of energy it might ordinarily lack, because it’s not reinventing the wheel here and doesn’t really go anywhere you don’t think it might, though one really obvious cliché is mercifully overlooked, both times you see it up the road. Still, someone needs to tell Drew Barrymore she ain’t one of the young people any longer and even though they play lip service to her age (you ain’t 31 either, sweetie), it’s made clear every time she stands next to someone legitimately young how old she really is. This is the same sandtrap Jennifer Anniston has been in for a few years now which is why her movies blow. She’s clearly a full grown adult, but playing a role that belongs to someone a decade younger and no one is buying it. It’s like watching George Clooney playing a slacker. By a certain age, you just don’t deal with romance the way did when you were a kid and you look silly trying to. But again, to this film’s credit they aren’t playing people who are that young and so they deal with the situation of being apart somewhat maturely. Maybe that’s why it didn’t do better. People want stupid wacky hijinks in their romcoms like painfully contrived situations and old people who say outrageous things. Yes, Sandra Bullock, I’m looking at you and the steaming pile of shit that was The Proposal.

THE 90’S WERE SOOOO LONG AGO

The Expendables is down to number six and also in this is Charisma Carpenter, better known to Buffy and Angel fans as Cordelia. She should consider herself fortunate that she’s here as Jason Statham’s love interest and not Stallone’s, because usually a woman in her late 30’s, early 40’s almost always has to prop leading men in their 50’s and 60’s. Also, she’s not required to do a “I don’t see anyone else giving you a job” nude scene, which is a massive failing on the part of this film (she’s already done Playboy). If she refused, I’m sure Denise Richards would have stepped right in with no complaints.

ETC…

The Other Guys is down to number seven, followed by Eat, Pray, Love at number eight and Inception still around at number nine.

THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK!

Finally, Nanny McPhee closes out the top ten at number ten and for those like me who laughed, this fucker has made $86M worldwide off a $35M budget, pretty much guaranteeing McPhee 3.

LIKE I NEED A REASON TO WANT TO SEE EXCALIBUR

Not breaking the top ten any time soon is Centurion, a story about the legendary 9^th Calvary of the Roman Empire who disappeared during their failed attempt to pacify England. Basically, The Picts wiped them out. I do believe it was only a few years ago they finally found their remains. But rather than an action film about seven survivors trying to get back home, it’s more a thinly veiled analogy about Vietnam. The Picts use guerrilla tactics to fight a technologically superior military force and eventually wear them down. Sound familiar? Even though end credits thank director Walter Hill, suggesting The Warriors (which itself is base on a story from Ancient Greece), it’s clearly aimed at modern empires that send their men off to fight and die for little more than the pride of a country. We know this because the narrator and star (Michael Fassbender) speaks ruefully how soldiers are sacrificed. I’m sure the producers were a bit shocked to get such a downbeat actioner from the Neil Marshall, the man who brought the world the over-the-top Doomsday. But despite its weighty subtext, it’s still got it’s heart in Hollywood, with no small amount of bloodletting and the lead Pict hunting them being the gorgeous former model Olga Kurylenko whose troublesome Russian accent is neutralized by her character being mute. Not to be confused with the bloodthirsty beautiful blonde Pict (the director’s wife) or the beautiful exiled Pict who, of course, falls for our kind hero. In a way this can be seen as the prequel to the recent King Arthur movie that starred Clive Owen. While this ends at Hadrian’s Wall being built to keep The Picts out as Rome pulls back, that begins at Hadrian’s Wall as Rome flat out plans to leave. Also, here we have a romance between a Roman and a Pict, while Arthur in that film is the son of a Roman and a Pict. There’s also The Last Legion, which is also about King Arthur and also has a sub-plot about what happened to the 9^th Calvary. This actually made me want to see either of those again, just to lighten the mood.