JUMP FOR MY CASH

1. Jumper/Fox Wknd/$ 27.2 Total/$ 33.9
2. Step Up 2/Touch Wknd/$ 19.7 Total/$ 26.3
3. The Spiderwick Chronicles/Par Wknd/$ 19.1 Total/$ 21.4
4. Fool’s Gold/Warner Wknd/$ 13.1 Total/$ 42.0
5. Definitely Maybe/Universal Wknd/$ 9.8 Total/$ 12.9
6. Welcome Home Roscoe…/Uni Wknd/$ 8.5 Total/$ 28.8
7. Juno/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$ 124.1
8. The Bucket List/Warner Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 81.1
9. Hannah Montana/Disney Wknd/$ 3.3 Total/$ 58.4
10. 27 Dresses/Fox Wknd/$ 3.2 Total/$ 69.9


THANKFULLY, NO POINTER SISTERS ON THE SOUNDTRACK EITHER
Jumper opens at number one and this blows not because it’s utterly ridiculous (it is) or that it looks like it was thrown together in a week (it does) or even because it lacks the simply whimsy to ever use Van Halen’s “Jump” or House of Pain’s “Jump Around” or David Bowie’s “Jump” at any time in the movie (it doesn’t), no this blows because it’s essentially a pilot for a series and not an actual movie committed to giving you a complete story. This movie is so concerned with setting up sequels it fails to cohere now. Based on teen novel, Jumper is about people who have the ability to transport themselves (and things) anywhere they can imagine, but are pursued by a crazy religious order intent on wiping them all out. This wasn’t part of the book, so obviously the screenwriters watched the Highlander TV show (where a group of human nutjobs decided that all the immortals were evil and set out to kill them all), not to mention X-Men comics, which also has this aspect. Needless to say this movie requires an incredible suspension of disbelief. No, not the premise. You either buy into that or not. No, it’s the realistic applications of the premise. See, for the fantastic to be truly effective it does need to be grounded in some sort of reality. This being the case, as neat an idea as it was to have Hayden Christiansen sunning himself on top of the Sphinx PEOPLE CAN SEE YOU ON THE TOP OF THE SPHINX! He simply couldn’t do it without being noticed! Also, the Paladins (the people hunting Jumpers) have figured out that an electric shock can prevent a “jump” but Jumpers don’t have the common sense to throw on some insulation? A wetsuit and some rubber boots and you can kick the crap out of all of them, no problem. But then you don’t really have a movie then, now do you? Not to mention if some religious order has been tracking these people that means governments must know and there’s no way in hell they’re going to allow such valuable weapons to be killed. Finally, if the Jumpers and the Paladins have been at war for centuries, how is there no organized Jumper offensive? You’ve just got the one guy fighting them (Jamie Bell) and the movie would have been better off being more about him or him with Hayden Christensen (Christensen actually calls it “Marvel Team-Up” showing you comic books read did have an influence on this) than it is with the puppy dog romance with Rachel Bilson, who seems to have turned into half-sized clone of Cindy Crawford. Nice, but I prefer a full-sized adult beverage, not the sippy cup.

THIS IS HOWJOHN TRAVOLTA BECAME THE BEST DANCER IN BROOKLYN
Step Up 2 opens at number two and while I hate to play the race card, imagine if you will a series of movies about a French baseball team. Yes, French. Imagine, while there were Americans actually in it, the best baseball players were still all French. This is how I feel about these movies where the best street dancers are White kids (worse yet is the trailer that shows some black guy freaking out because “Tyla Gage is in the buildin’!?!”). But the audience for this isn’t the minority population who created it, but the majority population who loves emulating the minority population. Ironically, I was actually forced to sit through the first half-hour of Step It Up by my sister and yes, only her cancer made that happen. A broken leg or elective surgery wouldn’t have gotten that. In that one you had the streetwise dancer meet the traditional dancer. Romance ensues. Here it’s the same story again, but the genders seem to be reversed, but if anything it’s even crappier dialogue. I don’t think there’s ever been a good movie made where one character speaks emphatically about the heart and guts of another character. Not. One. It’s only in bad movies that you get clichéd speeches like that. Even in 48 Hours they had the sense to make fun of Nick Nolte for saying it (“Just because you say it with conviction, it don’t mean shit to me!”). But no one goes for dialogue anyway. They go for the dancing and from an old man’s point of view it doesn’t look bad. And from a dirty old man’s point of view, watching that girl move in rain isn’t bad at all. I’m not buying her as a street kid but they do get points for not making her a skinny little blonde. Plus, I’m a sucker for a scratchy voice.

LORD OF THE GEEKS – A TRILOGY
The Spiderwick Chronicles opens at number three and I used to think that the most surefire ways of making easy money were drugs and porn, but now I see that the road to fast cash is fantasy children’s books. J.K. Rowling is the most successful author in the history of the printed word (beating out that God guy at number two with his Bible) and there doesn’t seem to be any end to similar works. Kid never seem to get tired of it, so I’m thinking I need to create a series of books about some geek who discovers he’s the foretold hero of some mystical land where no other men grow over 5’6” and maximize their penis length at 4 inches. Okay, maybe that’s more of an adult fantasy series, but you get where I’m going. I have no idea what this one is about and I probably never will.

PLUS THERE’S THAT “24” MONEY KEIFER’S BRINGING IN
Fool’s Gold is down to number four and is it just me or does Donald Sutherland always seem to have a shit-eating grin on his face when he makes these movies so obviously for the paycheck, as if to say, “I can’t believe I’m getting away with phoning it in like this at my age and I keep on working! I don’t even have to play the bad guy all the time like John Voight!” Obviously he took a page from the Michael Caine playbook on how to cruise your way into easy money in your golden years.

PROBABLY NOT
Definitely Maybe opens at number five and considering this was a long weekend coupled with Valentine’s Day, this is kinda of a failure for a romantic comedy. It didn’t get my dollar because it had a runtime bordering on two hours. Sorry, but nothing this frothy should be that fucking long. It’s a shame too, because it has nothing but likable actresses in the lead roles, though I don’t quite get how the girl has to figure out who her mother is in her father’s life and I think that was a problem for others as well. Ryan Reynolds continues to be an almost run star with a series of near misses. He’s got everything you need---looks, height, comic timing---but continues to make bad choices in films. To my knowledge, his only real hit that he has carried on his own was Van Wilder. What’s odd is that he seemed to be the guy you’d call when Jim Carrey wasn’t available, but even Jim Carrey briefly had his run when his shit didn’t stink. Ryan Reynolds has never gotten that far yet and he’s not getting any younger. But that’s the true test of stardom for a dude. If you’re paired with same age female stars as you get older, you’re not really a star. Only A-listers get to have their females leads pretty much stop at aging at 30.

THERE’S A REASON YOU NEVER SAW MARTIN ON SOUL FOOD
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins is down to number six and it’s worse than I thought for Joy Bryant and Nicole Ari Parker as they are the two love interests for Martin Lawrence. They have to split time with for Martin Lawrence while Will Smith is making a movie with a dog and CGI monsters. That’s gotta hurt. I think Joy Bryant probably did better because in real life she actually hooked up with fugly 50 cent, while Nicole Ari Parker is actually married to pretty boy Boris Kodjoe, who was her co-star recently presented as a date for Angie Harmon on Women’s Murder Club. She had to s-t-r-e-c-h.

TELL ‘EM TO KISS YOUR ACHY BREAKY ASS
Juno is down to number seven, followed by The Bucket List at number eight and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds at number nine and are we really getting up in arms about this girl not wearing a seat belt? Seriously? Billy Ray felt he had to apologize for this? She’s not on drugs, we’ve never seen her vagina in public and she’s not dating a parasitic drug addict. This is not an issue. Call me when she’s drunk driving with a joint hanging off her lips, then I’ll worry about her seat belt.

ISN’T A BACK UP PLAN LIKE ACCOUNTING?
Finally 27 Dresses closes out the top ten at number ten and I can’t believe this movie didn’t get a Valentine’s Day push from the studio given it’s done $86M worldwide and only cost $30M. What’s funny is that this is from Anne Fletcher, the director of the first Step Up movie. She started as a dancer, became a choreographer and is now a director. And Andy Tennant the director of Fool’s Gold started off as a dancer in none other than Grease. I hear Michael Bay did some time as “Boy In A Cage” at club Beef Jerky but that’s purely a rumor.

IT AIN’T HIM BABE
Not in the top ten but up for an Oscar is I’m Not There, director Todd Haynes visualization of the life of Bob Dylan. This is the epitome of an art film in that it could give a rat’s ass about you sitting there in the audience. This is someone utterly expressing their artistic point-of-view and everything else be damned. Your first clue is the two hour and fifteen minute run time. Your second is that Bob Dylan is never named once in the film. Instead, the character of Bob Dylan is given different names and played by everyone from Richard Gere to Heath Ledger to Christian Bale to Cate Blanchett. At one point he’s even played by a black kid going by the name of Woody Guthrie, singing the same types of songs until he’s told sing about his own times and not someone else’s. Unless you’re a huge Bob Dylan fan and have your head stuck up his ass, this is going to be a bit of a struggle for you, because so much of what goes on requires an intimate knowledge of his work and life. I know enough to get that Cate Blanchett plays him during his superstar electric conversion asshole phase as shown in Don’t Look Back and Christian Bale as the folk star just previous to that (and they both do uncanny impressions of him). I got that Julianne Moore was Joan Baez. I even got the Richard Gere segment was in reference to his appearance and work on the Pat Garret and Billy The Kid film from the 60’s (what no reference to Hearts of Fire the movie he did with Fiona in the 80s!?!), but to get what part of his life Heath Ledger is playing when the movie shows us that Heath Ledger is the actor who played the Christian Bale version of Bob Dylan is something else again. It is, in a word, as pretentious as all get out and it might have worked if not for painfully indulgent scenes like the Billy The Kid sequence (so dull all I could focus on was how much I liked the boots Richard Gere was wearing) and dragging out scenes that were initially interesting like Bob Dylan as a black kid named Woody Guthrie or Cate Blanchett as the superstar asshole. The most effective scenes are the ones with Christian Bale mainly because he doesn’t overstay his welcome. The Heath Ledger sequence however, only had morbid curiosity going for it, otherwise it was just an endurance test. And don’t get me started on the strange sequence involving Bruce Greenwood as an English journalist (he later plays Pat Garrett). This why I was so looking forward to seeing Jumper, which clocked in at 88 minutes and barely had any acting in it at all.

‘CAUSE I’M A FUNNY MUTHAFUCKA
There’s a book out now about Captain Kirk and his romantic adventures called Captain Kirk’s Guide To Women. This bothered me because it was a funny idea that I thought of first and didn’t make a dime on it. See, when I was working at the real estate agency there were times when there was absolutely nothing do. This was usually on the Friday of a holiday weekends when others had gone home and I was alone in the office sometimes until 7:00 that night. Obviously I tried to use this time to find a new job, but occasionally I’d use it to indulge chasing the dream of writing for a living. Once, there was actually a brief glimmer of hope when I returned home from work one day to find a message from none other than Tom DeFalco (longtime editor and writer at Marvel Comics) on my machine responding to my entree to become a writer for the re-launch of Cracked Magazine. Yes, the weaker sister of Mad was back and looking for writers for their more “Maxim” approach (yes, I was whoring myself). I wound up talking with two editors; one who got me and liked my stuff and another who was a clueless douchebag who was utterly confused by things like “Kevin Federline’s Guide To Hooking Up With Celebrities” “A Guide On How To Use The Race Card” and finally a fashion supplement on how more working class accessories such as miner’s helmets and tool belts could appropriated as high fashion the way welding goggles and work boots have been (yeah, that was definitely too highbrow for a douchebag). Still another was the cliché of magazine parodies and in one of them I’d used a similar Captain Kirk joke. So now, you can see a little of what Cracked Magazine (it re-launched in ’06 and died again in ’07) didn’t care for (some of the jokes may be dated):

YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME

1. Fool’s Gold/Warner Wknd/$ 22.0 Total/$ 22.0
2. Welcome Home Roscoe…/Uni Wknd/$ 17.1 Total/$ 17.1
3. Hannah Montana/Disney Wknd/$ 10.5 Total/$ 53.4
4. The Eye/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 6.6 Total/$ 21.5
5. Juno/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 5.7 Total/$ 117.6
6. 27 Dresses/Fox Wknd/$ 5.7 Total/$ 65.4
7. The Bucket List/Warner Wknd/$ 5.3 Total/$ 75.0
8. Rambo/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 36.5
9. Meet the Spartans/Fox Wknd/$ 4.1 Total/$ 33.9
10.There Will Be Blood/ParV Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 21.1

YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME
Fool’s Gold opens at number one and if this were 20 minutes shorter, I would have seen it, because I will give up 90 minutes for almost any sort of formulaic action movie or romantic comedy. But nothing that looks this stupid should ever take up almost two hours of your life. And it has been nothing short of roasted by the critics. I guess it’s no surprise that this comes from director Andy Tennant whose work is very spotty. He does these star-filled concept romantic comedies. On his resume are Ever After (Drew Barrymore), Hitch (Will Smith), Fools Rush In (Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek) and Sweet Home Alabama (Reese Witherspoon) and yes, I did see every single one of them in the theaters. Hell, Ever After and Fools Rush are on TV every other day. But eve when they’re good (Hitch and Ever After) it’s only by a nose and are more likely to just be pleasantly mediocre. But this looks bad. It doesn’t help that it stars Matthew (Shirtless) McConaughey (and if you haven’t seen Matt Damon do his riff on that, I’ve supplied it for you) and Kate Hudson, who only have one good romantic comedy between them and that was EdTV which, if you look at it now, was ahead of it’s time in its depiction on how a reality show could make someone a star. Hell, as near as I can see, Kate Hudson has only made one good movie in her life and that was Almost Famous (which may actually be enough). But I will admit to enjoying Le Divorce on cable, as crappy as it was. My McConaughey guilty pleasure is nothing less than Sahara, which is what almost made me see this, as it looked like a similar movie.

GENERIC FAMILY COMEDY #3 NOW IN BLACK
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, opens at number two and there was no way in hell I was going to see this, despite the fact that I do like director Malcom Lee, whose work includes The Best Man, Undercover Brother and Roll Bounce. But those usually had some decent talent involved, including Taye Diggs, Terrance Howard and David Chappelle. Here we have Martin Lawrence, Monique, Cedric The Entertainer and Mike Epps? Sigh. What do you think went though the mind of James Earl Jones when he saw he was cast with people whose history bordered on minstrel show? As I’ve said before, I’d pay Mike Epps not to work, so if this move was DOA with the presence of Martin Lawrence, then Mike Epps was not just the nail in the coffin, but the dirt on it, the headstone and the rain that stops me from visiting. And imagine how Joy Bryant and Nicole Ari Parker must feel stepping onto a set with absolutely no attractive men to be found anywhere. Also, given we’re dealing with 60-70-something parents and 40-something kids, shouldn’t there be a bunch of teenage kids running around. Isn’t this where you should have cast Raven Symone or Chris Brown or that kid from High School Musical who looks like the bastard child of Sideshow Bob?

SLUMMING OR WHORING OR BOTH?
Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Tour is down to number three followed by The Eye at number four and also in this as Jessica Alba’s sister is…Parker Posey? Excuse me? I’m all for color-blind casting, but since we know that’s not what’s going how much of a miscast is this? I mean you’re not going to find skin more porcelain than Parker Posey (casting her as an LA vampire in Blade Trinity was oddly appropriate) and Jessica Alba seems finally accepting that she’s not a white girl judging by her recent interviews and Revlon commercials. Ironically enough, Rachel Ticotin (best known to you as the “demure, sleazy, brunette” from Total Recall) is also in this, but is not playing a relative of Jessica Alba. Another indie mainstay, Allesandro Nivola, is also in this and if you know him at all, you probably think he’s English, since he’s usually playing with an accent. He’s not but did date Rachel Weitsz (with whom he had graphic sex scenes in I Want You) and eventually married another indie queen, Emily Mortimer). Between him and Parker Posey, could it be any more obvious this was merely a paycheck movie for all involved? Something to make the car payments until they could do something worth their time?

THIS IS NOT AMERICA
Juno actually rises from six to five and you know the editors of Vanity Fair are pissed they don’t have Ellen page on the main cover of their annual Hollywood issue, but on the second fold-out page. Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Amy Adams and Jessica Biel get the main cover and while it’s hard to argue they don’t deserve it, it’s even harder to argue how freaking America Ferrara of Ugly Betty couldn’t push pretty much any of them off. I mean, other than the fact she’s not thin and white, because she’s certainly got more fame and success than Emily Blunt who is still only known as the bitchy English girl from The Devil Wears Prada. They will never stop fucking that cover up. As far as I’m concerned they still haven’t lived down the infamous cover where all actresses were in their underwear, while a subsequent issue with all men had them fully clothed. But the saddest part about it is it never occurred to any of the actresses present to question it.

BETCHA DIDN’T KNOW RHINESTONE ENDED THE COLD WAR
27 Dresses is down to number six, followed by The Bucket List at number seven and Rambo at number eight and believe it or not, this is proving to be a problem with the military dictatorship of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, the setting for this. It’s a very popular bootleg tape and DVD and the phrase “Live for nothing or die for something” is actually resonating. How afraid are you now of the world you live in? Damn right you’re scared. Scarier still, this has resulted in Stallone not just getting more movie deals, but action movie deals. He’s 62-fucking-years old!

DOES ANYONE EVEN REMEMBER DENNIS RODMAN?
Meet The Spartans is down to number nine and also in this is Carmen Electra and should we have pity on her? I do. Her entire “career”---if you can call it that---is based solely on being someone frat boys want to bone and she’s not getting any younger (she’s 36). Not to mention magazines like Maxim which were her bread and butter are dying off (all publishing is, but that’s another discussion). She’s not really an actress and I think only Prince and I remember the album he produced and wrote for her (so long ago it was pre-boob job). But obviously the producers here love her as she’s been in Scary Movie, Scary Movie 4, Date Movie, Epic Movie and now this. As long as they’re working she’ll have a job and maybe this will spare her from more humiliating enterprises like Aerobic Striptease Tapes. No, I’m not kidding (though I fully expect her to be in some sleazy “cougar” or “milf” comedies that go straight to cable or DVD). But by the same token ex-hubby Dave Navarro is now directing porn (no I didn’t see it; I don’t watch amateur work), given the extra time he’s got with no new edition of Rock Star last summer (which disappointed the hell out of me, ‘cause I love that fucking show) and the non-success of his new band.

THERE WILL BE PROCASTINATION
Finally, There Will Be Blood holds at number ten and someone has got to make me see this long, dark movie. Can I see a show of hands from volunteers? Fine. Fuck ya’ll.

PRETTY PEOPLE, NEW YORK LOCATIONS, LAME SHOW, PT 3
Lipstick Jungle premiered and the battle of the Sex & The City children is on! Now, Cashmere Mafia came from Darren Starr who developed and produced Sex & The City and so he hated author Catherine Bushnell getting any credit for its success, he pushed her aside pretty much from day one. Still, rumor has it he only developed Cashmere Mafia when she wouldn’t sell him Lipstick Jungle, not being dumb enough to be screwed by him twice (but desperate enough to fuck author of Shaft and photographer Gordon Parks when he was in his 70’s). Of the two, I prefer Lipstick Jungle. What it has going for it is it looks more like New York. Like most people who don’t have a fucking clue, Cashmere Mafia is so overfucking lit it almost looks like a Hollywood set and there are too many bright colors in their wardrobes. Here, things are darker and that’s us, baby. Also, the husband-feeling-emasculated-by-his-wife’s-success, is less of a cartoon relationship (the wife in question being Brook Shields). And while Lipstick Jungle is still just as much about the people who are making NYC more abhorrent every day (re: rich, white people) the three careers here are bit more interesting (film executive, fashion designer, magazine publisher) than the Cashmere Mafia (which has some type of finance woman, a publisher, someone in beauty products and one in the painfully unattractive job of running luxury hotels). The fashion designer is played by Lindsay Price, who with her hair down just looks like Lindsay Price, but when her hair is up she looks like a cross between Lara Flynn Boyle and Kristin Kreuk, who plays Lana Lane on Smallville. It’s very odd how that works. One reason her fashion designer is even the smallest bit interesting is that she’s currently on the decline, so they’re not all world-beaters. But watching Brooke Shields apparently “finesse” Leonardo DiCaprio into a movie is nothing short of absurdist comedy. And are we suppose to root for the wife cheating on her husband with a twentysomething who looks about the same age she is? Her husband may not be observant, but he’s not some abusive cheating asshole either, so why does he deserve this? But it’s only the first episode. Even Cashmere Mafia managed to impress the hell out of me with what they did with Lucy Liu’s character. Her mother sets up date for her with a brain surgeon (played by a model of course) and he bluntly admits that he normally doesn’t date other Asians. When she acts all aghast he asks her when she last dated an Asian guy and she has to admit it was in junior high. In a later episode, they even speak Chinese to one another. What’s funny and sad about this is that this may be the first time Lucy Liu has ever kissed another Asian man in her entire career. It remains to be seen if Lindsay Price will be acknowledged as actually being of another race, but don’t hold your breath on her kissing another Asian guy, because right now her love interest is none other than Andrew McCarthy as a slightly eccentric billionaire, who will no doubt prop up her defaulting fashion line. All that remains is for Molly Ringwald to get a TV series and the main cast of Pretty Pink will all be working simultaneously in prime time.

I STILL PREFER SGT PEPPER’S LONGELY HEART’S CLUB BAND THE MOVIE
So I didn’t see Across the Universe in the theaters, but one of the guys I worked with at the comic book store loved it beyond belief so with hours of my week no longer occupied by gym time, I rented it when it came out last week and…it wasn’t bad. Thing is, Beatles songs are so damn good you have be totally incompetent to fuck them up and these people are not incompetent. Believe it or not, a teenage girl in Ohio belting out “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” as she deals with the fact she’s in love with another girl on her cheerleading squad does work. The songs are interwoven with the story of Jude from Liverpool and Lucy from suburban America, whom he falls in love with after meeting her older brother, with whom he travels with to New York. There they eventually meet the lesbian from Ohio, whose name is Prudence. They are living with Sadie (yes, she’s sexy), Sadie’s boyfriend JoJo (ironically played my musician Martin Luther, but I guess that’s Wings anyway) when Prudence literally comes in through the bathroom window. Yeah, there are some clunkers (Bono as Dr. Roberts, I’m looking at you; Eddie Izzard as Mr. Kite too), but for the most part they use the songs of The Beatles to tell the journey of these kids through the 60’s pretty well. Oh, and never in the movie do they sing “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.” It’s over the closing credits. Yeah, didn’t make sense to me either.

IT’S NOT YOUR IMAGINATION; IT DOES GET MORE BORING EVERY YEAR
I record the Grammy then only watch the performances…Alicia Keys and Frank Sinatra. Not bad. I remember when Natalie Cole was roasted by some for “exhuming Nat King Cole” for her Unforgettable album. Now, no one blinks at it…Carrie Underwood. I don’t mind her, but it’s country so we fast-forward on principle…okay, I will stop just to watch Prince speak. Yeah, I’m that kind of sad fan. Wow, they still have R&B categories? Amazing considering Rap killed it in the 80’s. Early 90’s at the latest…Oh, shit! Jimmy Jam!?! Terry Lewis!?! Morris Day!?! THE ORIGINAL TIME LINE UP!?! OH SHIT! I’m 17-years-old again and this shit is on! What’s funny is that Prince wrote and sang on the first Time album, but later became incredibly jealous of the crowd reaction they’d get and ultimately fired Terry Lewis & Jimmy Jam for missing a show when they were off producing The SOS Band and got stranded due to weather. Hey, this is my shit....Rhianna ends my fun, ‘cause this is for today’s 17-year-olds…I love The Beatles and it’s never a bad time to hear their music, but this whole number is boring me. If I hadn’t seen Across the Universe earlier in the week I wouldn’t have known the “Let Be” sequence was taken directly from the movie…This whole American Idol style voting in just embarrasses the Academy and they really don’t need help with that…I hate that Kanye West samples Daft Punk because I love Daft Punk, but they’re a part of this because they probably made more money off his sample than they did from their original sales…I’m not a John Legend fan because I find him to be a big R&B pussy. And this is not what I want from Fergie. I already knew she could sing. I just don’t care. And she fucked up…Beyonce’s big legs. I really don’t need much more….Tina just came out to dance on Ike’s grave a little bit more. And she has every right to…I like the Foo Fighters, just not this song…Some country guy is playing and I’m not stopping to find out who it is…Aretha. The laws of this country insist that I must stop, but since it’s gospel I don’t stop for long…Am I the only person who hears Feist and keep expecting her to launch into the Oreos jingle? “O-R-E-O” But her stripped down performance was one of the better ones because it wasn’t some over-the-top production…Jesus. Did Kid Rock just redeem himself somewhat as a musician?...I’m sorry. I’ve had enough of Alicia Keys for one night. And this song didn’t deserve to win. Alicia Keys is not the best female R&B singer in any world with Keysha Cole. Only John Mayer saves this for me. It’s odd, but Black people love John Mayer…Gershwin with Herbie Hancock. Sounds good, but it just seems dull…Just remember Britney and Mary J. Blige both passed on “Umbrella”… If you made every drug addict leave, the Grammy Hall would be empty, so let’s relax over Amy Winehouse’s self-destruction. Hope she doesn’t, but she’s a freaking musician. This is what they do. And the irony of her winning for “Rehab” is just delicious…the roll call of death and there but for the grace of god Amy Winehouse and Britney aren’t on this…oh, god, opera….oh, god, classic rock…I thought Jerry Lee Lewis was dead, and wasn’t totally wrong…Will I. Am. This. Is. Awful….Herbie Hancock? Like I said, The Grammys need no help in embarrassing themselves.

SO THE MOON’S BEEN GONE FOR 9 YEARS AT THIS POINT
Roy Scheider died and will we only remember him from Jaws? Will no one remember him as the pimp from Klute or the older brother from The Marathon Man? Also Barry Morse died. Now really old people know him as Lt. Gerard from The Fugitive TV show (the character Tommy Lee Jones played in the movie) while old geeks like me remember him from the first season of Space: 1999.

1. Hannah Montana/Disney Wknd/$ 29.0 Total/$ 29.0
2. The Eye/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 13.0 Total/$ 13.0
3. 27 Dresses/Fox Wknd/$ 8.4 Total/$ 57.1
4. Juno/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 7.5 Total/$ 110.3
5. Meet the Spartans/Fox Wknd/$ 7.1 Total/$ 28.3
6. Rambo/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 7.0 Total/$ 29.8
7. The Bucket List/Warner Wknd/$ 6.9 Total/$ 67.7
8. Untraceable/SGem Wknd/$ 5.4 Total/$ 19.5
9. Cloverfield/Paramount Wknd/$ 4.9 Total/$ 72.0
10.There Will Be Blood/ParV Wknd/$ 4.8 Total/$ 21.1

THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Mother. Of. God. The end is nigh! The apocalypse doth sit on the horizon as on Super Bowl weekend, the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour film (yes, a fucking concert film) made almost $30M dollars! I think we can officially declare the torch passed from Britney. Actually, this isn’t so much from Britney to Miley as it is from Hilary Duff to Miley Cyrus as she was the former tween queen. Not being either a pedophile or having kids, I know little-to-nothing about her or any of this. I just know her dad is none other than Billy Ray Cyrus, Mr. Mullet and Achy Breaky Heart, whose hit kept all the “white people cannot dance” jokes alive for another generation. She’s had a show for awhile, but now has reached critical mass. Let the downward spiral begin! Of course not everyone becomes Jamie Lynn Spears. The worst thing Hillary Duff did was date Joel Madden (he was 25, she was 16) and the worst thing Amanda Bynes (who had a long running show) did was not get prettier as she got older.

EYE DON’T SEE THIS WORKING. GET IT? “EYE?” “SEE?” SIGH.
The Eye opens at number two and this is the umpteenth remake of a Japanese horror film, all of which were prompted by the success of The Ring. The problem is none seem to have the “the hook” that The Ring had or simply only had the same hook: something happens (phone call, tape watching, ordering a certain dessert) and you die. Even The Ring couldn’t go beyond one sequel here whereas it had at least two in Japan. The problem with this isn’t merely, J-horror fatigue (though there is that because how many grey ghosts can you see and still be afraid), it’s that you don’t know what it really is from the commercials or the trailer. Is she seeing ghosts from the past, the future, what? Is she in danger from what she sees? You just don’t know. What’s really funny is that Tom Cruise is one of the producers, making this the bait he tried to lure Jessica Alba in with during his “young wife hunt” that ultimately succeeded with Katie Holmes! So it this for not hooking up with him and Mad Money for the girl who did. Jessica Alba, you made a wise decision.

THE WRITE STUFF
27 Dresses holds strong at number three meaning pretty much everyone involved will benefit somehow. After Katherine Heigl, there’s the screenwriter who also did The Devil Wears Prada, Aline Brosch McKenna. Her price just went up and we’ll try to forget she did Three To Tango, with Matthew Perry and Neve Campbell. Though I do admit a soft spot for Laws of Attraction with Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore. But what’s really funny is that she started out toiling on the Margaret Cho sitcom, All American Girl. Who’d have thought in the end, the comedian would wind up being the unfunny one.

WHAT IF SUPERMAN AND WONDER WOMAN HAD A BABY?
Juno actually rises to number four, followed by Meet The Spartans at number five and is that Kevin Sorbo? Man, have we fallen from the glory days of Hercules, which even my general media snob brother (the one I made myself, because my parents gave me none) liked. Yeah, he had Andromeda, but it was no Hercules. Hercules spawned Xena, which still has a following so devoted she got her own comic book last year. But if want to know just how freaking manly Kevin Sorbo is, know that his second son was born weighing 12 POUNDS and his daughter came in at 8 ½ pounds (his first kid was a measely 7). But it’s not just him, his wife is a 5’11’’ ex-model and has a size 11 shoe. These are the overpeople! Fear them for they will take over the world if not stopped!

THE SON ALSO SINKS
Rambo is down to number six, followed by The Bucket List at number seven and Untraceable at number eight and also in this as Diane Lane’s partner is none other than Colin Hanks, son of Hollywood king Tom Hanks and it’s smart for him for taking these kinds of supporting roles in different types of films, because you know someone, somewhere is thinking they can just plug him into lame comedies. He made that mistake once with Orange County. Besides, it’s not like he’s the best looking dude in the world, so leading man role obviously weren’t his future anyway. He’s another one of those celeb offspring who didn’t get even their parent’s good looks and (not like Tom Hanks has that much to give).

PRETTY GIRLS WITH UGLY NAMES
Cloverfield continues to drop hitting number nine in its third week and perhaps the most notable face in this is Odette Yusman, who is on the horrific October Road, where every character speaks in metaphor like those creatures from that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation---only not as well written and less believable. She kinda looks like Transformers hottie, Megan Fox, only not so slutty. And you know her agent has begged her to change her name, because no one hot is going by either “Odette” or “Yusman.” That’s the name of someone’s grandmother (god forbid she use her middle name of Julliette). She’s actually a former kid actor. Remember her as “Rosa” from Kindergarten Cop? I’m ashamed that I actually remember her from the TV show South Beach.

THERE WILL BE BOOZE
Finally, There Will Be Blood closes out the top ten at number ten and I meant to see this but the Super Bowl and drinking with chicks got in my way. Maybe next week. Whoops. I’m still supposed to go drinking with chicks. At least there’s no Super Bowl.

EVEN THE INTERENET CAN’T REPLACE BOOZE OR BARS
What did people do at work before the internet? I mean, were we really working all that time? I ask because I spend my days at work visiting a variety of sites (my boss quit, so I’ve got some downtime) most of them part of the family of Gawker, which includes, obviously Gawker (New York and publishing), Defamer (Hollywood and show business), Wonkette (DC and politics), Japalonik (cars), IO9 (science fiction), Fleshbot (porn but never at work) and Jezebel which is all chick oriented stuff and, no surprise, I’m very much at home there. They’re all very much like the women who surround me in real life: funny, smart and a tendency to be raunchy as hell (though ironically, none of the women I know care too much for it). The anonymity of the internet only pours gasoline on that fire. Nonetheless, I do tend to look down my nose at real life gatherings of online communities. One of the purposes of being online is that you can somewhat recreate yourself. Shy in real life? Online you’re aggressive to the point of being a bully. That’s not going to carry over to a bar setting. And then there’s the cruel reality of physicality. Let’s face it: if you’re beautiful, you’re not gonna be online a lot. I’m sure Brad Pitt does not have an onscreen name of any kind. This means a lot of shy, ugly fat people getting together. The fact that any post on body image on Jezebel instantly gets a million, usually angry, comments helps to cement that expectation. Nonetheless I still found myself attending one such gathering for Jezebel on a pissing rain Friday night. Ironically, if I still had my gym membership I probably wouldn’t have gone, but now that I’ve embraced my fat-ass destiny, I’ve got three extra nights a week of time to fill. And with a writer’s strike, I don’t have crappy TV to plug into it. This left me with no other option than to be…social. With the opposite sex no less. The gathering was at a bar called The Magician, on the Lower East Side directly across the street from one of my favorite places, Essex, which has killer $1 oyster night during the week and it's right down the block from Verlaine, which has also seen me once or twice. Both bars were introduced to me by Former Miss Pretty Boy and her pal, Star Trek Woman, so I can blame women for my eventual alcoholism. I got myself a drink and headed to the back looking for a group of women, as there are only about three dudes on Jezebel and the other two had vividly described their appearance as only gay men can. I found them quickly and wonder of wonders, unattractive fat people were nowhere to be found! Hell, some of them were just flat out fucking gorgeous. It was really like being out with all my chick friends. It started off, as as one person accurately put it, “ Like one huge blind date” as we awkwardly begin to introduce ourselves to people we literally talk to every day, waiting for the booze to kick it to make it all easier. It was onscreen name then real name and honestly the music was so fucking loud, out of twenty or so people I can only remember the names of three or four. And they didn’t disappoint in conversation. While just waiting for drinks one girl went into detail about how she once dated a partner at a legal firm where she worked (she’s a lawyer) and he liked her pubic hair to fit either 80’s porn (trimmed) or modern porn (totally waxed), but never normal. It had to look porn! Back at the table was a discussion of the moment of panic after a bad one-night stand and how to escape. And this was the very beginning of the night! Some people took to the gathering very easily, others obviously missed the internet where they couldn’t as easily be drowned out by more outgoing people. My favorite refrain for the evening was “No, you’re not!” It’s what more than one person (including the women who run the site) said upon meeting me when I explained who I was online. I’m going to blame my “avatar” which is the picture you use onscreen. I use Captain Kirk, but in my mind that’s how I see myself! By accident or design I spent a lot of time with two very attractive, Black girls. Not just them, but they were usually part of whatever circle I was in (which also usually included the large breasted Indian girl from West Texas and the little Winona Ryder-ish actress). One of the Black girls had a Mucha painting tattooed on her back and she said it was the first time she’d ever been around people who knew who the hell the artist was (yes, I did). The other was apparently from England but had been away long enough to have no accent though still an odd inflection when she spoke. Mucha Girl and I had a lengthy discussion about the greatness of boots (both wore a nice pair) and how it was sad in the summer when you had to give them up. Finally I wasn’t seen as a freak! Of course, it’s not a night out drinking unless some gets too drunk and someone did and she wound up sitting in my lap alternating between insisting we all announce who we’d choose between Hillary and Obama and explain why and bemoaning her ex-boyfriend’s “big cock” and the “hot sex” they had but insisting she wasn’t going back. This was the cause of much, amusement of the other girls there, as I was obviously not enjoying it. That was the first sign maybe it was time to go. The second was when she kissed me and I wasn’t even the first person she’d done that to in the bar. When she went outside for a smoke, I decided it was time to go and found it was just in time. She’d announced to others that she’d soon be making out with me. Thankfully the next gathering is in Brooklyn and you know that’s not happening.

MORE CRAZY ASS CHICKS I KNOW
Dorito Cheeseburger Woman, a.k.a., Karyn Plonsky (I do this now so her name will turn up on Google searches) is seeing some media exposure these days. Not only is she one of the fans on the cover of ESPN Magazine in their feature on…well, fans, but she’s also in the documentary, Taxi To the Darkside which is about how an innocent cab driver in Afghanistan was picked up by our military and essentially tortured to death over five days when it was clear by the third it was a mistake. Yeah, nothing but a good time. I try to support my friends as best I can, but depressing documentaries are where I draw the line. But I did pick up the ESPN issue. She’s the girl in the Seahawks gear, being she’s from Washington state.

BUT WHERE’S THAT PET SHOP BOYS DUET?
I loves me some Shelby Lynne, so when she came out with a new album last week, I was there the day after to pick it up. Unfortunately, her tribute to the late, great Dusty Springfield has attracted more than her usual cadre of fans as it was sold out from my local CD place (Future Legend on 9th and 53rd) in one day. This is good for her, bad for me (though they will hold a copy for me when the next shipment comes in). Fortunately, on her website they run through samples of the songs. I’m not much for remakes, especially when they don’t do something new (like Annie Lennox did with Medusa), but I’ll make an exception for Shelby and her interpretations do bear the virtue of being stripped down, not to mention the extra layer of pain she throws on them (she also covers “Anyone Who Had A Heart” and it hurts like you wouldn’t believe). But she does not do “Son of A Preacher Man” perhaps the one Dusty song she was destined to do. See, like many artists, Shelby is what you’d call…crazy, so while every other Dusty song was game, not the most obvious or fitting. This from a woman who had no compunctions about covering “Ode To Billy Joe” which she nailed like it was a slutty cheerleader on prom night.

LET’S JUST MAKE IT A NATIONAL HOLIDAY ALREADY
I had mixed feelings going into the Super Bowl. The Patriots are dicks so they deserve to lose. Running up the scores like they did was bullshit. But Randy Moss and Junior Seau are Hall of Fame bound and deserve a ring. But then again, so does Michael Strahan and Plaxico Burress doing what he’s done on a bad ankle all year long is nothing short of heroic. Not to mention, we love an underdog, so obviously I was somewhat pulling for Eli Manning, but at the end of the day I hate the Giants because, unlike all you New Yorkers, I’m not a pussy AND I DON’T ROOT FOR NEW JERSEY TEAMS!!! WHY DON’T YOU ALL JUST DROP TROU AND POINT YOUR NAKED ASSES SO THEY CAN KEEP ON FUCKING YOU!?! And I can’t believe NYC tax dollars are going to celebrate a team that doesn’t provide any tax revenue to New York City. Besides, it’s all about the commercials anyway. Justin Timberlake, the Doritos mouse, Budweiser, movie commercials, Underdog/Charlie Brown Coke commercial…all fun, but godaddy.com continues to be the Maxim of TV commercials and I hate that I went to their web site to see Danica Patrick degrade herself and actually hear the word “beaver” come out of her mouth. And the creepy CareerBuilder.com commercials never need to be seen again. I’m going to say I don’t like Tom Petty, but watching him perform is like watching paint dry. How friggin’ old is he? I mean he was big when I was in high school and you know I’m an old fuck. And how much did they pay those kids in the audience to act like they were excited to see him? What hath Janet Jackson’s nipple wrought?

BURGERMEISTER

1. Meet the Spartans/Fox Wknd/$ 18.7 Total/$ 18.7
2. Rambo/Lion’s Gate Wknd/$ 18.2 Total/$ 18.2
3. 27 Dresses/Fox Wknd/$ 13.6 Total/$ 45.3
4. Cloverfield/Paramount Wknd/$ 12.7 Total/$ 64.3
5. Untraceable/SGem Wknd/$ 11.2 Total/$ 11.2
6. Juno/Fox Searchlight Wknd/$ 10.3 Total/$ 100.2
7. The Bucket List/Warner Wknd/$ 10.2 Total/$ 57.7
8. There Will Be Blood/ParV Wknd/$ 4.9 Total/$ 14.8
9. National Treasure 2/BV Wknd/$ 4.7 Total/$ 205.4
10. Mad Money/Over Wknd/$ 4.6 Total/$ 15.3

“WARD, I’M ARAID THE BEAVER IS A JIVE SUCKA WHO AIN’T GOT NO SENSE”
Meet The Spartans opens at number one and I’m pretty sure the funniest parts are all in the trailer. This is from those guys that cranked out Epic Movie and Date Movie. They started out as writers on Spy Hard then moved to the Scary Movie franchise and now they’re directing their own crap. Of course, I say this without ever seeing a frame of this or Epic Movie or Date Movie. The difference between these guys and Zucker Abrams, Zucker (Airplane, The Naked Gun movies) and even the Wayans Family is that even in the trailer there’s one incredibly funny joke and maybe even two. Absolutely nothing in the trailers for this was as funny as just the concept of the MTV Best Spoof Film, United 300, which tastelessly put the Spartans on a highjacked plane (but nothing on this earth will ever be funnier than setting the trailer for 300 to “It’s Raining Men” by The Weathergirls).



And why call this Meet The Spartans given it’s years after both Meet The Parents and Meet The Fockers!?! And where in the trailer do they reference Meet The Parents!?! Lame, lame, lame. And come on…Britney Spears? Is that your idea of wit? Sigh. This is a far cry from June Cleaver talking jive.

RICHARD CRENNA ACTUALLY DIED TO GET OUT DOING THIS
Rambo (which is technically First Blood 4 and Rambo 3) opens at number two and see what happens when America can’t clearly win wars overseas? We get this fantasy bullshit, the irony being the last fucking Rambo movie actually took place in Afghanistan! Um, given how he knows the people and the terrain, why isn’t he going back there now!?! Because there’s a good chance the guy on the horse to his left in Rambo III was fucking Osama Bin Laden, that’s why. Kinda embarrassing when the last people Rambo freed turned around and committed the most devastating terrorist attack in human history. But even Burma is bullshit because there actually is a fight for freedom going on over there right now but it’s being done by monks , so if there are any movies to be made there it should be Jet Li as one of the two-thousand warrior monks he’s played throughout his career. I never watched Rambo: First Blood Pt. II all the way through, much less Rambo III (which was actually First Blood Pt. 3 and Rambo 2), so I’ll never see this either. Not even on cable will I put myself through this crap.

“OOH, YOU MAKE ME LIVE…”
27 Dresses is down to number three and also in this as the perennial “best friend” is Judy Greer, whom I love and actually should have been the lead here, only Katherine Heigl is obviously the bigger star. In case you’re not placing her, she was Kitty the secretary who kept flashing Jason Bateman on Arrested Development; the best friend/possible love interest on wonderful-but-short-lived “love monkey”; David Duchovny’s best friend in The TV Set; Jennifer Garner’s bitchy best friend in 13 Going On 30; Orlando Bloom’s sister in Elizabethtown; Jennifer Lopez’s best friend in The Wedding Planner; and Erin the poor file girl Mel Gibson is convinced is suicidal in What Women Want (she also sadly dropped her top for sex scenes with Nicholas Cage in Adaptation and Gary Shandling in What Planet Are You From). So, no she never gets the hot guy, ever. The best she’s done so far is being a multi-episode love interest for Charlie Sheen on Two And A Half Men. As I’ve mentioned before, the cruelest irony here is, when she auditioned for The TV Set she was auditioning for the role of the actress who is tired of playing the best friend. She was instead cast as the best friend. Ouch.

SECOND VERSE, SAME AS THE FIRST
Cloverfield drops down to number four and the director has suggested that the sequel will be the same night but from a different camera. So basically he wants you to pay again to see the same goddamn movie. I think not. The only way I’ll see the sequel to this is if this bullshit POV cam is left behind. That trick only works once and barely then.

CTRL-ALT-REPEAT
Untraceable opens at number five and what is the real female action movie, my drooges? No, it’s not shit like Charlie’s Angels or Lara Croft. It’s the “estro-thriller” in the Silence of the Lambs mode. Jodie Foster knows it, which is why she followed it with Panic Room and Flightplan. So does Ashley Judd, who followed Kiss The Girls with Double Jeopardy. JLo tried with The Cell, but promptly blew it with Enough. The rules of the estro-thriller are simple: you start with a woman, preferably a mother, have her be wronged by a man, be he her lover or just some asshole criminal have him make the key mistake of threatening either her child or someone she can be maternal for and we pop open a can of whoop-ass for the final act. Also throw in a strong dude/father figure to help her out (Scott Glenn, Morgan Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones, Vince Vaughn) but in the end it’s her show. This is no exception to any of those rules and follows the formula well enough that it’s a nice way to spend 90 minutes. Diane Lane is the leading lady this time. She’s an FBI agent working nights in the cybercrime division while being a single mother to her daughter. In the first of many refreshing turns, we aren’t beaten over the head with the fact she’s a widow and her late husband was cop. It comes out in small, well-placed pieces through the duration of the film, thanks mostly to the local cop on the task force to help her find the guy who’s killing people by putting them online and as the viewer count increases the method of death accelerates in some interesting ways such as using a blood thinner which causes a few cuts to become lethal (making this somewhat the grandchild of Se7en and the child of Saw, I’m afraid). In another refreshing change, not only are the police and FBI not morons, but they also work well together without petty bickering over jurisdiction. In fact, Diane Lane doesn’t want the case, but since she catches it first it’s her assignment. Oh, and her boss isn’t a moron who doesn’t believe her either. He knows she’s smart and lets her do her job and she does, figuring out the reason behind the murders (which is actually pretty interesting and in more seasoned hands would have said something about the bloodlust of the audience, which as been with us since the days of Ancient Rome). Even the good-looking cop working with her isn’t forced on us as a love interest. But there are dumb concessions to the genre that must be made. First of all, the bad guy is kidnapping and killing people and then moving their bodies around without being noticed, which should have been impossible, given the FBI and local police were out looking for him, and in one instance he actually drops the body in the driveway of a congressman without being noticed! Also, the bad guy comes after her and she never, ever seems to close the curtains on the windows in her house, which no normal person does, much less seasoned law enforcement officer. And when she’s obviously targeted by the killer, she’s not given a 24/7 escort like we know full well she’d receive. None of this is helped by the fact we get to meet the bad guy long before he’s caught and once you see him, it takes tremendous suspension of disbelief to accept he’s doing all this alone. Finally, if I told you Diane Lane had a partner who was somewhat of a comic relief what would you give his chances of surviving? Exactly. These people might as well be wearing the red shirts from Star Trek. A better writer and director would have been able to avoid these clichés and make a statement and still have their film work, but for what it is, it’s not bad.

NO MORE MEAN GIRLS, NOW NICE PREGNANT GIRLS
Juno crosses the $100M mark at number six, which I’d love to credit the Oscar nominations, but you don’t see Atonement anywhere around here do you? No, the real credit goes to teenagers. They are flocking to see this thing. I thought it was just me catching an odd group the morning I went, but someone else said the same. Then I remembered it was only PG-13 so they could all go. Yeah, I can see how kids would really be into this. And guess who’s going to be getting all the scripts that would have once gone to Lindsay Lohan now? And unlike her, Ellen Page has an Oscar nomination under her belt. She’s pretty much the anti-Lindsay Lohan at this point. The only question is, will she stay the indie course or go for the big money and prizes in Hollywood?

THAT’S ME STRETCHING IN THE THEATER LOBBY
The Bucket List is down to number seven followed by There Will Be Blood at number eight and this is the result of Oscar nominations—and a doubling of the amount of theaters where it’s playing. This is a long, dark movie and so I have to prepare myself for it, both mentally and physically (a limit of fluid intake because it’s two-and-a-half hours long). I’m not there yet. I may need help.

IT’S NOT LIKE SHE’S GOT A RAP CAREER TO FALL BACK ON
National Treasure: Book of Secrets is down to number nine, followed by Mad Money closing out the top ten at number ten and how many of these will Queen Latifah get before she burns off all her Chicago goodwill? Katie Holmes has forever because she’s Mrs. Tom Cruise and if Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz have taught us anything it’s, if you’re with Tom, you’ll continue get A-list work no matter how many of your movies bomb.

IT’S A HONOR JUST TO BE NOMINATED
Speaking of the Academy Awards, as much as we bitch about stardom and box office being rewarded over actual talent and artistic achievement, there simply ain’t much glamour in the latter, much less fun. I mean, I saw Juno and enjoyed it, but did Ellen Page really deserve her Oscar nomination more than Angelina Jolie would have deserved one? And with Angelina you get her and Brad on the red carpet. With Ellen Page all you get is you get a guarantee that Jennifer Anniston will now attend. And while my love for Cate Blanchett knows no bounds, she did not deserve a nomination for Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Sorry. Keira Knightely probably didn’t deserve one for Atonement either, but it would have added some youthful glamour to the proceedings (and Cate will still be there for Best Supporting Actress). Speaking of youth, apparently Amy Adams rocked Enchantment but gets dick from the Academy that is apparently on a “bummer” tour this year, ignoring the fact that COMEDY IS MORE DIFFICULT. I’m not gonna argue Ruby Dee’s sympathy vote for American Gangster, but it really pales compared to what Jennifer Garner did in Juno and since we’re giving it shit is doesn’t deserve, how about in of the few instances it did? And with Jennifer Garner, you get Ben Affleck and the hope JLO and Mark Anthony won’t attend. Not to mention, if you’re going to honor indie comedies about knocked up leads, what about Adrienne Shelly’s swansong, Waitress!?! Where’s her goddamn sympathy vote? Similarly, while it’s hard to argue the Best Actor nominations (with the exception of Johnny Depp), it would have been more fun with Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, who also kicked ass in Rescue Dawn. But I have to give it up for Sean Penn almost completely shut out for Into the Wild. Any institution that blows off two of the pretentious, humorless fuckers alive (Eddie Vedder got dick for soundtrack) is okay in my book.

I’VE SEEN A MILLION FRENCH FRIES AND ROCKED THEM ALL!
So my burger tour was interrupted a few years back by a job loss, but now that we’re employed (and my brain isn’t bleeding) the time has come to begin it again! I started with State on 12th between 5th and University with Chasing Amy and it was a seriously auspicious beginning. Let me put it this way, my burger with blue cheese sauce was so good I didn’t want to put ketchup on it. I may never return to Paul’s Hamburger Palace again which is the equivalent of changing my religion. They also have a substantial microbrewery list if you go that way (not to mention alcoholic shakes). We got a pitcher of something I’ll never try again, but they’ve got a 2-For-1 burger thing going on (between 10 and midnight) that will pretty have me back before the end of this week. We stopped by Bowlmoor Lanes but it was a bit too young and crowed and ultimately wound up on 14th and Avenue A at Otto’s Shrunken Heads, where 30-something punks and rockabilly lovers go to die. Okay, maybe they weren’t all that old, but it definitely wasn’t the youngest bar I’ve ever been in. Though I can’t recall when I last saw so many women with so many garish arm tattoos. These are people who get tattoos because they mean it, not silly sorority girls getting the “tramp stamp” on their lower backs to be “different…just like all their friends.” The bar is owned by a friend from college of Chasing Amy’s boyfriend that he ran into on a flight back from Pittsburgh over Christmas. It seems that even back in college she was throwing parties with bands playing in her basement. He said he knew wherever she was there’d be groups of “hedonistic misfits” (which is now the name of my band) and the bar was no exception. Most notable was the fairly attractive couple sitting right next to me who went into a full tilt make-out session complete with multiple trips to third base by him---with the phone still in his hand! I can only hope for her sake he had it set to vibrate. But this is where the difference between kids and adults came into play. Adults would have taken that party home. When we left a little after 2:00 am they were still circulating with their friends. Or maybe he just blew it when, in the middle of a clinch, I heard him call her “dude.” Between that and breaking a third base clinch to check his phone, I’m pretty sure that didn’t go down. If a woman is so generous (or drunk) to let you touch her vagina, you’d better realize there’s no fucking message in this world so important you take your hand away. You have to ask yourself, “What would Bill Clinton do?”

CHEER UP, SLEEPY JEAN
So Death came out swinging for ’08. Suzanne Pleshette, best known as Emily from the Bob Newhart show; Allan Melvin who played Sam the Butcher on The Brady Bunch; Sir Endmund Hillary who scaled Mount Everest; Vampira the TV hostess; then Bobby Fischer and Brad Renfro until finally Heath Ledger, who mistakenly thought he could medicate his own pneumonia…along with his depression…and his insomnia…all at the same time. But I cannot front. I obviously hate hospitals at this point and so would probably do something equally stupid with the same sad result. Oh, we also lost John Stewart. No, not that one, dumbass. The one who was a member of The Kingston Trio and wrote “Daydream Believer” and who traveled performing with Robert Kennedy on hi campaign. And you know what killed him? An aneurysm.

WE ARE FAMILY
Finally, Surrogate Sister’s brother (the one her parents gave her) has his band used for a USA promo spot: