Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Peter Parker picks another peck of pesky box-office peccadillos


And the opening shot is fired off the port bow! Zowee. I haven't seen numbers like this since Jurassic Park 2 opened! Or since Oscar, for that matter; numbers 2 thru 10 look like Oscar's opening weekend, anywho. Yes, it's the latest new box office record, people. Quite the disparity when the #1 movie makes 5 times as much money as the other nine put together. Must be a recession on. But it was inherited, of course. You have to use that word with the word 'recession' from now on, it's a permanent federal law.


But back to the triumph at hand! Yes, Spider Man 3 got out there first this season. Oh sure, critics will nitpick, but so far the franchise has managed to stay on an even keel somehow; basically, they've kept Joel Schumacher from girling up the proceedings, heh heh. It's soon going to be a very crowded field, though: don't Shrek 3 and Pirates 3 get a turn at the trough too?

So anyway, congratulations to Spider Man 3. But seriously: Bryce Dallas Howard? Was B.D. Howard the most qualified person for the job?


As for the rest of you slugs, I seriously feel like I can take a break this week. I mean, Disturbia's hung in there and all, but only 5.84 million in second place? Pathetic! Fracture at #3 with 3.7 million? Pathetic! The Invisible? Pathetic! Next? Pathetic!!!! I will, however, give a shout out to my man Curtis Hanson who's been having a rough decade since the high of 8 Mile. It's all part of my latest theory about directors, that the most successful film directors ultimately have their favourite decade of their careers. For Curtis Hanson, it'd have to be the 90s: with the back to back successes of Hand that Rocks the Cradle, and The River Wild, culminating in the Oscar-nominated orgy that was L.A. Confidential. I mean, who wouldn't want a decade like that?

Let's do a couple other directors, like J. Lee Thompson: Drunken British Ex-Patriate of Action. He's had so many, really: the Dressing Gown 50s, the Guns of Navarone 60s, the Ape-y 70s, but for me, IMHO I'd have to say it was the go-go 80s, when he did about a zillion pics with Charles Bronson, yet was able to work in an Indiana Jones knock-off in betwixt all that. Good times.

As for Sam Raimi, well, I think the 2000s are far and away his favorite decade, even though all this Spider-Man jazz must be getting redundant. I'm just hoping he manages to work a trailer in for No Country for Old Men. I'm not able to get to France this year for the Cannes film festival. Maybe get me a bootleg copy, huh?

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