Auteur Watch: Rob Zombie

Damn! They got to the numbers early today. Usually I have to wait til 2pm or so. Well, that's what I get for procrastinating, dontcha think? :) Anyway, as you all know, Labor Day weekend belonged to Halloween, directed by Rob Zombie, and I just wonder if he was thinking to himself about the American movie-going public: You frigging ingrates! (he censors himself better now...) I give you two gifts of originality, House of 1000 Corpses, and The Devil's Rejects, and what do you make #1 at the box office? A remake! A bloody remake! I just wonder if he was thinking that. Coming up next from Rob Zombie: A NEW Nightmare on Elm Street.

So that was at #2 this week. At #1 it's 3:10 to Yuma. Maybe I should do an Auteur Watch episode on James Mangold! He's back and bettah than evah, my friends; check out that tidbit about Girard Swan! He finally got the Mel Gibson Stink off... As for the rest of the cast, well, I guess we're overdue for another 2nd coming of Russell Crowe. This year will be a much better good year than last year was. Let's hope this time he gets an Oscar he can live with. As for the new Batman, how many damn movies can that bastard make in between sequels? Even more than the whole cast of the Matrix combined. And yet, he STILL won't return Mr. Bean's phone calls! (#8 this week...)

At #3 it's Superbad. I've got nothing left to say in praise of this one, so let me give another shout out to its director Greg Mottola. Don't forget, buddy: you're still just a hired gun. Okay, so you've gone from Soderbergh to Apatow. If I had online polls, I'd ask: is that a Step Up, Step Down, or a Lateral Move? If you're from Hollywood, you'd have to answer: Lateral Move, of course.

At #4 it's Balls of Fury. Yawn. So much for that Wednesday bump they were hoping for. Well, at least it's making more money than the Reno 911 movie did! Besides, how good can BOF be if Cedric "the OTHER entertainer" Yarbrough isn't in it?

At #5 it's The Bourne Ultimatum. More importantly, it's made 210 million, the most of any movie in the top 10 this week. And even more importantly, it's still in the IMDb top 250. I haven't seen it yet, but I hear they leave the door open for a fourth installment. Well, sooner that than Pirates 4, anyway. (Spoiler alert: my inside Hollywood source says that the tentative Pirates 4 script is as follows: the pirates find a time portal, and find themselves in modern day Manhattan, where they hold the employees of F.A.O. Schwarz hostage for several days. And of course, Johnny Depp spends about half the movie pulling the string on a talking Captain Jack Sparrow doll.) Where was I? Oh yeah, let me give a brief shout out to Tony Gilroy, yet another bastard I'm going to have to profile in my ongoing series Auteur Watch. Watch out, Michael Clayton!

Okay, I've got to bail out early for this week's b.o. report. Still trying to clean up from my big Labor Day party. And incidentally, if I hear another comedian point out the irony that we celebrate Labor Day by not working, I really will puke. Seriously, projectile vomit and everything, just like Bobcat talked about in that one Larry Sanders episode. Unlike your jobs, jokesters, WORK SUCKS!!!!!