And speaking of Cash for Clunkers, let's take a look at this week's box office. But not too closely; I've got homework to get back to. Well, it comes as little to no surprise to me that Funny People is #1 this week. Who knew? The saturation bombing ad campaign paid off. But I have a feeling it might not last a second week at #1, that the Maxim crowd et alia were expecting a balls-to-the-wall wall-to-wall laugh fest, but then it takes a left turn and turns into either Sideways or Whose Life Is It Anyway. And 2 1/2 hours? Dude, what were you thinking? Make it 87 minutes, like Rob Schneider's comedies! More showings, more money! Duh! ¶ And, you know, someone out-clevered me. An AP critic noted that Spielberg's cameraman, Janusz Kaminski did the film, and since it's semi-serious, what with the whole terminal disease thing, they called it "Sandler's List." Damn! Beaten to the punch. But I will observe that this is similar to Jerry Maguire, which Kaminski also lensed, and which tends to meander a little past its welcome. Oh, it's more than just a delivery device for the "Show Me The Money" catch phrase, no question. It's a big, long, 138-minute delivery device that's mostly filler. Oh, snap! Oh, no he di'int!The only other debut this week is a little turd of magic... I'm sorry, I mean an underappreciated cinematic gem called Aliens in the Attic. While it's not getting the exposure of, say, the upcoming Shorts... well, frankly, I just don't know how to end that sentence! Once again, a film slips into the Top 10 under my massive radar. Even if it's at #5. They must've stuck with strictly Nickelodeon and Noggin or something. I didn't see any ads for it! Not that I would've gone anyway, of course. And Ashley Tisdale? Oh, girlfriend. Are you big enough to stick it to Disney like this? You took an oath of fealty, my friend. This is why Miley Cyrus is so much bigger, I'm afraid. ¶ And as long as we're talking cameramen, ... oh, Don Burgess. How far you've fallen. You and Dean Cundey. Don't you miss the big time, boys? You no longer play the game! You're no longer on the ball! Is Zemeckis really that much of a brutal taskmaster? And Dean, you could always go back to John Carpenter, right? RIGHT?...
But one comment about the film's story itself. I'd wait for next week, but this might not stick around that long. But the main family in the pic is called the Pearson family. And that Pearson family seems awfully diverse and expansive for one family. But I guess Carter Jenkins could be Kevin Nealon's kid in the final analysis. No, the way it's SUPPOSED to work (in Hollywood) is Ashley Tisdale's supposed to be the girl that Carter's trying to woo. They're brother and sister here! How are they supposed to woo?
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Well, as long as I got a response from CNN about that closed-captioning thingie, might as well go for 2, but I highly doubt this one will get a response. Now, I love watching my local news in HD as much as the next guy. After all, if we're going to hear about local scams, local fires, local shootings and murders and rapes and molestations, it might as well be in HD. But I coudln't help but notice these slim, white horizontal bars that would fade away with the lettering used to say which part of the state something was from, etc. My viewing companions didn't seem to notice, but it's the kind of thing you couldn't just call Directv to complain about. Haven't they suffered enough?
Well, this is odd! The bottom 4 films have more in the bank than the top 4! I find stuff like that mildly interesting for a second or two. As for films only in their second week, like The Ugly Truth - Oh, you just can't buy publicity like this: there were these two guys leaving the gym as I was entering. One was on a cellphone, of course, asking about the movie they were going to see... "The Ugly Truth? How is it?" The other guy goes, "Hilarious." Nuff said. Of course, that was before they saw it, but isn't that what movies live and die based upon? "Oh, the film was great. I was finally able to clear out my cellphone inbox! Can you believe I had text messages from a year ago? Good Lourdes!"
One last non-sequitur. Open letter to Gwen Stefani: you really should do something about the lyrics to that song "It ain't no heart attack, girl!" Re-record it or something. Olivia Newton John's threatening to sue! You're not the Cocteau Twins here! We want NO ambiguity in our song lyrics, ghurlfriend!
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