Sunday, August 23, 2009

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Oh my God! Rush was right! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Speaking of dying, Angela Lansbury and Joan Cusack were hot Yahoo! search terms this weekend, so I think a lot of people thought the same thing: oh my God! They died? Miss Universe was another one just now. See, that's more like it. Plus, Miss Universe will never die. There will always be a new one... unless Obama's evil Stalinist HEALTH CARE PLAN PASSES!!!! OMG...
C'mon, man. Pull yourself together. Yes, it's time to focus on the only news worth reading about: how did that weekly horse race come out that involves the movies? Well, it should come as little to no surprise that ol' Quenty's still got it... sort of. Yes, his latest, Inglorious Bastids is on top at #1 with an unquestionably high amount of money. Not like Pulp Fiction beat out by Sly Stallone's latest... hoh, boy. So many bad memories. Meanwhile, his Grindhouse co-creator, is positively eating it with his latest, Shorts. Waah. It's got that Taco Bell font, so I can't help but wonder if there was a tie-in? Sorry, I haven't been able to make it down there in a while.
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Anyway, as I only so often do, I think this box office needs to be broken down in two parts. We'll do the top half first. Yes, I.B.'s saturation bombing ad campaign, combined with the occasional target market blitz, and it ruled the day. The only blitz I know of is when Eli Roth stopped by those basterds over at Rotten Tomatoes and gave them his favorite Top 5 movies you'd never want to watch with your family. Something like that. Even more obscure titles than Quentin looked at when he was a hot-shot young video store freak. It's all good, and it's all one long constant rosy learning experience... crucifixion. My literary reference of the day.
Whew! I thought I'd never get to #2, and it's District 9. But more interesting than that, both D9 and IB are in an Achilles-worthy foot race to #1 of that most glorious of institutions, The IMDb Top 250. Of course, I still don't see how The Shawshank Redemption is better than The Godfather, but I've always been pretty naive that way. As any Stephen King fan would tell me, WHO'S SOLD MORE BOOKS? STEPHEN KING OR MARIO PUZO? THE ANSWER IS STEPHEN KING. NOT MARIO PUZO, STEPHEN KING. END OF STORY. On the other hand, Mario did have a hand in the screenplay for the 1978 Superman movie! Does this count for nothing?
At #3 is the latest tirade against Michael Bay-style cinematics, G.I. Joe... or rather, proponent of. I always get those two mixed up. Maybe Bay produced this one, too! And at #4, it's The Time Traveler's Wife, which gets the worst of both worlds. Panned by critics and audiences alike, don't the fools understand? It's a Chick Sci-Fi Flick! Why, I'll bet there's some gals out there who'd find it VERY romantic if their husband travelled through time to when they were six!... Not me, though. I'm a dude. We prefer such inter-dimensional conjugal visits around age 14 or so.
And finally, rounding out our Top 5, it's Nora Ephron's latest, Julie & Julia. And Nora does it again! Not quite like Sleepless in Seattle, but DEFINITELY not like Lucky Numbers, that's for sure. Of course, ALL directors like ALL their films, but some tend not to watch them ever again. That's why I feel sorry for Spielberg: who's going to entertain HIM? Eric Schaeffer? I seriously doubt that.

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