Box Office: 28 April 2006 (Sunday Estimates)

Well, probably won't be able to do it justice in this short amount of time, but I gotta get in one last April Eyes picture from... what else? 2001! It's like cinema's Pet Sounds or Sgt. Pepper, although the reputation of those two goes largely unquestioned. Sure, maybe 2001's over-rated, but that and Strangelove are in my humble opinion the only things of Kubrick's that deserve to be. And The Shining. Or is it the Killing? I can't remember.
Anyway, to the business of current Box office business. We'll do it cumulative-ly this time. Coming in at #1 total it's IA2 with a whopping 178 mill. This means some of the Blue Sky people are now moving into the same gated community as the PDI people; not quite at the Pixar neighborhood yet. While only at #7 with 7.05 mill this week, on the plus side Robots is all over HBO right now, although there is no plug in that movie for IA2, as far as I know.
In a very distant second cumulatively is SM4 with a whopping 78.2 mill total, making only 7.81 mill this weekend bringing it in at #5. Clearly, not as impacting as SM3. Oh well. C'est la vie.
#3 cumulative brings us The Benchwarmers, (#10, 4.4mil) dropping us down even farther to 52.8 mill total. Well, school's not out yet. We got big summer blockbusters on the horizon, and Happy Madison surely has an offering for the other side of summer. Oh yeah! Click! And maybe a Rob Schneider pic to clean up the Autumn trailings. Who knows?
#4 on the cumulative total chart is Silent Hill, still screaming up a blood-curdling yell at the box office to the total tune of ... 34.2 mil? Man! Glad I didn't take points on that one! Oh yeah, it's also #4 looking at it the other way. Same as The Sentinel, being #6 cumulatively and of the week. Nuff said.
As for #5, it's part of the new Pixar ghetto, The Wild, which will move in with Doogal and Valiant. Chicken Little's just moved out, I guess, but the sequel's bought a place already. What the hell, I think Antz is there, too! heh heh...
#6: right, see above. Lucky #7, alas, Slevin's gone, but RV has moved in, baby! Okay, it's not posting MIB range opening numbers, but it's number one ne'theless. Sonnenfeld's back and better than ever! Still, it only beat out United 93 by only 5 million dollars. Are you telling me America's ready to cry?
#9 and #10 bring us Stick it and Akeelah and the Bee, respectively. Well, it took 6 years, but the writer of Bring it On has done it again! And only after Take the Lead took leave of the Top 10. Oh sure, the presence of Jeff Bridges helped, but don't kid yourself. There's a Peregrym Falcon flying high over this box office baby, and she's not leaving like Julia Stiles did... well, actually, she'll be leaving EXACTLY like Julia Stiles did. She'll do her Save the Last Dance, a couple ensemble pics with Julia Roberts, then just sink into oblivion altogether, and Mekhi Phifer won't return her calls. I mean, whazzup w/dat? As for Akeelah, a sequel is already in the works where she joins the professional Karaoke circuit. I believe the working title is Karao-keelah, something like that. Subject to change at this point. We'll know by next week.
Well, I've done enough damage for one week. Stay tuned for next week's cinematic horse race; I know I will!!!! :)

C'mon, learn to laugh at yourself, you idiot

While we're waiting to see how much money RV raked in... I'll be very surprised if United 93 beats it out. If it does, Barry Sonnenfeld's threatening to re-release Big Trouble out of protest.
Anyway, big weekend for my man Stephen Colbert! SNL last night had a tribute to Robert Smigel's ever growing cartoon library, hosted by Ace and Gary, the Ambiguously Gay Duo, one of whom is voiced by Stephen Colbert, who worked on Strangers with Candy, that Comedy Central show that must've featured a cameo with Kevin Bacon at one time or another... Oh, what an incestuous little talent pool they all live in. But let me briefly backtrack to Strangers with Candy, some episodes of which were directed by Adam Bernstein who directed that obscurest of all SNL movies, It's Pat, featuring the not-so-androgynous Julia Sweeney, who just confessed on public radio that she skimmed the Catholic Church's collection plates for years! Well, just shows to go you what kind of secular operation they're running there! Benny Hinn and all his ilk would NEVER let that kind of thing happen!
Where was I? Oh yeah. Well, Stephen kicked a little kiester at the White House Correspondent's Dinner last night. We feared for him at first: Dubya actually had a strong opening with help from Steve Bridges, the luckiest bastard in the SAG. I still like that line on Leno; they did a Final Jeopardy sketch where the answer was 1492, and Dubya's question was "When was the War of 1812?" So there was Steve Bridges with the president, and they killed. Makes me wonder who wrote their material. Although I must say C-Span will be getting a call from James Baker for showing all of Clinton's previous performances at previous White House Correspondents dinners. More Bush, please! And then came Stephen, all guns a-blazin'. He musta did it for the people, because the audience was pretty quiet. In fact, there was kind of an icy reception to his liberal quips, kind of like a glacier, which is something you'll have to tell your grandkids about. But c'mon! He tried to be fair and balanced! Take, for example, that potshot at the White House correspondents: they should take some time off and work on that novel they've been kicking around: the one about the intrepid White House correspondent that asks probing questions of the president... you know! Fiction! Yes, the press is keeping it as quiet as possible, but don't worry. We're about 36 hours away from full coverage of the blessed event on Comedy Central. They'll give us the what's what. Apparently George Clooney was in the audience at the time, maybe he'll stop by and say hi to Colbert. That'd be cool. Incidentally, Clooney, what's with all the public appearances? Get back to work!

Quick Check-In

Nope, didn't have their computer. And I didn't want to borrow someone's laptop and consequently blow my cover. But alas I'm on the move again! So just some quick updates.
The big news story today is that Dubya wants the National Anthem to be sung in English. First of all, duh. Second, some British music producer must've produced a Spanish version. Third, if I remember correctly, didn't the Democrats at their last convention have Native Americans sing the anthem in their respective native tongues? Nice to know freedom fries are never too far off. I don't know; if Republicans run businesses like they run government... All I know is, I'm not big on handouts, but I want that $100 gas coupon! Question: are they watching, or do I absolutely have to spend it on gas?
What else? The saturation bombing campaign for RV continues unabated, but at least they haven't resorted to calling him Robin Villiams. Concurrently, radio ads for United 93 suggest that no one under 17 should be admitted without guardian; for that matter, no one over 5 either. Too soon! Too soon...
Well, while I'm waiting for Paris, je t'aime, I guess I'll just have to wait for another collaborative effort, the 1 second film. This caught my attention because Pauly Shore is one of the producers. I don't know if he contributed enough to be an executive producer, but after hearing that people's contributions range from 1 dollar on up, I think I know how much he could afford to give! heh heh heh...

Oh, great! More Box Office...

I'm going out of town for a while so I gotta keep this short. Although I might be able to make the occasional post where I'm going. I don't got no wirefire or 3.8611, any of that stuff yet. No cellphone to post from either. Hmm! No wonder I'm not getting any hits!
Anyway, to keep it brief, as expected Silent Hill screams up a box office bonanza, even if it is just 20 million. Look out, Mia Farrow! This Radha Mitchell's got your number, girlfriend! SM4 slips slightly to number 2. Don't worry, we'll still see SM4.5 on DVD in 3 months, folks. The Sentinel debuts very respectably at number 3 with 14 mill, and I thought no one would care! It got a big boost from Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria. Okay, so the DH's aren't starring in all the hit movies like the Friends did in the 90s, but they're supporting players in all the big hits these days. I'd say that's much more respectable!
Ice Age and The Wild still fighting it out for Silverback status. sigh. When will those two just agree to put their money in a pile and split it?
Take the Lead at 7, Inside Man at 9, yawn. American Dreamz - they might have to hope for future cult status on this one. There's no fooling the dumb crowd, they know it's a sly satire, and they don't cotton to it. I think Willem Dafoe makes a much better Cheney than ... some damn Canuck!!!
And of course, speaking of Friends, Aniston debuts at #10 with Friends with Money, obviously not referring to whoever took points on this, but I think it's already made more money than Derailed did, heh heh...

Django Depp

Oh yeah, speaking of our last photo I meant to look and see if Nicky Katt is related to William Katt. Apparently not. Then again, I thought Redd and Jamie were related. My local video store had Harlem Nights under Drama! Good thinking...
A recent periodical said there's 114 summer movies to prepare for! Let's see, if we figure on 5 movies a day... yeah, I could take a whole month off to do that! But for the REAL word of mouth dope on a movie... I mean, nothing sells a movie in advance like passionate word-of-mouth just downstream from some source of serious anticipation, and the grapevine sez that Johnny Depp is going to portray Django Reinhardt in an upcoming flick. Noth8ing about it on the IMDb yet, though. Guess he's too busy working or something. Man, something's gone hay-wry with my typing lately! Must be the alzheimer's kicking in from staring at computer screens for all these years, with cellphones taped to each side of my head.
Hard to find that kind of stuff on the web without wading through irrelevant searches for hours and hours. Another example: I was thinking about a cartoon I saw a long long time ago, must've been one of those sick & twisted animation spectaculars you can only see in theaters. And there was this French cartoon; I mean, it just HAD to be French, right? And it was all about butts! How cars have butts and pollute the air with their farts, and they show these ships that have butts, and planes with butts, and steamboats with butts, and spaceships with butts, all spewing CO2 farts. It was really remarkable how thoroughly someone studied all mechanized things that have butts, and they all would turn in rapid succession at the camera to show their naked butts and zoom off into the sunset, farting all the way! It seemed to go on for ages, and lemme tell you, those sick & twisted crowds won't go for just anything. Even they knew Beavis & Butt-Head had hit written all over it. But back to the butts. So everything's got a butt and spews toxic inorganic waste into the air, and finally we end with a baby boy who takes a crap on the nice living room rug, and he gets spanked for it. I guess even then I kinda didn't totally buy the argument, but I had an appreciation for where they were coming from, the filmmakers living in a dysfunctional family and all. There's just not enough time to spank all the polluting butts out there. I am but one man! I forget if the film included mercury-spweing butts or butts that excreted depleted uranium.
Anyway, I'd be very surprised if anyone anywhere out there could find something about this mystery film! Even the makers probably won't come forward on that one.
On a slightly more positive note, there was this wordy animated film that came out a while ago, and singers (gay chorus?) sang about not having an agent in L.A. ...Found something! At least, about the sequel that's, frankly, in my humble opinion (IMHO?) better. We Love It! It's Buzzco. Can't believe I found something about these. I'm sorry, it's spelled Buzzzco. So what's Candy Kugel, chopped liver? :)
All right, enough about them. But check those out if you can. And send me a copy. Or maybe I can Kazaa it. Anyway, to wrap this up, I was going to include Bill Maher's latest New Rules, but I don't know. It's about how the Democrats should more fully come out as the Environmental Candidates, be more like the Green party, what have you. That they should vilify people more, like that oil doofus who recently retired with the biggest golden jowls you've ever seen! Hoo-eee, that must be all over the web by now. I agree, Dems probably should become more militant, but don't worry. The repubes will be the first to say when we've gone too far. When the Dems regain control of the House and Senate, and the White House, my New Rule is we get to act like Repubs for the next six years, voting in lockstep with our Democratic President, and not doing everything that the Rs want. It'll be like the Clinton years all over again! At least now we know what happens when the Rs spiral out of control. Oh yeah, and hopefully it's not too late to save the planet. Kurt Vonnegut sure doesn't think so.
Ah, The Rock. I don't know. I just don't think Michael Bay is patriotic enough.

Big Box Office BOOYAH!

Well, we've waited long enough and if it's not too late, it's time for box office analysis! At #10, V for Vendetta clings on with fingernails. Not much new to report about this flick; it's currently #191 in the IMDb Top 250, but I would like to give a Shout Out to my man Adrian Biddle (ASC & BSC?), who unfortunately passed away just after this movie. He brought us such super flicks as The Princess Bride, Willow and ... City Slickers 2? Moving on...
Boy, I just can't do this while the TV's on! Nader's on The Colbert Report. He's better when he's not running for President. Ooh, Stephen zinged him good! "The book is called 'The Good Fight', I don't know if he's fighting it..."
Coming in at #9 it's FTL in the hood with 2.61 mill of bling bling, baby! It's the 2nd biggest cumulative-wise with 83.2 mill. Oh, so close to cracking 100, maybe they'll leave it on just until MI3 comes to town, all barrels a-blazing; speaking of Donald Petrie Jr., his latest with Lindsay Lohan's coming out soon. Rather than a body-switching movie, it's a body attribute-switching movie! How original! Must bow down to all Lohan-Delivery Devices.
#8 brings us Thank You For Smoking. Having inhaled #4.49 mill this week, for 11.5 total; alas, it's only 9th overall. But don't worry. Buckley's donating all the profits to the Kool group.
At #7 it's Lucky Number Slevin! How appropriate! Hartnett, ask not for whom the bell tolls... That's all I'm gonna say.
#6 re-gifts us with (The) Inside Man. Oh, c'mon, Spike! Look at that Exxon dude that just retired with a platinum parachute in a golden parachute cover. Crime doesn't pay, oil does! Well, oil and the movies, and at #3 cumulative overall you gotta be sitting a little pretty for your next coupla pics, no?
Okay, moving on. #5 is Take the Lead with #6.78 mill. How numberical! 22.6 overall, #7 cumulative. Liz finally made it out of Music Video Hell! Kudos, but don't worry, she won't stay too far away.
Debuting at #4 it's Madagascar 2... I mean, The Wild (!0th cumulative!!) with 9.68 mill. IMDb doesn't have any business info, and frankly, I don't wanna know how much this is gonna lose!
At #3, holding strong, it's The Benchwarmers. If I remember correctly, of all the Happy Madison productions, The Animal performed similarly well at the B.O. And yet, despite all the DB2 hoopla there's STILL no Animal sequel in the works!
At #2 IA2 is still kicking some serious Box Office Keister at the Box Office. With the current #1 cumulative total, a massive 147 million, everyone at Blue Sky Studios can afford a shiny new Lamborghini! Yessir, someday, decades from now it'll be the Big Three: Pix-har, Blue Sky and Big Idea. Right around that time the next Stan Brakhage will come along and maybe put digital video on the map.
And finally, good Lord, we get to the last. Debuting fairly strong at #1 it's Mad Magazine - The Motion Picture. Seriously, though, it's Scary Movie 4, or as it's known in the biz: Scary Movie 3 Part Deux. But the important thing is that all the writers of SM1 and SM2 STILL get credit! Craig Bierko ... boy, I hope that's my anti-virus program updating. Craig Bierko joins the proceedings, as does Chris Elliott, although he doesn't revive his role as Hanson from SM2. Incidentally, what's Keenan Ivory been up to lately? I'm Still Gonna Git You, Sucka? Most Wanted 2? What's that? Homey the Clown finally getting green-lit? No h'way! Take that, Phantom! Better release ILC DVD's a couple weeks before the big day, though. By the way, you can also see Carmen Electra in Dirty Love, now playing on a shelf at a Best Buy near you, and I think the makers of ALL the Scary Movie movies would agree, it's way better than any of 'em. I just wonder if it was that one movie that Pamela Anderson almost went to the big house over. :)

Look, Ma! No Nukes!

At my local video store last night I was going to buy Daddy's Dyin', Who's Got The Will? on special... special Price DVD. I looked to see what extras it had, and it only had the theatrical trailer. No thanks! What about that music video they did? Could no one find it, or was it just tied up in ribbon after ribbon of copyright red tape? For shame, MGM! Or whichever studio is responsible. Oh, why did Judge Reinhold have to go and grow up? I was a little freaked out because they show movies on a TV just for their customers, and they were showing something I had just checked out two days previous: the DVD of John Carpenter's They Live! Guess I feel a little flattered about that.
Anyway, speaking of being freaked out, Dubya's once again freaking out the whole world, this time by threatening to use nukes on Iran. You know, just like in the Bible! For Dubya and his ilk, it's not just a question of when, but why not today? Right now? (warning: proselytizing ahead, grandstanding, soapboxing... turn back now!)
See, because it's all about TV moments with these guys. Reagan saying "Tear down this wall", Nixon saying "We just have different ideas about achieving those goals...", McCarthy saying "And if there's one Communist in this government, THAT'S STILL ONE COMMUNIST TOO MANY!" Bush Sr. saying "Read my lips..." Wait, scratch that last one.
It's also all about using the TV to stir public support, scare us shirtless, whatever. If only that darn pesky liberal media didn't slow things down by showing the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, what have you. That's why they're liberal. They didn't call it the Freedom Flood.
Me, myself, I tend to romanticize the U.S. and think of it in terms of a body. You know, freeways are arteries, roads are capillaries, cars being the blood cells. That kind of thing. So, in this analogy, the nerve center through the ages has changed, from telegraphs and a loose affiliation of newspapers. I like to think of the Postal Service as the nation's thoracic duct, if youwill; that's called a Shout Out to my peeps, that's what that is! Anyway, so from telegraphs to newspapers to Newsreels shown in movie theaters, and now TV and the internet being the dominant forces. Furthermore, the idea that ideas can be like viruses and bacterial infections that we need antidotes for. It took us a while to shake off the idea of Schwarzenegger for President, but this whole Iran thing has a more sneaky appeal, and a more urgent need for antidotes. I am kinda curious what Orrin Hatch thinks of all this, but who cares. He seems to like all crazy ideas anyway, no matter how crazy they are. ...Oh, I thought he was in Dave! Nah, just Traffic.
So, for the sake of Dubya's pride, we need to change the old proverb to a new one: if a nuclear bomb falls in the desert and no one on TV hears about it, does it really exist? Just as long as it doesn't hit the oil fields, I guess not. On Air America radio, I think it was Norm Ornstein saying that it's unprecedented for ex-Military brass to speak out in public, as there is this respect that the Military have for civilian leadership. Well, this is indeed now become the era of Questioning Everything, and it seems to me that Dubya is hell bent on taking all those things that were unprecedented, and making them so. Kinda makes you long for the sitting ducks of Yesteryear, huh?

Emergency Auteur Watch: McT - No Tapping!

For those of you in the Red States, and for that matter the Blue ones as well, if you thought Hollywood was some kind of wiretap-free Green Zone, today is the day that that illusion has been shattered. And who better to bring down that curtain than that mega-Action superstar director, the man who made and braided... let me rephrase. The man who single-handedly makes and breaks genres over his knee like so much kindling, the action man's Oliver Stone, it's the Mighty Mighty MacT! The only director in recent memory who had two films open against each other, within two weeks! Eaters of the Dead and that remake thingie with that wicked-ass Nina Simone song featured in the climactic climax. Not even King Midas has pulled that one off! (Except maybe for Always and IJ3...) Currently working on Crash Bandicoot: the Motion Picture... hmm! Sounds a little like they want to call it Crash Raiders. Also sounds like we wanted to revisit the Medicine Man locales li'l bit. Also working on something called Deadly Exchange, which may be about this current news episode! Ronald Shusett? Must be based on a Philip K. Dick short story, too.
Anyway, back to the episode at hand. Damn you, Tony Pellicano! How many more lives must you ruin? Well, I'm not taking the rap for you this time, or any time! And neither is McT, damn it! Okay, so he wanted to try to figure out why Rollerball ate it at the Box Office. I tell ya, it was Red Mountain's fault! Also because it was a soft PG-13, not a hard PG-13. As we all know, a film has to have a $100 million budget to qualify for the hard PG-13. The original was R, which today might be PG-13, but in these instances you have to either match the rating of the original or go it one better. Case in point: The Ladykillers, which at least managed to crack the Top 10. And while we're on the subject: let me give another shout to NCFOM. Javier! Trust me. Do this movie. I suggest taking the part of Chigurh, but you'll have to be in better shape than you were for Collateral. Believe me! Just being associated with this project has already helped your career. But that Pedro el Negro stuff, pure gold. You may get through to those yet who still can't stop quoting Pulp Fiction. You're the new Raul Julia, my man!! Get used to it.
D'oh, got off track again. Anyway, from what I can gather from the story, Mr. McT hired Pelican-O to wiretap Karl Rove. First of all, big mistake. Don't mess with Texas, or this White House. Even if you're one of the Pioneers, there's no tapping the big boys. They do the tapping. Second, ...oh, I'm sorry. It's a producer named Charles Roven. Sounds like he's to McT what Jean Doumanian was to Woody Allen: the scapegoat for diminishing box office returns. As if he doesn't have enough to worry about, he's got Batman Begins 2 irons in the fire! Kewl! Sounds like HE should be doing the wire-tapping!
Man, is it past my bedtime. Anyway, the story I read also said "Allegations against Pellicano include tapping the phone of actor Sylvester Stallone and having police run the names of comedians Garry Shandling and Kevin Nealon through a government database." That's funny, because I was just thinking about that bit today that Kevin did a long time ago, when he was young and hungry... well, young, anyway. Would you rather... for example, would you rather be indicted for wiretapping an associate of John McTiernan (McT) ... or, would you rather someone accidentally read that you dug up dirt for Steven Seagal? Yo, a big time Aikido action star and you need someone to change your diapers for you? I thought you always wanted to be a wiseguy! How is dat gonna help? Incidentally he's slated to play at the Tractor on May 27th in beautiful upstate Seattle! Seagal and his Seagal-ettes. I'm told all his martial arts buddies will fill the audience, ringers, if you will. So if you want to come down and hear some geniune Mississippi Delta blues, you can forget it because his martial arts buddies will be there to maintain order. It's gonna make Altamont look like a day care center! ...A NORMAL day-care center!!

Before They Were Names

Well, the Box Office report is mere hours away, but before we get to that it's time for another installment of Before They Were Names! That's right, where we take a closer look at celebrities who had to be molded ever so slightly to fit into the Celebrity mold. Take Michael J. Douglas, for example. Before he became Michael Keaton he was reading about Diane Keaton and decided, much to his agent's dismay, that Michael Keaton sounds pretty good! After all, there can't be TWO Michael Douglases in the union, right? And how about Piper Perabo? Well, that's a trick one, actually. She was pre-named after Piper Laurie, but thankfully the Right to Life movement haven't gloated too much about that one. And to think, she could've played the lead in Uptown Girls... or was it Little Black Book? I can't remember...
And last, but certainly not least, it's good ol' Vin Diesel, Charlie Brown. To pick a name this outlandish, you've got to go with pure inspiration, and inspiration he did. Named firstly after Vin di Bona, the prolific producer of America's Funniest Home Videos and Entertainment Tonight, and clearly some of that magic has rubbed off. And diesel, well, what can you say? It's the world's perfect fuel, and only the most powerful engines in the world are powered by diesel fuel. I mean, you can't just drop a match in it and set it ablaze! Both Vins know this, and it's what drives them both to this very day.
Well, that's it for this installment of Before They Were Names. Be sure and stay tuned for the next one!

Anchors Away (take 2)

Dang! My computer's wonking out on me again, as the Canadian-ese might say. But I'm going to persevere, nonetheless, because that's how dedicated I am to this g.d. blog. Why, I haven't even finished my taxes yet! And where's the glory in that, I ask you, loyal fan base? Clearly not as brilliantly shining as this is...
Anyway, enough of that. I lost my first draft but I think I can get most of it back, if not the essence of it, but only if I work quickly. I was noting that every once in a blue moon, somehow people's interest in the critical news of the Movie world is eclipsed by another lesser Sphere of Influence, and clearly this week that was the news of ... the News world! For example, Katie Couric is gaining attention by jumping the Today show ship and shanghai-ing the crew of the CBS Evening News, thereby ousting that current steward of Dan Rather's old chair, Bob Schieffer. Sorry, Bob, you're the Dick Gephardt of anchors now! (even I don't know what that means...)
And the aftershocks are being felt farther down the chain as you'd expect. Why, that hunky Rather look-alike John Roberts pulled a Morton Dean and skipped over to CNN! Oh man, TMI. (Too much Information!) Another Canadian import. Don't we have our own homegrown Dan Rather look-alikes? And Muchmusic? Canada's MTV? Well, there'll be plenty people who are more sore about that than I, so I won't hold that against 'im. Why, even Clooney's got things in his past, right? C'mon, fella, let's get cracking on Hail Caesar already! You got better things to do? I think not.
Guess that's about it for the anchors; of course, I don't know when this transaction took place: the hunky Bill Hemmer... maybe he got bumped by Roberts, but he's officially gone over to The Dark Side now. Many will enter, few will return unscathed, someone should've warned him about that. Why, you may ask? Because once you get in the hot tub with Roger Ailes, that's just how it is, let alone the rashes. I guess he was wise enough not to get his own show this time! I mean, how often can you ask people if they're Republican or not, and maintain the good ratings?
And so we wrap up our coverage of the news reporters, because when the news makes news, they cancel each other out.
Not much happening in the world of movies... still waiting on the summer blockbusters. What's Stephen Sommers up to, I wonder? Or Tom Shadyac, for that matter... maybe we'll do him next in Auteur Watch. This Accepted thing grabbed my fancy briefly when Tom described the premise, but these GRQ (Get Rich Quick) schemes only seem to work out for those who do it first, and thoroughly.
Better wrap this up. The computer's making that telltale clicking noise again!!! So long, hard drive! :(

Brrr! Oh, the Frozen Box Office Tundra

Welp, 50 million John Leguizamo fans can't be wrong, as Ice Age 2 once again gleams the cube at the Box Office, being not only #1 of the week, but #1 overall, and according to CNN it's the first flick to reach 100 million this year! Something depressing about that, but I can't put my finger on it, and probably don't want to... or my tongue, lest it get stuck and frozen in the process.
Coming in at #2 it's Benchwarmers, The with 19.7 million, making it 5th overall. Not bad! I guess they decided to leave the Caddyshack-esque Happy Madison vanity logo off of the TV spots, given the disastrous performance of this year's earlier effort, Grandma's Boy. But kudos to all the usual Happy Madison players, like Subway Guy Jon Lovitz and Adam Sandler, and hopefully this won't hurt Molly Sims' career too much.
At #3 it's Take the Lead with 12.1 mill, making it 7th overall. Having Antonio Banderas on SNL the same weekend helped a little bit. I wonder exactly how much it helped? And couldn't Melanie have been on hand for the proceedings? She's done the show! She could've given pointers...
Coming in at #4 it's Inside Man with 9.13 mil, giving it 66 mil total, making it #3 in the cumulative rankings. Why, Spike hasn't had this big a hit since ... since ... Bamboozled?
Rounding out the Top 5, that place where most news outlets grow disinterested with the box office returns, it's that new mindf--- entry into the genre Lucky Number Slevin. More people would've gone to see it, but they didn't know how to say the name!!! Owch...

We'll plow ahead, ne'theless. Five more to go! #6 gives us FTL which is 2nd in overall raking-in-of Big Box-Office Buckaroos. WHAT IS IT ABOUT THAT MOVIE?? While it's not yet posting Wedding Crashers-caliber numbers, maybe that big time TV critic could still do a special about this one, and how it's become this phenomenon that just won't die.
At lucky #7 it's ATL. Guess I still don't care. ...but I will give it up for Antwone Fisher! You go, Script Doctor Man!
At #8 it's V for Vendetta. (4th overall...) What can you say? This turkey's got legs! And apparently making the movie was an enjoyable enough experience that all the cast and crew voted it into the IMDb Top 250. And when you get right down to it, isn't that worth so much more? Not to spoil any surprises, but this has already spawned plans for a sequel, maybe two. The next one will be called MV for More Vendetta. Now, how can you argue with that?
At #9 it's Phat Girlz with only a small appetite for box office dollars, raking in a low-caloric 3.11 million. Making it 10th overall, cumulonimbus! Whazzup w/dat? The way I see it, in my own narrow way, either people are still recovering from Madea, or they should've had Anthony Anderson in the movie for balance of energy.
and finally at #10, 9th overall, it's Thank you for Smoking. I wonder if the filmmakers expected it to do this well. Well, it's doing better than Basic Instinct 2, that's for sure! Maybe BI2's bigger overseas. Maybe not. Maybe in 20 years it'll be seen as a classic, at which point they'll complete the trilogy. The point being: M. C-J, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Well, that's about it for me, and this week at the Box Office. Oh why, oh why does it take so long for next week to arrive?

Auteur Watch: DAVID DENEEN

That's right! You heard me. David Deneen. His credits are a little hard to find, as they are not all at the IMDb. Still trying to get a full blown feature pic deal off the ground, he has managed to find the time to do the occasional acclaimed short as well as the occasional beer commercial just to pay the bills. But he'll always have that Mighty Acorn that grew this mighty oak which stands before you now. Ah'm talkin' bout his entry into The Blue Racer hall of fame, right alongside Sid Marcus, Hawley Pratt, and whoever else worked on those, in an entry apparently farmed out to his native New Zealand/Australia, "Aches and Snakes". Who does he think he is, Steven Paul? Check out the wicked-ass animators names!! The backgrounds are a little funkier than other DFE Productions, but hey! Variety is the spice of life, is it not? After all, freedom isn't free. These aphorisms can't live in a vacuum! But enough about Rocko's Modern Life...
So, while Kraal may be behind him, there is Guests ahead of him; kinduva Desperate Hours in Sydney kind of thing but without the luxury of Kelly Lynch's ample bosom to sell tickets. Well, I may be the only one pulling for ya, Dave, but still.. Give 'em Hell! Stick it to Roger Donaldson and his ilk already in the loving embrace of that great Inner Circle of Auteurs! You'll make it yet, or do you not want it bad enough?

THE SEX ISSUE

Arthur wanted to say something, but kept silent, took the Army Colt
he thought, and he smiled. His race to learn had begun.
Austin isn't a bad guy, he's got the right mix of courage and ...

Oh wait. A little something from my latest spam email. And that brings us right to the SEX ISSUE! And if this doesn't get me kicked off, nothing will. Frist of all, (and what's HE doing on the IMDb, anyway? Even Alan Simpson was in Dave! Oh, things are still going to hell...) there is of course the sleazy guy in Homeland Security who's in handcuffs right now ... don't encourage him! The way I see it, it's all a ploy so Dubya can say "See? Homeland Security just doesn't work! In fact, I think it was all Clinton's idea, originally." I forget the guy's name, but it's not Brian Doyle-Murray. All right, moving on.
Meanwhile, in other news, I managed to peruse some of the latest issue of Teen People magazine. One of the grabber headlines is "What's your sex I.Q.?" I don't think Dubya should read the article. Him and his abstinence-only buddies would be very, very depressed by it. Either that, or ickily turned on by it. Shakira was on the cover. Good for you, girl! You don't need plastic surgery. Heck, if you've gotten this far without it. Don't be like Cher or Jacko.
Oh my Lord, AFV is on. Something evil about that show, that constant unrelenting flow of video. Puts the Riddler's Box in perspective. But you gotta love the animals. And a victory for Tom Bergeron, a very respectable addition to the show, but I think they should never got rid of Daisy Fuentes.
In other news, movie news in particular, Ray Romano is still trying to make himself into the Queen of the Indie circuit with his gonzo comedy entry, 95 miles to go. Hey! What about your twins? It was directed by Tom Caltabiano; he's good, but he's no Michel Gondry, or even Thomas Schlamme.
Meanwhile, I don't watch South Park, but I did catch some of an episode where they go after Family Guy, and I gotta say there was some good writing in there. They didn't do Peter's laugh, though. Too bad, they should've.
Hey! On PBS they're showing Capra's last, Pocketful of Miracles with CPA Peter Falk on acting and narrating duties. Why does that make me think of an Otto Preminger flick?
Oh yeah, and Spiely's gone skankin' into the Reality Show TV game. Does he feel that threatened? C'mon, guy! Get crankin' on IJ4 already! ...Jeff Nathansan out? Ouch! David Koepp in; well, War of the Worlds was pretty bangin'. I liked it, anyhow, Tomkat or not. Note to David: talk to Stephen about going on Papa Bear's Show. A blatant desperate cry for attention. Not good.
Oh yeah, and Thank you, Harry Taylor.

Chris Farley, and 9/11 Goes to the Movies

I think we've found the new Adrian Lyne! And it's Paul Greengrass with his latest Easter turkey, United 93. No, it's not a sequel to Passenger 57, it's about the big one, this generation's December 7th: September 11th, my friends. Oh, but 9/11 movies are so like Lay's potato chips; Hollywood can't produce just one. And that's why Oliver Stone, who hasn't had a scare of concurrency like this since the Alexander Wars... (it's gone now, but Baz Luhrmann briefly had planned on a movie starring Leonardo di Caprio, I assume as Alexander. Apparently, Romeo + Juliet didn't do that well to justify the Casting Callback. Too baz, Bad! heh heh...) where was I? Oh yeah, so Stone's got a 9/11 movie as well. Oh, I hope it's partisan and stilted! With cameos by Anthony Hopkins and Val Kilmer. Lemme guess, the Dutch were really behind 9/11, right? Can Joe Pesci play Dutch? The leap from al-Qaeda to Iraq is nothing if not an enigma wrapped in a riddle...
In other news, Chris Farley does a new billboard that says "It wasn't all his fault." Unfortunately, it's not a Public Service ad for sobriety, but for some kind of ... sobriety pill? I was as big a fan of Farley as you'd find, but I don't think he was into seeking treatment! Besides, do we really need something that gives people the ability to take MORE illegal drugs? I'm talking to you, Chaser Online!
Never mind, I thought they had an official website.
In other movie news, the MTV Dance Show Movie Continuum continues unabated with the latest entry, Take the Lead. Since time immemorial, all them movies like Take the Hint, Honey (Oops! Sorry, Jessica. First Playboy, now this!) and ... what else? I don't know. Too many. Oh yeah, You Got Served! Another one. Another one to watch.
What else? While the saturation bombing campaign for Thank You for Smoking continues, I fear that movies like The Sentinel will fall through the cracks. So, back to the other one: I remembered that Buckley guy was on The Colbert Report flogging his little book! I don't think he even said it was now a major motion picture, which may be to his credit on the one hand, but on the other I don't think he'll be happy with the translation from page to screen: the liberals in the picture do entirely too much talking!
And now SM4 is on the horizon, and it's ready to clean up at the Box Office. But it'd help to have some kind of scene to grab audiences, like Michael Jackson from SM3. Leslie Nielsen shirtless is a start, but listen to the focus groups for other signs!
Why, I haven't even gotten to "Pepper Dennis" yet! But then, who has? :)

(Editor's Note: this blog post has been digitally remastered... in this context, it means that all the old IMDb links have been changed from "us.imdb.com" to "www.imdb.com," because when this was originally posted, that was the way the IMDb was doing things domestically.  Now they're not.  But if you click on a link to "us.imdb.com," you'll get this warning.  A warning about how you're headed to a not-very-secure website and what not.  Hmm!  Must be why this blog post was particularly popular!  That'll probably stop now.)

The Cutting Edge of Spam, and Box Office Report...

...effortlessly, and lifted into the dark night air. The Flock was roused"Can't we talk about the arts instead? Wouldn't the listeners care toArthur shook his head, hurt."Not bad. And you?" He didn't answer. He hugged my neck, pressed me tohands stuffed into the damp pockets of his jumpsuit. It was light.The lock clicked and the voices were quieter. Obviously they had gone


Seem familiar? If not, you haven't been checking your spam email lately! It's the latest tactic, a little bit of a pulp novel at the bottom, just the thing an internet worm might ride on :) This is why it's not as fun to be a telemarketer. Hey, I just blew your mind; now let me do your next mortgage!

Boy, am I disappointed in this week's returns, and you'll find out why at the end. I'm starting at the top this time, which of course is Ice Age 2: Glacier Boogaloo with a whopping 70.5 million dollars. Top that, Pixar! Talking cars? I don't know. But it's not all good news, it's only 3 million behind Failure to Launch's #1 cumulative total of 73.2 million dollars, but give IA2 a couple more hours and it'll surpass even that.
Meanwhile at #2 it's Inside Man. Oh, don't spoil it for me! Haven't seen it yet. Might as well use this opportunity to give a Shout Out to scriptmeister Russell Gewirtz, whose previous credits include two episodes of the short-lived "Blind Justice". Sorry, Wirtzy, there's only enough money in television for J.J. Abrams, David E. Kelley and the Law and Order people.
At #3 it's ATL, which explains the Top 3 in terms even the suburban types can understand: send the kids to Ice Age 2, the teenagers to ATL, and the adults watch Inside Man, or as I would've thought, BI2 but moron that later.
At #4 it's FTL (See #1). Hear that, movie studios? That's your new ad campaign right there!
At #5 it's V4V... nah, it's played already.
Stay Alive stays strong at #6. Good work, Hebrew Hammer! Man, the IMDb voters work fast. This is already in the Bottom 100 along with Larry the Cable Guy's flick. Manos, the Hands of Fate used to be the King! #1 worst movie. At least, until the crews of these other movies started voting...
But I digress. At #7 it's She's the Man. What can I say? Damn you, Fickman!
#8 brings us Slither. Did I see correctly in the trailer? A teenage girl swelled up to pregnant proportions by those creepy crawlies? In a couple years this kind of thing will be PG-13, you'll see.
#9 is Shaggy Dog, The. ALSO on the Bottom 100. Team Wibberley 4Ever! Too bad they can't put that on a vanity license plate. Not to be confused with David Webb Peoples and wife.
Finally, we come to the biggest box office story in a long time. Lord knows how much money was poured into advertising the release of Basic Instinct the second. I think Gloria made more money than this! People just knew the reincarnation of Carolco was a bad idea. I was re-watching Ms. Stone's interview on The Daily Show, a little misty-eyed for some reason. Pining for my long lost teenage years, I suppose. Maybe I was thinking this is what could've happened to Elisabeth Shue. But I'm not worried, there's always "Huff" after all to fall back upon. As for the filmmakers themselves, take a look at what's #1 this week and note it well, because the only way Basic Instinct 3 is going to work is either by (a) waiting another 16 years (Stone goes from MILF to GMILF?) or (b) BI3 is done by Pixar. :)

It's an April Fools kinda Weekend

Don't kid yourself, folks! April Fools Day is under attack from, guess who, the usual suspects! But not here, thank goodness. Think of this blog as your April Fools Day Green Zone, if you will. And all this month, we're featuring a special image theme. See if you can guess it. I'll give you a hint: the eyes have it!
Anyway, big big weekend, folks. The entirety of Hollywood is holding their breath as that juggernaut, if you will, is being unleashed on an unsuspecting Red State kinda public. That's right, Basic Instinct 2 is upon us. But what kind of an impact can it possibly have, in this day and age? They seem to have toned down the lesbian theme, if any, which back then seemed a little more potent. Today the USA is a lot more lesbian friendly... friend-bian? Les-dly? See, this is why I don't get paid the big bucks. Someone more talented than myself could combine those two words more effortlessly. But back to the main thread. These days, in the internet age of today, where Basic Instinct 1-type ilk is all over the internet and cable, will this film have the same, if any, impact? Will Sharon Stone's loyal fan base even bother to show up? Who is David Morrissey and how many turned down that part before him? More depressing than that, if this hits big, how many old dusty scripts are Leora Barish and Henry Bean gonna shop around town? So scampish!
What else? Guess that's about all we can do with that for now. Well, there's only one place to go for new movies, and that's Moviefone! And it says there's a movie on the horizon called Adam & Steve. Sorry, Homer Simpson already did that when he became a man of the cloth. "Let's see, who am I doing next, Adam & Steve or Madam 'n Eve?" There's Something about Marrying, yeah! That's the one... Ah, the IMDb expands its ever widening grasp, yet it can't get my hyperlinks right. Well, gotta keep trying. Anyway, This Is Your Moment, Craig Chester. Your moment to shine. Right there in the national spotlight. All your hard work from the days of Swoon has not only finally paid off, but come full circle, and I can only imagine that the latter is the more satisfying. Either way, it won't be a big payday. Better tout it as the new Brokeback Mountain, only without the humor and the production values.
Nah, all quiet on the box office front! I guess the release date for MI3 got pushed back or something. I coulda sworn it was March 30 at some point, but I guess May the 5th is much better, the ol' Cinco de Mayo, gringo! Better wrap this up, it's a little past my bedtime. But before I forget, let me give a shout out to Tommy Lee Jones, currently in negotiations to do the Coens' new pix, No Country for Old Men. Tommy! Trust me, do this picture, whatever the cost. You just did Man of the House. I rest my case. They can just as easily get Billy Bob to do that part if you don't. They're okay, they know Barry Sonnenfeld. You can always call Barry in a pinch!
Just saw a clip of Phat Girlz. I'm gonna have sweet dreams tonight! Biltmore... I love it! :)
p.s. Ah Hah! David Spade, I owe you again. Just saw the Web Ad for Disney's The Wild. Yeah, I liked it the first time, when it was called Madagascar.