Report from the Road

Ah, the power of technology! This will be my first remote blog-cast. I have yet to see if it actually works. Plus, the data pipeline out here's a little thinner so it'll take me even longer to get this Box Office NIE right. Man, too depressing of news. Bush calling something disgraceful, what a laugh. And are we finally going to lose Federalsburg, MD? Who will care? Barry Levinson?
Anyway, on to the good news that no one's reporting, and that's this week's Box Office! Let's just start from the tippety-top this time with Click! And boy, did it click with audiences opening weekend, no surprise. While not doing as well as Big Daddy, 1999 dollars, it debuted strong at 40 million. On the down side this makes it only 7th cumulative-wise. Now if only there was a remote that could fast forward you to where the movie's made 200 million, or if you could forward past having to do commentary on the Special-edition DVD with Rob Schneider and company...
Meanwhile at #2 it's Pixar's Cars with only 22 1/2 million, but making it 3rd overall in this horse race. Guess it's surviving the critical bashing it's been getting after all. And Pixar and the Mouse have mended fences, too! Yes, everything's coming up roses for Senator Lasse(t)ter and his group of cyber-cronies. But, while even Pixar's not powerful enough to resurrect Ernest (Pink Lady and Jeff forever!) they have found a fairly suitable replacement, although he's still in talks for Toy Story 3. French Stewart is still slated to play the lead in the direct-to-video release Health Inspector 2...
Nacho Libre is still holding strong at #3, and you know what that means! Who knows how many more films we'll be seeing from those Hess-ian mercenaries. Napoleon Dynamite Goes to Hollywood? Or how about that time they crossed over into Montana on a sidecar? Man, did they get a paddlin' for that! Personally, I'm getting a little tired of seeing Jack Black's nipples while I'm going for a stroll in the mall. I don't want to have to think in there!

...and then, like a bolt of Black Lightning from out the blue, it's the rare Non-Dame Madea FUBU Cinema entry! This time, it's called Waist Deep, and no, it's not about Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, thankfully. We'll tolerate none of that New-Orleans-ploitation cinema, thank you very much! I'm talking to you, Spike! He's scrapped plans to do his Get on the Bus sequel about Katrina, called Get on the Boat. (paid Bruce Vilanch for that one, heh heh...) But back to the instant case at hand. Waist Deep blew in like a Category 4 hurricane, sucking in 9.45 million in its debut week, and no, a percentage of the profits are not going to Hurricane Katrina victims. Business is business. Just ask Federalsburg, MD. Besides, in about five years we'll all be living in houseboats anyway.
Rounding out the Top 5 it's ... okay, a big mouthful. I gotta psyche myself up here: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. It'll revive the Soap Opera cinema movement as we know it! Finally the perfect date movie. All that sentimental crap for the chicks, and cars for the dudes. You know, Pixar could learn a lot from this flick.

Gotta cut this short, folks, although this may be the last! :(

¡Box Office Salsa!

I'm literally out the door for my extended 3-day or so vacation, but I'm not about to leave all my loyal readers hanging! I promised to open up a six-pack of whoop-ass on last week's box office, and so I shall... although it's a rough draft. See you later!!


...
It's that time of the week again! Where we put the Box Office on the slide and observe it wriggling around under the microscope. We got a couple newbies, plenty of oldbies, and only one over 200 million! Sorry, Da Vinci, a million is a million.
At #10 it's Over the Hedge, and it's almost over the horizon! Sorry, DreamWorks, I already watched the whole thing at Costco on 60" HDTVs, b'eatch! The way God intended movies to be watched.#9 it's Da Davinci code... At this point they've scrapped all TV and print advertising and are instead relying on accompanying magazine articles. Take Newsweek's most recent cover story "Was Da Vinci gay?" I understand he did have artistic tendencies... Case closed.
At #8 it's The Omen. Sigh. America's just not in the mood to be scared right now. They, like me, are waiting for a Saw 3 Halloween, baby! That's all the candy I need.
And now, we get to the newbies. Garfield 2 debuts at #7... Frankly, I remain un-impressed. The first one did better than that! So, you mean to tell me I spent the last 3 weeks reading Garfield strips of that fat cat saying "I hate sequels" for NOTHING?!!!
X-Men has hardly taken its last stand at the box office as it stays at #6 with an impressive cumulative total of 216 million. With Wolverine's fingernails to cling with, it could stay there forever!
Ah, The Break-Up. Guess America's not in the mood to see America's 2nd hottest couple on the skids. America needs to believe in love right now, and the jazz-scatting of Favreau and the Vinnie Vaughn Invasion just isn't gonna cut it. Sorry, guys. We'll wait for Made 2 for that.
The Lake House, aka Speed 3: Through the Portal of Time debuted strongly at #4, almost as well as Hope Floats. Hey Letterman, will THAT float?
FF3 debuts at, where else? #3! Nothing more fitting. I think the scariest thing about this is there are Paul Walker clones out there! How he escaped from the gravitational pull of She's All That, I'll never know, and neither will Stephen Hawking or Baby Albert Einstein... I just eMC square'd in my diapers!
Finally we get to Nacho Libre. The big one. The sophomore debut of the Idaho Coen Bros. and with advertising muscle like MTV behind it, how could it not be the #1 live action comedy? I assume MTV helped out where it could with behind the scenes specials every other hour, and a Nacho-themed episode of Undressed to boot. I don't know, I haven't watched MTV in years. Show videos again!

Flesh Frolic

Normally I don't do this, but I feel I really have to speak out this time. Is it injustice? I'll leave that to you, dear readers. All I know is, it sure feels like injustice to me, and I'm sure the loyal readers of Maxim Magazine will surely agree. But before we get to that, better make this a three-parter, just in case. After all, all good things come in threes, right?
Where to begin, then? Oh yeah. Sea of Love. Saw most of it, anyway, enough to fog up my glasses, that's for sure. And I thought Mr. Becker learned his lesson from The Boost. No more love stories! Too bad they had to have all that murder mystery stuff get in the way of the plot and all. Well, it was probably a necessary evil, otherwise it's just Booty Call. Can you believe it? Academy Award (TM) winner Jamie Foxx STILL to this day won't return Jeff Pollack's calls! He'll get through one of these days, though. They've already got the title for the sequel: Badonkadonk. ...is that how it's spelled? I just don't speak Blackanese!
Anyway, part two. They were showing Porky's on Fox Movie Channel. While I don't think it's in Animal House's league, it certainly has a certain sense of time and place, or at least a semblance of a budget for it. And of course ample amounts of flesh. How quaint, too, when the guys are peeking in the shower and the one kid gets stuck with the fat chick. He tells her to get out of the way loudly so the jig is up. Good gag, but is he gay?
Later on, in a feat of isomorphic mental acrobastics, I will attempt to draw parallels between the instant case and director Bob Clark's other KC Masterpiece, A Christmas Story, but on to #3, which is A Good Woman. While I haven't seen it, I was perusing some DVDs at ... Fred Meyer, was it? This was in a bin and I read the description on the back, and it said "Scarlett Johansson plays a newlywed trying to win her husband back from seductress Helen Hunt." Do I need to repeat that? Let me repeat it anyway. That's Scarlett Johansson trying to win her husband back from (Academy Award winner) Helen Hunt. As Lewis Black might say, are you f******* kidding me?!! Son of a Bitch! How hard could that be? All she'd have to say to me is "I'm Scarlett Johansson"! Game over! Even Woody Allen knows it, Scarlett is this generation's Marilyn Monroe! Done two pics with her, lucky bastard. I mean, Helen was okay in Empire Falls, and whatever else she's done, but c'mon! Am I right, all you slobbering editors over at FHM? Then again, she did play a size-obsessed lady of the evening on a Ladies' Man sketch on SNL. I think that was her audition tape for this role. The producers were between a rock and a hard place on this one: rumor has it Madonna was also interested in the part, but the producers turned her down. Ouch!
All right, I'm done. On to bigger and better things now. Why I have yet to tear this week's box office a new one! Hopefully I'm not too late, got just the image for it too. Stay tuned! :)

Congrats! 100 entries

Sorry, this was the only movie-related 100 I could think of, and I think it knocked all the other 100's out of my head. Yes, it's true! This is our 100th episode of The Movie Hooligan blog. A cause for celebration! And how to celebrate? I'm not sure myself. This site doesn't have the best navigation in the world but I guess we could always look back, but do it yourself, please. I'm too tired.
Well, here's a thought! Okay, I confess, so I checked out the DVD of Throw Momma from the Train from my local video purveyours. I did try to make a copy of it but my computer wouldn't let me. Damn copyright laws! See, here's how I think it should be. Once all the parties involved have made all the money they're going to make off a movie like, well, TMFTT, for example, why not remove all that Copyright Protection mumbo-jumbo and see where the private sector takes it? I mean, let's face it, not everyone's going to want a copy of this turkey, am I right? These days it's all Mr. & Mrs. Smith! Incidentally, why isn't every other line of dialogue in that movie just something along the lines of "You know, Angelina, you look damn sexy - you are aware of this, right?" In case no one else has beaten me to the punch, when they remake Throw Momma I think it should be Owen Wilson in the Danny DeVito role and Luke Wilson in the Billy Crystal role. Good brotherly dynamic. Why, I can just picture Owen in Cars right now: "C'mon, Newman! Ya gotta lighten up, man! I mean, look @ us! We're a couple of cars here! Driving! You know?"
Other movie news: Bee Movie's still a work in progress. I know these Pixar-type pics are a lot of work, but puh-lease! At least we now have a timetable. I just assumed there were script problems, even though he's got some of the finest minds from Seinfeld working on it. Even the Simpsons hit a snag every now and again, right?
And now, the only movie news I care about: NCFOM - Ah! Looks like there were successful negotiations after all. You won't regret it, Tommy Lee. They've been showing U.S. Marshals lately on cable. While that was good, I think this will be a little meatier role for you. That's right, even more so than Double Jeopardy. Who knows? Time for another Oscar, maybe? What's this? Now Tim Blake Nelson's in negotiations? Hey, the Coens made you, buddy! Yeah, I know you're a director, too, but I'm sorry. Kansas and Eye of God weren't going to put you over the top.
Oh yeah. Finally saw the all-grown-up Peter Billingsley. You remember him! A Christmas Story? And I'll be damned if they don't pay some kind of homage to it in The Break-Up. That's perfunctory these days in movies, like David Hasselhoff in the upcoming Click. Guess Shatner was busy.
Okay, it's time to go. Thanks for all the support, people! Keep watching... :(

You know what's not hot? Reruns.

Oh, Letterman, you dog! What would Drew Barrymore say? Yes, that's naughty newbie Paris Hilton parading herself around on Dave's little dog and pony show for what, the third time? I love how she says she's busy working. Well, I do know she likes to earn her own money. That estate tax is going to bite her in the ass someday, better plan ahead now. Guess it also explains the recent cover of ... I think it was U.S. News and World Report, decrying retirement. Apparently it's not enough for people to enjoy retirement anymore; they still gotta work. C'mon, Republicans! Come out and say it! You hate retirees! All those people who say they don't have to work anymore, they've paid their dues in years and it's time to relax and enjoy life. It eats you up inside, don't it?
Meanwhile, on The Daily Show, they showed this Rob Corddry report called ... damn! Must be having too much sugar again. It's about high gas prices, and they first showed it on May 31st, 2005, then again that November (slightly edited, perhaps for time; when he drives away from the bicycle chick they cut off the car running out of gas again), and now yesterday (they showed the original uncut version that day). You might say they're getting good ... mileage ... out of it! (drumroll) After all, it's not the years - it is the miles, and besides, it's more timely than ever. But 2.59 per gallon only a year ago? Only on the Republican's watch. But I guess that's not fair. I'm sure someone will show that Carter was just as beholden to the oil companies as Dubya, if not more so. Who needs evidence these days? Just saying it is enough.
I had a third part to this fiasco, but again, didn't write it down. Oh, how things slip from memory these days. Yes, Letterman once said to Jeff Altman in fact, that the chemical that converts short term memory to long term memory isn't produced in as great a quantity as it is just after birth, when young minds need to absorb as much as they can about this crazy world we live in. Well, maybe this was it... as I was working today, I thought to myself, I wonder if in the new Superman movie, if Superman will fly over someone's house and the owner comes out and says "Excuse me, could you not fly over my house please?"

GRAND HEFT AUTO! That was it...

Box Office Autopsy

Awwright! Let's dissect this Box Office corpse. At #10 it's Poseidon, still on the radar for now, 8th overall at the box office with 54.9 mill total. Ya need a hit, Wolfgang!
Meanwhile at #9, RV is about to drive off into the horizon, but look out for European RV and Christmas RV coming down the pike. Get Chechik on the phone! Quick!
Mission Impossible 3 ... Well, it's not quite doing the impossible, but it is at #8 this week with a Paltrow 3.02 million. 127 mill overall, making it 4th cumulative-wise.
At #7, PHC debuts with a strong 4.57 million... strong for Altman, anyway. Did The Player hit #1? Ya need a hit, Lindsay!
Clinging on with proverbial claws and dropping down the curtain, ripping all the way, it's Over the Hedge at #6. It is 3rd overall with 130 million total; so far that only means one sequel. We'll see how that one does, then we'll talk trilogy. Still no sequel to Antz, right?
Now we're into the heavy hitters! sort of. Da Vinci's still boffo at #5; at 189 million it's 2nd overall cumulative-wise. Looks like it'll make 200 million after all. Everyone breathe a sigh of relief - Opie's still got it!
At #4 it's The Omen, folks. And I thought you wanted to be SCARED, America! Guess reality's bad enough as it is. But at least we have Enzyte these days, right? Good work, Bob!
X3 at #3! Isn't this how it should be? Guess the studio doesn't think so. How would that look in an ad? "It's the #3 movie in America!" Don't think so. But Nacho Libre's got that ad in the can just in case. Anyway, the conspiracy. Bryan Singer directed the first two X-Men movies. He is executive producing a hit show on Fox called House, M.D. Hmph! House. A guy named House. What next? A hip, precocious kid named Fudge? Then you have super-director Brett Ratner, director of X3, who is exec-prodding ... surprise! A hit show on Fox! Prison Break! Boy, they don't let just anybody direct these things! Guess that's probably why Joe Carnahan didn't stay attached to MI3, no pun intended... Shame on me! I thought he was a one-film wonder! I didn't know he did Narc! Maybe I'll watch it.

Oh yeah, and Break-Up at #2, and Cars debuts at #1, big surprise. I mean, let's face it, there's no beating the high that was X3 at #3, right folks? ;) Gotta go, it's dinnertime. So sad! It's the part of Octopussy where there's no Maud Adams! quel dommage. And to think she lost out to Mimi Rogers in Dumb and Dumber 2. Tasteless? No such thing!

Auteur Watch: Sylvester Stallone

Well, so far the new millennium has been a little slow for ol' Sly, not like the go-go 90s, that's for sure. But things are heating up now, baby! Could it be all because of "The Contender"? Yeah, I think so. Look what's coming down the pike now! Sequels on the house! Sequels all around... Rocky. Rambo. Now if only there were a sequel to Judge Dredd the trifecta would be complete, but this is a good start. Is America ready for this Phoenix to rise again? I'm really the wrong person to ask because I sure don't think so. In the meantime be sure to visit Instone's official website. Hey, these vitamins don't sell themselves, people!
Hmm! Guess that's all that really needs to be said about that. Thought this entry would be longer. Oh yeah, almost forgot. My insider source tells me the new Rocky's going to start where Balboa's watching Cop Land on DVD with commentary. Okay, I'm outta here... :)

Latent Box Office Séance

Okay.... (sighs heavily) I'm going to try this ONE MORE TIME! I think the Devil really is watching me! The Blogger servers went down last time I tried to post, and before that I couldn't post a pic to save my life! (see previous post) But now it looks like ... All Systems Go, Friend or Foe, It's something with the Devil - it's Touch and Go, followed by the coolest synth riff in the history of MTV videos... although it manages to escape the many lists on TV now. Face it people! We're living in a List Renaissance. It's time to sit back and revel in all the great cultural achievements that have come before our time. Yes, there's never been a better time for a critic to make their mark in the world...
Anyway, let's look at the Box Office tally for this week. Hanging by fingernails at number 10 it's Donald Petrie's Just My Luck, and his luck must be taking a turn for the worse. Then again, what busboy in the heart of Hollywood wouldn't kill everyone they ever knew for a streak like Miss Congeniality, How to lose a Guy in 10 days and Welcome to Mooseport? Meanwhile, Lindsay Lohan's parents are scolding her, saying "You were beaten by A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!" On the plus side, Lindsay's brother is now an understudy for Alan Cumming in the Broadway play... well, just a general understudy.
Meanwhile, coming in at number 9, from the director of Gossip, it's An Inconvenient Truth. Eat your heart out, Michael Moore! Actually, I think F9/11 had a little bit stronger opening, but never mind. Global Warming is just becoming a celebrity in its own right. Oh, I miss the days of El Niño! Anyway, so they had a commercial for AIT during The Daily Show, kinduvan Action Movie-style trailer. The next commerical was this Tanqueray commercial where this wicked British black dude was on a cruise ship somewhere amongst the ever fewer icebergs, and he says "I'm told there's over a billion ice cubes in one of those things." Kind ov a depressing thought: it used to be an iceberg had at least 5 trillion ice cubes in it. That was the size of the one that took down the Titanic, I'm told [by James Cameron himself! :) ]
Moving on, from impending real evil to good old fashioned made-up movie evil, it's See No Evil making just, pitiful numbers. That's 2 million dollars this weekend from people too impatient to wait and see The Omen. Or, for that matter, Saw 3.
At #7, RV is still riding strong on low gas mileage, but it probably hasn't made a profit even yet. 5 weeks on the charts - you know why? It's outta respect. Oh sure, maybe it's only doing slightly better than Wild Wild West, surely not as good as the first two Men In Black's. And didn't Get Shorty spend its first three weeks at #1? The point being, theater distributors give respect to these great directors who've entertained the hell out of us... oh yeah, and Sonnenfeld too. :)
At #6, in a cruel ironic twist, Poseidon's box office totals are slowly sinking into the oblivion that all movies must endure. 3.49 mill? That's not even enough to pay the illegal aliens working on the picture, for Chrysler's sake! Moving on...
All right! Now we're getting into those extra-bloated ticks sucking all the blood out of the proverbial Box Office dog. The next four in a row have already raked in 100 million. Now they're just greedy! New rule: once a film makes 100 million, it's immediately pulled from theaters, and they just start selling the DVDs.
Anyway, #5 brings us MIIII as Stephen Colbert is fond of saying, and no, it's not Men in Black 4 misspelled. Rather, it's Tom-Kat's Mission Impossible 3: Talladega Nights. And even after all that, the Cruise-missile-meister STILL won't do a guest shot on Lost for poor, long-suffering J.J.! You bastard!
#4 brings us the Red State fave, The Da Vinci Code. And guess what? It's already made Entertainment Weekly's 25 Most Controversial Films of All Time list, just edging out Freddy Got Fingered. Payola Forever!
#3 is Over The Hedge, and it's hardly over the hill, my friends. Why, the now defunct DreamWorks has already got three sequels planned, and they're even going to let Bruce Willis into the script meetings so he can sneak in some of his many right-wing views. Bruno will sing again, oh yes... Idar-Oberstein Uber Alles!!!
#2 is X3, already well on its way to make 300 million, or the catering budget of Spider Man 3 (never to be outdone). I'm already way behind schedule so I'll append my further remarks til next time. Trust me, it'll make my head spin.
Finally we come to the magic that is the Vince-ifer Vaughn-iston... Jen-ince-fer Anis-ghn? Vin-gifer Vaughn-niston-ghn. Obviously this requires a lot more study, and I'm hardly the guy to do it. I didn't get no Doctoral Dissertation from USC! If they can't do it, who else would want to? Yes, it's The Break-Up! All part of my New Rat Pack theory. Actually, it's my New Rat PackSSS theory. Now the 3 S's are for who's at the helm of each prospective Rat Pack: Soderbergh, Stiller and Sandler. Now, Sandler's crew is about to hit big with Click, so watch out, Stiller! See, Vaughn is in the Stiller Rat Pack (Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2) although at this point he's clearly the Sinatra, what with his Shirley MacLaine on his arm, JenAn. But moron that later, I gotta go shopping. G'night!
(now Post, damn it, Post!!Like an idiot I won't save a backup copy, as usual...)

Big Horizon Sky on the Movie... ?

Sorry, folks. No image this time. The computer won't let me for some reason. Some unreasonable reason! That's what I get for always blogging first, posting images later. :(

Man, still tired! Where does all the time go? I haven't even made half of the preparations for company to arrive at my humble casa de abode, and this week's box office STILL goes unreported! Though I had a feeling that The Break-Up would kick ass, it was just a question of by how much. Some say it means Jennifer Aniston's back on top again, but how does that explain Mr. & Mrs. Smith? I forget; was she on The Real World? What season? heh heh ...
Anyway, more big movies on the horizon. Nothing yet from the Clooney camp, and we're still waiting on Syriana on DVD - maybe they're working on the unrated version with more Jolie than you can shake your stick at. Sandler's got his yearly project in the can, though. Ah, yes! Coraci's back in the fold! And who knows, maybe he'll show up in a crazy bug-eyed cameo, where YOU GET HALF OF A-DA PIZZA!!! Too obscure? All right...
What else? Macho Nacho Libre's within striking distance, but not before Cars has had its way with the box office first. Some say it's the best car movie ever! And they haven't even seen it yet. I forget, it was some car magazine, but I don't know. Cars with eyes? Well, if they don't make a certain brand of truck look like the villain, they've lost a bet. Note to self: find a picture that illustrates what I'm trying to say. (huh?)
Yes, for all intents and purposes it's the sophomore feature from the Hesses. Are they the Coen brothers of Preston, Idaho? The two-headed director from the non-Aryan section of Potato Land? The John Hughes of the Idaho tweens and their not-so-eloquent angst? Have they severed all ties with the Duffs? Does Peluca count? Is this indeed their junior effort? Is this movie going to do for Mexican wrestlers what Napoleon Dynamite did for ... the Hesses? So many question, so few answers, but all I know is in the TV spots for Nach. Lib., there's a certain four-wheeler crash that looks an awful lot like the one in the other one! Ya know what I mean? ;) Gotta be careful, guys. You want to have a rich directorial palette, a wider array of themes and stark imagery to draw from than the same old quadmaker crashes. It's time to travel the world, guys. Join Conde Nast, or is it the Cosa Nostra? No shame in interning with Woody Allen for a while, borrow from him a little bit.
All right, that's about all the tidbits I can handle at this time ... Pheww! Still reeling from this film I saw called Butter. I think it's the kind of film Harold Lloyd would make today if he was young and black. And Zedd(e)more! You were so big once. Not good to be a star in this kind of turkey. This makes Airheads look like friggin Shakespeare! And Peter Gathings Bunche, stick to what you do best: Erotic Confessions-style fare on late nite cable.

Meany, beany, Gandalf-ini

Hold the phone! Stop the presses... My prayers answered: the UNRATED version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith! Finally, Shiloh Nouvel's conception caught on film! For some reason I didn't think they'd pander like that. Then again, we're not talking about Syriana here or anything. Incidentally, when's that coming out?

On video, that is... Looks like the sequel's already in the works. Ayn Rand gives me a boner!

Anyway, what does Gandalf care? They're running the next crop of Da Vinci ads (see it again for the First Time, you know the drill), but his X3's the Lord of the Box Office now! (maniacal laughter) Boy, his career's really going to take off now! Doogal? Wow! That's a shock. He could've owned that movie.

Meantime, I'm about to unleash on the world my New Rat Pack Theory. Things are happening. We'll need a Venn Diagram to explain it all, for one, and some kick-ass graphics. Meanwhile, it's official: Maxim magazine sez The Break-Up is great! I can't believe they didn't like Tomcats. It was made just for them! Guess we've finally grown up as a nation and moved on to fare like, well, like The Break-Up. Yes, the Frat Boy wave(olution?) of the late 90s has finally crashed on the shore like so much white powder... Let's check in on NCFOM ... Damn! The leads are STILL in negotiations! Well, they've got their work cut out for them as it is. If Josh Brolin's playing the part I think he's playing, they can do some of the scene where the guy first stumbles on the briefcase... oops! I forgot. Spoiler alert. :) Better get to bed now before I do much more damage.