Screaming Uruk-hai Zonkers! It's the Motherf@¢#!&* Box Office Report

Dang! How quickly the time goes, and for that matter the money too. But I'm going to make it a point to get to it a little earlier this week... I'm not sure why. :)
Incidentally, speaking of things numberical, for those of you who be mathematically inclined, all the square numbers are debuts! 1 squared, 2 squared (4) and 3 squared (9). The rest? Same old crap. Let's dive in.
At 10 it's Barnyard, dropping from #6 last week, which means next week it'll be at #14, and ready to take its place alongside Antz and A Bug's Life. Is it just me, or does Andie MacDowell look a little bit animated in her own right, if ya know what I mean?
Debuting at #9 it's Idlewild. Not unique enough for this overcrowded movie meat market, apparently. Who wouldn't want to see the Blaxploitation version of Moulin Rouge!? Damn, it's hard for a musical pimp.
At #8 Step Up steps down from #4, almost double the position. Sure, it may seem like it's headed for obscurity, but just you wait until Step Up 2: The Step-Up-pening hits the Direct-to-Video market. Heads are gonna roll!
Dropping the biggest drop is Snakes on a Plane, crash-landing to #7 from the top slot last week. Oh, it's so lonely out there in the media; guess none of the anchors or pundits could get a story out of "Well, they sure expected it to do better than #7 the second week." Any attention is good attention these days... or is that publicity, I don't know which. Me myself, I'm still waiting for Formula 52!
#6: It's the little movie that could, Accepted. Sliding only one slot down this week, there were 6.34 million dollars worth of asses in seats who did indeed want to ask that one nerd in the hot dog costume about his weiner. March on to greatness, Accepted. March on. The MTV movie awards are a lock. For if not MTV, then surely the Blockbuster awards will shine down upon you.
Sliding two slots down to #5 this week it's World Trade Center: The Motion Picture. Also available in IMAX! Well, it should've been, anyway. It would've if Jean-Jacques Annaud made it! ...nuff said.
At #4 this week it's Beerfest. From the filmmaking fraternity that brought you Super Troopers, it's a new comedy even less conceptual than Club Dread. Or more conceptual? I thought it was less. Anyway, these days it's not a question of which bodily fluids are going into the beer, but rather how many gallons.
At #3 it's LMS, a rare case when a movie moves UP the charts, usually independent films that gain a little steam, and more theaters as the campaign marches on. For Mr. Carell, it's all just small potatoes until that Get Smart remake hits the silver screen, and hard. All part of Mel Brooks' second coming. Fingers crossed: Spaceballs prequel!
At #2 it's Will Ferrell's 2006 project: Ricky Bobby. Yawn. You know what this means, don't you? For Will Ferrell, 2007 will mean at least three bombs, and then 2008 it's the next McKay / Ferrell collaboration: their 40-year old virgin varietal.
And finally, at the top of the mountain this week, it's good ol' Marky Mark, Charlie Brown and his 2006 project: Invincible. And thank God! Another DP joins the already-swollen ranks of the DGA. Whoop-de-freakin'-doo. Look out, Peter Hyams: this Core bastard's on your ass! Originally intended for Dennis Quaid and to be directed by John Lee Hancock, they both dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, and besides! They're both tired of being too successful. Enter Marky Mark, and Mr. Core said "This is my big chance to be a bonafide A-List moovee director! Foreal!" And so, financial history was made this week, all those many painful re-writes and re-shoots later, and it was all worth it. If they had to do it all over again, they sure would. And you'd better too, for isn't that the only way to be?
Man, these take up too much time! And that's just the reading...

Peda Ling into China's future

Which means it's time for the Box Office Roundup, pardner!At #10 it's Pulse. Memo to Wes Craven: better hold off on your next pic for a while. Releasing it now will make Cursed look like a hit. Sorry, but girl you know it's true! People are tired of scary movies right now. Why, even Scary Movie 4 isn't doing so well on video! And believe me, I know, because I read about it in every issue of Variety for Non-Hollywood Insiders. The horror stocks are down, down, down, and everyone's saying "Ah, I won't go to see Pulse. I'm waiting for Saw 3. Yessir, that's going to be my Woodstock."

You know that we are living in a material world, and the Duff sisters are Material Girls. Still not doing as well as Lohan's 2006 bomb, but what do they care? They're off to a super-great college, right? We can wait!
p.s. You know, I hate to pit sister against sister, but I think Haylie's stock is rising. Oh sure, what's her face is good and all that... what is it? Jerry Maguire, that's it! It's a TV classic, but was Hilary in as sweet a movie as Napoleon Dynamite, I ask you? I think not. (IMHO :) )

At #8 it's Pirates 2. Well, the last accolade is finally... its! That's probably not grammatically correct, but the main thing is it made it to the 400 million dollar mark. Too bad; it still hasn't made a profit. Now it's time to sit back and wait for the Oscars to roll in... OTOH maybe there'll be an Oscar freeze like with LORT2: Two Towers, where the Academy decides they're going to sit on their thumbs until the last chapter is released.

Little Miss Sunshine, aka Untitled Yellow VW Bus Comedy, is charming the pants off the moviegoing public, at least the more spendthrifty ones. There's not so many of them, as it's only at #7 on the top 10 currently. Apparently the JonBenet resurrection has something to do with it, but they know better than to capitalize on that. At #6, Barnyard (the original party animals... Am I the only one who remembers?) is defying all odds as it nears the 50 million dollar mark. Oedekerk will rule again! Check out the special edition DVD where he role reverses that scene from Enter the Fist, replacing the cow he fights in that one with the Barnyard cow. Off-off Broadway cinematic magique extraordinairé!

Now to the prestige of the Top 5. Accepted debuts at #10. Eat it, Oedekerk! Oh yeah, you know the connection; if not, look it up. I can't believe it! On my beloved Daily Show tonight Lewis Black returns from a rather long hiatus to do Back in Black and Stewart didn't even say to go see him in this turkey! For shame, sir. For shame. Not to out-do the Daily Show superclan, but with that author fella, Frederick Lane, I would've opened with "Great cover, by the way."
Now I remember! Step Up is the SECOND movie this year sponsored by MySpace. Look out, MySpace, You Tube's on your ass!
At #3 is WTC, and basically it's Oliver Stone's Match Point, in which he abandons all previous auteur motifs and braves the wilds of a foreign land. For Woody, it's London, and for Stone it's New York. C'mon, Oliver! Where's the conspiracy theories? Where's the cameo as a college professor with a secret stash of weed? You're just getting soft and irrelevant, old man! Give back your Oscars now! Or at least give them to John Sayles.
At #2 it's Ricky Bobby, and I don't remember seeing an ad lately. They're getting risky! How else is it supposed t'clear the 200 million dollar mark? Oh, I forgot, he only counts to one (hundred million? :) )
And well, what can you say about Snakes on a Plane? With all this talk about how it didn't make as much as anticipated, I think the mainstream media's just jealous, because they're old, outdated, and have grown complacent, much like Oliver Stone earlier in the list. Face it, folks, you just can't sell a movie like you used to! It's the Internet's turn to take over. Oh, sure, they could've made it a PG movie so all the kids could come along, too, but no. They didn't sell out. And the people love it all the more.
But I think the real story here is behind the hype and the scenes, and it has to do with another shift in the new membership of the DGA. Seems they've taken from all other crafts lately: photographers, editors, choreography, and now the new trend is stuntmen. With this and the triumphant return of Steve Boyum to the director's chair, depending on how you look at it, the Stunt Men have taken control of the director's driver's seat amongst the National Image-makers. For surely, as we march further into this new century, is Hollywood not a raging battleground between the stunt men and the CGI animators trying in vain to replace them? Will either side back down? Will the stunt men eventually retire to behind a Mac and do shading work for Pixar? Will Snakes on a Plane director David Ellis not squander his new Auteur credentials and carefully choose his next project? I hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. :)

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Which can only mean one thing: the Box Office report! It's a big week... well, not really. Kinda depressing week, actually. Nothing debuting very prominently, and things disappearing very quickly. The descent descending from 5 to 8, John Tucker gone. Dupree gone. Monster House going. And to my close friend's chagrin, My Super Ex-Girlfriend long long gone. Vaporized like the ... Little Miss Sunshine, I don't know. The TV spots have better special effects than the movie itself.
Meanwhile, I haven't been able to get to the theater in a while, but on my TV it's been a weekend of Mighty Acorn movies that makes me ask myself, where's the red hot poker for my eye? Or a guy to shoot me in the kneecaps with an automatic weapon. At least no one's cutting off my ears and noses... sorry, no movie link to one that tasteless, Rummy... But moron that later.
Let's start at the top this time. As they say in the ads, the streaking continues. Help me Tom Cruise, it's Talladega Nights at #1 again. And the official Oscar campaign has begun in earnest, by running the ads where Will Ferrell... I mean, Ricky Bobby, talks trash to Ali G about some movie, I assume a racing picture, either Cannonball Run 2 or that thing with James Garner, that won the Oscar for Best Picture ever made. I don't suppose the Red States have taken to Ali G yet, but it's worth a shot, which I've heard they've almost taken at Borat one time. The Borat movie's probably just going to play on the coast.

Meanwhile, if I were a Hollywood insider I'd know more about the unique ad campaign behind the surprise success of Step Up, but I'm not so I don't. Hey! That's catchy! Anyway, the point is that every once in a generation a movie like this comes along to tickle the date bone of the nation's teenagers, and for me that movie was Bring It On. Nuff said.

WTC movie: #3- so much for the Wednesday release tactic. Hey, at least they're not running the ads Oliver Stone originally wanted to run: "Either you watch this movie, or you're with the terrorists." Same thing happened to The Guys. Just a total marketing disaster.

#4 is Barnyard... the original party animals! They decided to drop the ... split infinitive, what the hell. Well, I'll give a shout out to Steve Oedekerk, graduate of the Jim Carrey school of comedy. I think I'll just wait for the all-thumbs version of Barnyard, thank you very much. Incidentally, when are you going to turn Smart Alex into a feature length picture?

Pulse debuts at #5. Boy! Who knew dead people were such cheapskates? They must've all gone to see Pirates 2 a second time. You're so close to 400 million! Hang in there, buddy!

Sliding coolly down the list is Miami Vice at #7. It's finally recouped its trailer budget, but it's all good. Superstar directors can't destroy their careers like they used to. Who wouldn't want to be in a film directed by Michael Mann and his Men?

Well, gotta wrap this up so let's end it with #9, the debut of Zoom. Sigh; guess no one wants to Zoom-a-Zoom-a-Zoom anymore. Probably for the best. But hey! It's doing better than Shaggy Dog, that's for sure. C'mon, people! Tim's branching out here! Don't just wait for his sequels: Santa Clause, Toy Story. And on that note, g'night! And get ready for a whole torrent of puffy old white men on TV screaming about all the terrorists they've caught, and the activist judges slowing them down. Next Geraldo. :)

Boo creepy homeless Director Guy; Hooray Beer! or Wednesday Release? Who do you think you are, Spider Man 3?

Which brings us to this week's horse race at the box office. What the heck, I'm feeling frisky so let's start with #1, and of course it's the one who spent the most on advertising. It's Anchorman 2! Seriously, though, the full title is of course Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Brought to you by the Hollywood wing of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Red State Outreach program. On my beloved Daily Show tonight they had Dale Earnhardt Jr. And of course this film was the elephant in the room that they judiciously didn't mention. What can you say? The man just loves to drive. Meanwhile, Will Ferrell just may very well be the new Adam Sandler, but I don't know. Is Will capable of making a film that's as great as, say, Big Daddy? As the ranks of the new wave of mega-successful Alpha-male SNL alums swells, we'll just have to wait and see. But there is one goal that yet eludes them, and Will refers to it in the latest round of commercials, not so subliminally - and Bill Murray almost did it. Oscars. They want Oscars. Not just about the money anymore.
Debuting at #2, with a paltry 8th highest cumulative total overall, it's Barnyard: The Original Party Animals. What? Are all the movie titles like this now? The colon is making a major comeback in movie titles these days. Anyways, clearly the Pixar Renaissance is in decline. Only #2? The thrill is gone, people!
And at #3 it's ... ANOTHER COLON!!! Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest. Or.. oops, guess the number 2 is only implied, it's not actually in the title. And it's almost broken the 400 million dollar barrier. My God! This is Lord of the Rings 3 territory! Incidentally, how does Everard Proudfoot get top billing on that? Most expensive looking 94 million dollar movie ever made, my friends!
Miami Vice slides to #4 with only 10.2 million, making it 5th overall box-office wise. The prestige ads are running now: as good as anything Michael Mann's done, that kind of thing. And now, to add insult to injury, William Friedkin's going to remake To Live and Die in L.A. Or turn it into a TV show, whatever salts the wound the most.
Ironically, The Descent debuts squarely in the middle of the Top 10, which will at least put it on the local news, but hopefully its descent down to obscurity won't be so quick.
JTMD, baby! A fixed point in the list, as it's #6 on the list and #6 cumulative-wise, but I still want a copy of that poster, dammit!
Number 7 and 8, blah blah blah, see #2.
At #9, hanging on by fingernails and broken noses it's the only rhyming title in the bunch, You Me and Dupree. Yessir, still hanging in there, and by a crazy numerical fluke it's got the 2nd biggest cumulative total right there somewhere far behind Pirates 2. You did it, baby! All of you.
And finally at #10, it's Robin Williams' latest dramatic masterpiece, The Night Listener, a film with one of the craziest backstories ever, something even James Frey couldn't have imagined. I don't know what more Robin needs to achieve as an actor these days; he already made us laugh in R.V. this year (now available on DVD, PSP and BluRay... Damn! And I thought just owning it on DVD was enough these days. Goodbye, bank account.) Another Oscar? Is that it? Apparently, Best Supporting Actor just doesn't have a good ring to it. Much too wordy. Well, we'll see who gets Best Actor first, him or Kevin Kline. Just to rub it in, Robin's going to do his own version of Life as a House. Well, me myself, I don't know what the advertising budget was for The Final Cut, but that one just may be Robin's most immaculate, comedy-free dramatic performance yet (and starring with Jesus, no less!), but without all the notoriety of Insomnia or that other one... One Hour Photo, that's right. C'mon, Romanek! Let's get cracking on that sophomore feature. Well, if all our lives are indeed recorded, let's fast forward to Robin's next HBO Comedy special. C'mon, Robin! Tear Dubya a new one! Someone's got to.
And that's it for this week's box office report. Hey, I got to it a little quicker than last week, right? :)

They Premiere it up in Telluride, I mean it's Here to Stay...,

Which can only mean one thing, it's time to examine with a magnifying glass this delicate butterfly known as the Week's Box Office Tally before we pin it by its wings to the particle board behind the glass case. Unfortunately, I'm on the run again and gotta keep things short, say, one quip per movie.
Well! As an illustration of how contentious this battle to be in the top 10 is, in a stunning reversal, Clerks 2 was bumped down to #11 (or lower) by My Super Ex-Girlfriend. I've got no comments on MSEG except to say that apparently people aren't ready to accept Uma Thurman in a non-Kill Bill role yet. Here's hoping the TV show version of it doesn't fall through. You go, girl!
Anyway, back to Clerks 2. Even Jesus himself couldn't keep it on the Top 10. So when is Kevin Smith going to go on a drunken rampage, calling his fanbase a bunch of damn cheapskates? ...or was that Crazy Mel Gibson? And does this really have any bearing at all on my life? Anyway, you may have seen in the TV spots for Clerks 2, Jay of Jay and Silent Bob fame says to the new super-downsized Ethan Suplee (on loan from the cast of My Name is Earl), "You know, Jesus was a Jew!" This is of course a fact that many Christians have to come to terms with, which manifests itself in a veritable rainbow of religious behavior. Me, myself, I'm part of an extra-hardcore Christian sect that believes that, after God resurrected Jesus, God sent Jesus to a special DNA-changing facility. They had those back then, you know, and Jesus had any and all traces of his Jewishness removed, and this was done so that the likes of James Dobson wouldn't be offended. I mean, even God wouldn't like James Dobson when he's mad!
As for the rest of the box office, numbers 9 to 4 are really just a sad reminder of what an anemic summer it's shaping up to be. Dupree beats Little Man? See what I mean? At least Prada got past 100 million, and no one knows how. I'm keeping my fingers crossed: Princess Diaries 3! I think I said that already, but does it not bear repeating?
10 years into the Pixar revolution, and watch out, Barnyard! Look at the CGI entries here: Monster House and Ant Bully. Don't count your stock options before they hatch, guys!

One of the major film critics said that John Tucker of John Tucker must die is a budding psychopath. Why? Just because he's dating the three hottest girls in high school? Is he not living Utah's dream? You should see how he's doing at the other high schools in the district! But I don't mean to give away the sequel so soon. The fact is, as a nation are we not looking for our own John Tucker to love, to hate, the fulcrum on which all our emotions must be hung, that John Tucker who will lead us out of the moral quandries we find ourselves in? He is old enough to serve in Iraq if my intuition doesn't lead me astray. But even the Green Zone isn't safe anymore. I didn't see it on TV. Damn liberal media!

As for the New and Improved Miami Vice, my close friend and I agree, I think they were expecting better numbers. Should've had Tom Cruise as the white one. Either that, or actually use the Colin Farrell sex tape in the movie. Or have Don Johnson in a cameo role where he rolls his eyes and says "Ah, been there, done that. Come back to me, Melanie!" As for PTC2, what can you say? Careers are secure at this point. Verbinski even more secure than Chris Columbus, I would imagine! Think about your legacy, Gore! Don't do Weather Man 2, for God's sake! As for me, I want to see an old timey box office battle like True Lies and Forrest Gump back in '94, each taking respective turns at #1 in a constant battle for dominance! Fight the gradual slide! C'mon!
Well, that's about all the damage I can do. Time for another break. Gonna miss me? :)