You Racist Cracker!

Which brings us to yet another contentious Box Office contest! We might as well celebrate the winners this time, as it is once again Happy Feet. Boy, they must've really pushed this on Fox News Kids Network or something. Having already crossed the 100 million dollar mark in its second week, is this not yet another vindication for March of the Penguins? The upcoming Farce of the Penguins hopes to put that genie back in that bottle. We shall see.
Meanwhile, CR is at #2 still, but it's almost made as much as Happy Feet. Kinda reminds me of the creative ad campaign behind Minority Report. The PG-13 audience must be hooked with different things, like Playstation 3, Motorola phones or the new Sony Unisex TV. Still can't figure that one out.
At #3 it's Déjà Vu, but for me the real stars aren't director Tony Scott or Denzel Washington, teaming up for the third time. No the real star here is the Elliot/Rossio juggernaut. Is it me or shouldn't they be busy proofreading PTC3 for typographical errors? Shame on you for pouring your hearts and souls into a small independent film in between giant Hollywood blockbusters. Shame!
At #4 it's Deck the Halls, and finally the trilogy is complete. Christmas with the Kranks, Surviving Christmas, and this. There's gotta be a way to package all three onto one Blu-Ray disc. Get on it, Wal-Mart!
Rounding off the top 5, it's Borat, or B:CLOAFMBGNOK as all those crazy bloggers abbreviate it these days. It's raked in a total of 109 million so far, or the Gross National Product of Kazakhstan! (drumroll) Didn't see that coming, didja huh? But it's garnered a more coveted honor than even that... and promptly lost it. It was in the IMDb top 250 for a while there. Guess it wasn't meant to last. Why, even Clerks fell in and out of favor with the Top 250 now and again, right? Clerks 2, not so much.
Alas, how things change from major to minor. Babel, Saw and The Queen have all departed from the bottom 5 of the list, but there are those who still cling on to the proverbial drapes with the cat claws of life only to slow their inevitable descent. At #6 it's (the) Santa Clause 3, and maybe it's just me but with 67 million in the box office bank I think it's doing pretty good! I'm sure there are some Hollywood execs who would disagree with that Market Research-less assessment, so prove me wrong, Hollywood! Hire me as a consultant.
Stranger than Fiction clocks in at Lucky Number Slevin this week. It's made less than Being John Malkovich and generating considerably less buzz, but hey. You knew this was an independent job when you took it, Ferrell, therefore it'll make independent money. More than that Ed Harris thing, right?
As for the rest of the Top 10, it's much too depressing to contemplate. The animated Grease is at #8, and Bobby debuts at #9. The audiences are too smart these days, and frankly, a little ungrateful! Guess they found out it's an Emilio Estevez joint. Oliver-Stone lite, if you will. How is Demi Moore supposed to land the part of the love interest in Austin Powers 4 now? HOW???
And finally, checking in at the Hotel #10, after 4 years of post-production it's Aronofsky's Junior effort, The Fountain. If this doesn't bust up his marriage, nothing will. You will be mine, Rachel Weisz... Oh yes. You will be mine. Damn voodoo doll! I'm not doing it right. Talk to y'all later. (:)

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This just in: O.J. Simpson appointed Chairman on Domestic Violence by the White House.
Also, I've been told there's a correlation between the number of lobbyists and the number of earmarks over the years. Back in 1994, there was 1400 Republican lobbyists lobbying Congress, and there were 1400 earmarks. Today, there are 14000 lobbyists and 14000 earmarks! Must be Clinton's fault somehow.

Which brings us to this week's box office! I know Happy Feet's #1, but you gotta give it up for my man Daniel Craig. Lemme tell you something: Casino Royale's already doing so well, Mr. Craig's edging out Edward Norton for the lead in the hot new bio-pic, The Dana Carvey Story. I think Dana prefers Mr. Craig for the lead, anyway, but it's good old-fashioned competition the likes of which we haven't seen in a while.

But let's start at the bottom, eh what what? Just to keep it interesting for my large loyal fan base, right? ...... Anyway, The Queen's holding strong at #10. Not a bad performance in the American market. I mean, it's no Teaching Mrs. Tingle, but you can't have everything, right?! On the bright side, it's doing so well in England that Helen Mirren was voted by The Guardian to be the People's Queen. It's a British thing, but I don't think Taylor's too happy about it.

Coming in at #9 it's The Departed, still making its inevitable slide down the charts, but not before passing the 100 million mark; how cool is that? Finally! After all these years, Marty has a hit, and he'll finally get to make the kinds of films HE wants to make. ... As for L. DiCap, well, there's just no time to rest as Zwick's next Christmas release is due, and this time there's no LOTR installment to reckon with, sigh of relief. Bad news for Ngila; or was that Without a Paddle? I forget which. :)

At #8 it's Saw 3. You know, it won't be long before our culture is so de-sensitized to on-screen violence, that pretty soon there'll be a 'Saw' sitcom on TV, and a 'Saw' talk-show. All coming up tonight on the Saw Network, but first, it's National Geographic Bumfights.

Babel comes in at #7, and it's the latest project tangentially connected to the Soderbergh Rat Pack, which Cate Blanchett is now a part of thanks to The Good German; as long as she doesn't re-gift the Kate Hepburn accent work like in Zissou. But I digress; back to the triumph at hand. As the ads all say, it's a triumph for Inarritu ... better than his segment of 11"09'01? I think not. But, that's just me. ...What's the matter with you people? Don't you know we're at war? Do I need to remind you that 3000 people died on 7/11?

At #6, it's Flushed Away. Oh, what's Nicky gonna do now that DreamWorks is defunct? Back to the Chevron commercials, I suppose. Or is that for one of his chump understudies? How did Ricky Gervais get out of this one, that's what I wanna know?

Filling out the top 5, having made 10,000 more dollars than Flushed Away, it's Stranger than Fiction, the latest entry in the Mindf*** Movie Continuum, along with Being John Malkovich and John Tucker Must Die. Oh, why can't Marc Forster make the kinds of movies he used to make?

At #4 it's Santa Claus(e) 3 and finally! Marty has a hit, so Don Rickles will have to tell him something else next time he sees him. Also, looks like it's out of the Bottom 100 which is kinda nice. Just kinda. Is Cat in the Hat still there? ...it's not! I credit Paris Hilton with that one; and of course, as she'd say, "That's hot!" But you know what's not hot? Manos, the Hands of Fate. Still, it's so bad, it's worthy of being in the bottom 100, which in and of itself is pretty hot. The same can't be said for From Justin to Kelly, though.

At #3 it's Borat. And on my shoulder, it's... a mosquito bite? No whey!

But the top two slots of the Top 10 couldn't be more contentious. Someone demand a recount! It's the new Casino Royale. Why, even George Orwell couldn't of imagined this, even though in the world of Oceania they would re-film movies and things, and generally work round the clock to make Big Brother look impervious and strong and consistent, and responsible for all the good in the world, what little of it there was in 1984. Anyway, the Campbell / Meheux Industrial Complex pulls it off once again. (Except of course for Vertical Limit; Meheux is afraid of heights. And for that matter, so am I after that movie. And badly CGI'd condors. :) )

And yeah yeah, Happy Feet at #1. We know. I thought maybe Spielberg was behind this. Or Caroline Thompson. But no! It's the brainchild of Mad Max director George Miller. Well, I hope he realizes that while this is doing well, it shouldn't embolden him too much in regards to Mad Max 4, unless he casts Russell Crowe in the lead.

Gotta run. (:

The Seinfeld Curse strikes again!

And this time, it's not just taking down a new sitcom. No, it's turned slightly inward this time, or rather, more than slightly inward. Yes, we've all heard by now about Kramer's Comedy Club Meltdown. All the news stations are covering it, celebrities condemning it. What do I think? It was pretty bad. I didn't see the whole thing, but I know Kramer's not really a stand-up comedian (see Trial & Error) and as far as I can tell he's kind of a private guy in the Celebrity Cosmos. I'm shocked! I thought for sure his IMDb entry would have added this to his mini-bio by now! He went to Evergreen State College? Go Geoducks! Surely his Wikipedia entry ... oh yeah. Bill Bennett called, wants to exchange notes.
One of my co-workers today posed the question: "Will Seinfeld ever be the same?" Another of my co-workers piped up: "Yeah. It's a one-time thing: he was being heckled and he was just trying to get the guy to shut up." Alas, things are a little tougher on the rest of the Seinfeld cast these days. Or perhaps it's the way comedy in general is fated to go now that the Democrats are in power again, perchance to embolden the PC police once again. As Holden Caulfield says in "The Catcher in the Rye", you'll never be able to clean up all the "F*** You"s that people write on the walls. So too with the n-word. The stuff forever in the back drawers of the comedian's tool chest. Reminds me of a Chris Rock commentary on Weekend Update once, where he openly searched for the white people's n-word equivalent. I forget what he came up with, and can't find it online at the moment, but I think he and I would agree that 'cracker' just doesn't cut it. But we'll save that for another time. The point being, Finally! Michael Richards is back from obscurity, although probably not what he intended, but hey, he's still not as crazy as Mel Gibson, or the Borat frat boys. Borat frat boys? There's an anagram there someplace.

Just Mooved

Has it been so long? Dang! Not good. I think they're going to shut me down soon. Don't even have a photo this time! I'm here at Kinko's FedEx TacoBell because I recently moved, and my DSL service hasn't caught up with me yet. It may be my fault. And what can I say, Borat? Your hard work paid off big time. Maybe that Bruno movie will get greenlit yet.

Okay, they're giving me dirty looks now. Better order another taco. Bye 4 now! :)