Bloody Pirates!

All right, let's tear into this lobster. Usually I wait til Friday but I'm trying to turn over a new leaf. So let's get into it!

And at #1, it's PTC3 as expected. Bloody pirates! Plenty of advertising and tie-ins to go round on this one; coupled with the fact that this might be the last installment... or is it? Still, they didn't follow my advice. Clocking in at nearly 3 hours, the only way it's going to turn a profit is if it's in around 5000 theaters. What they should've done is made it 18 minutes long. That way it would've been number 1 with 1 billion 400 million dollars! Now that's what I looting the Box Office treasury!

At #2 it's Shrek the Third. What, Donkey's babies aren't cute enough? Farting 'n spewing fire at the most inappropriate times? This season pirates trump all, me matie. Still, good showing.

#3 brings us Spider Man 3, which I suppose it's appropriate. Still, it's leading the pack at 308 million dollars. They can't take that away from it, can they?

Speaking of insects, Bug is at #4 with 4.02 million. Sorry, Friedkin, this is the big drop-off. It's the best thing you've done since Nightcrawlers, but it's just bad timing. It was either that, or a poker movie. And you beat #5 by on 10,000 dollars. PATHETIC! *

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Like they say on Air America, it's time for no snark. Waitress is back at #5, and it's a tribute to its director, Adrienne Shelley, who unfortunately was killed in November 2006. Guess she's not in the same caliber as Anna Nicole Smith or others caught up in the Perpetual Tabloid / Media Conglomerate Celebrity Shit-Storm.

http://www.adrienneshellyfoundation.org/ -Give til it hurts.

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As for 6 to 10 it's all pretty much repeats. Did I already give a shout out to Garry Marshall? If not, keep the faith, brutha. Guess you just better do that sequel to Runaway Bride. That'll get you back to #1! Andyway, 6 to 9 is pretty much BTDT across the board. ...until we get to #10! And it's Wild Hogs! The comeback movie! I'm still speechless!! If I were doing this in a cumulative Top 10, Wild Hogs would be #3 just ahead of Pirates at #4. A Red Letter day for Disney all around, no denying it. All those people who would've had to crane their necks at Pirates went to their fallback Disney movie, which was Wild Hogs. Wow. And Walt Becker, this Red Letter day means that your auto-biopic about the train wreck in a coal mine is getting Green-Lit, with George Clooney in the lead. Eat sod, Soderbergh!

On the other hand, don't get cocky, Disney. Don't let this go to your (cryonically frozen) head. No one's lining up to see Mickey headlining in Fantasia 2010. Peace out. -->

The Movie Hooligan Box Office Retort - More fun than the IMDb Top 10 list, but not by much...

* (see the part about provenance for younger directors, something like that...)

Short Reviews - May 2007

Bruce Almighty 2 - A classic.

Die Hard 4 - Classic.

Pirates 3 - A classic.

Shrek 3 - Classic.

Spider Man 3 - Classic.

Rush Hour 3 - I'm not holding my breath.


The Ex - Wait, didn't this bomb already? Well, we got to find some way to make fun of the wheelchair bound somehow. Basically, the best episode of Scrubs you never saw, when Tommy Lee came into the hospital in a wheelchair and started making moves on Zach Braff's girlfriend. It's funny, right?

Besides, there can only be one Ex. Be mine, Yancy! I'll keep the home fires burning for ya, Witchblade.

Jindabyne - Short Cuts 2.

Red State - Ah, yes, the horror genre... something even Kevin Smith can't screw up... right?

Death at a Funeral - Looks cute! The kind Frank Oz doesn't usually do, or so I once thought...

Chapter 27 - Like a good friend of mine says, we should just ignore this guy to death.

Away from Her - aka Fiona's So Mean to Aubrey. Or Billy Liar 2; I will never give up my Julie Christie!!!

Waitress - 1) Matlock's back and 2) this will do for food what American Beauty did for rose petals.

Georgia Rule - Well, Jane Fonda sure knows how to sell a movie....

Knocked Up - Sorry, guys, even the director of the 40 year old virgin needs something like that Steve Carrell magic...

Hot Rod - an Snl digital short motion picture

Bug - from the director of The Exorcist: already I like it! But why didn't they use that ad campaign for Blue Chips?

Gracie - Goodbye, an inconvenient truth!


belle de jour - a classic

la dolce vita - a classic

irma la douce - not so classic


And finally, No Country For Old Men - What makes Pittsburgh so god damn special? What about Seattle? We like film too! We've got our own international film festival, for God's sake! I'd go there to see Paris, je t'aime but I'm busy that day, and besides I was a little underwhelmed by it on DVD. But I digress. In promulgating my theory on film directors and the significance of decades, the Coens are a special case. It was about this time 10 years ago when they made a comeback of sorts with a film that changed the film landscape, or at least made the fade to white a popular visual schema with Fargo, after failing and falling with The Big Hudsucker... I mean, you know, that one they always show on HBO Family for some reason. Anyway, so Hudsucker was 1994, and The Ladykillers was 2004; are they not making a similar climb-back from a rocky critical precipice? Was I the only one who liked The Ladykillers? I just may be! Well, no one's denying that Irma P. Hall was great in it; I'm just saying I got burned by Nothing To Lose, and bad.

Anyway, here's hoping NCFOM takes the Golden Bear in Berlin... no, wait.

Simpsons update

While there's two more months to wait for the big screen version of the Simpsons, and an even longer wait for an animated Jerry Seinfeld, I must say that I've been pleasantly surprised lately by my favourite TV show. As one of my co-workers once quipped, the Halloween episode is usually the best one of the year. And that's generally true, I conceded. But this season has been above average, like they're getting back to the fundamentals of some of the earlier seasons. Season 4 was a pretty hilarious season, for example: lots of stuff catching on fire and exploding randomly. There's brighter minds out there than mine who have this all figured out, like at Harper's Bazaar or, well, in the Simpsons' own writing room more likely, but I hope they do another TV first and have new episodes all the way up to the movie's release date. SNL's already over for the year! Can you believe that?

I probably shouldn't point any of this out, but a lot of jabs at the Iraq War this year, and they still have no caricature of Dubya yet! They got a Clinton caricature much sooner, even a Bush 41. Some memorable lines too: Kent Brockman asks a guy in a burning house, "Sir, how does it feel knowing that no one's coming to save you?" and the guy says "Not as bad as knowing that somewhere gays are marrying each other. That's the real emergency, Kent!" Also, more jabs at Fox News. The Simpsons poses the following brain-teaser: why is it that Fox has crappy programs like strippers running an airline, while Fox News acts as the Thought Police of the Right? Holy doublethink, Batman! And the ancient rivalry between Kent Brockman and Arnie Pye continues. Also, even though the Simpsons movie is in 2-D, it does look like it relied a bit on computer animation, as has the show recently, in a couple of bravura 3-d sequences, one in an electrified corn maze, another where Marge is running through a dog park. Sigh. The days of painted cels is over; now people will buy external hard drives at animation auctions.

Must be the Season of the Threes, yeah

Oh, it's on, baby! The first shot is fired off the port bow in this, the Season of the Threes: the Attack of the part-three sequels. First, Spider Man 3, now it's Shrek 3, then it'll be Pirates 3, then Ocean's 3. There was another one in there somewhere, if I remember correctly. Oh yeah. Rush Hour 3. Whole Lotta 3s going on this summer! Not even counting 300! Then of course, there's Hostel 2 and Die Hard 4 and the Fantastic Eight. But will there be enough money left in America by the time the Simpsons movie hits? I'm thinkin' THEY hope so! Heh heh... Bourne Identity 3 comes out after that.

Now I know Shrek is #1 this week, with a big green-eared green bullet, there's no debating that, but I really wanted to use this one still from Home Alone so I'm forced to count down the top 10 in terms of cumulative totals! Which means Spider Man 3 is #1 with 282 million in the b'z'ank! Although I haven't heard any B.O. trivia about it this week, like the one about the movie that made 300 million in the shortest number of days, that kind of crap. Also it's only at #2 this week because it made a paltry 29 million, so now you know how all those other movies felt the last two weeks, Spider Man. You've just had it too good for two long weeks. Guess it's just time to build more theaters to help beat the box office records of tomorrow. Think of the children!

At #2 cumulative this week, Shrek 3 is #1 with 122 million, which I think is slightly more than Shrek 2 opened at. Oh, but we've talked enough Box Office turkey. Let's talk legacy now, specifically that of the man behind the Shrek, Mike Myers, the voice of Shrek. With Shrek the Third under his belt, that makes 3 shreks and 3 austin powers. So why has Mike Myers become so reclusive? Why I hardly see him at all anymore on the talk show circuit. I hope my faint pleas reach him anyhow, and if they do I only ask one thing: isn't it time for Wayne's world 3? How would that look on your video cabinet at home to have three trilogies under your belt? Eat it, Harrison Ford!

On the other had, they're already planning a Shrek 4. Now how many actors can boast a quadrilogy? Let's see, Sigourney Weaver, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, very soon Harrison Ford, hmmm... Still, it's a narrower field.

At the cumulative #3 this week, in another stunning last-minute reversal, Blades of Glory edges upward to #10, thereby pushing Waitress down to #11 or lower! It's a virtual kneecapping of this tough but brittle indie movie; i.e., it must not be a DreamWorks picture. Oh well. Actually, I heard Riley Weston's behind the hit. But I'm sure Keri Russell with her classical good-looks will no doubt bounce back, and with a bit part in Scrubs to boot. Yes, she'll always make a beautiful dollar in this bizness. I mean, she's no Sarah Michelle Gellar or Eva Mendes, but she's got a fan base. No question.

At cumulative #4 this week it's Disturbia. Another sequel. Well, not a sequel so much as a remake. An unofficial remake. But I like to think of it as either Holes 2 or Battle of Shaker Heights 2. One or the other.

At cumulative #5 this week, it's Fracture. Nope, still can't get excited about that. Although it does give one pause. I mean, how many actors has Anthony Hopkins only worked once with? All of them? Except Emma Thompson, of course. Didn't he retire, like, twice already? Or was that Liam Neeson, I forget. After Lincoln, though, this will be his third and last retirement. Let's hope he gets the Oscar that go round.
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Cumulative #6 gives us Hot Fuzz. I have yet to concoct my review, but ultimately, I don't know. Maybe I'm just burned out on movies in general. I was also disappointed that the brain freeze sequence from the commercials was cut short. I thought the movies were about letting these kinds of scenes play out! Guess not.

#7 cumulative: Another sequel. 28 weeks later! Yawn. I used up all my 28 weeks later jokes last week. But it's comforting to know there's still a viable market to the dramatic side of Shaun of the Dead.

At #8 it's the Invisible. Whew! That was close. I almost left this one out entirely.

#9's Georgia Rule is not so much a sequel as it is a movie mocktail. Sort of a Monster's Ball meets White Oleander. And of course tapping into that whole feminine movie genre of How to make an American Quilt and Steel Magnolias and Fried Green tomatoes and Immediate Family. Need I go on? Those are the only ones I know. Throw in Catch and Release, why not. But it does have some originality: Lindsay Lohan playing a bitch! What a stretch.

And finally, at #10 cumulative, but landing at lucky #7 this week otherwise, it's the latest Redneck FUBU entry, Delta Farce. Or as I like to think of it, Delta Force 3 made for TV. My question is this: how good could it be if Jeff Foxworthy isn't in it? Or Ron White, for that matter? They're not in it, yet DJ Qualls is! This puts The New Guy in a whole new light. The Mason-Dixon line redrawn. In related news, I was disappointed to see Jeff Gordon in those ads for California which also feature Schwarzenegger, Teri Hatcher, and Clint Eastwood.
Looks like you've left Sweet Home Alabama behind for good, Mr. Gordon. Wait... he's a NATIVE CALIFORNIAN? Dang! He fooled me good. Or maybe I was just indifferent.


Well, that puts an end to another exciting week at the big dog and pony show known as Hollywood. Boy! I don't think I can take much more excitement. :)

Another Spectacle

Man! Long week. Sometimes it feels refreshing to put the blog down. And now I need a drink of water. ...done. Also refreshing. More importantly, I heard that my boys are kickin' some major derriere at Cannes with their latest, No Country for Old Men. Give 'em hell, J & E! Of course, they've limited you to just one award per film this time, damn French! No wonder the Oscars are no big deal to them.

But let's dive right into this latest box office pie. Coen co-conspirator Sam Raimi is doing a little ass-whoopin' stateside with the latest installment of the multi-billion dollar Spider Man franchise, called Spider Man 3. Oh sure, the critics will pooh-pooh it, but look at those numbers! It's only Monday. Besides, it's probably not as hated as X-Men 3. Now, I know they've been talking about some major personnel changes for the fourth installment of Spider Man, but I must strongly, nay, vehemently oppose these proposed changes. After all, look what it did to the Home Alone franchise! Big big mistake.

And once again, thanks to Spider Man, we make a giant drop from a #1 of 58 million to a #2 of ... 9.81 million? Pathetic! But you know what? Their agent will be the first to say they should work in this town again because hey! It was the best they could do up against Spider Man. This time it's another sequel: the sequel to 28 Days Later called 28 Weeks Later. So does this mean that the third installment will be called 28 Months Later? Just a thought! Also, someday all movies in the top 10 will be sequels. Just another thought.

At #3 it's Georgia Rule. While technically not a sequel, it's a sequel in spirit to Monster-in-Law because of that GMILF on the prowl, Jane Fonda. I mean, did you see her with Stephen Colbert last week? Talk about a steambath!

At #4 it's Disturbia. Sorry, kid, you're no longer the new kid on the block. Just for that, Shia, they're Gumping you out of the Transformers movie.

Rounding out the Top 5, it's Delta Farce. Win one for the Red States! Careful, guys, you might give Chuck Norris some misguided ideas. Anyway, at least it's already made more money than Health Inspector.

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And now, let's look through the bent back tulips to see how the second half lives. At #6 it's Fracture, or The Human Stain 2. But thank God director Gregory Hoblit is back to the one-word movie titles where he belongs!

At #7 it's The Invisible, but it's not gone yet! Speaking of which, at #8 it's your last chance to Meet the Robinsons. Apparently, also in IMAX. I should get down to my local IMAX theater one of these days!

Next, it's Hot Fuzz at #10. Well, maybe it's doing better in Britain, who knows. I did my part, guys! I guess I'll have to watch it again: was that really Cate Blanchett? Or Bill Nighy sans face-tentacles? Apparently, they just set the record for movie references. Or how about Peter Jackson as Santa? Of course, he can't do that kind of thing anymore. He's rail thin now!

Well, that's all for now, kids. Oh why oh why does a new box officecome only once a week.

Peter Parker picks another peck of pesky box-office peccadillos

And the opening shot is fired off the port bow! Zowee. I haven't seen numbers like this since Jurassic Park 2 opened! Or since Oscar, for that matter; numbers 2 thru 10 look like Oscar's opening weekend, anywho. Yes, it's the latest new box office record, people. Quite the disparity when the #1 movie makes 5 times as much money as the other nine put together. Must be a recession on. But it was inherited, of course. You have to use that word with the word 'recession' from now on, it's a permanent federal law.

But back to the triumph at hand! Yes, Spider Man 3 got out there first this season. Oh sure, critics will nitpick, but so far the franchise has managed to stay on an even keel somehow; basically, they've kept Joel Schumacher from girling up the proceedings, heh heh. It's soon going to be a very crowded field, though: don't Shrek 3 and Pirates 3 get a turn at the trough too?

So anyway, congratulations to Spider Man 3. But seriously: Bryce Dallas Howard? Was B.D. Howard the most qualified person for the job?

As for the rest of you slugs, I seriously feel like I can take a break this week. I mean, Disturbia's hung in there and all, but only 5.84 million in second place? Pathetic! Fracture at #3 with 3.7 million? Pathetic! The Invisible? Pathetic! Next? Pathetic!!!! I will, however, give a shout out to my man Curtis Hanson who's been having a rough decade since the high of 8 Mile. It's all part of my latest theory about directors, that the most successful film directors ultimately have their favourite decade of their careers. For Curtis Hanson, it'd have to be the 90s: with the back to back successes of Hand that Rocks the Cradle, and The River Wild, culminating in the Oscar-nominated orgy that was L.A. Confidential. I mean, who wouldn't want a decade like that?

Let's do a couple other directors, like J. Lee Thompson: Drunken British Ex-Patriate of Action. He's had so many, really: the Dressing Gown 50s, the Guns of Navarone 60s, the Ape-y 70s, but for me, IMHO I'd have to say it was the go-go 80s, when he did about a zillion pics with Charles Bronson, yet was able to work in an Indiana Jones knock-off in betwixt all that. Good times.

As for Sam Raimi, well, I think the 2000s are far and away his favorite decade, even though all this Spider-Man jazz must be getting redundant. I'm just hoping he manages to work a trailer in for No Country for Old Men. I'm not able to get to France this year for the Cannes film festival. Maybe get me a bootleg copy, huh?

Ever had one of these kinds of days?

Well, friends, Spider man 3 is about to swoop down and dominate the box office for a couple months but before that happens, Disturbia takes the cake an unprecedented 3rd week in a row! You know, some who prefer Sunni, but this is a full blown Shia pandemic, my friends!

Meanwhile, another kid who's doomed to a lifetime of snubbery from the Onion, the kid from War of the Worlds, Chatwin, makes a mark at #2 with the Sixth Sense clone, the invisible, but with a twist ending that you won't see coming. But in this era of twist endings, isn't that a little predictable?

Speaking of twist endings, Next only debuts at #3, but Cris Johnson probably saw that coming. Somehow the word on the street was that this was no Ghost Rider. G.R. was a man of the people, the Next guy not so much. There's no fooling the people, my friends. OJ's guilty, and there were no WMDs. The people know.

Fracture at #4, but so what. Now, Blades of Glory, now there's a story. Still over 100 million total in the bank, making it the most profitable film at the box office this week, and while it's not as good as they hoped, (Talladega numbers, in other words) it's still doing way way better than Bewitched.

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Hot Fuzz at #6. Still not good, but at least it edged #7, Meet the Robinsons, out of the way for another week. Maybe it'll snowball like Little Miss Sunshine did not so long ago, and maybe SM3 will help it out: for all those people who weren't able to wedge their fat butts into the jam-poacked Spider Man theater, maybe Hot Fuzz'll be their backup.

At #8, Vacancy, and that's the problem. Too many vacant seats in those theaters. C'mon, people! When have Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale steered you wrong before?

At #9, it's The Condemned, and I guess I, like most Americans, are just going to wait for the Reality TV version of this Reality Film show.

And finally, at #10 it's Are we done yet? And yes we are. See you next week! (Oh, snap!)

Vanishing Point: What Makes a Hero?

Sometimes the best you can say about a movie is that it's like a mini travelogue of someplace, in this case parts of the Nevada desert. Reminds me of a road trip I took not so long ago to an opal mine just outside Nevada. For miles, no other cars from one end of the horizon to the other. And I couldn't help but notice all these desert squirrels out there, waiting for their chance to cross the road, and always deciding to go as I'm about to run them over. There's gotta be some kind of Darwinian law at work there. Maybe a Newtonian maxim. Maybe an Oprah essay about co-dependence, I don't know.

There's also some nice shots of clouds here: some thunderheads, some raining, some with rays of sunlight peeking through - there's a specific scientific term for that but I can't remember what it is. All in all, good cloud variety, and not a whole lot of need for continuity since the action keeps moving. As for the plot of Vanishing Point, there's about as much plot here as, say, Grand Theft Auto. A little more plausibility than the original Gone in 60 Seconds, but it seems to me that if you're transporting cars, stolen or not, you at least want to make sure they get as little wear and tear as possible, but the film's about a little more character development than that. That, and a modern day Lady Godiva on a motorcycle. Why not, I say.

There are flashbacks showing the big transforming events in the life of this transporting car man, played by Barry Newman. Okay, so he's not a big name. He's no Paul Newman, anyhow, but he does okay here and he's also one of those guys who looks totally different as a young man. Kinda like William Hickey, only not so extreme. Barry stuck with me after I saw him in The Limey, and to a lesser extent, Bowfinger; smaller role in that one. But both with Terence Stamp! Who worked that out?

What else to say about this? Cleavon Little in a pre-Blazing Saddles role, where he seems to channel Ray Charles as the blind DJ "Super Soul" of KOW Radio. Also our hero picks up a coupla gay hitchhikers who end up trying to pull a stick-up, but since they're blatant caricatures what happens to them is okay. Some might say they were let off too easy; not me, though, because that's what a Movie Hero does, treats his adversaries with respect. Indeed, all the adversaries our hero comes across, he doubles back to make sure they're okay (they all get out of their wrecked cars and scratch their heads; time to get moving again!) There's also some blatant folk-hero-ification at play here, you know, for the Oscar crowd, (someone adds an "ALSKI" banner to the KOW radio sign... Mission Accomplished!) but if it didn't pay off with the car man's final act, well... I guess it didn't pay off. But it's certainly the opposite of the happy endings of Gone in 60 Seconds or Grand Theft Auto.

Some say Vanishing Point is one of the greatest car chase movies ever made, and the only reason I saw it was it being referenced in a review of Grindhouse (Yes! I shamefully admit it...) For me, though, I guess a car chase movie needs a little more plot. For me, The Blues Brothers is still the best car chase movie; for cars of a similar time period, Mad Mad World's got some pretty decent stunts: car, plane or otherwise. Give it a second look if you've got about 3 hours to kill.

**1/2

so sayeth the Movie Review Hooligan