A week of lulls, or Gone-Zo

I am reminded this week of that casserole on Malcolm in the Middle, made of all the left-overs the family didn't finish over the course of the week, and
for the first time ever LAST WEEK'S casserole ends up in the casserole! Oh sure there are some new entries this week, but you wouldn't know it from
looking at the top 3. Besides, the hot story this week is High School Musical 2 anyway. A lot of nostalgia for high school out there amongst the
giants who are happy that they're not going to school today. Zac Efron doing double duty in that and Hairspray; I love it! And could Ashley Tisdale be
the new Haylie Duff? Everyone else but Haylie'd like to think so! She's got an interesting smile; kind of a Rod Stewart vibe, with some Paris Hilton
thrown in to the mix, but with some wits about her. Yes, kind of a smug self-satisfaction but still not afraid to be a sex object and make some money
for the man. What do I gotta do to get with you, honey?
Anyway, let's tiptoe through the Box Office tulips in terms of cumulative total again

1 Superbad (2007) $18M $68.6M 52 The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) $12.4M $185M 13 Rush Hour 3 (2007) $12.2M $109M 34 Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007) $10.1M $10.1M 85 War (2007) $10M $10M 96 The Nanny Diaries (2007) $7.81M $7.81M 107 The Simpsons Movie (2007) $4.4M $173M 28 Stardust (2007) $3.95M $26.5M 69 Hairspray (2007) $3.45M $107M 410 The Invasion (2007) $3.14M $11.5M 7

The Simpsons Movie - If I read one more review comparing this to the South Park movie I'm going to puke. Seriously.
Mr. Bean's Holiday. Well, it's been 10 years so I guess we were overdue. I do like the idea of a G movie, though. Expect Johnny English 2 in 2013!
War. Yawn. The One part 2. Or Transporter 3, either one. I already had this one's number a long time ago. Still, makes all those ads for Jet Li's
Fearless seem a little anti-climactic. That was Li's last epic, so now he can only make crappy movies like this one? Is that how it works?
At seventh on our countdown to infamy, Nicole Kidman the Remake Queen is at it again. I mean, the Stepford Wives, Bewitched, and now this. Up next: I
-Spy 2, to help Owen Wilson get out of his funk.
And finally, diaries are incredibly hot-ular... popular? Hot? Spawning their own genre? You've got Bridget Jones, the Motorcycle Diaries, the Princess
Diaries, the Basketball diaries, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and now the Nanny Diaries. From the powerhouse filmmaking team that brought you American
Splendor, and they managed to re-snag Giamatti for a role. Fancy that! What smashing good luck! And like Zwigoff when he made that bold leap from
Crumb to feature films, the filmmakers here employ the services of one delectable S. Jo. Why, that's almost like getting Ashley Tisdale. I guess
Brittany Murphy got tired of making pictures like this.
And finally, I pronounce you Craig & Larry has finally fallen out of the top 10. And it couldn't have come at a worse time....

Did someone say McLovin? or 2007: The Year of the Rogen

I was going to use the typical Animal House framegrab, but then I thought, yeah, that conniving little Sandlot bastard is more like it. Look, Ma! The surge worked! The saturation ad campaign paid off, retro-Columbia logo and all. Superbad rakes in 33 million big ones to make it at #1. Not bad for an R comedy, like Wedding Crashers (now playing on HBO: a Dobkin joint...) And! On top of that, all these #1 movies lately seem to surge up the IMDb top 250. Why is that? I think the crews of these movies get payola to cast some votes.

Not Rush Hour 3, though, at #2. They're old school. Give 'em hell, Roman! Best role since Robert Blake in Money Train.

Bourne 3 at #3 is there to stay, on the other hand. #65! Give em hell, Greengrass.

Well, it took a month but The Simpsons Movie finally slid off the top 250! It's almost at the 200 million mark, though. Sequel time? I still say it's time for the Simpsons Halloween Movie! C'mon, guys, what with all the other crappy horror movies out there, a good one might make a difference.

Rounding out the top 5 it's the latest incarnation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Hey, Nicole, with this and The Golden Compass, I think the new Bond's making a move on you! Watch your ass, Urban! Real bonzer!

------------------------------------------

As for the rest, Stardust, Hairspary, Underdog, Potter, the only one I have time to talk about is Chuck & Larry. Lemme just give a shout out to director Dennis Dugan. I can't believe I haven't already! This is the third Sandler film he's helmed. And with this, and the one couple in Big Daddy, my gay-dar went up. Oh yeah, and the whole Norman... Is That You? thing. And by that I mean one of the first films made from a video transfer. Guess he's not actually gay, though. He's made some pretty fabulous movies, I must admit. His next is another Sandler pic called Zohan. I assume, it's going to have Lindsay Lohan playing an alien from outer space, or from the Eastern Bloc, one or the other.

Okay, time to go. That rat bastard Stephen Hayes was benevolent enough on the Daily Show this week, but on Bill Maher's latest return to HBO? I don't think so. One of the tenets of the Bush Administration seems to be: debate everything forever. The Vietnam War was now fought all wrong. There's a connection between Iraq and 9/11. Darwin was wrong. Bush now says he admits there's no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Some say that there's a new biography about Dick Cheney, but you know what? I don't believe it really exists. More debate on this later. :)

Yumpin' Yiminy!

Ladies and gentlemen, guest reviewer Jiminy Glick.

(Transcript) Ho, ho, it's wonderful! I'm Jiminy Glick and I'm... in Gitmo, or someplace! Just in this bare room with white walls and computer equipment everywhere, a proverbial Nerditorium from the Book of Dorks chapter 5:12, it says here. Oh, wonderful! Bruce Vilanch will be seeing a big payday for that one. All I know is I didn't work hard my whole life to be a famous celebrity and end up in a room like this. So let's see! Movies, movies, movies. I haven't really seen anything lately that I really liked. I stopped going to movies because Doris Day hasn't made a movie in years. What happened to her anyway? But I did hear of The Good German. Oooh, wonderful title. The Good German! Sort of a Casablanca remake but with the F-word. Oh it's just two hours of F-this, F-that, F, F, F, F, F! I'm just still confused by that title! The Good German, as if there were ever any bad Germans! It must be another Mel Brooks picture. Oh, it's just time for Mel to beat up the Nazis again. Get over it, already!

Speaking of getting over it already, the wonderful Jim Carrey is back again with The Number 23. Well, persistence must be his middle name. Someone should've taken him aside and said "It's okay. You'll get an honorary Oscar in about 40 years." Or, Tom Shadyac will just give you one of his. But God bless him, he keeps trying! I just still can't believe how Blockbuster poo'd the screwch on this one. Seriously! I mean, I saw this wonderful poster that said "The Number 23 coming to video on 7/24." Am I the only one to see the irony there? Hello?!

And speaking of Jim Carrey, I noticed his ex is keeping busy. The wonderful Renee Schwarzenegger is in Harry Potter... Stacy! What the dickens is wrong with these notes? Forgive me, it's called Miss Potter, and it's just now finally Muggle free and ready for the public library market. Oh, it's wonderful. It's like you go to the public library to check out a movie, and you have to tell your kids "Oh, Harry Potter's checked out. But they've got Miss Potter! That's just as good!" Yes, for a change a couple breaks up BEFORE one of them gets the Oscar, and now Carrey did the brave thing. He went on eHarmony and found out that Jenny McCarthy is out of rehab, available, and as it turns out is actually his exact opposite. Oh, it's a match made in Heaven, or as it's known in the biz, James Dobson's backyard. So in summation, another classic movie.

And speaking of another classic movie, there's Captivity, which I'm told is Calista Flockhart's greatest role ever, but why can't she be more like the girl next door? I know the director well, Sir Roland Joffe, and it's kind of brave and new how things change, or go in a circle, one of the two. Why it seems like only yesterday, about 25 years ago, when he did The Killing Fields. And now we have Captivity, and he's obviously come around to see that a little torture can be a good thing! Makes you think. Do I smell another Oscar?

You know, sometimes I reflect on how certain people don't get recognized for the geniuses they are. In this case, however, it's how people who live in the shadow of famous people. I mean, Summer Phoenix has played two title characters, Esther Kahn and Susie Gold. She has TWO movies named after her! What more do people want? Oh, people would just rather see Casey Affleck in Drowning Mona. I don't think so!

Well, it's been wonderful. Oh, I love technology. Technology and computers. They may not make you live longer, but after hanging ten on the web all night and you see the sun coming up the next morning, you begin to wonder if it's such a good idea, and hopefully you won't have to meet any of these web kook-pots when you do get to Heaven. You'll at the very least have more eyestrain than you did! That's a good thing, right? Oh wait! I almost forgot. Now normally I don't watch documentaries, I just think they're really all made up, and probably ghost written by some blacklisted screen writer like the wonderful Dalton Trumbo or Elia Kazan. Just pay the money and get taken off the list like a good Capitalist! What is the big deal? But I did see this movie called Jiminy Glick in La La Wood! Oh, I just love it when the movie's about me! Well, I saw it on video. My wonderful wife Dixie gave it to me as a Christmas present. And we all sat down and watched it, me and Dixie and our four strapping boys, Morgan, Mason, Matthew and Modine. I mean, I fell asleep about halfway through it, but what I remember seeing I loved. It was wonderful. I didn't like the guy who played me, though. I would've done it differently, and tried to be more professional, but you know, these actor guilds are very powerful and secretive. The director must've been weak-willed and let people just walk off with Kliegl lights and sell them on eBay, and forget to turn them off and just singe their hands! Oh hoh, what fun. I cracked myself up on that one! But you know what? I think I'll watch this Jiminy movie again at some point, maybe let it sit for a couple months and then see it again fresh. I just wonder what David Lynch was doing there? They must've left the bar open, or maybe he was friends with the director, who knows. Anyway, this is Jiminy Glick signing off, to all our ships at sea, and to all our fighting contractors out there. Let's really try to get Saddam this time! America hates a wimp. Over and out! ....okay is that it? Dixie! I need you, Dixie! Let's go to Spago's and get some spaghetti. Ha ha hah!!!

You sunk my Scrabble-ship!

All right, time to tear into another Box Office lobster. Gotta do it now or I'll never get it done, but where's the lemon juice and melted butter? But wait, before we get into that, let's take an ever so bittersweet look back at the films that totally dropped off the list from last week...

Transformers... Transformers! That's it, Shia's out of Indiana Jones 4... Is TF still even playing? Haven't seen it yet. Of course, who's got 2 1/2 hours to spare these days...

Hot Rod... Say hello to Finesse for me, Samberg. There's only room for one Adam in the top 10.

Bratz: The movie... You know what, guys, totally talk to the hand.

Who's Your Caddy? You're my caddy now, b'atch!

I Know who Killed Me, I'm going to miss you most of all. Now technically this dropped off the list the week before last, but I still can't believe how badly it did. Guess your fan base isn't ready for the drama yet, Lohan. Better just stick with a safe bet this next go round like Love Bug 2 or Mean Girls 2 or whatever the hell your people think will be a surefire hit. Why not just make a Paris Hilton-esque internet video while you're at it? That'll sell, right? Just ask Screech!

Okay, enough of the stench of the miserable past, and on to the glorious present, starting with Daddy Day Camp at #10, aka Daddy Day Care 2. But the real story here is child actor turned director Fred Savage! That's right, the Wonder Years kid. Hmm, I just may have to profile him in Auteur Watch, but since he's done so much TV work it'll have to be Hollywood Auteur Watch. Beware, Fred, don't hang out at the table that Rod Dainel's sitting at when the DGA convenes... wherever they convene. Somewhere far away from the makeup trailers, I suppose.

No Reservations at #9. I'd go to see it, but I'm on a diet.

Number 8 brings us Harry Potter 5. I've heard it's the best one yet. Probably because that little bastard Dobby didn't get to ruin it. Now, it's made about 100 million more than Adam Sandler's movie, but it's still one position behind it in the top 10! How cruel is that?
#7 gives us Chuck and Larry. What about that one dude that looks like Tom DeLay? Wait, that was really him? Wow!
#6 is Underdog, directed by Fredrik DuChau, an underdog in his own right. How sad when an animator, computer or non, gets left behind in this neo-gilded age of hollywood. Oh, why can't I be the next Don Bluth or David Silverman or Brett Leonard... no, wait... scratch that last one. And of course, a brief shout-out to Adam Rifkin, still getting work despite the fact it's not the late 90s and he's no longer the king of DreamWorks screenwriters.

--------------------------

And now the better half. At #5 it's Hairspray, still making more money than the 1988 original. I hope John Waters got a piece of this, or did he get more screwed than Emo Philips and Greg Glienna?

At #4 it's the better half of Michelle Pfeiffer's comeback, making only a tenth of Hairspray's current haul, and it's Stardust. Oh, Ian McKellen only narrates it? How good can it be then? I'll tell you how good. Michelle Pfeiffer admiring her naked ass in a mirror good! Like Into the Night, but with heart. Li'l bit, right, De Niro?

At #3 it's The Simpsons Movie, currently a distant second behind Harry Potter in terms of cumulative box-office take with that giant money rake. And now there seems to be a concerted effort to keep this out of the IMDb Top 250. How does that work? I don't know, but the software geniuses at IMDb should make it so that when you click that link, it'll take you right to that point in the list where the movie is. Instead, I gotta do a text search with my hands like some kind of chump! Yep, there it is, right between Bonnie and Clyde and Before Sunset, but I guess it won't even be there for long. Damn you, Before Sunset! Wait for the threequel: Just After Mid-Day, or maybe they'll go to Alaska and call it Six-Month Sunset, you know.... never mind.

At #2 it's Bourne part 3, yeah yeah yeah. But at #1 it's another third! Rush Hour the Third! Maybe now Brett Ratner will get a little respect! ...maybe not. Sorry, Brett, you gotta take a page from the book of Spielberg if you want respect. It's time to take that book you've had optioned and been waiting to do and adapt it into Oscar bait, blatant or not. And as for you, Chris Tucker, maybe it's time to become a director your own damn self! Me myself, I wouldn't want to wait around six years for work while my best director friend ruins the Hannibal franchise and probably the X-Men franchise. I just can't keep track on all these superhero movies.

Well, that's it for this week's Report. Back to diagnosing my latest computer problem. There's some kind of file, I'll call it a 'balloon file', because my hard drive memory keeps slowly shrinking, at varying speeds, about 1MB every 5 minutes or so. I got it all back once, but not so lucky this time. Hmm. Guess certain DVDs don't want to be copied. I hope someone made a pretty penny off that one. Damn you, China!

My Big Fat Box Office Report

Damn! Coulda sworn the Simpsons'd do it again, but you do not mess with the Damon. There's a new way of looking at the world: he makes 27 dollars for every dollar spent on him, something like that. Meanwhile, Affleck's waiting for the next season of Project Greenlight... so he can try to be an ENTRANT! Ouch! Oh, snap...

But let's go back to the beginning. At #10 it's Bratz: the Motion picture. And I think like the Thunderbirds movie, it was a disappointment for all those people expecting a unique flavour of creepy animation. Me, I was disappointed because of the lack of Ben Kingsley. Oh well, he's still a sexy beast.

At #9 it's Hot Rod. Oh well, Samberg. Guess it's back to the day job. Guess people thought why go to the theater to see the film version of all those Playstation commercials with all those cool videotape effects! Or go on YouTube and see some real jackasses instead.

Transformers is almost at 300 million. Too bad, it almost made a profit. And No Reservations at #7 is almost the Under the Tuscan Sun of the season. But if I remember correctly UTTS opened at #1, didn't it?

Hairspray is at #6, and it's almost at 100 million. Does this mean Travolta keeps the jet?

-----------------------------------

Harry Potter 5 is at #5. Sorry, folks, I gotta speed through this. The AmBien's almost kicking in.

Chuck and Larry at #4. But what about Moe and Shemp?

And now to the Big 3. Underdog rounds out the top 3, and I think, with the new Alvin & the Chipmunks movie, Jason Lee has become the new Brendan Fraser, an honorary human Toon. How can Kevin Smith work with you now?

And at #2, it's my beloved Simpsons movie, even though it's dropped to #183 in the IMDb Top 250. I saw it once but I want to at least see it one more time, if only to smuggle in some digital devices to help cherish the experience. Don't worry, Rupert, nothing that can compete with the eventual DVD with commentary.

And finally it's Bourne 3, and it kicked ass! 70 million dollars worth. Which once again shows to go that I don't know where the eyes are. Was it the MTV ad campaign? No! It was the MasterCard online ad campaign! That did it. Finding out the secret government program that led to your becoming a superspy: priceless. Still, Damon's gotten to do TWO three-quels in one year. Somehow, that ain't fair. But watch out, because Rush Hour 3's poised to be #1 next week.

Okay, that's about all the damage I can do this week. Shame on me for procrastinating. Maybe we can get some reviews done here soon! Maybe not... :)