The Current Standings

Hey everyone, long time no see.

I am currently enjoying the hot white sand beaches on an exclusive island resort, sipping from a oversized neon-yellow novelty straw in a large round glass that contains a curious mix of seven assorted alcoholic beverages, and taking breaks from my typing at this laptop to admire in pure awe the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. There is a mild easterly breeze that’s causing the sailboats off the coast to sway back and forth, and frankly the entire scene is causing me to lull into a peaceful, drowsy state of oneness.

Yes, vacation life is an amazing and devestating thing, and I am enjoying every minute of it.

SOMEONE named this island after their cabin... but WHO?

Apparently I’ve been so busy enjoying this vie de luxe that I haven’t even really been watching many movies lately. I did happen to see “District 9”, which is, you know, fine and all. I think I give it more credit than it deserves because there are aliens in it, and aliens are quite different from humans. Of course, if we were to replace the alien refugees with, let’s say, Rwandan refugees, then it’s kind of your basic formula refugee war movie that’s pretty far from original or Hotel Rwanda (which was good). But, it did have aliens, and that is unique, and the first half of the movie where they’re heavily splicing in documentary-style interviews with the drama is good. B-.

I also saw “Inglorious Basterds”. A. Obviously. Go fucking see it.

I'm not joking.

I did not, however, get a chance to see “G.I. Joe”, “The Time Traveler’s Wife”, “Julie & Julia”, “Shorts”, “The Goods”, “Post Grad”, or “X-Games THE MOVIE”, but I can assure you that I probably don’t need to (sorry Ed Helms). Just looking over the box office results from the past two weeks is kinda weird, because I guess “District 9” was this bizarre runaway hit that’s now at  almost $77m, which is honestly not what I was expecting. Way to go, Blomkamp! Pretty damn good for a first-timer, if I might say so myself.

And for some reason this weekend is Halloween in August with both “Halloween II” and “The Final Destination” opening against each other, although FD will have the advantage of being released in IMAX 3D and having less than 10 prequels which it is following. I don’t know about you guys, but I tend to not even see modern stock-horror films in theaters even when they’re in season (like “Saw”, I guess), but something tells me that one of these two will end up topping the charts this weekend, which will sadly knock Tarantino down a peg or two. Shame on all of you.

See "The Final Destination" instead of "Inglorious Basterds" and this guy will personally kick your ass.

So yeah, I am technically still on vacation here, so you guys don’t have to regularly check back as what was once the practice. Although I’m still getting a steady stream of views, so I should at least be thankful for something.

So, I Guess “A Perfect Getaway Sucks”

You may have often asked yourself over the almost four months that I’ve been doing these posts, “why does he keep predicting the box office? He’s 1 for 14”.

BOX OFFICE RESULTS!

1. G.I. Joe: Rise of the Marketing (1)
2. Julie & Julia (2)
3. G-Force (5)
4. Harry Potter and the Stone Temple Pilots (3)
5. Funny People (x)

Obviously your guess is as good as mine (and in all actuality, probably better). For some reason I figured the combined forces of “Julie & Julia” and “A Perfect Getaway” would slide “Funny People” into the #6 spot, but I overestimated how much people want to pay to see “Swept Away” again, but this time with more hatchets being thrown in bullet-time. “A Perfect Getaway” opened with $5m at #7, and we’ll be sure to get in at least 14 copies for rent when it comes out on video. Some of those, no doubt, will be blu-ray copies.

Much closer was my prediction that “G.I. Joe” would do just over $50m, which it did, at $54m. See? I’m not all wrong all the time.

So, you guys know Trey Parker and Matt Stone? Sure you do. They did all that South Park stuff. WELL, I guess before they did all that South Park stuff (well, not all of it, just the television series) they were commissioned to make a promotional film for Universal City Studios in 1995, directly following Universal being bought out by Seagrams (yes, the guys that make those fancy wine coolers). I heard most of this second hand from my friend Andy, but apparently the fact that they were up-and-coming independent directors that were willing to work for pretty much free sold Universal in a heart beat, and what we end up with is an amazing film gem entitled “Your Studio and You”. Now, I’m sure many of you have already seen this, but your welcome for reminding you of it so you can see it again.

Part One:

Part Two:

Venture Industries

Boy, you know what’s a great show? Fuckin’ “Venture Brothers”. I’ve been catching up on it lately, and have now seen all of seasons 2 and 3, and some episodes from season 1. What’s weird about season 2, I think, is that about half way through it stops being an action sit-com where every episode is stand-alone and mostly unrelated to the others, to pretty much a “LOST” style action drama (that’s still funny). If you haven’t seen any of it, then you really probably should, and if you have seen it, then I hope you’ll enjoy this brief clip from an episode from season 3 that might be amongst the funniest scenes in the show’s history:

Also, I guess with all of my not-watching-movies-in-July, I forgot to post my July Movie Recap.So yeah, all seven movies:

106. Umberto D. (1952/Vittorio De Sica): A
107. Kung Fu Panda (2008/Mark Osborne): C-
108. The Hangover (2009/Todd Phillips): C-
109. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009/David Yates): C
110. Street Figheter: The Legend of Chun Li (2009/Andrzej Bartkowiak): D-
111. Tron (1982/Steven Lisberger): C
112. Quarantine (John Erick Dowdle): C

I guess you can see though why I wasn’t too thrilled about watching movies last month, when every one I watched seemed to be worst than the last. Um, except for “Umberto D”. Go buy that damn movie.

I'm still very, very good.

Also, BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS!

1. G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra
2. Julie & Julia
3. Harry Potter and the Sword in the Stone
4. A Perfect Getaway
5. G-Force

Unless by some miracle “G.I. Joe” is pulled from theaters nationwide, I don’t see anyway around it making over $50m this weekend. It’s been getting the same crazy hype that Transformers got, and this one has kung-fu. Also, we finally have a new romantic comedy date-movie thing about cooking or something, and a survival horror, so actually, this weekend is pretty well rounded in terms of suck. Check ’em out! Check ’em ALL OUT!

This is what happens when you have the perfect title for a movie. People will just keep making that movie with helicopters, fight scenes, and/or islands.

And It’s Not Even A Sunday

Not sure how to say “sorry, on vacation”, so…

Just replace "30 minutes" with like, a couple days. Man, I should really start my own business.

I will post Friday, as that is how my blog has always worked, with box office predictions at the very least.

And, just so you don’t leave feeling empty-handed, here’s a news story you might like:

It’s about Tom Hanks rejecting the role of “Harvey” in some sort of Steven Spielberg imagined remake of the classic “Harvey” originally starring Jimmy Stewart and now maybe starring Will Smith.

Tch.

Sorry I can’t do a normal post today guys, but this week (as it turns out!) is actually pretty damn busy for me. I’ll have to stick to the basics for a bit, here.

BOX OFFICE RESULTS:

1. Funny People
2. Harry Potter
3. G-Force
4. The Ugly Truth
5. Aliens in the Attic

So yeah, switch “Funny People” and “G-Force” around, and for some reason throw “Aliens” in there and that’s what happened with my predictions. I still don’t understand how there’s room in that top 5 for both “G-Force” and “Aliens”, but hey, people like to waste money I guess. Way to go, Tisdale!

Actually, pretty much everything in that top 5 kinda bombed at the box office this weekend, with #1 “Funny People” making only $22m, and “Aliens” grossing only $8m. But hey, next weekend we have “G.I. Joe: Revenge of the Fallen”, so, don’t worry about Hollywood too much.