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What the Hell, “Obsessed”?

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for ages 35 and up

for ages 35 and up

Well, the weekend’s come and gone and AS PREDICTED, I was pretty far off base with my historically inaccurate box-office predictions. Here’s the list with my guesses parenthetically following:

  1. Obsessed (x)
  2. 17 Again (1)
  3. Fighting (3)
  4. The Soloist (x)
  5. Earth (x)

So, all in all, 2 out of 5 is pretty shameful, although I did correctly guess that Fighting wouldn’t break 15 million and end up in 3rd place. “Earth” and “The Soloist” did about the same around 8.5 million, knocking out my returning-champs guesses of “Hannah Montana” and “Fast & Furious” by only a couple million. I guess the real shocker is the hilarious success of “Obsessed”, which earned 28.5 million its opening weekend, and managed a decent 22 out of 100 critical rating on MetaCritic. In all honesty I can’t rightly claim to know what stars aligned here to cause everyone to want to rush out and see it, because it sure as hell wasn’t the same crowd that ran out to see Beyonce in “Cadillac Records”. But then again, maybe it was. I’m not very good at predicting things, as we’ve found.

In other good news, Robert Rodriguez has clarified that he will not be writing or directing the new “Predator” reboot scheduled for a release next summer, and will only in fact be producing it. This of course leaves him to focus extensively on his grindhouse genre masterpiece “Machete”, and, one assumes, “Spy Kids 4: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”.

A lot of you probably know this already, but I just read about it this morning so I thought I’d share how fucking weird I think this is. In the mid 90’s on NBC, Dana Carvey (of “Opportunity Knocks” fame) was given his own show aptly titled “The Dana Carvey Show”, in which he took a writing credit and starred in the variety show-esque sketch comedy offering until it was promptly cancelled after six episodes (man, even “Dollhouse” got twice that). What’s weird though, is that perusing the writing credits will force you to do a number of double takes until you’re convinced that you have to check this show out. Writers for the six episodes include: Charlie Kauffman, Steven Colbert, Steve Carell, Bob Odenkirk, Jon Glaser (Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Delocated, Human Giant), Dave Chappelle, Michael Stoyanov (Mr. Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien), Robert Smigel, Dino Stamatopoulos (Mr. Show, Morel Orel, Late Night with Conan O’Brien), and a few others. What the hell? I know I have to give everything a chance, but in my long list of things I still have to give a chance, anything with Dana Carvey is pretty much automatically bumped to the bottom. So, if any of you have seen this show let me know, ’cause apparently I now have to track it down.

Lastly, I’d like to quickly explain my movie rating system. It’s not all that complicated, but it does differ from most of my friends and/or critics way of judging movies. It’s a letter grade system (like from school!) and it goes a little something like this:

  • A : Among the best films I’ve ever seen
  • A- : Nearly perfect, but with one or two significant flaws
  • B+ : Much better than average, but with some baggage holding it back
  • B : Pretty decent, and something I would recommend
  • B- : Worth watching, but not really something I would recommend
  • C+ : Just barely above average, but not worth the money you’ll pay to see it
  • C : Completely average, and most likely a waste of time
  • C- : A waste of time, but not laughably bad
  • D+ : A film that has clearly not tried to win its fans over
  • D : A bad movie that I would caution people against
  • D- : Would be a complete failure if not for one or two things that it does right
  • F : A movie that I feel insulted for having watched, and that exists only to insult its audience and make money

Typically I’ll only go out of my way to recommend B+’s or higher, but unfortunately most movies I see aren’t worth the time that I put in, and while a “C” movie is still okay, I could have been watching a “B” or an “A”. Also, I’ve realized that I tend to give credit (maybe unjustly) to a movie, sometimes knocking it up a whole letter grade if there’s one facet of it that wins me over. For example, I gave “Wordplay” (the crossword documentary) a higher grade than I otherwise would have because Jon Stewart was in it and hilarious. Other things that win me over: beautiful women, catchy musical numbers, and references to my blog.

This Almost Has It All

this almost has it all

Oh, and before I go, make sure you prepare properly for the abomination that is the new X-Men Origins Wolverine film by picking up an $80 blu-ray X-Men trilogy. Released tomorrow!