"You ain't no Cedric."
Opening Everywhere: No new movies, just your mom’s legs. Burn.
Opening Somewhere: There are no movies opening in wide release this weekend, but if you check your local listings, you might be able to check out Shame, Answers to Nothing, Coriolanus, and Sleeping Beauty.
FilmDrunk Suggests: Vince’s exact quote to me about this weekend was, “Save your money and take that special someone to see New Year’s Eve next weekend because it looks incredible.”
Gary Oldman, Christian Slater, and Dane Cook are set to topline “a stylized crime thriller” from writer-director Michael Winnick that was apparently cast by the Family Guy manatees. Hey, say what you will about Dane Cook’s comedy, the guy sure is a f*cking douche.
“Guns, Girls & Gambling,” throws Elvis impersonators, Indians, modern cowboys, a 6-foot-tall blond assassin, a frat boy, a corrupt sheriff and a prostitute into a chase for a priceless American Indian artifact stolen during a poker game at an Indian casino.
Slater plays a normal guy who in a drunken stupor joins an Elvis impersonation contest. Oldman is the contest’s mega-contender, and Cook will play the sheriff. [HeatVision]
A six-foot tall blond guy, you say? Why, that’s almost TOO wacky! Hey, how about this, maybe in addition to being six feet tall and blond, he’s always wearin’ t-shirts. Anyway, sounds like Go meets The Hangover meets a forehead the size of Mount Rushmore (Christian Slater’s). I also like how they didn’t even bother giving it a title, they just named it after the pitch. “Pulp Fiction? Nah, I prefer ‘Hitmen, Drugs & Boxing.’ And no, I’m not punctuating it correctly, because f*ck that.”
Dane Cook recently took to Twitter and sparked a rumor that he might’ve auditioned for the part of Captain America. Is it true, a joke, or just another brilliant way to get people talking about him? Say what you will about his comedy completely lacking punchlines, he’s always been a great self promoter. Here’s what he said (via /Film):
Get it? Minus 7% body fat? It’s so hilarious and wacky, how does he come up with this stuff? Hmm, though I seem to remember Louis CK going on a similar diet six years ago… Meanwhile, a site called Hollywire is claiming that Joe and Kevin Jonas have also auditioned for the role. Sadly for JoBro lovers like us, it’s an easy rumor to invent based on the fact that Disney owns Marvel, and I’m inclined not to trust a site that can write a sentence like “But its interesting to see what direction the highly potential hit film is taking.” Yes. Highly potential. Indeed. But if it’s true, I can’t argue with Marvel’s instincts. I mean, look at this picture and tell me the first thing to come to mind isn’t “pinnacle of masculine perfection.”
Which JoBro is that, agan? Jake? Simon? Sneezy? Queerbait? I get them all confused.
So Dane Cook’s apartment complex in West Hollywood where he’s lived for the last 10 years is trying to evict him, because he reportedly lets his dog shit in the public courtyard and doesn’t clean up after it. Dane Cook says evicting him from the apartment once occupied by John Belushi would jinx his career. An excerpt from Cook’s filing:
“To live in the unit of one of the great legends was overwhelming and after moving in to that unit, I felt a creative drive that I had never felt before. It’s a little bit like the superstition that athletes have, before games, about a favorite bat or shoe, or the order in which they gear up; for me, this apartment has been the place where I’ve sat and worked on my comedy routines, and I can feel, and have felt, the presence of the true greats that lived there before me. It’s been a long road for me, in terms of developing my career as a comic, and the apartment is both a place of inspiration to me as well as a place where I go to feel connected to the source.” [Yahoo/E]
Hmm, let’s see if we can find any holes in this argument… *deep breath* If you want the court to consider something, don’t call it a “superstition”; if you liked the apartment so much, you shouldn’t have let your dog shit all over it; John Belushi OD’d in his prime which may not qualify as lucky; and your last three movies were Employee of the Month, Good Luck Chuck, and My Best Friends Girl - the court would be doing the world a favor if it jinxed this hot streak. At least, that’s what I’d say if I were judge. That, and “I’m naked under this robe,” and “Here come de judge, here come de judge…”
Mm-mmm! That is, a small, muthaf*ckin flashlight!
Lakeview Terrace, from Neil LaBute, the director of Wicker Man (pictured below right) and Sam Jackson, the star of anything you pay him for, was the big winner this weekend, taking in $15.6 million for the top spot, nearly earning back its $20 million budget in its first weekend.
The other new movies all fared pretty badly. Dane Cook continued to be box office poison as My Best Friend’s Girl opened in third with just $8.3 million. Shockingly, it wasn’t screened for critics. The cast, the concept, the poster, the fact that they actually used the song in the trailer – hard to pinpoint the exact problem when everything about the film was so spectacularly ill-conceived. Dane Cook has now bombed opposite Jessica Alba, Jessica Simpson, and Kate Hudson which means he’s just a small step away from starring opposite Carmen Electra, and that’s when you’ve truly failed. My favorite My Best Friend’s Girl review:
Want to spend a seemingly endless 100 minutes watching a dullard trying to decide between a douchebag and a eunuch? Then run, don’t walk, to My Best Friend’s Girl, a supremely irritating movie about idiots and their dull quest for unconvincing love. -MSNBC
Meanwhile, Ghost Town, starring Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear, received mostly positive reviews but opened all the way down at number 8 with $5.2 million. I just can’t understand it, it seemed like such a fresh concept. Full top ten after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
