^{Scientists cautiously approached a screening of Four Christmases}

The Day the Earth Stood Still took the top spot at the box office this weekend, earning $31 million, despite kinda sucking a lot. It’s not surprising considering it was the only film opening in wide release with any hype behind it.  Meanwhile, all the award-season films performed well in limited release.

The biggest winner among openers on a per-screen basis was Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino,” …which grossed $284,000 on six screens for an average of $47,333. Also opening strong were Miramax’s “Doubt,” with $525,000 on 15 screens, and IFC’s “Che” with $60,000 on two screens. …“Slumdog Millionaire,” $2.2 million on 169 screens; Focus’ “Milk,” $2.6 million on 328 screens; and Universal’s “Frost/Nixon,” $630,240 on 39 screens. [LA Times] (full top ten after the jump)

So basically, every awards-nominated movie got a tiny release while most of the country was stuck with f-cking Keanu Reeves.  Note to studio execs: if you ever want the film industry to become less of an insular circle jerk than it already is, STOP ASSUMING EVERYONE OUTSIDE OF NY AND LA IS AN IDIOT.  Making it hard to see the good shit doesn’t “build buzz”, it builds a negative attitude towards moviegoing in general.  Example? I tried to see Milk three times this weekend.  Every time it was sold out.  And I live in New York.  Next time I’ll probably just wonder if I should even bother.  Great marketing strategy.  Go F yourselves.

Read the rest of this entry »

The only new movies opening in wide release over the weekend were Punisher: War Zone and Cadillac Records, which finished at numbers eight and nine, respectively (full top ten below).  Hopefully they’ll just keep rebooting the Punisher franchise until they get it right – hey, I hear Will Smith’s son is available.  Oh yeah, and that godawful abortion Four Christmases landed in the top spot for the second week in a row.  First Fred Claus, now this.  Congratulations, America, you’ve made it possible for Vince Vaughn to make one shitty movie a year at Christmas time and dick around the other 11 months.  Which is great for Vince Vaughn and the manufacturers of home pregnancy and STD tests, but bad for we the viewers.  All I want for Christmas is good Vince Vaughn movies, and to not get STDs. Is that so much to ask?  Please, just say no to Christmas movies.  And PCP.

Read the rest of this entry »

^{You’re doing it wrong.  Making movies, I mean.}

Hey, remember when Vince Vaughn was cool?  Now he’s apparently the guy who makes Christmas movies (move over, Tim Allen!).  His Fred Claus follow up, Four Christmases, earned the top spot at the box office this weekend.  And with reviews like this, it’s no wonder!

The acrid, wince-worthy Four Christmases may well be part of the war on Christmas Bill O’Reilly’s always fog-horning about. Christmas and Christianity will survive it. But barely. –Chicago Tribune

When will filmmakers learn that if you start with Bad Santa and finish with It’s a Wonderful Life, you just end up with curdled eggnog? –Boston Globe

The movie boasts five Oscar winners. That figure exceeds by five the number of times I laughed at this cheap collection of icky jokes and stereotypes about heartland types who do horrible things like have babies and go to church. –New York Post

…more names lead only to more mania, as the serial domestic visits become set-piece excuses to ramp up the physical shtick and the attendant general hysteria. So it’s not enough to saddle Brad the lawyer with a less sophisticated brother – nope, Brad must get wrestled to the floor and beaten to a pulp by an imbecilic sibling with a chest full of tattoos and an accessorizing Mohawk. Nor can Kate simply get dragged off reluctantly to midnight mass – nope, Kate must be goaded into playing Mary in the church pageant and wear a really embarrassing costume and suffer stage fright like a biblical plague and, meanwhile over at Dad’s house, Brad isn’t just falling off a roof but he’s also clutching at an electrical cord that leads to a TV set that prompts an explosion that sets the curtains ablaze and … stop it, please. -GlobeandMail

My only question: who the hell watches this crap?  The movie had four screenwriters and they still thought a joke that was good enough to put in the trailer was Vince Vaughn saying his UFC fighter brothers were like “human cockfighters.”  Really?  You’re gonna steal some shit John McCain said 13 years ago?  That would’ve made the writers of Law and Order blush.  Oh, and did I mention the fighters were Jon Favreau and Tim McGraw?  Go f-ck yourself, Hollywood.

UPDATE: I glossed over it the first time I wrote this, but Milk, in the ten spot with $1.4 million, played on just 36 screens for a record-breaking $38,375 per screen.  THR says Sean Penn’s performance is generating “early plaudits”.  In related news, I have no idea what that means.

Read the rest of this entry »

^{Don’t blame yourself when mommy and daddy fight, Birthday Dog}

Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon star in the just-released trailer for Four Christmases, which is like every shitty romantic comedy ever made meets every shitty Christmas movie ever made.  I liked it better when it was called Meet the Parents, a little less when it was called The Break Up, and then it pretty much sucked all those times when Matthew McConnaughey and Kate Hudson were in it.  On the plus side, this and Fred Claus will make a great bargain-bin DVD set.

Read the rest of this entry »

What we have here are the posters for Four Christmases and Zack and Miri Make a Porno, respectively.  Now’s the time when we play a little game I like to call Guess Which One of These I’d Consider Seeing.  The object of it is pretty self-explanatory.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.