The Hollywood Reporter recently ran a feature on “Summer Box Office’s 10 Biggest Flops of 2011,”  (not to be confused with The Biggest Flops of 2011 So Far from a few weeks ago) and even though summer isn’t even over yet, I know these “lists of things with numbers next to them” soothe the internet beast. Just don’t expect me stop wearing these white shoes before Labor Day Weekend, you jackals.

I’m proud to say that in our Fantasy Summer Box Office Contest, Brendan and I predicted at least two of these (not that you needed to be Nostradamus to know The Change-Up or Green Lantern were going to tank). Sorry, Ryan Reynolds. If it’s any consolation, you still look like you’d smell nice.

1. Cowboys & Aliens
Directed by Jon Favreau and featuring James Bond star Daniel Craig, the $163 million-budgeted movie mixed two genres: Westerns and alien pics. Unfortunately, audiences didn’t embrace the result. From Universal and DreamWorks, Cowboys & Aliens has cumed [bwahahaha! it's hilarious because I'm 12! -Ed] only $129 million to date, including $93.5 million domestically and $35.5 million overseas (where it still has some territories yet to open).

2. Larry Crowne
Directed by and starring Tom Hanks (opposite Julia Roberts), Larry Crowne was intended to please adult audiences put off by summer popcorn fare. But the Universal film, fully financed by Vendome Films, topped out at $52.4 million worldwide, including only $35.6 million domestically.

3. Green Lantern
The Ryan Reynolds superhero pic cost a pricey $200 million to produce, yet has only earned $206.1 million worldwide. In North America, the Warner Bros. film topped out at $116 million, while it’s cumed $90.1 million to date at the international box office. Like Cowboys, it hasn’t fully rolled out overseas.

4. Priest
The Paul Bettany action pic, based on the Korean graphic novel, was the most expensive movie ever produced by Sony’s Screen Gems, sporting a price tag north of $60 million. It’s only earned $76.6 million worldwide, including $29.1 million in North America, and $47.4 million offshore.

5. The Change-Up
The Jason Bateman-Ryan Reynolds pic has earned only $34.5 million to date domestically, ending a dazzling winning streak for R-rated comedies. Universal hasn’t yet begun rolling out the movie in major foreign territories.

6. Conan the Barbarian
The reboot cost north of $70 million to make but is off to a poor start, grossing only $16.6 million domestically in its first 10 days, and $5.5 million in its initial foreign run. The film was fully financed by NuImage/Millennium, and is being distributed by Lionsgate.

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The folks over at Movies.com have compiled a list of this summer’s ten highest-grossing movies, and… guess which one’s at the top. Go ahead, guess. I’ll give you a hint, it’s a movie so nuanced and complex that I wrote it a three-word review.

1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($338.8 million) *** (Ranked 3rd Worldwide)

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (325.1 million) *** (Ranked 2nd Worldwide)

3. The Hangover Part II ($253 million)

4. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($238.4 million) *** (Ranked 1st Worldwide)

5. Fast Five ($209.4 million)

6. Cars 2 ($182.4 million)

7. Thor ($180.6 million)

8. Bridesmaids ($165.5 million)

9. Kung Fu Panda 2 ($161.8 million)

10. X-Men: First Class ($144.7 million);

*Note: This list represents domestic totals only.

***Over $1 billion worldwide

You may notice that Fast Five came out in April, and Pirates and Hangover II in May, so I guess EQUINOXES MEAN NOTHING TO PEOPLE ANYMORE. To break it down even further, the list includes a third installment, an eighth installment, a second installment, a fourth installment, a fifth installment, another second installment, a comic book movie, a second installment, and a fourth installment/prequel/reboot, with Bridesmaids the only non-sequel, non-comic-book-movie of the bunch. Boy is that depressing. And yet X-Men, which is both, was by far the best movie of the bunch. Oh well. Also, Pirates is the number one movie internationally, because, as I’ve pointed out, foreigners love Johnny Depp.

I was searching for a picture of Bogart in Casablanca and found this instead. Awesome, right? I imagine Mickey Rourke's life is a lot like this.

British movie rental company Lovefilm recently released the results of a reader poll that asked which films people lied about having seen.  They found that four out of five people had lied about what movies they’d seen to impress people. The Godfather topped their list of most lied about, with almost a third of people reporting that they’d pretended to have seen it.  Here’s the full list:

1. The Godfather (30 per cent)
2. Casablanca (13 per cent)
3. Taxi Driver (11 per cent)
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (9 per cent)
5. Reservoir Dogs (8 per cent)
6. This Is Spinal Tap (7 per cent)
7. Apocalypse Now (6 per cent)
8. Goodfellas (5 per cent)
=8. Blade Runner (5 per cent)
10. The Great Escape (4 per cent) [PressAssociation via SlashFilm]

So lying about having seen a movie… that’s something people do?  Who’s actually impressed by this?  Ooh, you sat on your fat ass eating butter-dunked popcorn for two hours, let’s cast your effigy in bronze.  The closest I ever come to lying about what movies I’ve seen is when I meet an older person who’s interested that I write a movie blog and I have to pretend I give a sh*t about Kurosawa.

Quentin Tarantino recently chose his top 20 movies of 2010, led by Toy Story 3. Excluding the ones I still haven’t seen, all of his choices made at least my honorable mentions list, with the exceptions of Robin Hood and Knight and Day. Seriously, Q, Robin Hood? He must have let the Coke Wizard choose that one.  (That’s the magical wizard behind Tarantino in the picture who shows up when Quentin does too much blow).  I don’t have one of those, but there is a leprechaun who bruises me up and pees in my bed when I drink too much. I’ll get you one day, Shameus O’Reardon.

1. Toy Story 3
2. The Social Network
3. Animal Kingdom
4. I Am Love
5. Tangled
6. True Grit
7. The Town
8. Greenberg
9. Cyrus
10. Enter The Void (“Hands down best credit scene of the year … Maybe best credit scene of the decade. One of the greatest in cinema history.”)

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I SAW MOVIES THIS YEAR!  I HAVE OPINIONS ABOUT THEM!  BEHOLD AS I ARRANGE THEM NUMERICALLY!

Look, I’m not going to start by apologizing for the movies on the list.  We all know the idea of assigning movies numerical value is ridiculous, but that doesn’t stop us from reading lists, comparing lists, and arguing about lists.  It’s human nature, like love, or pooping.  At some point, you just have to sack up and commit to the format.  That said, it’s a truth critics rarely acknowledge: no one saw every movie that came out this year.  I saw fewer foreign movies than I usually do, and in retrospect, I should’ve spent more time watching those and less time on The Last god-d*mned Airbender.  Oh my God that was terrible.  People are entitled to their opinions, but anyone who liked that movie should be locked a cage and buried in the forest.

Anyway, enough foreplay, it’s time to drop your panties.  Here are my favorites of this year.  KNIVES OUT!  GRRR, MIXED METAPHOR!

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