Paranormal Activity 3 grossed $54 million over the weekend, outgrossing the previous two PA movies and breaking the previous all-time record for September-October openings held by Jackass 3D. Meanwhile, Three Musketeers landed at number four behind Footloose and Real Steel with just $8.8 million. But I guess that’s what happens when you cancel all your press screenings and try to open a movie with no big stars in it in secret (Milla Jovovich thought the marketing campaign sucked, and I agree with her). Why, it’s almost as if Orlando Bloom isn’t an automatic, walk-off, box office grand slam.

[via BoxOfficeMojo]

It has to be a bummer for cinematographers that a 3D movie about flying pirate ships attached to zeppelins that cannon fight made less than a sixth of a film made out of surveillance footage of a bathroom where the big scare is a curtain that moves on its own. (*sigh*) It’s like no one respects a spectacle anymore. (*rides off on unicycle juggling monkeys holding sparklers*)

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"The Baby Goose on the bus goes hunk, hunk, hunk!"

Opening in Wide Release This Weekend: The Ides of March, Real Steel

Opening in Limited Release This Weekend: The Human Centipede 2

FilmDrunk Recommends: 50/50

This is a pretty tame movie weekend despite huge star power, so the obvious expectation should be that The Ides of March will be the critical darling that is outperformed by Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots: The Movie because your kids think that a robot punching another robot in the balls is HILARIOUS. What say you, on with the lofty expectations?

The Ides of March

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79% critics, 84% audience “want to see”

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

“In a raw and riveting face-off in a hotel kitchen, Mike and Stephen have it out on issues that really are life-and-death. Clooney knows how to ignite sparks and build momentum. And he hands the terrific Gosling an all-stops-out role that challenges him on every level – his ravaged face traces the line from compromise to corruption.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“Gosling is the standout among the A-list ensemble, delivering a riveting, intensely focused performance. He has a wonderful moment when Myers is faced with a fateful decision. The next scene is silent, a medium shot of him walking down the street. From the cadence of his walk, we know the choice he’s made. That, ladies and gentlemen, is an actor at work. – Colin Covert, Minnesota Star Tribune

Armchair Analysis: Nobody ravages Baby Goose’s face. This film is obviously going to receive high praise and generate a great deal of Oscar buzz, but is this really a great time for a political drama? I’d rather watch Pauly Shore in Hail to the Queef the way this country is going, but then… I just can’t say no to Silver Fox and Baby Goose.

Seriously, even my panties get moist looking at this picture…

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You can lead a robot to boxing, but you can’t make him dance

It would make my job a lot easier if Real Steel was as dumb and hilarious as it first sounded, when director Shawn Levy said of it:

“In a movie filled with these mechanical warriors, at its core ‘Real Steel’ is an incredibly human story.”

The brilliantly absurd unintentional satire of that aside, what Levy apparently meant was, “Real Steel is Over the Top with robot boxing instead of arm wrestling.”

The amazing thing is that for about 20 minutes, Levy almost convinced me that what I just typed might actually be a brilliant premise. We open on Hugh Jackman, a broken-down old robot boxing trainer (and former regular boxer) who owes money all over town. He’s taken to sticking his robots in freakshow exhibition matches, like the first of the film, pitting his robot against a 2,000-pound bull. “We agreed on an 800-pound bull!” Jackman yells.

Of course, as we all know, it’s not the size of the bull in the robot fight, it’s the size of the fight in the robot that fights the bull. (I think?) The bull turns out to be owned by bad guy Kevin Durand at a county fair in San Leandro — a suburb of Oakland, which looks strangely like Texas in the future. One of many confusing narrative choices.

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This week on the Frotcast, we brought on Laremy Legel, rogue gorilla hardass of Film.com, to talk Real Steel, and then we brought on Uproxx utility infielder Burnsy to round-up the week in internet detritus. We also read some of your emails and relationship questions, so keep those coming. Frotcast@gmail.com.

Laremy shows up about nine minutes in. Burnsy chimes in at 41 minutes. Burnsy introduces us to some new YouTube artists, plus, we talk about this week’s dual-Hitler gate, with Hank Williams Jr. and Lars Von Trier. Oh, those two. I smell reality show. Oh, and we attempt to rank cinema’s sexiest performances by underage girls. You can thank Mike from Screenrant for that question. We may have him on if he keeps coming up with questions like that.

It’s been a big week in movie posters, as you may have guessed by the fact that this post is going up a day later than it usually does.  I WAS DROWNING! DROWNING IN POSTERS! FOR I AM BUT ONE MAN!  But as I say about my period, better late than never.  Anyway, times a-wastin’, let’s get to it.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Yes, I already covered this one, but seeing as how that post involved exposed nipples and drew like 30 thousand views in a few hours, I see no reason not to repost the higher-resolution version, solely for artistic reasons, of course.  Once again, this one shows ROONEY MARA’S TOPLESS BOOB NIPPLES UPSKIRT CORGI RACING.  (*counts ad money*).  Here’s the full-sized version of that banner picture. I honestly couldn’t tell if it counted as NSFW.  What a disappointing pair of titties.  Also, I haven’t read the books, so to me, “Evil with evil shall be expelled” sounds like some sort of renaissance ejaculation limerick. In any case, I’m all for more posters with bare boobs in them, even if you have to shoehorn some British creep in there for the ladies.  Hey, dick, how about you smile?  You’ve practically got boobs in your hand.

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