Liam Neeson’s pretty uptight about head-related safety these days.

There’s not a whole lot of really exceptional DVDs this week, but at least there’s some variety.  If Taken 2 isn’t your thing, there’s also the newest Woody Allen movie, the latest horror flick about demonic possession, and even an Oscar-nominated documentary. There’s flicks about porn stars and soldiers, activists and the Outback, lesbian monarchs and rich Italian men just looking for love.  We’ve even got a film co-starring everyone’s favorite Scientologist, Danny Masterson!

The DVDs:
Taken 2
To Rome With Love
Won’t Back Down
The Possession
5 Broken Cameras
About Cherry
Allegiance
The Chicago 8
Branded
Wake In Fright
Farewell, My Queen
30 Nights Of Paranormal Activity With The Devil Inside The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Counterpunch
Runaway Slave
A Secret Promise
Wedding Day

Streaming: Check out your choices here.

Want to know which film is about demonic possession?  Continue reading.  Want to know which film has Danny Masterson, so you can make sure to avoid it?  Continue reading.  Want to know more about 30 Nights Of Paranormal Activity With The Devil Inside The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? Why?  It’s obviously one of those awful pop-culture reference spoof movies.  If you think you’ve seen quite enough of this week’s DVDs, feel free to click the link above for the streaming suggestions, but you’ll never find out which flick is about a porn-star named Cherry.  Read the rest of this entry »

One of our biggest fears heading into the UFC 153 live discussion at With Leather on Saturday night was that the event was going to be soaked in the stink of Here Comes the Boom previews, and I was even betting that Kevin James and Adam Sandler would show up as Stephan Bonnar’s ring entourage, which would have been fitting considering the beating he took. Fortunately, not only was the event free of Happy Madison lackeys, but I only remember seeing one preview for the film. Even more fortunately, Here Comes the Boom finished No. 5 at the box office this weekend, which is yet another sign that maybe, just maybe the nation has had enough of these guys.

Or maybe not, because the film still made $12 million and averaged $3,981 per screen to Seven Psychopaths’ $2,889 average, and that’s depressing. I don’t want to live in a world in which Christopher Walken is appreciated less than Kevin James.

Meanwhile, Taken 2 remains the No. 1 film in America, as moviegoers proved they’d rather watch Liam Neeson beat the crap out of foreigners than Salma Hayek pretend she’d ever reveal the holy chesticles to Paul Blart. Argo opened strong at No. 2 with a $20 million weekend, which also proves that we’ll always take shoot ‘em up style over clever escape plans. This is America, dang nabit!

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Pew pew!

I expected it to do well, but $50 million for Taken 2 is downright shocking. Its opening is more than twice that of the original ($24.7 million) and good enough for the third best October opening of all time, behind Paranormal Activity 3 and Jackass 3D. This despite the fact that, as it was astutely pointed out to me over the weekend, they missed a golden opportunity to call it “Taken Too!”

Exit polling indicated that the audience skewed older (56 percent were 25 years of age and up) and was pretty evenly split between men and women (52 percent male), which suggests Taken 2 was a good date night choice. [!?!] Reviews are god-awful (20 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but moviegoers were much more forgiving—they awarded Taken 2 a “B+” CinemaScore, which means the movie may not fall like a rock next weekend. Still, it’s going to be a lot more front-loaded than its predecessor, and matching Taken’s $145 million domestic total is going to be a real challenge. [BoxOfficeMojo]

I thought the first one was mostly just kind of boring and the sequel seemed, shall we say, contrived (they took his daughter… again!), but I can’t argue the appeal of Liam Neeson being a badass. In fact, after last week’s appearances on ESPN and the subsequent revelations about him punching children, I support all future Liam Neeson press tours, no matter how stupid the movie.

Meanwhile, Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie opened worse than Paranorman, and almost as bad as Pirates! Band of Misfits. Hasn’t the clay industry suffered enough?!

Frankenweenie took fifth place this weekend with a disappointing $11.5 million debut. That’s way off from Tim Burton’s last stop-motion animated movie Corpse Bride, which earned $19.1 million in its nationwide expansion. It’s also lower than ParaNorman‘s $14.1 million, and only a tad up on April’s stop-motion bomb The Pirates! Band of Misfits ($11.1 million). [BoxOfficeMojo]

Other complicating factors include the decision to open it just a week after Hotel Transylvania, which is still doing big numbers. But that aside, either kids aren’t as into clay as they used to be, or they’re not nearly as fascinated by the concept of dead things conversing with the living as adults seem to think they are.

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"SportsCenter? Yeah, why the f*ck not."

Opening Everywhere: Taken 2, Pitch Perfect, Frankenweenie

FilmDrunk Suggests: Taken 2 if you’re a bro. Pitch Perfect if you’re a chick. Frankenweenie if you want to make your child cry.

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Liam Neeson went on Sportscenter to promote Taken 2 yesterday (2aken? Twoken?), and because ESPN is largely run by loudmouthed blowhards whose only identifiable skill is being able to emit long strings of unbroken shouting without pausing to think about the words being said, anchor Mike Hill opened with what he thought was a softball question for Neeson, “Can you even act like the Jets are good this year?”

You know, the usual meaningless semantic provocation used by ESPN talking heads to stimulate shouty discussion without resorting to any pesky facts. Unfortunately for them, Liam Neeson, despite living in New York, is an Irishman, and folks across the pond generally know about as much about American football as you or I know about hurling. Said Neeson:

“Okay, we better start again. …Are we live? Oh sh*t. Okay, I’ll be very honest with you, it was only the second football game I’ve ever been at in my life. I still don’t understand the rules.”

Never is straightforward Irish candor quite as refreshing as when it’s juxtaposed with the American institution of mindless bloviating on cable TV to fill space in the 24-hour news cycle. God bless you, Liam Neeson. I’m still not seeing Taken 2, but God bless you.

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