If not putting your whole hand in your pocket is cool, Bieber and Jaden are Davis and Coltrane.

Precious, booger-lipped wiener kids everywhere breathed a sigh of relief into their gilded inhalers this week as Jaden Smith proved that children of celebrities can succeed, so long as their parents buy them Jackie Chan.  Or, to put it in plain English, The Karate Kid earned $56 six million godd*mned dollars this week.  If you vote with your pocketbook, the American moviegoer overwhelmingly checked the box next to “I hate Jesus, America, puppies, and ice cream.”

While Karate Kid was making twice what the studio had predicted, The A-Team underperformed almost as much.  It earned $26 million for the weekend, which, in and of itself isn’t horrible, but as Deadline says:

That’s embarrassing for what was supposed to be the start of another franchise and a nailbiter between the two opening movies. It turned out not even close. ”A pretty spectacular win,” one Sony exec exulted. “Not even Jerry Weintraub predicted that.”

Man, who would’ve thought a crappy-TV-show-based film that went through eleven screenwriters wouldn’t be a huge hit, huh?  I tell you, it’s a strange time to be alive.  Hey, assh*les, even McDonald’s had to make sure people liked their burgers before they started thinking franchise.  But let’s not let the A-Team detract from the real news: the era of celeb karaoke has officially upon us.  Thanks, Will and Jaden Smith, you’ve ruined everything for everyone.  I can’t wait until Tom Hanks’ kid gets to be a movie star now.  …Wait, what?  Aw crap.

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Opening this Weekend (trailers after the jump)

Karate Kid
It’s currently tracking 53% on RottenTomatoes, which means that, if you were to divorce it from all historical contexts and future implications, the movie itself probably isn’t that bad.  (The most satisfactory movie of summer, said Shrugsworth McWhogivesafuk)  However, as the old saying goes, you vote with your pocketbook, and the last thing I want to vote for is to give more celebrities the ability to buy a movie so that their booger-faced wiener kid can play Celebrity Rockband with some sh*t I’ve already seen 100 times on cable.  But hey, that’s just me.

The A-Team
This one’s got a similarly mixed recommended rating, but for some reason, the concept doesn’t offend me as much.  The idea is stupid, the footage I’ve seen so far is stupid, but it looks like “epically stupid” was the vibe they went for, and at least that I can respect.  “Is he trying to shoot down our drones?“  “No, he’s flying the tank.”  Duh, Mr. Poindexter, did you fall asleep during falling tank driver’s ed or something?  Stupid for stupid’s sake is okay by me, and at the very least, it won’t create any future former child actors.  However, there’s one thing that always gives me pause on modern movies with gratuitous action: the dreaded shakey cam.  I didn’t notice it much in the advance clips, but for what it’s worth, Ebert called it “queasy-cam anarchy,” writing, “The movie uses the new style of violent action, which fragments sequences into so many bits and pieces that it’s impossible to form any sense of what’s happening, or where, or to whom.“  Uh oh.

Winter’s Bone
Debra Granik’s tour-de-chainsaw that squirrel-knifed its way into my heart at Sundance opens today in New York and L.A.  And it’s the proud recipient of my inaugural “FilmDrunk Seal of Approval.”

Other reviewers have taken issue with the film’s “excessive bleakness,” and it’s definitely bleak as f*ck, but I found the attention to detail in creating that world to be charming. I thought it paid off in the end.  Plus, f*cking hillbillies and meth and chainsaws, dude.  See it early, New York and LA’ers, so that the rest of the country can get some action.  Oh yeah, and Jennifer Lawrence is real purdy.

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MSN (via ScreenCrave) just released the second half of that parachuting tank scene from A-Team that we saw last week (I guess there are slight spoilers, so don’t watch it if you’re gonna be a bitch about it).  This one starts after the tank loses two of its three parachutes (which minutes earlier managed to survive a fiery plane explosion).  And again, everyone seems to be high on PCP.

“Oh my God, we lost our parachutes, we’re probably gonna die!”

“Awesome!”

“COWABUNGA!”

“BOOM.”

I’m not exaggerating, Sharlto Copley actually yells “Awesome!” and “Boom!”.  But you know what?  I kind of dig it.  It was always going to be ridiculous, at least Joe Carnahan went big with it.  So much yelling though.  If I’d known that was going to be the case, I would’ve had some casting suggestions. More like the A-SCREAM, amirite?

(“AAAAHHHH!”  “AAAAHHHHH!!”  “AAAAHHHH!”  “AAAAHHHH!”)

As they say on The A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together.”  Now, let me see if I understand this plan:

1.  Stowaway inside tank inside a cargo plane.

2.  Wait for enemy to blow up said cargo plane with a missile.

3.  Assuming that they’ll be undamaged in the explosion, deploy the tank’s parachutes (from, uh… inside the tank).

4. Open tank’s hatch, activate tank’s guns, and destroy enemy’s planes as you float towards the ground.

5. Cackle maniacally, ridicule your black friend.

Some people might call this “ridiculous” or “stupid,” but I enjoyed it.  If you’re gonna go big, go big.  However, if you can tell me what the hell Rampage says here, I think you win a prize:

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There’s a new trailer out for the Joe Carnahan-directed A-Team, and this one seems specially designed for the person who saw the first one and said, “Hmm, not ridiculous enough.”  Besides more of the parachuting-a-tank-out-of-an-airplane-and-shooting-other-planes-with-it scene, we’ve also got:

• Liam Neeson as Hannibal pulling the old Shawshank Redemption trick… for a cigar.  Just buy it at the commissary, show off.
• “I ain’t flyin on no planes!” is now “Oh hell naw. I ain’t steppin foot on any type a aircraft.”  Well la di dah, looks like someone‘s dating an English major.
• Instead of BA saying “I pity the fool!’, he just has “PITY” and “FOOL” tattooed on his knuckles. …Right, because just saying the line would’ve been stupid.
• District 9‘s Sharlto Copley as Murdock tries to jump start a van with a defibrillator.  About which Hannibal says “My kind of guy.”  Aw, I love that electricity-ignorant f*ck.
• RAIL GRINDING DOWN A SKYSCRAPER, OOH WHA AH AH-AH!
• BASE jump to parachute snagged on the skids of passing helicopter.  You know they planned that sh*t too.

As you all know, I grip it and rip it and live life with a lot of flair on a daily basis, but even I might have to keister a couple Red Bulls to get through this.  Ooh, and I almost forgot: Brad Cooper shirtless.  I knew there was a reason I had that vaseline out.

[available in HD at Apple]