Howdy, folks.  This week I’ve got a copy of The Goods on DVD to give away.  I was going to write a full review of it, but suffice to say, it doesn’t quite hang together as a whole movie, but it has some big laughs.  It’s just about what you want out of a DVD, actually.  Anyway, Donkey Hodey and ChinoMoreno won last week so I’m disqualifying them from this prize, but I will say they probably deserved it for these:

[From New clip from Avatar] Donkey Hodey says: Anybody else think how funny it would have been if when he jumped over that waterfall that he would have landed on some shallow rocks and paralyzed his avatar too?

[From Fantastic Mr. Fox clip: a beaver gets pounded] ChinoMoreno says: Wow. Straight to the pounding. He should have started by giving the beaver the finger.

And:

ChinoMoreno says: The beaver was impressed by this pounding until the neighborhood ‘coon hit it. The beaver never went back.

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District 9, which cost $30 million to make, earned the top spot at the box office last weekend with $37 million.  Here’s the story behind this surprise hit and most-tweeted topic on Friday (la dee da) via Nikke Finke:

District 9 director Neill Blomkamp was supposed to be Peter Jackson’s helmer on Halo, which went down in flames. But Peter and his partner Fran Walsh kept Neill in New Zealand to develop his short film, Alive In Joburg. Jackson then turned it into a hard-cover faux graphic novel. That book went to Peter’s longtime manager Ken Kamins to arrange financing and set it up as a film. Ken made the decision to go indie, [...].  The result is not just another Amy Pascal pic starring Adam or Will but, according to the 88% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, an imaginative, creative, cutting-edge pic made outside the studio system.

That’s right.  Another graphic-novel-turned-movie.  Oh well, at least it wasn’t a gum wrapper or a board game.

G.I. Joe, predictably dropped about 60% in its second week to take the #2 spot with $22.5 million.  The Time Traveler’s Wife took third place with a disappointing $19.2 million weekend (the studio expected at least $25 million).

Among the other films opening last weekend, The Goods opened at #6 with $5.35 million.  Bandslam took 13th place with $2.25 million, earning only $1,061 per screen (ha ha).   Ponyo opened at #9 with $3.5 million.  It Might Get Loud made $14,429 per screen in limited release.  (full top 10 below)

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Opening this weekend:

District 9 (final trailer above) — South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp’s critically-acclaimed faux-documentary about alien visitors being segregated to an alien ghetto by distrusting humans.  It’s a clever metaphor about race relations, like when I throw rocks at my Estonian neighbors.
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This is a new red-band clip from The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, featuring Jeremy Piven, Gina Gershon, Will Ferrell, and a backpack full of dildos and lube.  Also, Will Ferrell is dressed like Abe Lincoln.  Though for some reason he’s sporting a mutton-chop-sideburns combo, which, although sweet, differs from Lincoln’s well-publicized preference for an Amish-style chin strap.

I’m not sure how feel about The Goods, which opens this Friday.  It looks like your standard Will Ferrell-Adam McKay comedy, which is less a movie than a collection of ad-libs and improvised sketches.  It’s a movie I’ve probably already seen a few times, and I wish they’d take the time to re-write and shoot scenes after they chance upon something funny during improv, but then, I can’t fully argue with Abe Lincoln and dildos raining from the sky.  It’s a dilemma as old as time.

[via ScreenJunkies]

Jeremy Piven is on Entourage, which I try not to hold against him since he’s the only thing approaching good on that show.  He also stars in The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, which he recently promoted by appearing on WWE’s Monday Night Raw at the Mohegan Sun Casino.  Accompanied by his sidekick Ken Jeong*, Piven announces the “lumberjack match” between John Cena and The MiZ, whom Piven keeps referring to as “Le Miz”.  Haha, it’s funny because no one there gets it.  And wait a second, isn’t The MiZ that guy from The Real World who everyone laughed at because he wanted to be a wrestler?  They actually let him be a wrestler?  Where have I been?  Oh that’s right, not watching “raw” wrestling.  Call me old fashioned, but when I hear “lumberjack match” I expect someone getting hit with an axe or f’d in the B.  Or at least some flapjacks.  Buttery, syrupy, muscular flapjacks, all laying on top of each other? Mm-mm, my stomach has a boner just thinking about them.

*additional trivia: who’s actually licensed to practice medicine)

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