To be sure, it’s pretty standard for a movie’s recommended rating on RottenTomatoes to decrease over time. But I can’t remember another time I’ve seen what happened with The Last Stand this past week, where a movie went from 100 percent after 13 reviews (wow, this movie must be really good!) down to the sixties and then to the fifties over the course of a few days (I didn’t start noticing the rapid decline until after I’d already missed the chance to screen cap the 100 and 90-something percent scores). How did it happen? Well, Lionsgate threw a big junket party outside of LA before the release a couple weeks ago and invited a bunch of film writers down to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger crush some cars with a tank. My guess is, a lot of LA area critics saw the film earlier, presumably after the fun-ass junket, and the early reviews skewed positive. Then the numbers started to fall when hacks all over the country started to see it divorced from the fun environment.

Now, don’t get me wrong, if I could’ve gone to see Arnold Schwarzenegger crush some cars with a tank, I definitely would have. I mean, we’re writing about movies here, not the Watergate break in. I just think it’s interesting to see how much context affects your opinion of the same movie. We like to pretend our opinions are all our own, but anyone who’s been to enough stand-up comedy shows has seen how differently the energy of an audience can affect the show even when the guy onstage is telling the exact same jokes. It’s crazy that the same holds true for movies, where the show is literally exactly the same. Likewise, I’m dying to know the back story behind Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull‘s 78 percent fresh rating. I can’t imagine four out of five people liking that movie, unless Spielberg was walking through the auditorium giving actual handjobs.

Oh hey there, Jessica Chastain’s boobs

The Guillermo Del Toro-produced Mama debuted at number one over the weekend, once again proving that modestly-budget horror movies are the closest thing to selling legalized crack. It also benefited from the lead actress’s Oscar nomination coinciding with its release. I didn’t see it, but I’ve been sneaking up behind all my friends and whispering “…mama.” all weekend. Meanwhile, Broken City, Allen Hughes’ first solo-directed film without his brother, Albert, with whom he directed Menace II Society, Dead Presidents, and Book of Eli, landed down at number five, with a fairly uninspired nine million. Let’s face it, you dump a movie starring Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe into a mid-January release, it’s a pretty good indication that that movie is a fartbomb.

Estimated domestic box office totals for Friday to Sunday.

1. Mama (Universal/Entertainment One) NEW – Cinemascore: B-; Metacritic score: 58

$28,100,000 in 2,647 theaters; PSA (per screen average): $12,530; Cumulative: $28,100,000

2. Zero Dark Thirty (Sony) Week 5; Last weekend: #1

$17,600,000 (-28%) in 2,946 theaters (+9); PSA: $5,974; Cumulative: $55,945,000

3. Silver Linings Playbook (Weinstein) Week 10 ; Last weekend: #10

$11,351,000 (+126%) in 2,523 theaters (+1,713); PSA: $4,499; Cumulative: $55,310,000

4. Gangster Squad (Warner Brothers) Week 2; Last weekend: #3

$9,100,000 (-47%) in 3,103 theaters (unchanged); PSA: $2,936; Cumulative: $32,220,000

5. Broken City (20th Century-Fox) NEW – Cinemascore: B; Metacritic score: 49

$9,000,000 in 2,620 theaters; PSA: $3,435; Cumulative: $9,000,000

But perhaps the biggest story of the weekend is that The Last Stand, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to the movies after a nine-year hiatus spent banging maids and governing states, which had all the country’s most obvious-minded critics shouting “Arnold Schwarzenegger is back!”, debuted all the way at number 10, with an estimated $6.6 million.With its $45 million production budget, Indiewire estimates that Lionsgate could be looking at a $50 million loss, unless it makes it up internationally. Though that doesn’t factor in The Last Stand‘s Corvette sponsorship money. But not only did hardly anyone see it, the ones that did gave it a fairly lukewarm B cinemascore. Which is odd, because the Rex Ryan-esque man sitting next to me at my screening kept yelling “HA!” so loud at every joke I thought he was going to shake loose a molar. I didn’t like it that much, but… I don’t know, it seemed like a crowd-pleaser. It does seem weird to have so many hyper-violent, R-rated movies that otherwise seem to be aimed at 10-year-olds.

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“No, I will not say hello to my mother for you.”

Opening Everywhere: Broken City, The Last Stand, Mama

FilmDrunk Suggests: This is a tough one, because I think Mama looks fantastic, but I know other people are going to give it the “Ugh, not this crap again” that I typically give to these kinds of horror movies. So I guess that one’s a toss-up, but The Last Stand looks like a heaping pile of HGH-injected dung, so I’m not recommending that one. Most of you will probably see it anyway, but Johnny Knoxville as an action film sidekick gives me flashbacks of Rob Schneider as an action film sidekick.

And then there’s Broken City. It looks about as inviting as this week’s HOTT GOSS Song of the Week.

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 A Maniac in a Fartmobile: Reflections on Arnold, January Movies, and Metallica

Look, I know, it’s January. Reviewing a movie released in January is like trying to write a restaurant review about a package of Skittles. January is the Spanx under which movie studios hide their most embarrassing, flabby attempts at profit. You might as well have to sign a terms and conditions agreement on the way in, promising not to expect much or think about the film beyond something to occasionally grunt at while you hork down a paint bucket of cola. But fine, I like dumb things. Pass me the tack hammer and hit me with your finest catchphrase.

Lionsgate did their best to build buzz around The Last Stand like it was a real movie, hiring culty Korean director Kim Jee-woon (The Good, the Bad, the Weird) and sending Arnold Schwarzenegger on a goodwill tour that included a Reddit AMA and tank rides for Los Angeles film writers at a junket-carnival. But nothing Lionsgate can do will paper over the giant flashing light that says “PAYCHECK! PAYCHECK! PAYCHECK!” once the movie begins. The Last Stand plays like a commercial for a videogame meets a commercial for a car meets a trailer for “Arnold Schwarzenegger: Movie Star.” It’s both too dumb and not dumb enough.

[Read the rest at the Portland Mercury]

[via D.Faraci]

I’ve always said that press junkets for movies should be more like monster truck rallies – SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! WATCH FIRE-BREATHING TRUCKASAURUS TEAR OFF JESSICA CHASTAIN’S CHROME-TITTED BIKINI! PLUS, CANDLEBOX – and it seems the folks in charge of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Last Stand and I think alike. Because today at Melody Ranch Studios outside Valencia- er, Santa Clarita, all the LA-based movie bloggers and critics got invited out to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger drive a tank over a car, crushing it like so much Brazilian poontang. I wasn’t able to attend personally, because I’m up here in San Francisco getting my bike seat stolen by crackheads outside Zero Dark Thirty screenings, but luckily I can still see the pictures thanks to this thing called the internet. It’s a wonderful time to be alive.

This means the movie is going to be really good, right?

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