The folks over at Movies.com have compiled a list of this summer’s ten highest-grossing movies, and… guess which one’s at the top. Go ahead, guess. I’ll give you a hint, it’s a movie so nuanced and complex that I wrote it a three-word review.

1. Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($338.8 million) *** (Ranked 3rd Worldwide)

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (325.1 million) *** (Ranked 2nd Worldwide)

3. The Hangover Part II ($253 million)

4. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($238.4 million) *** (Ranked 1st Worldwide)

5. Fast Five ($209.4 million)

6. Cars 2 ($182.4 million)

7. Thor ($180.6 million)

8. Bridesmaids ($165.5 million)

9. Kung Fu Panda 2 ($161.8 million)

10. X-Men: First Class ($144.7 million);

*Note: This list represents domestic totals only.

***Over $1 billion worldwide

You may notice that Fast Five came out in April, and Pirates and Hangover II in May, so I guess EQUINOXES MEAN NOTHING TO PEOPLE ANYMORE. To break it down even further, the list includes a third installment, an eighth installment, a second installment, a fourth installment, a fifth installment, another second installment, a comic book movie, a second installment, and a fourth installment/prequel/reboot, with Bridesmaids the only non-sequel, non-comic-book-movie of the bunch. Boy is that depressing. And yet X-Men, which is both, was by far the best movie of the bunch. Oh well. Also, Pirates is the number one movie internationally, because, as I’ve pointed out, foreigners love Johnny Depp.

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The whole crew was back for this week’s Frotcast, which included NOT ONE BUT TWO guests. Lindy West came on to read hard-boiled Twitter fiction from DrunkExpatWriter (you may remember him from last week?). The secret ingredient to his work is “anal rape.” We also brought on all-star commenter and Twitter impresario Pauly Dangerously to play the UFC Special Skills game. You know how before every UFC fight they put up a graphic with three bullet points showing a fighter’s special skills?  Stuff like “Heavy hands,” “College wrestler,” etc.? We all made lists of UFC Special Skills we’d like to see.  Things like “Crazy ‘Bout Elvis,” “Believes in Jesus,” “Loves to laugh,” “Does great Christopher Walken,” and my favorite, which was Brendan’s, “Yells out what he’s about to do.”

Email us at Frotcast@Gmail.com, Subscribe on iTunes, and download this week’s episode here (right-click, “save as.”) We’d love to hear your hard-boiled twit fic submissions, UFC Special Skills, and ESPECIALLY ideas for new games. Episode notes and time stamps:

• 3:44 – Discussing Food Network’s new I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-satire show, EXTREME CHEF!!! (promo after the jump)
• 7:55 – Brendan’s idea for an Oregon Trail reality show
• 14:42 – Email from reader Zach, “Poop Transplant Round Table.”
• 20:40 – The UFC Special Skills Game with Pauly
• 37:22 – Hard-boiled Twitter Fiction with Lindy West. (*finger snaps*)  SUBMIT YOUR OWN!
• 47:00 – Talking Transformers 3, which Ben liked, because he is a child. I posit that there are two types of human characters in Transformers, “zombies” and “Daffy Ducks.”
• 1:04:00 – The biggest movie flops of 2011.  Can you guess them?
• 1:15:00 – My stories about working on infomercials, including the bodybuilder from the Ab Scissor commercial who measured his pee in measuring cups to keep track of liquid intake.

Fantasy Box Office Standings and Extreme Chef “Sizzle Reel” below…

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This video racked up 1.7 million views while I was on vacation, so there’s a decent chance you’ve already seen it. Those of you who have can humor the rest of us while we catch up. Basically, a sharp-eyed YouTube user named Jermain Odreman found a few shots from The Island that were remarkably similar to shots from Transformers 3. And by remarkably similar, I mean they were the same footage with different CGI added. As you can see above, they’re either the same shot or Bay took great pains to replicate scenes from his least successful movie. People reacted as if this was finally the damning evidence against Michael Bay that we needed. Said one YouTube commenter:

“In the age of advanced CGI, it’s really sad to recycle scenes from movies made 6 years ago.”

Really?  Is it?  I would say advanced CGI made that possible.  And *I* had to watch the clip two or three times before I could determine which parts were actually the same, so I doubt your average Michael Bay fan with a propeller beanie and chocolate all over his face is going to drop his giant lollipop and demand a refund in the middle of the film.  As far as things they did to increase Transformers‘ profit margins, I’d be less worried about re-using a half-second car stunt than about them basically sticking an infomercial for Mercedes in the middle of the movie.  Or how about when they illustrate the leaning office building with a closeup on a the liquid level of a Bushmills bottle (because obviously racks of whiskey bottles are everywhere in an OFFICE BUILDING)?  Get over it. “Using the same shot with different CGI added” is as perfect a metaphor for Michael Bay’s entire career as you’re going to get.

I couldn’t make my Monday night press screening for Transformers: Dark of the Moon, but knowing it would probably be the biggest movie of the summer, I went to see it on my own dime the first chance I got.  I knew I owed it to you to at least attempt to answer all your burning questions.  Is there robot heaven in this one? Is Rosie Whatsername-McHyphen as good at looking hot as Megan Fox? And for the love of God, man, what of Josh Duhamel and the Flying Squirrel Team? That was the plan.  So then I saw it Wednesday night.  But when I sat down to write my review, I was overcome with apathy. So far all I’ve got is:

“Transformers is long.”

…To be continued.  (…but probably not).

Transformers 3 opens at midnight tonight, meaning it’s time for media outlets to run all the stories they have on the castmembers.  Details Magazine hit the jackpot with a profile on Shia Lebwaff, who “admitted” hooking up with Megan Fox, and by admitted I mean ran around giving everyone high fours. But first, here’s the summary of the article Details sent me, which isn’t at all grandiose…

LaBeouf has thrown as many punches as he has parties, he has a rap sheet as long as his filmography, and when he’s not pissing off studio heads, he’s messing around with another guy’s girlfriend. But the 25-year-old Transformers star might also be the most honest man in Hollywood.  He lives by a code built on fierce integrity, recoils from material possessions, cherishes poetry and art, and despises all things phony.  More than meets the eye?  Damn right.

What a coincidence, I TOO cherish poetry and despise all things phony! GIVE! MY! INTEGRITY! A SEVEN! (*finger snaps*) Man. Our standards of “tough-guy movie star” have fallen a long way since Charles Bronson was chewing tobacco and losing his virginity at the age of five.

Asked if he hooked up with Megan Fox, LaBeouf nods affirmatively. “Look, you’re on the set for six months, with someone who’s rooting to be attracted to you, and you’re rooting to be attracted to them,” he explains. “I never understood the separation of work and life in that situation. But the time I spent with Megan was our own thing, and I think you can see the chemistry onscreen.” When I inquire about Fox’s status at the time with her longtime boyfriend, Brian Austin Green, LaBeouf replies, “I don’t know, man. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know . . .”—repeating the phrase exactly 12 times in various intonations, as if trying to get it just right. Finally, he says, “It was what it was.”

Repeating one phrase over and over again?  Hmm, doesn’t sound like the LaBeouf I know….

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