This is going to be a bit all over the place. I haven’t seen enough movies to do a complete summer recap, but I’ve been to the local multiplex a few times and have been pounding through my Netflix queue like Precious and a box of double stuffs. Let’s talk box office, let’s talk trailers, let’s talk DVDs, let’s talk Russell Brand, Russell Crowe, but most importantly let’s talk about Takers, which might be the most important movie to come out in 50 years. In fact let’s go right there:
The Movie That Will Change Everything: Takers
The ceiling for bad acting has officially been raised. Please watch this trailer. Walker. Christiansen. Tip “TI” Harris. Chris Brown. Jay Hernandez. The immortal Matt Dillon. If they can somehow squeeze in a cameo from Ryan Philippe then Hollywood might have to just pack it up and head home. I want to see this movie so bad I’m literally shaking in my seat.
(Quick tangent: I think it's important to understand the distinction between "enjoyably bad" and "anal rape bad." For example, any movie with Keanu (Point Break, The Devil's Advocate) is enjoyably bad. Any movie with Phillippe (Breach, Stop-Loss) is "anal rape bad." We all clear there? Takers has enjoyably bad written all over it - of course that is completely dependent on how large Dillon's role is - no one pushes more movies towards anal rape than Matt Stinkhole Dillon).
The movie that had kid-friendly anal sex with the box office: Toy Story 3
We knew it’d be a hit, we knew it’d be great, we knew it would open strong and have legs, but look at these numbers:
Opening weekend: $110m (#10 all time)
Total domestic gross: $404m (#9 all time)
Total international gross: $985m (#7 all time)
Not only is Toy Story 3 the biggest film ever for both Pixar and Disney, but it also became the 11th movie to cross the $400m mark domestically and is on the verge of being the 7th movie to cross the $1 billion mark worldwide. Holy Santa Claus shit.
The movie that just won’t go the fuck away: Avatar
“Avatar: Special Edition” is opening this Friday at 700 theaters across the country. The “Special Edition” moniker is much more catching than James Cameron’s first suggestion, “Avatar: I’m trying to buy Greenland.”
The Movie That Made Me Look Around to Make Sure I Wasn’t Getting Punk’d: The Switch
Here’s the plot in a nutshell. Aniston wants to have a baby but secretly no one likes her because she’s annoying and terrible in bed. Whoops that’s real life; let me start over. Aniston plays a successful career woman who’s too busy to think about starting a family, but her uterus is banging on the walls like an old woman trapped in an elevator and she decides to have a baby on her own via a turkey baster and a sperm bank. Her best friend, Jason Bateman, has been in love with her forever and is jealous that she’s having a baby on her own and didn’t ask him to fill the turkey baster or, at the very least, squeeze it. So one night, at her “I’m about to use the Turkey Baster” party, Bateman drunkenly wanders into her bathroom, sees the tub of sperm, which, yes, is just sitting in her bathroom. I mean, fuck. There are sluts, there are mega sluts, there are LiLos, then there are the bitches who have random tubs of sperm in their medicine cabinets. So anyway, Bateman takes the top off the tub, smells it, tastes it, sings to it a little (at least I think so, not exactly sure what is happening at the :47 mark here), but then, in his drunken stupor, spills the spunk into the toilet. What’s a guy to do? Well, he yanks his junk and then fills the tub back up with his own man chowder. Cut to five years later, Aniston is a mom, Bateman still loves her and can’t bring himself to tell her that his spooge was in the Baster, and hilarity ensues.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
The Best Comedy at the mid-way point: Get Him To The Greek
The Best Drama at the mid-way point: Inception
The September movie I’m most excited about: The Town
The October movie I’m most excited about: Stone
The November movie I’m most excited about: Due Date
The December movie I’m most excited about: True Grit
No trailer yet but it’s a new Western by the Coen Brothers starting Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin. While we wait for the trailer to appear, here’s the trailer for Black Swan
Best movies I’ve seen on Netflix: I loved Crazy Heart, Alice in Wonderland, Shutter Island, was shocked by how good the Green Zone was and loved and was terrified by Chloe. Recommend all five.
The terrible idea that turned into a terrible movie that was terrible at the box office: Jonah Hex.
It if looks like a turd, smells like a turd and walks like a turd, it’s probably Jonah Hex. This movie, which reportedly cost $50m to make, opened with a paltry $5 and finished with a turd-errific $10.2. Lots of movies bomb, but this one holds a special distinction, after the results of the first weekend came in, Warner Bros reacted quickly, pulling the movie from 2,475 theaters – 87% of the total. On June 18, when it opened, the movie was in 2,825 theaters. By the next weekend, it was in 350. That, my friends, is a new record in shittiness.
JR
