Quick Clips for Monday September 8

Were that I only playing "hand grenades"

Hey, cheer up Nicholas Cage. Things could be worse. Sure, your movie was the lowest-grossing number one film of the year...of the last half-decade actually, but (A) you are still related to the guy who made The Godfather, (B) you still won an Oscar for your community-playhouse performance in Leaving Las Vegas and (C) you probably don't have herpes like I kind of suggested on Friday (at least not that we know about. To be fair, I should probably add (D) you could probably predict better box office than I can.

Here are the results:

1.) Bangkok Dangerous - $7.8 million

I want to put this in some kind of perspective for you. The Dark Knight made more than that in less than 3 hours in the first day it was released. This film is being unfavorably compared to Ghost Rider and Next. It will not be unfavorably compared to Wicker Man, which gives me the excuse to once more post this:



2.) Tropic Thunder - $7.5 million

It won't surprise me if the official numbers see that this actually was the number one movie for a fourth consecutive week. Lord knows that studio insiders are, let's go with "enhancing," the numbers for Nicky boy's opening. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this deserved to cross $100 million and I will likely buy it on DVD. It's always good to have comedies around for when the games of charades doesn't get the party started like usual.

3.) The House Bunny - $5.9 million

Seriously, WTF do you people not have eyes or ears? Has ANYONE you known mentioned they liked this movie? If so, do you still talk to them?

4.) The Dark Knight - $5.7 million

I've had relationships shorter than this box office run. I'm done with you bat. Get out of my top 5.

5.) Traitor - $4.6 million

I'm happy that this flick is finding a little audience, but I'm more entertained by the colossal failure of Babylon AD. I may not be as ripped, good looking, rich, or popular as Vin Diesel...I know there was more to that statement, but I'm too depressed to remember what it is.

I'm going to start tallying how far off of the actual totals I am but haven't figured out the best way to do this. So...here's the best I have (unless any of you phantom readers can suggest a better method): I was a collective $3.2 million off in my totals, had 4 of the 5 films correct and the right rank on 2 of them. That gives me a grade of...we'll go with C-.

Howdya like them apples? Now you like a Mickey Rourke movie

As Chud.com brilliantly puts into perspective, the fact that Darron Aronofsky's new flick, The Wrestler, won the Golden Lion (the top award at the Venice Film Festival) is particularly notable because of how awful his last, brilliant, amazing, frakkin' fantastic film (The Fountain) was unfairly trashed at the same festival a few years back by morons lucky I don't have "asshole GPS" allowing me to track them down. What excites me the most is that it is such an unlikely success story, one that may result in the following words "Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke." I don't give two squirts of yellow juice if the Academy Awards have become totally irrelevant and unwatched, if we're talking about Rourke for Best Actor, Ledger for Best Supporting, Batman for Best Picture and Aronofsky for Best Director, you can find Omaha using sonar because I will be crying tears of joy that loudly. If you're unaware of what The Wrestler is about, it's about a washed-up professional wrestler and also features Marissa Tomei. If you can see a flaw in that formula, you ain't no friend of mine.

No, Spider-Oberst didn't ruin my anticipation of Spiderman 4 and 5

Okay, so arguing in favor of Spiderman 3 isn't the easiest thing to do. My review was so influenced by my love of the character and the first few films that, were I to revisit my review, I would probably dramatically lower the score (nobody tell Spidey, okay, because my relationship with him is the longest of my life). In fact, this whole intro has given me the idea for what I should do for a story the next time the news is so slow I'm posting information about the guy who directed The Mummy. Anyhoo, Nikki Finke, who has a blog that people actually comment on and respond to (just saying), has reported that, much to the surprise of me, director Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire have both been re-signed to contracts for the fourth and fifth Spidey installments. She also mentions that the villain remains unreleased (but the tease is "once you hear who it is, you'll know who's playing him), leading me to believe it is Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), a resurrected Green Goblin (Willem DeFoe) or Dick Cheney (a villain Spidey may not be able to overcome). The rumor is also that they want to shoot 4 and 5 back-to-back, which is a good idea, to avoid aging stars and my very, very low patience. Were it up to me, I would find a way to do the Gwen Stacy storyline, only with MJ (Kirsten Dunst), killing MJ somehow. Yes, you can see through me, I just want an onscreen Kirsten Dunst death scene. At any rate, ain't no kinda Monday like a Monday with real Spiderman movie news. Hoo-ah.