Author: David Medsker (Page 28 of 65)

Box Office Roundup: “Shrek” threequel redefines cutting-edge humor as “making fun of dinner theater”

Based on Sunday’s estimates, courtesy of boxofficemojo.com:

1) Shrek the Third: $122 million
Somewhere in Hollywood, Mel Brooks is thinking to himself, “If I set the campfire scene from ‘Blazing Saddles’ to CGI animation, I’d be rich! Rich, I tell you! Muaaaahhh ha ha ha hahahahahahaha!”
2) Spider-Man 3: $28.5 million, $281.8 million to date
Only $220 million to go before it recoups the promotional budget.
3) 28 Weeks Later: $5.1 million, $18.6 million to date
Eeek. We’re guessing there’s been a rage outbreak at Fox Atomic over the performance of this movie.
4) Disturbia: $3.6 million, $71.3 million to date
Like we said, Shia LaBeouf is about to become the Biggest Star on the Planet.
5) Georgia Rule: $3.4 million, $12.6 million to date
Wave goodbye to women in movies, everyone. You’ll see them again in the fall.

11) Next: $1.1 million, $16.5 million to date.
Look at that again. This $70 million Nic Cage movie has made $16 million to date. We can hear the conversation already. “Sure, Cage is interested, but he’s no Shia LaBeouf.”

24, Hour 22: Girlfriend in a coma. I know, I know, it’s serious

Talk about art imitating blog. Last week, after trying to sift through the ashes of the most needlessly circuitous plot in TV history, I said, “None of this makes sense.” Tonight, as Senator Roark is processing the seriousness of Russian President Suvarov’s threat to attack the Americans for willingly allowing Russian technology to fall into the hands of the Russians, Roark said, yep, “None of this makes sense.”

At last, we are all in agreement.

As for Farmer Hoggett’s relationship with the Chinese, well, to quote the Hives, hate to say I told you so, all right. Cheng praised Hoggett as a man of vision, and Hoggett loves China so much that he plans to steal his grandson and live there forever and ever. I’d say that makes them allies, wouldn’t you? Well, until (a clearly deaf) Cheng loses Jack Jack, and Hoggett kills the deal to hand over the Russian component. Gotta give Hoggett credit: he has the negotiation skills of a Corleone. Or maybe Mel Gibson’s character in “Payback.” “My money, yes or no?” “No!” Bang.

So back to the blog’s title. Lisa Miller’s attempt to schmooze her lobbyist spy of a paramour ends poorly of course, and her boy toy chokes her until she’s unconscious. Another coma? Are you kidding me? How many is that over the course of the show? Maura Tierney, Tony Almeida, Wheelbarrow Wayne twice…wasn’t Robocop in one for a while last year? Does anyone know four people that have fallen into comas? I was only sort of kidding when I called this show “Dynasty of Terror” a while back. It really is becoming a full fledged soap opera.

Is Audrey Raines really gone from the show? Or is she merely gone for now, only to be brought back stunt-style next season, a la Kim Bauer last year? And as one of our astute readers pointed out, they never explained how Big Dick Heller survived that header into the Pacific from a quarter mile above the surface. But these guys are good at not explaining stuff, aren’t they? The Palmer family may as well not even exist at this point, and the fallout from this morning’s nuclear explosion doesn’t seem to be affecting anything at all. Got a plot thread that needs to be temporarily resolved? Put it in a coma. As Eric Cartman would say, this is totally weak. Indeed, this has gone from weak to super weak.

Did I see an oil rig as the site of the big showdown for next week’s two-hour season finale? An oil rig? What the hell is Cheng doing on an oil rig? And besides, didn’t “Alias” do that a couple years ago? Speaking of “Alias,” what happened to “Drive”? My beloved Amy Acker was on both shows, and we at Bullz-Eye are all big, big fans of “Drive” hero Nathan Fillion. Hey, here’s an idea: make Fillion the villain – the only villain – for next season. He usually plays the plucky hero, but fans of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” will tell you that he can play a baddie just as well as he can play a goodie. Create some kind of Bruce Willis/Alan Rickman dynamic between him and Kiefer, and you’ll save the show. Oh, and if any “24” writers are reading this, you should know that our fearless leader is a lawyer, and he will fight for a story credit. Just thought I’d warn you in advance.

Box Office Roundup: If you’re walking around the Sony lot, wear a helmet

Based on Sunday’s estimates, courtesy of boxofficemojo.com:

1) Spider-Man 3: $60 million, $242 million to date
Let the doomsday talk begin. Much will be made of the fact that “Spider-Man 3” dropped 60% at the box office, but remember two things: any movie that opens with a $150 million weekend is going to suffer a big drop-off, and it still made $60 million in its second week. The DreamWorks execs would slaughter their children to have “Shrek the Third” pull a stunt like that.
2) 28 Weeks Later: $10 million
Fast zombies plus a whole bunch of shit getting blow’d up? What’s not to love? Lots, to be honest, but we still expected it to do better than this.
3) Georgia Rule: $5.8 million
LiLo + Hanoi Jane = nobody cares.
4) Disturbia: $4.8 million, $66.2 million to date
From this to “Transformers,” Shia LaBeouf is now the Biggest Star on the Planet.
5) Delta Farce: $3.5 million
Last week, we received the following email from a fan of Larry the Cable Guy who apparently thought we stayed in regular contact with Larry after our email interview two years ago.

Dear Larry,

I am 13 years old and I have a new joke for you to say when you get done telling a joke about how frustrated you were. You say “I was more frustrated than Stevie Wonder playing whack-a-mole”

sincerely, (name withheld)
PS: Git-r-dun

This is your legacy, Larry. We hope you’re proud of yourself.

12) The Ex: $1.3 million
Don’t burn your TV bridges, Zach.

24, Hour 21: I call shenanigans

All right, let me see if I have this straight. Farmer Hoggett, the father of a Federal agent, sold suitcase nukes to a former Russian general, who in turn teamed up with an Islamic terrorist group that had the resources to execute a massive strike that would take down several highly populated U.S. cities. Those terrorists, before they even revealed that they had nuclear capabilities, demanded the delivery of Jack Bauer, currently imprisoned by the Chinese government, for the purpose of killing him as a vendetta for various crimes against the Islamic terrorist cause. Jack, luckily, is not killed, and assists CTU in recovering the remaining suitcase nukes. Enter the Chinese, who extort Jack into stealing the components of one of the nukes, using former squeeze Audrey Raines – assumed dead by the Western world – as bait. Jack complies, even though it means serious jail time if not the death penalty. The Chinese now have Russian nuclear technology, and for that they have to thank…Farmer Hoggett, who has apparently been working with them from the very beginning.

I call shenanigans.

This is an even bigger house of cards than the ending to “Saw III,” and that was the shakiest house of cards I’ve seen in my life. In order for this to work, Hoggett has to hope that Jack doesn’t get killed by the Muslims. He then has to hope that no one at CTU will consider holding him for questioning when his other son – who works for him, I might add – confesses to trying to kill Jack and orchestrating the hit on President Palmer the First. He then has to hope that no one will find it at all suspicious when said son dies while alone in a room with him, as he blames his son Jack for excessive use of force. After that, he actually has to hope that Jack can stop the bombs from being detonated so Jack is even in a position to deliver the technology to the Chinese at all.

I call shenanigans!

On the other side of the rock, Lisa Miller is forced to snuggle up to her lobbyist spy of a boyfriend in order to implicate him, and if Bishop didn’t read her non-verbal cues, then he is the worst spy in the history of bad spies. We’re talking Aykroyd/Chase “Spies Like Us” bad, decoy bad. He must want to have sex with her pretty badly, even though they just did it an hour ago and he was alarmed by her abrupt departure and equally abrupt return. Can they really convict Lisa of treason? She had no idea she was being played. That’s like pressing charges against people who have their identities stolen.

None of this makes sense. Or, if it does actually work in the vaguest way possible, it all leads to a big “Who cares?,” as my wife puts it. Can’t say I disagree. Jack Bauer, you have officially been put on notice.

Box Office Roundup: the world stops spinning on its axis for unworthy superhero threequel

Based on Sunday’s estimates, courtesy of boxofficemojo.com:

We’re going off the grid for the summer box office fantasy season and doing it old school, with spreadsheets and all that funky math jazz! We’re not exactly excited about doing it that way, of course. But since Fantasy Moguls adopted that whole salary cap mentality, we just can’t get behind that. So we did a draft on our own. Where the movies are owned by only one person. No free love in this here joint, suckaz.

1) Spider-Man 3: $148 million
Wow. I mean, dude, like, wow. Do they even realize what kind of precedent they’re setting for the next “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie? They’re basically saying that the next “POTC” movie could be Krusty the Klown running down a beach with a sword while being chased by a cast of thousands, and it will surely break the box office record. Wow. I mean, like, wow, dude.
6) Lucky You: 2.5 million
We’re only mentioning this so Kevin Carr doesn’t feel quite so bad about picking a movie that opens the same weekend as “Spider-Man 3.” Don’t worry, Kevin, the negative word-of-mouth on “S-M 3” will surely bring “Lucky You” into the top five….or not.

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