June 2008 Archives

Fuck off from Bizarro Box Office Power Rankings. You won’t notice any changes here.

Our rankings for these two weeks were won by two brand-new movies: What Happens in Vegas and The Strangers. Critics love them, and audiences are willing to have sex with animals to get into the packed auditoriums. My nemesis said he’d rather get a hot poker up his ass (probably a euphemism) than watch Cameron Diaz and Asthon Kutcher together, and I’m happy to oblige. To the most recent champion, The Strangers, me say: Watch out for The Happening and The Love Guru; they’re really picking up steam.

And to you assholes who say that Hulk and The Incredible Hulk are exactly the same, you are absolutely wrong. Me prove it to you.

Hulk. Opening weekend: $62,128,420. Second weekend: $18,847,620. Total after second weekend: $100,593,300.

The Incredible Hulk. Opening weekend: $55,414,050. Second weekend: $22,136,060. Total after second weekend: $97,055,430.

See? Very different.

Hello, and if you come back next week, I’ll kill you. Hate, Bons Erutluc

Stop reading for the weeks’ full rankings and the methodology.

(Through June 25, we are under the sway of Bizarro. Blame Piper at Lazy Energetic Eye Theatre.)

My distate for the stone-faced British comedian Rowan Atkinson is well-documented, as is my loathing for his signature creation, Mr. Bean. I like subtle, sophisticated verbal comedy as much as the next guy, but Atkinson takes it too far; I’ve been with people who stare at his almost subliminal act without a hint of a smile, unaware that the turkey-on-the-head routine is a joke.

But in spite of the insufferable Atkinson, I had reason to be hopeful about Mr. Bean’s Holiday.

If Hulk was a bomb, why are people calling The Incredible Hulk a success five years later?

The lead from the AP story:

“The Incredible Hulk was a box-office bruiser, yanking in $54.5 million over opening weekend and laying to rest the stigma of his unappreciated big-screen adventure five years ago.”

Really?

Hulk
Release date: June 20, 2003
Domestic opening-weekend box office: $62.1 million
Number of opening-weekend theaters: 3,674
Production budget: $137 million
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 135 minutes

The Incredible Hulk
Release date: June 13, 2008
Domestic opening-weekend box office: $54.5 million
Number of opening-weekend theaters: 3,505
Production budget: $150 million
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 114 minutes

(All figures from Box Office Mojo.)

A rule to live by: Don’t bet against computer-animated movies for kids. For example: Kung Fu Panda topped this week’s Box Office Power Rankings by a wide margin, finally knocking Iron Man off its perch.

A prediction: Kung Fu Panda smash green ass of Incredible Hulk (at least in Box Office Power Rankings) while Happening cower with Zohan in corner like little girl.

Continue reading for the week’s full rankings and the methodology.

(As much as I’d love for you to enter blindly and leave scarred, one cannot talk around the premise of Teeth, so heed the Spoiler’s Creed. And beware of dirty talk. And bad wordplay.)

Dawn is afraid of her body, but it’s the boys who are in trouble.

She is a star in a local abstinence program — a heartfelt, eloquent advocate for preserving virginity — but she’s not immune to the temptations of the flesh. One night, while fantasizing about the cute boy she just met, her hand creeps down ... but she can’t do it.

Perhaps she knows instinctively what a handful of boys and men are about to discover in Teeth: She has a bloodthirsty vagina.

(Self-Involvement Central is here.)

To mark the fifth birthday of Culture Snob — born July 10, 2003 — I’ll be hosting the Self-Involvement Blog-a-thon from Wednesday, July 9, to Sunday, July 13. (Previously, I initiated the Misunderstood Blog-a-thon and latched on to Only the Cinema’s Short-Film Week Blog-a-thon.)

Put simply, the Self-Involvement Blog-a-thon is about the intersection of movies and life. My hope is that it will serve as a celebration of the power of the moving picture removed from the critical, cultural, and financial contexts in which it is typically considered.

Of course, we bring baggage whenever we talk or write about movies, but this is meant to be more personal — intensely idiosyncratic reactions and analyses, difficult times when movies became more than movies, brushes with movie stars, crushes on movie stars, memories from youthful encounters with film, embarrassing revelations, cinematic epiphanies, meticulous drawings of Darth Vader from your eight-year-old self, ... .

The only rule is that contributions have two central elements: movies and you.

Submissions (or promises of submissions) can be made in comments, through the Culture Snob e-mail form, or at snob@culturesnob.net. New work is encouraged, but moldy links are welcome, too.

And remember: For once, it is all about you.

The few weeks that I neglected the Box Office Power Rankings featured two hotly anticipated movies — Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Sex and the City — as well as the second chapter in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Iron Man kicked all their asses, with a little help.

I’m guessing its five-week reign atop our chart will end this week, but it has been an impressive run. Beating Speed Racer is one thing, but besting Indy?

Dr. Jones simply didn’t have the critical juice, even though his movie tied for the crown in its second week of release. Opening weekend, it was hamstrung not by a giant metal man but by The Visitor, whose pesky presence in the box-office top 10 relegated Indiana Jones to fourth place in both of our critical criteria.

Sex and the City was doomed in the Power Rankings by its mediocre reviews. And can you recall a movie that this many critics have dismissed with such aggression and preemptive defensiveness? Roger Ebert: “I am not the person to review this movie.” Jim Emerson: “Nobody has enough money to pay me to go see Sex and the City.”

By the way, the minimum price for me to see it is $1,182.16, plus expenses, with no guarantee that I’ll stay awake.

Continue reading for the weeks’ full rankings and the methodology.