Screenhead

Michael Jackson’s spirit keeps shining at the box office in This Is It while Paranormal Activity takes second place.  The holiday season is approaching and The Christmas Carol opens today.  Let’s hope for a great Christmas with wonderful movies to entertain us.

1. Michael Jackson’s This Is It
$32,646,810 — $43,855,342

2. Paranormal Activity
$20,589,825 — $88,829,870

3. Law Abiding Citizen
$10,618,948 — $54,700,598

4. Couples Retreat
$8,985,755 — $89,551,510

5. Where The Wild Things Are
$8,324,373 — $65,043,335

6. Saw VI
$6,956,487 — $24,220,442

7. Astro Boy
$4,628,934 — $12,484,701

8. The Stepfather
$4,267,061 — $25,615,070

9. Amelia
$4,233,878 — $9,539,710

10. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
$4,132,385 — $11,844,175

(Source)

It’s extraordinarily difficult to write a review of a movie like The Fourth Kind because it’s not really a movie so much as it is an agenda.

Clearly, someone desperately wants us to believe that what we’re seeing is actually really really REALLY REAL, and won’t be satisfied until, my guess is, we start pestering our Congress critters for answers.  I’m not sure.  Because I’ve never left a movie so utterly confused, and I’ve seen David Croenenburg movies.

This one follows Dr. Abigail Emily Tyler, who is played by Milla Jovovich, who actually TELLS us that’s what she’ll be doing in the beginning of the movie.  And we’ll be following her around as she conducts a sleep disorder study on the people of Nome, Alaska.  Now, Nome is downright infamous for being hard to reach, but apparently it’s also got a serious missing persons problem, and it’s somehow become the FBI travel destination of choice, garnering over two thousand official visits when neighbor Anchorage, who has something like seventy times the population, rates only about three hundred visits in that same time frame.

Now, it’s hard to tell at first glance just how much of this is real and how much of it so utterly fake as to be a complete pantload, because the movie is trying so very desperately hard to convince us that EVERYTHING WE SEE IS HAPPENING FOR REALS, YO, by virtue of running split screen so often I thought I was watching 24.  They’ll do two splits and three splits and four splits and four splits with rotating frames.  It got to the point where I wondered, is this a movie or a Final Cut Pro demo?  And they’ll run, almost ad nauseum, “real footage” alongside footage of the actors, to try and cement that belief.

I’ll freely admit that this is some creepy stuff–when that guy started levitating I got a little freaked out, and Abigail Tyler “herself” under hypnosis was a cold chill up my spine but do I believe this actually went down?  No.

See, one great line from the movie that manages to describe the movie in its entirety is where one of the “patients” is muttering that he’s okay, and “Dr. Tyler” swings in with “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”  And that’s exactly what I thought of this movie.  Yes, okay, you’re going to RELENTLESSLY show me this “real footage” and insist, as loudly and vociferously as possible that it’s real, and frankly, I kind of doubt it.

Folks, this has allegedly been going on since the year 2000.  But somehow it took almost TEN YEARS for someone to exploit it?  Come ON.  We’re talking about a Hollywood scene so desperate that TWO GARFIELD MOVIES looked like a good idea but we’ve got allegedly actual footage of a woman shrieking that she’s god in SUMERIAN and NO ONE’S ran with that ball yet?

The Screenhead Ten Scale joins me in a dismissive back of hand “bah” to this creepy but horrendously disjointed fright fest and acknowledges that the idea is pretty scary but forces my suspension of disbelief engines to glow white hot and give off an ominous whining noise.  Thus, it hands this incredulous horror romp a five out of ten for being creepy yet not even vaguely credible.

Well…here we go.  Rumors about the next Transformers movie have emerged, and anything short of Michael Bay actually putting a proton cannon in his own mouth and tabbing the firing stud will be something of a disappointment.

But you’ve got to admit, the guy has made thinking big into an art form.  Long term Trans fans may not be wondering, but everyone else might wonder what’s next?  The answer may already have been given away via the Transformers 2 DVD, found on an Easter egg.

Here, let’s have some fun.  Guess the new secret huge feature for Transformers 3!

A. For some reason, QUINTESSONS! Finally!

B. Megatron will finally make the big move to Galvatron.

C. Out of nowhere, UNICRON!!

The answer, of course, is C.  Michael Bay must have some kind of mental disorder in which he must do everything bigger and louder than he did it before, and when he can no longer do bigger and louder, he must move on to something else.

Although I did enjoy Unicron, I’d still personally love to see those fabulously schizophrenic Quintessons get a piece of the action somewhere.  Why, I might even look forward to a Michael Bay movie if that were so!

You’ll never guess who, of all people in the UNIVERSE, wants to star in a romantic comedy!  Let’s just say it’s probably the most unlikely person you can imagine–let’s have a little fun and see if you can guess who!

A. Artie Lange

B. 50 Cent

C. Bruce Campbell

The answer?  Shockingly, it’s B!  FITTY CEN!  Can you believe this?  After the sheer number of craptacular games and albums he’s put out, he actually wants to star in a romantic comedy. I mean, come on now…I’ve heard some idiotic ideas in my time, but this second rate halfwit in a romantic comedy?  That’s one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard since “John Kerry, reporting for duty.” !  And this is how he put it:

“I’d do a romantic comedy if I liked the script.  But it has to be believable and I have to feel I can bring the character to life.”

Kinda like you “brought your character to life” in that horrendous game you put out about the crystal skull a month or so ahead of Indiana Jones, Fifty?  Yeah, okay…call me when you discover reality.

Excuse me if I’m not even VAGUELY surprised by this bit of news because, frankly, I saw it coming from a distance of several miles, metaphorically.

This chunk of news, that the national release of Gentlemen Broncos has been cancelled following an opening weekend best described as dismally mediocre, taking in just over six grand a theater for the weekend, and it essentially only opened in New York and Los Angeles.

If you’ve seen the trailer for this, what looks like a hallucinogenic pile of suck, you’ll know that it was 1. made by some of the same people who brought you Napoleon Dynamite, and considering how godawful that sludge was, that’s not exactly a promotional bell-ringer, and 2. it involves some of the most baffling science fiction since L. Ron Hubbard.

So it’s not a huge surprise that it went clean over most people’s heads (when’s the last time you heard someone say, man, I’m dying to see Gentlemen Broncos! in the same tone they said that about, say, Paranormal Activity?) and many of the ones who got it didn’t want it, so the opening was a slump and they pulled the plug on wide release, knowing they were about to get their hats handed to them by a slew of big name movies coming soon.

In the end, it was probably for the best.

See, I knew it.  I knew this was coming.  I knew that, somehow, Katie Featherston was going to burst onto the scene as, at the very least, the flavor of the week in Hollywood after the incredible success of Paranormal Activity.

One, she’s pretty good.  Two, that movie did unbelievably well.  But it’s actually one of the ballsiest things I’ve ever seen to consider what her next movie is.  It’s either phenomenal brilliance, stupidity or hubris for them to retitle Featherston’s next movie from Walking Distance to…

…Experimental Activity.

No, really.  They changed the title from “Walking Distance” to “Experimental Activity” JUST BECAUSE of Paranormal Activity.  Oh, sure, they’re downplaying the title change in interviews, but you know and I know and the half-blind family DOG knows that’s why they did it.

I’ve heard about…Experimental Activity…and it sounds like a pretty awesome movie regardless.  The question of the day, of course, is will more people follow because of the change…or in spite of it?

You know, folks, I’m not sure how this chunklet of news eluded me for as long as it did, but I’m glad I finally managed to catch up with it.  I know, I know, I only just covered the movie itself like a week ago, I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, but the fact remains that Paranormal Activity has at least three alternate endings.

And if you’ll follow the link here, you’ll be able to see this alternate ending for yourself.  You’ll probably discover, much the same way I did, that it’s a good thing they went with the ending they did as it’s much, much more interesting.

Though I wonder…was it?  Was it for the best?  After all, Paranormal Activity was a good movie in and of itself.  If the ending hadn’t been quite so satisfying, and they released the “alternate”, significantly BETTER, ending later, wouldn’t that just have sparked interest further?

Well, that’s neither here nor there as Paranormal Activity was a great movie with a fantastic ending as it was.

It’s the Berenstain Bears.

Seriously, you remember this stuff?  If you were a child of the eighties like me, you might even remember that they’ve been in cartoon form since way back then, and apparently have had other versions since.  In fact, I’ve got YouTube of the original Berenstain Bears theme below.

Welcome back to the EIGHTIES.  Represent.

But anyway, someone–and here I’m referring to Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy–has apparently had the bright idea to take these childhood icons and turn them into a movie.  And somehow, a little part of me died inside when it remembered what Hollywood did to the Chipmunks.

There’s no word as yet on release dates, but somehow, this sounds like another grandiosely bland attempt on Hollywood’s part to wring a few fast bucks out of our childhood by gunning for name recognition indiscriminately and hoping for the best.

I’m aware that, chances are, after you read that headline above, you’re probably going to have a minor embolism.

Rest assured that you DID read that correctly, and by all accounts, someone, somewhere,  at Disney has greenlit a sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

You may not, however, be aware that Who Framed Roger Rabbit was actually based on an old conspiracy theory proven terrifyingly accurate about how a coterie of companies came together to take down the Los Angeles streetcar system and replace it with a freeway, which is pretty much what happened in the original.

There are some rumors that say that we’ll have much the same thing in this one, with another conspiracy theory being targeted and analogized to fit into a ninety minute cartoon / live action hybrid film.  Naturally there’s no proof of this as the script hasn’t even been started on yet, but the concept remains, and in all honesty, I’m looking forward to it!

I loved that film when I was a kid, and have fond memories of going along with a group of childhood buddies to catch it.  It was downright amazing.  And I can only hope that a whole new generation of kids will have the same opportunity to laugh at a moron bunny that I did.

A very smart move by the Michael Jackson’s clan to take all the rehearsal footage during his preparation for his This is It Tour — and then some – to create a documentary depicting Jackson’s extraordinary and multi-level talent.  The Sony release grossed an estimated $101 million at the worldwide box office, including a U.S. take of $21.3 million over the Halloween weekend.

Results:

1. This Is It
$21,300,000

2. Paranormal Activity
$16,540,000

3. Law Abiding Citizen
$7,303,000

4. Couples Retreat
$6,097,000

5. Saw VI
$5,560,000

6. Where the Wild Things Are
$5,081,000

7. The Stepfather
$3,400,000

8. Amelia
$3,000,000

9. Astro Boy
$3,000,000

10. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
$2,809,000

(Source)