Major Payne for W.
October 21st, 2008 Posted in film buzz | No Comments »
This weekend the box office had a major “Payne” making it’s presence felt as a slew of other new release jockeyed for the #1 position. Ultimately the film in the #1 position was no sequel to Damon Wayans 1995 family-friendly army flick, rather it was the Mark Wahlberg action adventure, Max Payne, a video game adaptation that scored the big money as it pulled in $17.6 million. I don’t know what kind of promotion Mr. Wahlberg did, but there were no reports of the Entourage producer filling the theater with barnyard friends to pad receipts. I guess people are actually interested in this little dose of ultraviolence.
The scrappy pre-apocalyptic kiddie comedy Beverly Hills Chihuaha stood strong on all four legs, inexplicably and annoyingly yipping it’s way to second place with $11.4 million more, despite currently ranking on IMDB’s bottom 100 films of all-time. There was a third place tie between actual movies, The Secret Life of Bees and Oliver Stone’s W. I think a lot of people stayed away from the latter because anyone who actually voted for the still commander-in-chief didn’t wanted to be riddled with guilt with the horror they hath wrought over the time that some of us refer to scornfully as the past eight years.
I was one of the $10.5 million worth who took in the premature biopic of the President in progress and came away impressed by the accuracy Josh Brolin’s portrayal, but with an overall feeling that film was good, though not overwhelmingly so. I also enjoyed Thandie Newton’s semi-comedic turn as Condi Rice and Richard Dreyfus’s wicked portrayal of Dick Cheney. The film itself seemed to be riddled too much with obvious talking points and daddy issues, though it skillfully wove back and forth between different periods of Dubya’s career. To Oliver Stone’s credit, he knew that he didn’t need to make another film about 9/11 to talk about the Presidency of George W. Bush.
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We’re a mere 18 days away from electing our 44th President of the United States and while we could spend all eighteen of those remaining days bickering over which actual Presidents did the most for our great nation, but with the release of W. this weekend we’ve decided it’s much more fun to name some memorable on screen versions of the Commander in Chief.’Sure we could’ve made a list of favorites and ranked them qualitatively, but as we pondered said list it became virtually impossible to do so. 
I’m not quite sure what this fascination is with talking dogs, but it seems after 2 weeks filmgoers are still captivated by Beverly Hills Chihuahua against all rhyme or reason. The film raked in another $17.5 million this week. Maybe this is all just a bizarre form of escapism from the current economical woes. People probably just want to see dogs talk because they know it’s a lot less real than the prospect of losing everything they own when the volume of the Dow Jones Industrial Index inevitably reaches zero sometime before Christmas and The Royal Canadian Mounted Police invade the US in order to create the Socialist States of America, handing out health care to everyone who stands in their way. I’m not really sure I want to live in a country where a movie about a Beverly Hills Chihuahua and a show where Paris Hilton searches for her new BFF are mutually exclusive anyway.
The #1 earner at the box office this weekend was certainly no surprise. It’s a rare occasion when something with Steven Spielberg’s named attached to it goes belly up. So when the Spielberg-produced Eagle Eye took top honors at the box office nobody batted an eyelash. The action thriller starring Shia Lebeouf and Michelle Monaghan pulled in a robust $29.2 million. Second place saw a near $16 million dropoff as the Richard Gere/Diane Lane romance vehicle, Night in Rodanthe only scored $13.4 million. The previous week’s #1 Lakeview Terrace fell two rungs down the box off ice ladder with only a scant $6.97 million take.
