Defamer
As you try to wash off the last of the oil you liberally applied to your torso for your unselfconsciously shirtless Rambo outing, have a look at the weekend's box office numbers:
1. Meet The Spartans - $18.725 million
2. Rambo - $18.150 million
America, it seems, has let Sylvester Stallone down. He gives and he gives, even a good twenty years past his cinematic prime, by offering up an exhausting 236 kills in a taut, blink-and-you-missed-the-slaughter- of-half-the-Burmese-army 93 minutes and still he's subjected to the indignity of finishing behind a third-rate spoof flick.
Still, Rambo performed well enough that executive producer Harvey Weinstein is already making noise about adding another chapter to the franchise, perhaps one in which the monosyllabic, mom-jeans-wearing killing machine plies his brutal trade back in the States, tripling his staggering Myanmar body count in an utterly punishing 68 minutes in an attempt to reclaim his rightful place atop the domestic box office.
3. 27 Dresses - $13.6 million
Meanwhile, in screenings of Rambo all over the country, guys found themselves powerless to stop the dates they'd cajoled into an evening of watching their favorite semi-retired vigilante blow holes the size of cannon balls into the midsections of his swarming, rape-crazed enemies from storming out of the theater, then seeking out the warm, comforting embrace of Katherine Heigl for a second time.
4. Cloverfield - $12.7 million
With a 68% drop-off from its January-record-shattering· opening weekend, we're forced to conclude that widespread reports about Cloverfield Barf Syndrome kept the weak of stomach far from the film and its vertigo-inducing camerawork.
5. Untraceable- $11.2 million
We realize that torture porn is a dying genre, but perhaps the Untraceable's debut performance would've been stronger if the studio had more fully embraced its sensational, gruesome-murder-by-online-video premise by titling it SnuffTube.
- WEEKEND BOX OFFICE January 25-27, 2008 [BoxOfficeMojo.com]
Comments
I cannot believe anyone saw Rambo this weekend. I weep for the future of this country.
What cut the legs out from under 'Cloverfield'? Its complete and utter lack of personality. It wasn't boring, but it wasn't interesting either.
At least 'Rambo' probably had a smidgen of snark potential (not that I plan to find out - I probably have only 30 more years to live and each moment is precious)...
Which brings up the question: why did I go see 'Cloverfield'?
Damned internets lured me in...
With "Meet the Spartans" effectively being the film equivalent of "Best Week Ever", I'm gonna have to remind the writers that they may want to get back to work or we will live in a world where the powers that be will swim in their money-bins filled with American Gladiator and Shit Parody cash, while the rest of us slowly get stupider.
@ATL_Girl_Publicist: In 2004, enough short-dicked guys felt threatened to give Bush the edge he needed to give Ken Blackwell the ability to steal the election for him.
They saw the original Rambos when they were in high school and, emotionally, they are still there...
Which is a great reason to weep for the nation.
Variety reports that Cloverfield dropped off 72%. So it sucked even worse than Defamer thought.
I know January releases are usually a festering heap of shit but...man.
@ATL_Girl_Publicist: @gwendolyn: Hey now, I saw it, and it wasn't that bad... better than the stupid Spartan movie, and less highschoolers to contend with.
What's the difference between Meet The Spartans and Rambo?
One's a lame unfunny parody and the other stars Kevin Sorbo.
1. Meet The Spartans
Aww, dammit. And I still had hope for America.
@ATL_Girl_Publicist: @enriquez the water bottle:
Seriously, two shitty movies released concurrently are America's tipping point?
I'd shoot for maybe, I don't know, the 935 lies that led us into "Mission Accomplished," the collapsing economy, the death of dissent, the introduction of the Chia pet.
This isn't the big one! It's just a shitty, shitty aftershock.
@gwendolyn: OMG so true. "Cloverfield" is like my bathroom ceiling that fell in yesterday: exciting when shit goes bananas, but fucking boring every moment before and after. And my drywall was about an inch deeper than those kids.
@ATL_Girl_Publicist: First thing that popped into my head about this was "And these are the people who will be responsible for electing the next President". Uggggghhhh.
For a country who loves oil hungry maniacs, veterans and Texas landscapes, they don't seem to be running to see "There will be Blood" and "No Country for Old Men".
I don't think "spartans" will have legs. "Rambo" will probably do almost as well next weekend though.
I saw Rambo twice over the weekend and I'm voting for Hillary.
When I went the the Thursday midnight showing of Rambo at the Grove, the only two people going to the midnight "Meet the Spartans" weren't even speaking English.
So maybe that "film" isn't for dumb teenagers as much as it's for Korean teens who want to see a movie they can understand without having to pay attention to dialogue.
I confess to seeing Rambo. Except for the film's absurdly short running time (and laughably bad last 30 seconds), the movie was an absolute hoot. All the haters need to just cool it. If Rambo making money is "the end of American civilization," how do you explain the fact that there's been 23 Wrestlemanias? And p.s., Diablo Cody sucks.
@DuckyDoom: The best thing I can say about 'Cloverfield' is that it ended about the time my well-honed 'movie needs to end now' instinct started signaling me. Little drives me crazy, movie-wise, than a movie that has about four or five false endings.
Wasn't this past weekend the dreaded weekend without football before the Superbowl? The only reason I know is because my BF was willing to go see Atonement Sunday afternoon where the jersey-wearing set were lined up for There Will Be Blood.
Heh. Now that I think of it, they probably thought it was about football.
@enriquez the water bottle: I know. That's it. I'm outta here. See y'all in Canada.
@gwendolyn:
I actually enjoyed Cloverfield, despite the vertigo, especially since the audience I was with seemed too brain dead to understand the concept of "figure it out" and were outraged by the downer ending and lack of a music soundtrack. Ha-ha! You got suckered into seeing a cinema verite monster movie!
Also, people have complained that the 20 something characters seemed shallow...well, nothing offends like a mirror, I guess.
@Cacafuego: Not everyone who saw Cloverfield is a rich white douchebag, thankyouverymuch. That's the lamest defense of lazy character work since my friend tried to sway me that Crash was 'realistic.'
P.S. Cinema verite isn't relentlessly self-referential, doesn't end in credits with bombastic and genre-parodying themes, and doesn't follow that with cheap, pretentious sequel set-ups. It actually aims to be postmodern genre deconstruction, but ends up somewhat like an Xtube video of a guy sucking himself off, with the guy constantly telling the camera in muffled tones that he's sucking himself off.
@gwendolyn: That happened to me as soon as the opening sequence started rolling for Smokin Aces. I think I just might avoid Cloverfield since everyone's touting it so much.
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