Sep 28 2009 'Cloudy with Meatballs' Has Same Stay-With-You Power of Ikea Meatballs

Your weekend box office top five:

1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - $24.6 million, only dropping 18.8%. I bet Chef Boyardee is kicking himself right now for not working out some kind of tie-in.

2. Surrogates - $15 million. And thus, Bruce Willis loses his shot at becoming a big-name action star.

3. Fame - $10 million. You know how there's that Fame song where the kids sing about how, through being famous, they could live forever? These kids are not going to live forever.

4. The Informant! - $6.9 million. Did you remember to shout the title when asking for your ticket?

5. Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself - $4.8 million. Phew, I'm glad this was in the top five again as a reminder: I was about to offer Tyler Perry bad assistance! I sure would have looked silly.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Sep 21 2009 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' Outshines Megan Fox's Physical Form

Your weekend box office report:

1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - $30 million, a strong debut that reflects America's love of both abundant food and things falling on people's heads.

2. The Informant! - $10.5 million. The Sorderbergh/Damon collaborative team is becoming the new Scorsese/DiCaprio. Except not really as acclaimed.

3. I Can Do Bad All By Myself - $10 million. With the continued success of Tyler Perry proving the viability of play adaptations, I really hope this doesn't lead to someone ever making the popular musical Shrek into some sort of feature film.

4. Love Happens - $8.5 million. You couldn't expect it to make much with such a controversial title.

5. Jennifer's Body - $6.8 million. Diablo Cody should stay out of horror and stick to what she writes best: illegitimate child comedy spoken over hamburger phone.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Sep 14 2009 Madea More Popular Than Hot Young Sorority Girls

Movies remained a popular form of distraction last weekend. These were the five most popular:

1. I Can Do Bad All By Myself - $24 million. Tyler Perry was right: he did bad all by himself. But apparently the rest of the U.S. needed the counsel of Madea to do bad this weekend.

2. 9 - $10.9 million. See? Computer-animated films can be original and successful! They don't need to have constant pop culture jokes or a Shrek! Oh, Shrek the Third opened at $121.6 million? Never mind. Continue with Shreks.

3. Inglourious Basterds - $6.5 million. All those people who keep saying, "I know, I know--I'll see it next week," really are slowly doing it.

4. All About Steve - $5.8 million. As much as I'm glad that Sorority Row flopped, I'm not sure the universally-panned All About Steve having a decent second week is any better.

5. The Final Destination - $5.5 million. What ended up being the final destination, anyway?

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Sep 11 2009 Coming To Theaters This Week's End

This weekend in theaters, you have your pick of goggle-eyed dolls, snowy murder, girls gone wild murder, or a Madea, you lucky dog.

Details:

9
Director: Shane Acker
Starring: Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Crispin Glover
Good if you want to see: Post-apocalyptic rag dolls; this short, but longer, and now one of the guys sounds like Elijah Wood.

I Can Do Bad All By Myself
Director: Tyler Perry
Starring: Taraji P. Henson, Tyler Perry, obviously.
Good if you want to see: thick, thick melodrama, and then, out of nowhere, Madea bein' all sassy; what everyone will be talking about at your Baptist church this Sunday; if someone can do bad unassisted.

Whiteout
Director: Dominic Sena
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, snow
Good if you want to see: MURDER! In ANTARCTICA!

Sorority Row
Director: Stewart Hendler
Starring: Briana Evigan, Rumer Willis, Old Leia
Good if you want to see: I Know What You Did Last Summer, now with more sorority girls and a tire iron.

Aug 6 2009 Tyler Perry's 'I Can Do Bad All By Myself' Poster Trilogy Concludes Logically

The first Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself poster featured star Taraji P. Henson's face arbitrarily photoshopped onto a yellow rose. The second showed Madea doing a strange, unlikely parody of the Straw Dogs poster. Naturally, the third depicts Henson drowning in an ocean of pastel light as the ghosts of Madeas and R&B stars past hover around her. Really, it was the only logical way to complete the trilogy. In Return of the Jedi, you expect to see Vader die; in the last I Can Do Bad All By Myself poster, you want to to see a woman in an Easter-themed nightclub surrounded by souls. Just common sense.

Exclusive poster premiere: 'I Can Do Bad All By Myself' [Hitfix] (via IMPA)

Jul 22 2009 'I Can Do Bad All By Myself' Trailer: I Nearly Owe Tyler Perry a Apology

Alright, Tyler Perry. I can admit when I'm wrong. Having witnessed your previous insane, irrelevant posters, I yesterday made the hasty assumption that the most recent poster for I Can Do Bad All By Myself, a parody of the Straw Dogs one-sheet, was "arbitrary and nonsensical ... unless the plot of this film involves Madea fighting off home intruders with hot oil and bear traps."

Well, there's a new trailer today, and while there aren't bear traps, it does open by immediately asserting that there is, in fact, at least a marginal storyline involving home intruders ("I'm Madea, and they're gonna break in this house?!" quips the drag queen). So I guess the Straw Dogs parallel does have some degree of logic behind. Maybe I owe T.P. an apology.

But, on the other hand, the trailer was also filled with Perry's typically bipolar blend of idiotic hey-I'm-an-old-sassy-fat-lady-but-not-really! comedy and there's-been-a-rape! melodrama, and concludes with the hard-to-shake image of Madea breaking the fourth wall and shouting directly at me, so let's just call it even, Perry.

Continue Reading " 'I Can Do Bad All By Myself' Trailer: I Nearly Owe Tyler Perry a Apology "

Jul 21 2009 Tyler Perry's Another Insane Poster

A direct Madea parody of the Straw Dogs poster? Why, Tyler Perry? Why? The previous I Can Do Bad All By Myself poster with a woman transforming into a rose wasn't arbitrary and nonsensical enough? Well, congratulations, because unless the plot of this film involves Madea fighting off home intruders with hot oil and bear traps, this is absolute madness. You've done it.

See it in all its glory over at Cinematical.

Jun 12 2009 Tyler Perry Can Do 'Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself' Poster All By Himself

Ah, classic Tyler Perry. Only his brilliant, bipolar mind can create imagery of equal parts melodrama and nonsense. Just like with Madea Goes to Jail's bizarre, bird-made-of-ink poster, he's decided to go with a contemplative-face-obscured-by-nature motif. So beautiful. So dramatic. Forget that both films heavily rely on the comedy of seeing a middle-aged man in a fat suit screaming and pretending to be a dangerous elderly woman. For this poster, let's just focus on the strength of this woman's soul beaming from behind her solemn face, and how she's morphing into a flower. Next poster we'll slap Madea on there, lookin' all sassy--like on the DVD cover!

In Focus: Tyler Perry [MSN]

May 13 2009 Tyler Perry Can Do Horrible Madea Movies All By Himself

I swear, it seems like just yesterday Tyler Perry-in-elderly-drag was getting hauled off to jail. But somehow Madea has already managed to get itself in trouble with the law again, and there's a new movie coming out in September: I Can Do Bad All By Myself. Once you have the wig and muumuu, these things pretty much write themselves.

Here's the new teaser trailer, in which Madea describes how she plans to murder some people. I guess shouting violent threats is her catchphrase of sorts.