Apr 28 2008 'Baby Mama' is Weekend Box Office Daddy?

1. Baby Mama - A first place $18.3 million gross proves Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have finally put an end to the boys club of surrogate pregnancy movies. Take that,

2. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay - With audiences giving $14.6 million to the sequel this weekend, it would seem some guys actually fulfilled their stoned promise to "get totally baked and see that shit, then get like a case of Sliders on the way home, man."

3. The Forbidden Kingdom - $11.2 million, so apparently I'm the only one who keeps thinking it's an unwatchable NBC mini-series every time I see the name.

4. Forgetting Sarah Marshall - $11 million, making this the highest-grossing Alzheimer's-based romantic-comedy ever.

5. Nim's Island - Still here, with $4.5 million.

Apr 22 2008 'Forbidden Kingdom' Not Forbidden from Winning Weekend Box Office, Because It Did

The Forbidden Kingdom - After taking in $21.4 million, I'd say this Jet Li/Jackie Chan team-up really jump-kicked the competition, alluding to their martial arts skills.

2. Forgetting Sarah Marshall - $17.7 million, hinting that the close friends and co-workers of the talented Judd Apatow may also have talent of their own?

3. Prom Night - $8.7 million, helped in part by me going with a big group of friends. I mean, I definitely could have gone to Prom Night with a date, but I just thought I'd have more fun without all the pressure. It's not because I couldn't get a girl to go with me. Because I could have.

4. 88 Minutes - $7 million, which is pretty good for something that is, by all accounts, terrible.

Nim's Island - I was thinking, the whole fantasies-becoming-reality-on-an-island would be great as an entirely inappropriate softcore porn, but what would it be called? All I could come up with was Nip's Island. I'm sure there's a better option. Anyway, it made $5.7 million.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Apr 14 2008 'Prom Night' is Prom King! (Of the Weekend Box Office!)

1. Prom Night - After nearly doubling the profits of its closest competitor with a $22.7 million weekend, I'm ready to concede to the rest of the committee: fine, maybe Slasher Horror was a better Prom Night theme than A Night Beneath the Stars.

2. Street Kings - Coming in a distant second with $12 million, apparently being king of the streets doesn't translate to being king of the box office! Or king of anything else, for that matter. Just the streets.

3. 21 - Falling to $11 million, I'll now likely never get the chance to point how funny and coincidental it is that a movie named 21 made $21 million in a weekend.

4. Nim's Island - $9 million, and I just realized they're pretending "Nim" is a legitimate name. No it isn't. Is it?

5. Leatherheads - A weak $6.2 million leads me to believe there may be a smaller cross-over group between "romantic comedy fans" and "old fashioney football fans" than originally thought.

Weekend Box Office [Box Office Mojo]

Apr 7 2008 '21' Wins Weekend Box Office Again

1. 21 - Another first-place week of $15.1 million paves the way for future odds-beating gambling movies, like Cracking Keno, or If You're Betting Last in Contestant's Row, You Should Probably Just Go with One Dollar.

2. Leatherheads - $13.5 million, which seems like a strangely high number for a movie about a minor Ninja Turtles supporting character.

3. Nim's Island - $13.3 million, the strongest opening ever for a family movie about crippling psychoses.

4. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! - Dr. Seuss is surely rolling in his grave after this $9.1 million weekend put Horton at over $130 million. Especially since his estate just purchased that diamond-encrusted corpse rotisserie.

5. The Ruins - $7.8 million--the most made from ruins since the team of Chad Bosse and Jennifer Weeks won a pair of Huffy 10-speeds and a Sony Walkman on Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Dec 26 2007 'Nim's Island' Poster Accurately Portrays Film's Psychoses

It appears Abigail Breslin has grown to the size of a building in order to avoid the dangers of sharks and cartoon pirates. Gerard Butler remains a homeless Indiana Jones while Jodie Foster seems to be halfway through a transformation into Reese Witherspoon, and she's holding a shoe? In the background, a volcano spews an eruption of dreams.

Thankfully, last week's trailer explained all of this apparent madness: everyone in this film is at varying degrees of crazy.

Nim's Island One-Sheet [IESB]

Dec 19 2007 'Nim's Island' Trailer is Chock-Full of Psychoses

A summary of the new Jodie Foster/Abigail Breslin/Gerard Butler family adventure, Nim's Island, as provided by Yahoo:

Anything can happen on Nim's Island, a magical place ruled by a young girl's imagination. It is an existence that mirrors that of her favorite literary character, Alex Rover - the world's greatest adventurer. But Alexandra, the author of the Rover books, leads a reclusive life in the big city. When Nim's father goes missing from their island, a twist of fate brings her together with Alexandra. Now they must draw courage from their fictional hero, Alex Rover, and find strength in one another to conquer Nim's Island.

Things omitted from this relatively banal description of Nim's Island:

- When it says Nim's Island is "a magical place ruled by a young girl's imagination," they don't mean figuratively. It appears that Nim is a god-like character whose will becomes reality. Either that, or she suffers from paranoid hallucinations, which would actually be an apt parallel, since...

- Jodie Foster's character clearly suffers from intense schizophrenia, social anxiety disorder, mysophobia, and possibly epilepsy. The film seems to use both her vivid hallucinations and uncontrollable seizures as comedic quirks. (Hah! She's talking to her visual realization of a fictional character while in the presence of others! Haha! Now she's convulsing too much to comfortably leave her home!)

I could go on--maybe touching on the (possibly delusional) presence of pirates and Arabian warriors, and the topical airport security jokes--but I think the overabundance of mental disorders is already enough to change this from a passable family fantasy to a mandatory Psych 101 field trip.

Continue Reading " 'Nim's Island' Trailer is Chock-Full of Psychoses "

Nov 9 2007 First Look at 'Nim's Island', Gerard Butler's Halloween Costume

It's over a week late, but we finally got some exclusive shots of Gerard Butler's inspired, if not convoluted, Halloween costume! This year the 300 star went as a hobo dressed as Indiana Jones protecting his wallet from a tanning bed. And I have to say, he effing nailed it.

Confusingly, USA Today has run the same picture as a promotional photo for Nim's Island, in which Butler plays both marine biologist father and imaginary adventuring hero to young Abigail Breslin. After the father goes missing, Nim (Breslin) starts emailing the adventurer, who is actually a reclusive author played by Jodie Foster, for help in finding him. Add a pegasus and this movie has everything a little girl could want.

First look: All is idyllic on 'Nim's Island' [USA Today]