You have to believe that out there somewhere is an action movie director who knows what a tripod is.  That there is a young lead actor who has never starred in a CW television series about beautiful but sensitive teenage male models with supernatural powers.  That there is a comedy screenwriter who can imagine a “funny” situation not involving a bodily fluid.  That Michael Cera will one day play a different character.

In that spirit, a spirit of Pollyannaish hope in the face of overwhelming evidence indicating that Hollywood’s product will almost certainly continue to demonstrate that evolution is a two-way street, I present ten movies that are coming within the next six months that might actually be good – or at least not make me throw things at the screen and slap around the ushers.

1.  The Wolfman (This Weekend):  I’m digging the idea of this remake of the classic Universal horror flick.  The super cool trailer got me, as did the presence of Anthony Hopkins.  Now, let’s talk about the baggy-eyed, mumbly elephant in the room.  Yeah, it’s got Benicio Del Toro, but on the bright side he’ll probably spend most of the movie howling.  Sure, I’m still steamed about his commie suck-up fests Che Part  I and Part II, but at least the second one has a deliriously happy ending. 

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2.  Shutter Island (February 29, 2010):  I’ve taken some grief lately about my view that Leonardo DiCaprio is to acting what herpes is to romance.  Not Ben Shapiro-level grief, but grief nonetheless.  In my own defense, DiCaprio is terrible.  And that brings us to this bizarre Scorsese flick that I had zero interest in until I watched the mind-blowing trailer.  Apparently DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo are government agents and they go to some mental hospital for the criminally insane and everything works out swimmingly.  Not.  It looks awesome, even with Leo.  Freaky.  Creepy.  I am so there.

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3.  The Crazies (February 26, 2010):  I love zombie movies.  I even wrote one once.  The producers who optioned it hired a script consultant who wanted me to build up the characters’ back stories.  I observed that perhaps they had forgotten that it was a zombie movie.  Hence my career in law.  But I digress.  This flick, a remake of George Romero’s little-seen original – little-seen because it stinks – at least seems to have the potential for some old-fashioned B-movie thrills.  It’s regular folks turning into homicidal maniacs – classic.  Sure, there seems a slight anti-military vibe to the trailer with the implication that our troops are a bit trigger-happy, but hey – when the zombie apocalypse starts, bro, it’s shoot first and ask questions later.

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4.  Cop Out (February 26, 2010):  Yes, it looks idiotic, but it’s Kevin Smith directing Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in a cop movie.  Oh, and that Stifler guy is in it too.  How can that go wrong?  Actually, how will I know if it goes wrong, because I’m not seeing it without first having a Dos Equis or four to get my mind right.  This will be perfect for those nights when you don’t want to challenge yourself with more cerebral fare – like The Crazies.

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5.  Greenberg (March 26, 2010):  This new Ben Stiller film, directed by Noah Baumbach, looks like some kind of art house slacker-comedy.  Still, it seems amusing, and it also features the return of Jennifer Jason Leigh.  From the trailer, she’s gotten even cuter.  It’s worth a shot.

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6.  Hot Tub Time Machine (March 26, 2010):  Let me just say it again, because if you are wondering why this movie must not be missed then you obviously did not read and appreciate the title:  Hot Tub Time Machine.  Witness the magic.  John Cusak.  Rob Corddry.  Craig Robinson.  The chubby guy who turned Amish in Sex Drive.  With unharnessed star power like that, you’re guaranteed at least a mildly amusing time at the theater.

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7.  Robin Hood (May 14, 2010):  This is the reunion of Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott, and we can only hope it is a tenth as indisputably badass as Gladiator.  The trailer looks interesting, with lots of hacking and smiting.  Still, I’m worried.  I never liked the whole “steal from the rich and give to the poor thing” – I always thought maybe the poor should get off their collective butts and get to work instead of waiting for handouts.  Those barges and bales aren’t going to tote and lift themselves.  But again I digress.  Let’s just keep our fingers crossed on this one.

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8.  The Last Airbender (July 2, 2010):  Who knows – maybe director’s M. Night Shyamalan’s latest surprise twist will be to make a movie that doesn’t suck.  After watching the baffling trailer, I still have no idea in hell what this is about.  My wife says this is somehow related to a cartoon series, and the kids want to see it.  Whatever – I’m just happy about being able to take the kids to the movies and not ending up having to explain where babies come from.

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 9.  Cyrus (July 9, 2010):  I’m a sucker for comedies of acute discomfort, and this one seems appallingly uncomfortable.  John C. Reilly, who was incredibly moving as the loser cop in Magnolia, is the anti-hero.  He meets up with Marissa Tomei, who has a really creepy son in the form of the bulbous Jonah Hill.  Antics ensue.  I can’t wait.

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10.  The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (June 30, 2010):  I’m thoroughly excited about this latest entry in the emo-vampire sweepstakes.  Sorry there’s no trailer, but I’m sure the filmmakers will be branching off in surprising, challenging new directions.  It goes without saying that the first two films were awesome.  Kristen Stewart’s trademark lip-bite can convey an astonishing range of emotions, from anger to fear to joy to unrequited horniness.  That skinny pale boy is dreamy too.  I think that these films get a bad rap, what with most people mocking them instead of approaching the films as the powerful stand-alone artistic statements that they are.  Yes, I am truly looking forward to Twilight III – mostly because it will mean that for a while the kind of people who like these films will be sitting in movie theaters far the hell away from me. 

Looking back over this list, it’s pretty clear that the studios are not exactly front-loading the 2011 Oscar contenders.  But not every movie has to be great.  Sometimes you just want to have fun, and for the next six months that’s where the bar is going to be set – at “Fun,” right below “That Really Made Me Think,” but a notch above “I Shoulda Smuggled in Some More Beers.” 

Maybe next fall there’ll be a few more mature entries.  Until then, just remember that for every Casablanca, there are a thousand MacGrubers.

“[T]he system around which the motion-picture business has oriented itself almost since its creation in the early years of the last century–the star system, which it largely invented–has finally reached its end.”

“The eight most successful movies over the course of the year’s first eight months have collectively grossed $2.7 billion, up from $2.3 billion for the entirety of 2008. And what is most striking about these eight films is that not a single one of them, not a single one, features an unmistakable star. Three of them are cartoons (Up, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and Monsters vs. Aliens). Three are sequels whose top-line talents are incidental to their success (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the sixth Harry Potter, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Two feature relative nobodies (Star Trek and The Hangover). The first traditional star appears in the ninth-place film, which is itself a high-concept sequel in which the star mostly stands around (Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian with Ben Stiller). It’s not until tenth place that a classic vehicle hits the list, Sandra Bullock’s The Proposal. And after that you have to jump down to 15th place to find Tom Hanks in Angels and Demons. Will Ferrell’s movie tanked. Julia Roberts laid an egg. Adam Sandler couldn’t sell a ticket. Johnny Depp disappointed. Denzel Washington and John Travolta bombed together. Instead, the movies whose successes depended on their strong leading performances were the ones featuring the 57-year-old Irishman Liam Neeson (Taken, $145 million) and the out-of-work TV comedian Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop, $146 million).

“The 2009 box-office numbers offer the most dramatic evidence yet that the system around which the motion-picture business has oriented itself almost since its creation in the early years of the last century–the star system, which it largely invented–has finally reached its end.”

You can read the piece in full here.

And let me make this perfectly clear, even if they do say Jehovah!

Sentence must be read before being carried out. And unlike Soraya M., the board members of the Asylum of Motion Picture Airheads and Stooges will deserve every rock that’s thrown their way. I also believe that, in light of events in Iran today, the following commentary will stand out in much starker prominence than it did when I first started reporting on them in early March, when Team Oscar first set off for the Unfriendly Skies of Islamist Iran.

The backstory. In late February, the decision by AMPAS (as defined above) to send the Nine Stooges to the fascist hostage-taking, women-stoning, gay-exterminating Islamic Republic of Iran (at that time, things may be changing) set me off hotter than a Kim Jong Il nuke. Five days after the gay rights infomercial Oscars, no less! My gay rights heroes.

Somebody give ‘em an Oscar! For what it’s worth nowadays. Sean Penn getting an Oscar for playing a gay rights hero with his sorry track record on the subject is like Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter and Al Gore getting Nobel Prizes. They just ain’t worth what they used to be these days.

But I digress. On With The Show Biz Trial.

For ten days and uncounted humiliating punkings in early March, Team Oscar was a national embarrassment and a disgrace to this country and people, and an affront to the innocent Iranians suffering under a yoke of oppression not seen since Hitler’s Third Reich. A yoke which they are desperately and bravely fighting and even dying to cast off even as we speak.

And now, despite all that transpired back then, and all that is happening now in Iran, AMPAS is looking to whitewash the whole affair as a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road trip! Not on my watch! Fat fucking chance! Can you imagine how Iranian gays felt, watching the same people who facilitated tearful speeches on “gay rights for everyone” socializing and galivanting around town with the very monsters who were hunting them down, torturing and killing them?

If that alone isn’t a stoning offense, then nothing is.

Some may consider my charges harsh, even unreasonably so. So be it. Brutal Injustice and rank hypocrisy bring out the Zarqawi in me. But I will present to you, Dear Hollywood non-Academy Readers and Fine Fellow Americans everywhere, the foul evidence at hand in toto.

When charges have been read, and sentence is to be passed, I will leave it to the rest of you stoners as to which direction your rocks should fly. But first, to put the matter into Supreme Court-like perspective, look at the precedent law upon which I base my charges and my case.

THE WORLD v. SOUTH AFRICA

In 1985, during the oppressive Apartheid era of South Africa’s all-white fascist regime, actors, artists, producers and many fine musicians like Little Stevie van Zandt and The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, united to make a statement against that racist government, which held Nelson Mandela behind bars unjustly for 29 years, and murdered noted anti-apartheid activist Steven Biko while in police custody. That murder was memorialized in the Peter Gabriel song of the same name.

In conjunction with worldwide sanctions and divestment of business from South Africa at the time, the musical statement made by that group of most talented artists, better know as Artists United Against Apartheid, was immortalized in the song Sun City, which became a smash hit worldwide. We all know the rest of the story. The white South African government eventually folded, and Nelson Mandela was freed and then elected to the presidency.

What were South Africa’s crimes besides just Mandela’s imprisonment and Biko’s murder? Officially enforced racial segregation and subjugation, violent repression and the banning of opposition political parties. Certainly more than enough justification for international outrage, and both official and unofficial sanctions.

Yet compared to the current theocratic Hitlerite thugocracy running the Islamic Republic of Iran, which the world is also widely sanctioning today, South Africa’s Apartheid government was operating an island paradise fit for Chinese Uighurs. In Iran, political empowerment is nonexistent, and has been since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

All the power is in the hands of Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei and the Mad Mullah Guardian Council. Reform was impossible. Any measure passed by Iran’s Parliament, the Majlis, deemed ‘un-Islamic’ by the Mad Mullahs could be overturned on review. The Church is the State in Iran. Like a nationwide Westboro Baptist Church from Hell. Only worse. Much worse.

Examples. Children are routinely executed, gays are hunted down, tortured and brutally exterminated, and women and young girls are stoned and hanged, even for the crime of being raped. Until international outrage interceded, as happened vis-a-vis Roxana Saberi, seventeen-year-old Nazanin Fatehi was awaiting a death sentence for the crime of stabbing and killing one of the three God-fearing Islamists who attempted to rape her and her niece in a West Tehran park.

Here is a 27-minute documentary that re-enacts the attempted rape and the unbelievably misogynist injustice which followed. Had the world not screamed so loud in outrage, Nazanin would have suffered the same fate as that of twenty-year-old Delara Derabi, who was hanged by the Islamic Republic only six weeks ago. Iran has held mass hangings as recently as May 14th. And given the official death penalty announcement for Mousavi protesters, many more may follow depending on the outcome of current events.

This doesn’t even take into account the fact that many in Iran’s terror-sponsoring Islamist extremist leadership, including ‘moderate’ Hashemi Rafsanjani and recent presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai, former head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and former ‘diplomat’ to Argentina, are wanted by Interpol for their involvement in the worst terror attacks in Argentina’s history back in 1994. An Interpol warrant was issued for Rezai as recently as May 22nd.

Here is a piece I wrote back in early March, branding the regime as today’s Third Reich. Look at all the horrific and barbaric evidence of crimes against humanity committed both at home and abroad, and you tell me if I’m overstating the case. Keep also in mind that Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists are now in the streets of Iran, beating and killing the same Iranians who have supported and patronized the Islamist groups for decades.

Taking time out from killing innocent Jews to killing innocent Iranians. No surprise there, since the regime already kills its own people on an assembly line basis. Even bloggers. Given all this brutal evidence of the Iranian thugocracy’s bloody track record which spans the globe, I ask you, Dear Readers of jurisprudence and humble advocates of human rights for all, how was the Islamic Republic of Iran worthy of cultural diplomatic exchange, and South Africa not?

They should be forming Artists United Against Insanity to oppose Iran’s theocratic thugocracy, not flying over for tea, fingers cookies, and film seminars! Disgraceful!

Charges as follows. Bear with me. It’s a longer list than you think.

1. THE FIRST PUNKING OF FAR TOO MANY

Even though AMPAS was promised no politics would be involved in the visit, Team Hollywood was no sooner off the tarmac at Khomeini Airport in Tehran than they were totally punked by the best punks in the world, with harsh demands for apologies and submission by Iranian leaders over the films 300 and The Wrestler, or they wouldn’t get to meet their Iranian film buds. Curiously, Team Oscar was allowed to meet with their Iranian counterparts shortly thereafter. My question to the Academy is this: did they apologize or not?

Iif you recall, what so outraged Iranian government stooges over The Wrestler was Mickey Rourke breaking an Iranian flag and tossing it into the crowd. Deliciously ironic, considering the desecration of our flag is a national sport with the regime. There was also a declaration by Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hassan Qashqavi, that thirty films currently in production in Hollywood were ‘anti-Iranian.’

Civilized governments don’t act like that. Yet I broke the punking story in America to Drudge and Nikki Finke because I knew something like that was going to happen. I was looking for it. Hell, the regime has been punking us for thirty years! Ahmadinejad had even said Hollywood was devoid of all culture and art. Something’s Gotta Give. I must admit, however, that maybe Ahmie was onto something with that comment. Never thought I’d agree with anything the Little Hitler said.

Academy politics makes strange bedfellows, I reckon.

That infamous Punking Heard ‘Round the World should have proved to all concerned that President Obama’s attempt at diplomacy through Team Oscar was a horrendous failure, as all other efforts since have been. Like the Khamenei-led Death to America rallies in response to Obama’s peace video. Yet Team Oscar suffered that humiliation and degradation only to suffer many more. And the rest of us, since Team Oscar represented us over there as a nation as well.

Some were even worse, if you can believe it. In short, if somebody wrote a script like this, no one would ever believe it. But I already read the book. Been reading it since 1979.

2. TEAM OSCAR’S STOOGES TRAIN IRAN’S PROPAGANDA STOOGES

Iran ‘film industry’ experts, many of whom Stooge Team Oscar no doubt gave seminars to, gave their own previous film seminars on Iran TV on the Ziono-Hollywoodist conspirators for making such anti-Iranian celluloid slanders as Harry Potter, Chicken Run and Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. And let’s not forget the Jew Disney’s cartoon conspiracy, Tom and Jerry. Also deliciously ironic, considering Iran exports child martyrdom cartoons across the Middle East, a business so thriving the BBC called it, in blackly comic Joker-like fashion, ‘booming.’

I can understand the cultural aspect Team Hollywood pursued. I even respect it. But in my opinion, given the circumstances, it was the equivalent of sending a cultural team to Hitler’s Berlin during the Holocaust. The real great Iranian filmmakers were all heel-ground. The ones who aren’t languish in Evin prison or are awaiting kangaroo court religious tribunals, like Iranian-American Esha Momeni, for the celluloid slander of interviewing Iranian women for a womens rights documentary for her master’s degree.

Filmmaker Tehmineh Milani was sentenced to death for her celluloid slander. Again, only international and, in Ms. Milani’s case, even domestic outrage saved her neck from the rope. Another filmmaker, the French-Iranian Mernousche Solouki, was thrown into Evin prison for the crime of stumbling across a mass grave.

Here’s Ms. Solouki’s recounting of the event. She still suffers nightmares from her experience in Evin. I read that, and other horror stories of the Gestapo-like Evin prison when Roxana Saberi was still there. Horrified me. I know her father must have known of that. He’s from Iran. He must know. They all do. I can’t even imagine how he felt with Roxana there. Again, the South Africa analogy.

Yet despite all those goings-on, Annette Bening took time out to tell the world how great women’s rights were in Iran. Which brings us straight to Team Oscar’s next great offense.

3. ROXANA SABERI AND THE SOUND OF SILENCE

Throughout Roxana’s unlawful detention, i.e. hostage status as a political pawn, and bogus conviction on trumped-up espionage charges, Team Oscar couldn’t have been more silent or unheard from than Roxana herself. Not one public message of support for either Roxana or the Academy during her unlawful detention in Evin, never mind anyone else in Hollywood except us right-wing extremists. In fact, the whole human rights-championing left-wing PRAVDA-like MSM and government pulled a complete disappearing act on Roxana right after Hillary demanded her release, like she was bad press for the Obamamessiah to be swept under the rug.

At the time, my linked article above generated twenty times more Google hits than the entire media coverage combined. It’s at over 7300 hits now, more than 100 times the number of hits generated on Google vis-a-vis coverage of Roxana in late March.  I’m still getting hits on it. I don’t think people can believe what they’re seeing still. But I digress. You get the point.

No public statement of support from Team Oscar for Roxana that I can find. Team Oscar member William Horberg’s Iran blog made no mention whatsoever of Roxana’s unlawful captivity, or any plea they might have made on Roxana’s behalf to Iranian authorities. I have to assume none was made. Perhaps the Academy could clear up that matter, too. Inquiring Minds Want To Know.

Knowing the King of Hearts-like unreality that resides in the La La Land of AMPAS HQ, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to hear any of them claim credit for Roxana’s release in the future, or even for the green revolution going on in Iran today. If they do, just remember Annette praising the regime’s great women’s rights record while Roxana was still in Evin. For starters.

That should clear things up.

What was really depressing to me throughout Roxana’s Hostage Crisis was how few in Hollywood spoke up on her behalf, when no one knew whether she would live or die. That will forever be a black stain on those who profess to be the greatest human rights champs in the world.

4. OF STOOGES FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC

Perhaps the most vocal filmmaker during Team Oscar’s prolonged humiliation in Iran was domestic thugocracy stooge and new Team Oscar BFF Alireza Davudnejad, who wrote an open letter to President Obama claiming that the only road to peace, freedom and justice in this world was for the President to destroy all of America’s nuclear weapons and give up its UN veto.

Mr. Davudnejad also requested a schedule as to when those world-shaking peace, freedom and justice-inducing landmarks would be carried out. This, from a regime that foments war, writes injustice into its penal codes, crushes freedom with an iron boot, and races to build nuclear weapons they swear to Allah and their own people they’ll use on Israel just as soon as they’re built.

Now THAT’S Comedy! Fortunately, the President didn’t fall for it. If he had, it would have been the Punking Of All Time. No punking for Mr. Ali-Duh, but a gold star on the forehead for effort. Mr. Davudnejad did, however, manage to give a closing backhand to his new BFF, Team Oscar:

“My last recommendation is not to follow your previous cultural policies and avoid your Hollywood friends from playing any tricks to dominate the cinemas of Iran. The United States once removed Iranian cinema from the Iranian life with the help of the former dictatorship; and sacrificed our industry with the import of foreign films.

The fallen cinema of Iran has once again regained its footing with the Islamic Revolution and has been fighting to survive for thirty years. We will not forgive the enemies of this cinema wherever they are. By the way, which is harder, to relinquish the veto right, or to forbear the domination of Iran’s cinema again? You have a hard path ahead. I pray for you. Only the right path has no deviation.”

How about neither, Ali-DUH? Over my freakin’ dead body! Go sit on a projector!

By the way, you got all that, Sid, Annette, and the rest of you Ziono-Hollywoodist conspirators? No more tricks! Or they won’t even let you apologize next time!

Q. What was the difference between Team Oscar and Ali-Duh in Iran?

A. He’s a domestic film industry stooge.

Yet another degrading episode Team Oscar let slide. I guess they’re more on the M side of S&M. Seeing as they represented all of us in a diplomatic capacity, so were we. How does it feel? Mr. Ganis also stood by for yet another punking by the Director of Iran’s House of Cinema, one of many he seemed unfazed by. Some people are just gluttons for punishment, I guess.

As a comic relief sidebar, the culture ministers who approved Team Oscar’s trip were summoned before an angry Majlis, Iran’s parliament, to explain who let the Great Satan into their pure Islamist paradise. But that’s how it goes. Nobody is safe in Punkedville. Even the punks! No word on if the ministers apologized, but it was rumored Mr. Ganis couldn’t find his ministerial escort anywhere.

Hell, they’re the liberals in Iran! Fuggeddaboutit!

5. THE BURQA BABES OF BABYLON

It would seem that, as Team Oscar was reeling from their hot-off-the-tarmac punking, the Mad Mullahs used the opportunity to wrap up the goils like mummies in burqas. They may call it a fashion statement or cultural sensitivity, but why didn’t they make a bold statement by wearing Western dress the whole time, instead of looking like every other oppressed woman in Iran?

6. THE GENOCIDE PRIDE PARADES, or BOY, CAN THESE GUYS THROW AN O-BASH!

On March 6th, the same day Iranian authorities promised to release Roxana Saberi ’soon’ after SOS Clinton’s demand the day before, news broke of the ICC warrant issued for Sudan’s genocidal leader, General Omar Bashir. It was an insult, an offense and a crime against humanity (Majlis Speaker Lari Alijani’s words, not mine) against the Iranian regime’s BFF O-Bash.

In response, the entire upper leadership of Iran’s thugocracy, along with their Islamist Gestapo Blackshirt stooges from Hamas and Hezbollah (the same ones beating and killing Mousavi protesters this week), took to the streets of Tehran AND Khartoum, the very streets where the genocide was and is being committed to this day, to throw genocide parades for human vampire and Dear Leader Bashir.

Now, what should you do if you know your host country is officially celebrating the most abominable crime known to man in the streets below your gilded cages? Do you a. speak up in outrage? Do you b. hightail it out of Dodge as fast as you can? My answers are a and b. Team Oscar’s appears to have been c. keep the tea and finger cookies coming, Ahmie! Now I don’t know the law in that situation, so maybe some fine Hollywood lawyer could tell me. Is that being silent accomplices?

See, I believe genocide parades are a crime in themselves, as though other nations were celebrating Hitler in the streets of Berlin and their own streets, had Hitler been charged by the League of Nations for genocide during the Holocaust. But that’s just me.

SUBPLOT: I just read that O-Bash flew to Zimbabwe on June 10th. He’s wanted for genocide. Why is he being allowed to fly all over Africa and the Middle East with impunity? What, we don’t have aircraft carriers out there that could send up a couple fighter jets to escort Blacula to justice?

7. AHMADINEJAD’S WILLIE HORTONS

As a bonus, highlighted by Ahmadinejad’s condemnation of Hollywood as devoid of culture and art, and followed up by the summoning of ministers to the Majlis over Team Oscar’s invite, both Ahmadinejad and Supreme Asswipe Khamenei used Team Oscar as their Willie Horton in the recent elections. You know. Who let the Great Satan in?

So rather than fostering a liberalization of Iran, as they no doubt naively thought, they instead served as a political tool with which hardliners could beat moderates over the head with. Considering the extreme Islamist nature of Iranian politics (as least last week), they made the situation for moderates even worse. The only thing they didn’t appear to do was make the political ads themselves. But they did train the propaganda stooges who no doubt made any, if any were made.

Damage done either way. Hooray For Hollywood!

THAT’S A WRAP!

I suppose I could rummage for even more egregious offenses, and glaring or willfully blind oversights. But I have far more than enough to convict. If you seek more for purely historical reference, feel free to check all my linked articles above. You’ll find ‘em. My problem was trying to choose which offenses and oversights to pick from.

WILLIAM HORBERG FOR THE DEFENSE

Currently posted at the Academy website is the following prosaic account by William Horberg of Team Oscar’s late-term abortion of a trip to Iran: The Road To Isfahan. Let’s hear what he has to say in Team Oscar’s defense before we stone them. That may seem predicative of the outcome, but remember, these offenses took place in Iran. Islamist extremist rules apply. Got it now?

Actually, just check the link above. We’ll stone ‘em now and rule ‘em guilty later. I mean, come on people. Given the evidence, they may as well have been jumping up and down and screaming “Jehovah!” Time to get stoned. And if you’ve misplaced yours, here’s another one.

IN CLOSING

Now, I fully condemn the shooting of Dr. Tiller by lone madman Scott Roeder in Kansas, as all right-minded human beings should. But I would fully endorse the shooting of whatever single-digit IQ Academy PR doctors were behind this afterbirth. They Shoot Horses’ Asses In Hollywood, Don’t They? If anyone at the Academy had any brains, they’d be stocking up on ammunition like a right-wing extremist Timothy McVeigh-like Montana militia for that very purpose right now!

QUALIFIER: Yes, I’m kidding. No need to call DHS just yet, thank you very much. Besides, you’re as likely to find a gun at Academy HQ as you are a hymen on Heidi Fleiss.

Despite the current brain-dead off-the cliff lemming leadership at AMPAS today, I love film. I love Hollywood I even love the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences. Always have. Broke my heart to declare war on them. I even told them so. But all the above is Casus Belli. Gloves are off.

The blackest irony of all? I was in the middle of writing a loving screwball comedy tribute to Oscar when the news of their trip broke! By the way, I even warned them that if they tried giving all this Iran shite the Red Carpet treatment, I’d pull the rug out from under them. And I know and they know I’ve caused a lot of PR damage already over their Iran trip, both here at Big Hollywood and elsewhere.

My Iran opeds since the PUNK’D piece on Nikki Finke February 28th are pushing 30,000 hits at one blog alone. Can’t anyone in this business keep their mouth shut? How stupid can you be? Are they total masochistic gluttons for punishment? Oh yeah, I already covered that. Drop that last one off at the Department of Redundancy Department, LOL! In the meantime, I’ll do my best to have the Nine Stooges ejected off the Academy board and into the Pacific.

Now, I’ve had some very juicy tastes of Tinseltown. The Red Carpet A-List circuit in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. I’m not a Guild Member, but my first screenplay got a number of finalist nods from some of the toughest Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated contest judges in Hollywood. And I got an option with it. I got some chops. And I’ve only gotten better over the years through hard work, practice and learning. I know that because industry pros doing my coverage told me so.

But you know what? As much as I wanted to trash that story and never write another word in screenplay format again, I love that script. Put a lot of love and time into it. Think it’s my best work so far. So does my writing partner. In fact, I’m going to finish that script very shortly. And I’m going to finish it in the spirit in which I started: with love, tenderness and affection, even towards Academy members I wrote into the script with boundless love that I totally detest now.

How? I call it professional detachment. Like sniping Nazis as I lovingly listen to Mozart. Best of, worst of. I don’t let politics poison my scripts. I’ll leave the Lefties to do that. I’d rather not bomb at the box office. And I’ll have coverage done by someone I know and trust networked into the industry like a spiderweb. If I get a nearly impossible grade of RECOMMEND and it doesn’t move, I know my self-inflicted film industry Hiroshima is complete.

But you know what, people? I’ll take as many of them with me as I can, just like the wounded Mickey Rooney in Ambush Bay offering Japanese soldiers pineapples. He had plenty for everybody. Point being, I won’t stand for this crap and let it slide just to sell a script. This matter goes way beyond film to me. Look at it this way. AMPAS spends four hours championing gay rights at the last Oscars, then flies off to Iran to give that gay-butchering regime its gold-plated PR kiss, even praising women’s rights in the most violently misogynist regime on earth? STUFF IT!

God, how I wished I lived in the era of the Hollywood of an earlier day, when the top stars flocked to the service of their country, instead of the service of thuggish and violent dictators like Chavez, Castro and Ahmadinejad. By the way, Sean Penn holds the Trifecta of Shame on that one.

Let me be explicitly clear that I believe extreme left-wing morons like Sean Penn, Danny Glover and Harry “Bananas” Belafonte are the minority in Hollywood. Squeaky left-wing wheels get all the grease. I know a lot of great people in the industry personally. And I can’t praise highly enough Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Mia Farrow, Jim Carrey, Gary Sinise, Robert Davi and so many great USO supporters like Saddam million dollar bounty-offering Bruce Willis, Scarlett Johansson, Jack Black and Ben Stiller.

There are really too many to name. But you know who they are. As to the distinct minority, I will quote my former Obama-like governor and liberal tank commander Michael Dukakis for the first time in my life: “A fish rots from the head down.”

Tom Hanks dares to call gay marriage opponents un-American? Well, if President Obama, most Americans and 52% of Californians are un-American for not supporting gay marriage, what is Tom Hanks and the rest of the Motion Picture Asylum guilty of for signing off on a trip to a regime that hunts gays online, raids gay parties, tortures them horribly and then hangs them from crane wires to die agonizing deaths that can take up to an hour, as they did with two gay teenage boys?

There’s too much blanket idiocy in Hollywood. Megan Fox, jokingly telling the Transformers to take out all the white trash to save the earth, the irony totally lost on her. The Twitter crowd at afterellen.com. Like Adrianne Curry, who calls Prop 8 a human rights offense, but remains dead silent on the holocausts against LGBTs in Iran and Iraq. Why isn’t Dustin Lance Black screaming to the skies about this stuff? I couldn’t find any evidence of him opposing the AMPAS Iran trip on purely humanitarian grounds. WHY NOT?

No. I, a straight conservative Republican screenwriter, offended to my very core by the savagery of Shiite extremist gay death squads in Iran and Iraq, have to be the one screaming to the skies about LGBT terrorists who engage in atrocities even the Nazis can’t compare to. Like super-gluing gay men’s anuses shut and pumping them full of diarrhea cocktails so the gay killers, some on our tax dime, can catch a few pious laughs as their victims endure unimaginable agony before dying.

No. I am left with the dirty jobs and lonely tasks of networking REAL gay advocates like Michael Petrelis and the Gay Patriot blog over these inhuman gay horrorshows. I am the one who has to research and dispatch gruesome reports to sites like BestGayBlogs.com, and LGBT orgs all over the globe like LGBT Network EU. I am the one left to scrape around for signatures on petitions at Iranian Queer Railroad and Iraqi LGBT to save the lives of Iranian and Iraqi LGBTs, who live in fear of torture and unimaginable horrors the incredibly spoiled toddler-like Hollywood Leftie morons and unmarried gays of California will never know.

As a screenwriter, I now know what it feels like to work under an offensive and idiotic oligarchy that is totally brain-dead and out of touch with the realities of the world at large, and those whom they profess to lead. In that respect, though I do not agree with them, I now understand the passionate outrage Lefties felt during the reign of the Bushitler. Like Michael Moore’s and Al Franken’s bloviations during that dark time, I do not expect my heated rants to impact my Golden Bubble-insulated industry oligarchy one whit.

In fact, I fully expect it to to earn me black marks and disfavor, the full McCarthy treatment they so profess to detest, yet practice every goddamn day. Ron Silver, anyone? But like the aforementioned Twin Towers of Leftie-ism, I care not one whit what the ruling establishment thinks. My anger is righteous and justified. In fact, it could not be moreso. What’s happening in Iran and Iraq are de facto gay genocides. What cause could be more righteous than trying to stop those?

Screw sexual conduct! They’re innocent human beings targeted for extermination. They don’t deserve that barbaric treatment. No one does, except the blood-drinking Islamist Gestapo stooges that are doing it all! If that revolution in Iran goes through and the people win, somebody Tweet them to hang on to all the crane wires. They’re gonna need a lot. For the Hamas and Hezbollah Blackshirts, too.

If my harsh words mean my film career is dead, so be it. In fact, if I came to Hollywood for no other reason than to address the horrific hypocrisy of so-called gay and human rights champs who are anything but (some like Bening and Penn even extremely damaging to those they don the mantle of Human Rights Champs for), or to champion the cause of Iraqi and Iranian LGBTs unlike any cause I’ve ever championed based on purely humanistic outrage, then I will feel that my life will have had meaning.

If I have helped to save the life of only one Iraqi or Iranian gay, I have saved the world entire. I can go to my grave totally at peace with myself. If I must bury my screenwriting career ahead of me, this is a small price to pay. So many others, like those now on the streets of Iran fighting and dying for the freedoms that are as natural to us as breathing, or risk brutal torture and horrific death merely for sexual conduct or being raped, are paying far higher prices than we most likely ever will.

In closing, I am resigning from Big Hollywood. I came here on a mission nearly four months ago to bring attention to all I have highlighted above. All the in-between was a bonus. And I do have a comedy piece in the hopper, which is rare for me. Haven’t had much to laugh about lately. Which is why I want to return full-time to screenwriting as well. There’s enough tragedy on Planet Earth. If I can use my award-nominated humor to inspire laughter and comic relief, then that is my main mission now. The rest I leave to the card deck of fate.

If I return, it will be in the cause of those who cannot speak for themselves. There is no shortage of hacks and pundits flame-throwing politics these days, and there are far too many not flame-throwing at all on issues that should enrage them beyond measure. As I am enraged today. Certainly beyond politics.

I do not need anger management. Like Johnny Rotten sang with Public Image Limited, Anger is an Energy. Righteous anger is what freed South Africa. Righteous anger fills the streets of Tehran as we speak. Righteous anger is why we Americans no longer say to each other, “G’day, Mate! ‘Ow about a pint and some bangers and mash? Got some up in me lorry! God Bless the Queen!”

In closing, God Bless The Queen anyway. And God Bless America. I say that as an agnostic secularist, okay? It’s good luck! And may God look down a lot more kindly on the poor LGBTs in Iran and Iraq. Perhaps, if there is a God, and I’m hedging my bets here, I hope his hand is in events in Iran. Maybe with a youth-driven revolution, LGBTs, filmmakers. students, dissidents, bloggers, and raped women need not fear for their lives anymore, or offered the choice of castration or death if they wish to remain gay.

What? Did you think Ahmadinejad was kidding when he said there were no gays in Iran? He said it with the same certainty Hitler said there were no Jews in Germany. The discussion is moot. I really hope to God that changes, as Iran itself seems to be right now.

We do, however, have a most powerful hand in Iraq. The gay killings must stop. The gay death squads must be disbanded with an iron fist. Just like Al Qaeda. Or, to tell the truth, I don’t care if Al Qaeda takes the place over. I would feel the same way if I were in West Berlin in 1947 and the locals were still hunting down and killing Jews. Let the Red Army move in.

Uncle Joe, they’re all yours! Bin Laden, they’re all yours! Let them ALL share in the terror they love with a religious fervor! OR, they can wise up and join the human race. If not, screw ‘em. Let ‘em go back to Al Qaeda torture houses and eating bombs for breakfast. I may not be gay myself. No, really. But must one be Jewish to be totally repulsed by Auschwitz?

Good Luck and Good Night, all. Peace. I hope

There’s also only one laugh — one — and all the special effects in the world simply can’t make up for a single chuckle over 105 very long minutes. The only good news is that Ben Stiller appeared to be even more bored than I was.

If you remember, Larry Daley (Stiller) was once a night guard at the Museum of Natural History in New York City where after the sun went down, thanks to ancient artifact, the exhibits all came to life. Mayhem ensued, adventure was had and lifelong friendships were formed.

A few years have passed (between films and for our characters) and today Larry has managed to tinker his way into fortune and some fame as a highly successful entrepreneur hawking inventions, like his glow-in-the-dark flashlight (so you can find it when the power goes out, duh), on infomercials.  

As is always the case in these films, success has made Larry unhappy and distracted, too worried about business meetings and deal-making to be the good father and friend he once was. For months now he’s neglected his museum friends and when he does show up for a long overdue visit he finds most of them boxed up for permanent storage, bound for the basement of the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

Of course Larry will have to save them and in the process the entire Smithsonian comes alive, including paintings, sculptures, a black and white Al Capone, a preening General Custer (Bill Hader), an obnoxious, hyper-feminist Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) and even the giant President Lincoln normally found seated in his DC memorial.  Returning for a second round is Owen Wilson’s miniature cowboy, who’s given much more to do than the barely returning Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt, Attila the Hun and Sacajawea.

Hank Azaria is our flamboyant baddie Kahmunrah, a lisping Pharaoh desperate to get his hands on the artifact that brought him and everything else to life. The plan is to resurrect his 2000 year old army and take over the world … or some such thing.

Other than the special effects, which are convincing, it’s obvious no one cared about anything else like believable relationships or a plot that made a lick of sense. The plot holes that keep Larry alive and running around all on his own are insulting. This isn’t a movie aimed at kids, this is a movie aimed at dumb kids … kids in need of helmets.

The dialogue’s terrible, full of those halting, irreverent asides that increasingly pass for wit these days, and the action scenes lack both excitement and tension. People run, people fight, people talk and talk and talk. Every character arc feels forced, the relationships even more so. When the great Ricky Gervais can’t brighten up his bookended moments, what hope is there for anything else?

Most lacking is any sense of magic or joy. When a movie advertises the Smithsonian coming to life, no matter how lackluster the rest might be, you expect at least a couple of “wow” moments, but there’s not a single one.

If there’s anything to recommend it’s a rare and appreciated sense of reverence director Shawn Levy shows for American history in this, a mainstream Hollywood film produced for young, impressionable minds. Even General Custer is given an un-PC opportunity to redeem himself and it’s nice to hear Teddy Roosevelt call America “a great country” and Amelia Earhart credit “American ingenuity” for the invention of flight. It’s just a sad fact these days that characters aren’t allowed to talk like this.  

Most interesting is a moment in front of the White House when a historical character says something like, “I’ve heard a great man leads this union.” You have to wonder if that line would’ve been allowed when Bush was president or had McCain won… Damn, I’m cynical.

Between this and the equally uninspired “Terminator Salvation,” if you must leave the house for a movie this holiday weekend, Blockbuster is your best gamble.

Every once in awhile an action film comes along that revives. That proves that — no matter how strong the political correctness of an age, no matter how pale and pathetic its notions of masculinity, no matter how much Ritalin is force-fed to little boys, no matter how many toy guns, xylophone mallets, and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots get banned from stores and playgrounds — there are certain aspects of the male soul that are inviolate, and certain primal yearnings that are evergreen. Taken (2008) is one of those films, and its release last week on DVD and Blu-ray should be heralded by lovers of all things red-blooded, hairy-chested, and morally sound.

When this movie appeared in the doldrums of Hollywood’s off-season, it was expected to die a quick death in a marketplace filled with audiences either too sophisticated or too sophomoric to respond. Modern theatergoers, the theory goes, increasingly want their “heroes” to be either brooding Abercrombie & Fitch nymphets like Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, feckless stumblebums like Ben Stiller and Paul Blart: Mall Cop’s Kevin James, quirky class cut-ups like Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp, or silly video-game tough guys like Jason Statham, Vin Diesel, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. When an actor does put some honest testosterone in his performance — Daniel Craig in Munich (2005), Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino (2008) — it’s inevitably to make a much larger point about violence breeding only more violence, all of it equally reprehensible, a product of way too many pesky males wreaking havoc in primitive bursts of knuckle-dragging temper.

 We are led to believe that if only The View and Oprah could become required therapy for guys, if only there were enough copies of How to Take the Grrrr Out of Anger to go around, if only enough Neanderthals were herded into sensitivity/diversity/anger management/sexual harassment/conflict resolution training, then gee, what a wonderful world it would be. In recent years, only Sly Stallone’s lumbering but effective Rambo (2008) (tagline: “Heroes never die. . .they just reload”) has dared to flip a fully unapologetic middle finger at Hollywood’s human potential movement, offering up a wholesome, rejuvenating hero of implacable moral certitude bathed in the blood of his hated enemies.

Director Pierre Morel and writer/producer Luc Besson’s Taken follows in that film’s laudable footsteps, but significantly ups the ante by adding intelligent layers of real-world characterization to its steel-tipped judgments. The overarching villain in Taken is not a cat-stroking, monocled megalomaniac, nor a motley army of interchangeable third-world guerrillas, but an attitude. A NIMBY (”not in my backyard”) policy practiced by an entire assembly-line of well-imagined kidnappers, pimps, concierges, businessmen, cops, and Sydney Greenstreet sheiks — American, French, Albanian, Arab — all of whom are perfectly content to participate in and profit from the great evil of sex slavery as long as it’s not their daughters being fed into the meat grinder.

Social conservatives have long highlighted the very real plight of women and children across the globe being forced into prostitution (see Donna Hughes, Claudia Barlow and Big Hollywood’s Kathryn Lopez, all at National Review Online). But it’s the rare Hollywood action film that eschews absurdly convoluted plots of world domination or mass destruction in favor of a setup utterly chilling in its innate on-the-ground plausibility. In this age of Natalee Holloway-style sensationalism, what parents haven’t worried about their daughter heading off on a trip? Using this potent, universal fear as a linchpin with which to hold together the stunts, fights, and pandemonium was a stroke of genius, and elevates the audience’s emotional investment far above that of any other action film in recent memory.

As the film’s star, Liam Neeson, stalks through Taken’s miserable underworld of murderous degenerates and silky-smooth predator elites, he is continually faced with the gangland version of the same bureaucratic nightmares that so often terrorize our real workaday lives. “I sit behind a desk now,” a French policeman “friend” tells him by way of rejecting his pleas for help, “I take my orders from someone who sits behind a bigger desk. . . .my salary is X, my expenses are Y. As long as my family is provided for, I do not care where the difference comes from.” When at long last Neeson’s Bryan Mills, captured and defenseless, confronts the man capable of freeing his daughter with a nod of his immaculately coiffed head, the exchange is one that, but for the life-and-death stakes, could have occurred at any DMV or post office:

ST-CLAIR: “Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

MILLS: “The last girl — I’m her father.”

ST-CLAIR: “Oh my. . . .”

MILLS: “Give her to me.”

ST-CLAIR: “I wish I could — honestly. See, I’m a father myself. I have two sons, and a daughter. But let me tell you something, Mr. whoever-you-are. This is a business. This is a very unique business with a very unique clientele.”

MILLS: “I’ll pay!”

ST-CLAIR: “This business you have no refunds, no returns, no discounts, no buybacks. All sales are final. Besides, discretion is about the only rule we have.” [turning to his henchmen] “Kill him. Quietly — I have guests.”

Translation: you didn’t fill out the right form/pay the proper postage/return the item by the deadline, so your daughter is going to spend the rest of her life as a burqa-wearing blow-up doll. I’m oh-so-sorry — next customer, please. . . .

Set against these smiling, Armani-clad, ever-so-reasonable slave traders is a man with “a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career, skills that make me a nightmare for people like you,” a man of such singular purpose and moral clarity that we believe him when he promises to “tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to” to find his daughter. A lifetime of living far from the sterilized bubble-universes of political correctness and cradle-to-grave pampering has taught him that there is no negotiating with such scum, no possible penance or rehabilitation, no shrugging at or sympathizing with the worldview they represent. They are the enemy, the nemesis of everything he holds dear as a Judeo-Christian, as an American, and as a father. Against that evil, blood is the only disinfectant.

One of the chief joys of the picture is watching how each defeated villain squeals like a stuck pig and falls over himself to appeal to the hero’s mercy — the very sense of decency they never displayed while engaged in their own unfettered cruelties. “We can resolve this,” one pleads, as if trying to calm down an irate customer returning a defective blender. “I know how you feel. We should talk. We could work this out.” Each time, our hero sees these empty entreaties for what they are: the soulless cries of scorpions unexpectedly denied the use of their sting.

The frontier justice meted out is swift, brutal, and thoroughly satisfying — which means, of course, that the resulting carnage was decried by horrified movie critics as “lowest-common-denominator trash,” a “risible male-re-empowerment fantasy,” an “unsavory mix of sentimentality and high-octane seediness,” and a “post-Sept. 11 throwback to the most primitive movie melodramas.” My, my — how nice to see liberals bitching about a film getting an inappropriate PG-13 rating for a change! Meanwhile, those males around the country who remain proudly unreconstructed — and also, based on the audience I saw the film with, the women who love them — cheered as each doom-laden verdict was rendered:

“I believe you — but it won’t save you.” FFFFZZZZZZZZZ.

“You could have made this much less painful if you had been more concerned about my daughter and less concerned with your goddamned desk.” WHAM!

“It wasn’t personal!” “It was all personal to me.” BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!

By the end, the hero’s determination reaches such a fever pitch that he doesn’t even spare a moment for the usual Hollywood banter with the arch-villain cowering behind his terrified human shield: “We can nego–” BLAM! A thunderous exclamation applied with diamond-sharp moral certainty, without a single iota of doubt or remorse. As it should be.

(from left: Jon Gries, Leland Orser, and David Warshofsky)

If there ends up being a sequel to this film, I hope they do it right. Leave behind the kidnapping meme and take on another of the many moral outrages to be found in the progressive multikulti worldview. Bring back Neeson’s three CIA buddies — portrayed by character actors Leland Orser (the real-life husband of Jeanne Tripplehorn, the lucky dog), Jon Gries, and David Warshofsky — and this time give them some real things to do and good lines to say. And for Pete’s sake, don’t have them betray each other, and don’t kill them off for cheap thrills — let them be heroes. Above all, keep the emotional core of the film real and honest, and do your best to drive the heterophobes and misandrists nuts.

Every action movie is filled with its share of stupid implausibilities, but there is nothing stupid about a father’s love for his daughter, and nothing implausible about the sex-trafficking nightmare portrayed in Taken. The legalize-prostitution crowd has gotten a lot of mileage out of putting a reasonable, libertarian face on the whole sordid business, reminding us that, after all, it’s “the world’s oldest profession.” Taken answers back with a growl: “No — the world’s oldest profession is father.” And fathers, for those who need reminding, are men. Males. X-Y.

At the end of the day, when all of the sensitivity/diversity/anger management/sexual harassment/conflict resolution training falls away, the male of the species is a killer, the keeper of a bloody heroic ideal that winds through our history and through our myths, back through Snorri Sturluson and Luo Guanzhong, Shakespeare and Malory, Virgil and Homer, and ultimately the Old Testament and beyond. Countless women and children owe their lives and happiness to the men who tread grim paths of death in their defense. Just as many owe their misery to the failure of some men to honor that age-old crimson burden.

The self-loathing ninnies in Hollywood can spend millions of dollars to make Greedo shoot first, or to airbrush shotguns out of scenes. But such pale attempts at enforcing nanny-state ethics amount to little more than spitting into a merciless wind, the harbinger of a hard, isolate, stoic truth that has never yet melted.

Star-turned-producer Hugh Jackman has scored his second-biggest opening ever and, easily, his biggest as a solo star. Wolverine has mauled the competition with a massive $34.75M opening day (including $5M or so in Thursday midnight sales). That could translate to a 3-day of $86.8M, getting Hollywood’s most lucrative season off to a spectacular start.

The stars of WOLVERINE (from the left): Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, Taylor Kitsch as Gambit, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Liev Schrieber as Sabretooth and Lynn Collins as Kayla Silverfox

The X-Men spin-off, which has been made for substantially less than the $210M budget ponied up for to produce 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, becomes the all-time fourth-best first-weekend-of-May opening, trailing only Spider-Man 3 ($151.1M), the original 2002 Spider-Man ($114.8M) and last May’s Iron Man ($98.6M). Wolverine has also posted one of the top seven opening days ever for a comic book adaptation.

ALL-TIME BEST OPENINGS DAYS FOR COMIC BOOK ADAPTATIONS
1. The Dark Knight – $67.1M
2. Spider-Man 3 – $59.8M
3. X-Men: The Last Stand – $45.1M
4. Spider-Man 2 – $40.4M
5. Spider-Man – $39.4M
6. Iron Man – $35.2M
7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine – $34.75M (estimated)
8. X2: X-Men United – $31.2M
9. 300 – $28.1M
10. Watchmen – $24.5M

And, as comic book movies go, Jackman’s solo effort has cut and sliced through the pack to become the all-time seventh-best 3-day start.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE will not match the opening weekend of last year's summer starter IRON MAN

ALL-TIME BEST OPENING WEEKENDS FOR A COMIC BOOK ADAPTATION
1. The Dark Knight – $158.4M
2. Spider-Man 3 – $151.1M
3. Spider-Man – $114.8M
4. X-Men: The Last Stand – $102.7M
5. Iron Man – $98.6M
6. Spider-Man 2 – $88.1M
7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine – $86.8M (projected)
8. X2: X-Men United – $85.5M
9. 300 – $70.8M
10. Hulk – $62.1M

How does Jackman hold his silverware during dinner?

Jackman himself is getting lots of positive feedback on his personal Twitter page, but there is some real negative feedback in the Twitterverse. Here are some actually Tweets from movie fans that have been posted in the last couple of hours.

if its wolverine dont waste your time

Wolverine sucks!

Wolverine: not too bad. Better than the horrible second X-Men movie. Coolest thing was preview for District-9.

I went and paid for 2 movie tix to see that damn Wolverine movie. I just wasted my money.

Wolverine was ok – too much smooshed into one movie and too many things attempted to be neatly wrapped up and squared away.

Saw Wolverine. It was weak.

What does Hugh Jackman being a hottie have 2 do w/ how crappy the movie is?

Oh my God Wolverine was just as bad as everyone was saying.

out to see Wolverine! Ill let you guys know how bad it is.

“don’t waste your money” unless you’re a huge fan. Like 2nd X-files bad.

So, it appears that fans are as tepid about this movie as film critics. X-Men Origins: Wolverine will likely be very front-loaded both for the weekend and the long haul. I’m guessing that the weekend could play out like this. Wolverine did $5M Thursday at midnight and has added another $29.75M Friday (for a $34.75M opening day). Then Saturday, the movie may drop 9% to $31.6M or so, followed by a Sunday dip of 36% to just over $20M.

Jackman is not just another action star; Here he is in his Tony-winning performance in Broadway's BOY FROM OZ

After speaking with a number of competing studios, the consensus is that Wolverine will have a multiple of less than two. (The multiple is the number by which you multiply the opening weekend to arrive at the ultimate domestic gross.) With a multiple in the 1.8-1.9 range, the summer’s first movie spectacle will finish at $156-$165M. That’s a good, but not great number. Meanwhile, Star Trek (Paramount) has a chance to be this year’s Iron Man, an early May release that plays deep into the summer at a high multiple in the 3.2-3.3 range.

Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner are creating some sparks in GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS PAST

The other wide release in the marketplace this weekend is the poorly-reviewed Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner Bros). With Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner as the romantic leads and an assist from Oscar winner Michael Douglas, Ghosts has performed decently, especially with Females 25 Plus. The Mark Waters-directed rom-com coaxed an estimated $6M in opening day sales and will likely reach about $16.5M for the weekend. That’s would be 12% stronger than last year’s first-weekend-of-May chick-flick counter programming, Made of Honor, which finished second to Iron Man with $14.7M.

Ali Larter (center) and Beyonce (right) come to blows over THE WIRE's Idris Elba in OBSESSED

Last weekend’s box office champ Obsessed (Sony) – the one where Beyonce “tromps a tramp” (played by Ali Larter from Heroes) – took a nosedive with just $4.2M or so on Friday. It seems headed for an estimated 3-day of $12.39M, down 57% from its opening, but the genre pic with a budget of only $20M will still have $47M in the bank by Monday. That’s a very profitable little movie.

Tween are pushing Zac Efron's 17 AGAIN past the $50M mark

The Warner Bros comedy 17 Again, starring tween dream Zac Efron, continues to perform well with about $2.22M to start the weekend and a possible $6.62M for the frame. Zac’s high-concept comedy will have topped $48.7M domestic in its first 17 days of release.

The new nature doc EARTH is really just the Cliff Notes for the extraordinary BBC miniseries PLANET EARTH

Disney’s Earth, a 90-minute version of the BBC’s 11-hour 2006 miniseries Planet Earth, will round out the top five for the first official weekend of summer. The nature doc grabbed $1.45M on its second Friday and is targeting $5.81M and a new 12-day cume of $23.47M by Monday.

The other wide release is the 3-D pic Battle For Terra (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions). It is on just over 1,100 screens, but has managed only about $300,000 on opening day. I did see a commercial for Terra during American Idol this week, so there was some money spent, but it couldn’t have been much. Despite respectable reviews, this cg animated flick is destined for no more than $1M. That’s a full-on disaster.

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY FRIDAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) – $34.75M, $8,478 PTA, $34.75M cume
2. NEW – Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner Bros) – $6M, $1,890 PTA, $6M
3. Obsessed (Sony) – $4.2M, $1,671 PTA, $39M cume
4. 17 Again (Warner Bros) – $2.22M, $682 PTA, $44.36M cume
5. The Soloist (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $1.7M, $836 PTA, $14.2M cume
6. Earth (Disney) – $1.45M, $804 PTA, $19.11M cume
7. Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $1.41M, $537 PTA, $178M cume
8. Fighting (Rogue) – $1.4M, $608 PTA, $14.73M cume
9. State of Play (Universal) – $1.28M, $527 PTA, $28.51M cume
10. Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) – $1.1M, $390 PTA, $67.88M cume
*NEW – Battle For Terra (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions) – $300,000, $258 PTA, $300,000 cume

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) – $86.8M, $21,194 PTA, $86.8M cume
2. NEW – Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner Bros) – $16.5M, $5,197 PTA, $16.5M
3. Obsessed (Sony) – $12.39M, $4,928 PTA, $47.19M cume
4. 17 Again (Warner Bros) – $6.62M, $2,034 PTA, $48.76M cume
5. Earth (Disney) – $5.81M, $3,221 PTA, $23.47M cume
6. The Soloist (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $5.7M, $2,804 PTA, $18.2M cume
7. Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $5.65M, $2,152 PTA, $182.25M cume
8. State of Play (Universal) – $4.31M, $1,765 PTA, $31.54M cume
9. Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) – $3.96M, $1,405 PTA, $70.74M cume
10. Fighting (Rogue) – $3.76M, $1,630 PTA, $17.1M cume
*NEW – Battle For Terra (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions) – $1M, $878 PTA, $1M cume

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.

Look at these numbers.

X-Men – estimated budget – $75M
$20.8M opening day – $54.5M opening weekend – $152.3M domestic – $296.3M global

X-2: X-Men United – estimated budget – $110M
$31.25M opening day – $85.5M opening weekend – $214.9M domestic – $407.7M global

X-Men: The Last Stand – estimated budget – $210M
$45.1M opening day – $102.7M opening weekend – $224.4M domestic – $459.3M global

It’s pretty clear that, with no cost-containment on budget (especially the big cast), the X-Men franchise had reached the point of diminishing returns. So, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox), debuting Friday, is a sequel, but, technically, a spin-off, without costing as much as a true sequel would.

A very different Hugh Jackman won the Tony for Best Actor for his performance in Broadway's BOY FROM OZ

I’m guessing that Hugh Jackman is working for a great price, also serving as a producer with a healthy backend participation. The rest of the name cast is essentially limited to Liev Schrieber (The Manchurian Candidate, The Omen), Dominic Monaghan (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, ABC’s Lost) and Ryan Reynolds (Blade: Trinity, The Amityville Horror), and there is no Bryan Singer (X-Men, X-2) or Brett Ratner (X-Men 3) to direct. Instead, Fox and Jackman settled on the much less expensive, but still Academy Award-winning director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi). Now with a scaled-back story and cast, the movie comes in at a much more studio-friendly price while, hopefully, still packing an X-Men-style box office punch.

Aussie director Gavin Hood accepting his Oscar for TSOTSI

Fox has smartly positioned Wolverine as the first movie into the summer fray, and that is important because this is the one May huge release that may not have long legs (I believe that J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek will squash it like a bug on the all-new Enterprise windshield next week). I am told that pre-release industry tracking is in the stratosphere for this X-Men spin-off – Un-Aided Awareness, Total Awareness, Definite Interest and First Choice are all through the roof. When the tracking data gets this heated, predictions are dicey at best, but I am calling for $92M domestic. That would be just a tick lower than last year’s first-weekend-of-May starter Iron Man, which was $98.6M.

Without claws: Hugh Jackman as host of the 2009 Academy Awards

For those of you who may be reading my column for the first time, that $92M figure is my “prediction.” That means that based on my experience, conversations with sources at competing studios and interpretation of pre-release industry tracking, I am making a well-educated guess as to how X-Men Origins: Wolverine will deliver in opening weekend US sales. (The road is littered with other well-educated guessers, and I have missed substantially on a few predictions in the past.)

When I start writing on Friday, it will be based on early ticket sales. That will make my numbers “projections” instead of “predictions.” My Early Friday and 3-Day “projections” are historically off by no more than 5%-8%.

For the record, I believe that Mr. Jackman and the folks at Fox will be quite happy with anything north of $80M, but they are definitely working to keep expectations lower. In the end, I think they’ll be in the $90M-$95M range for 3-days.

Over the long haul, WOLVERINE will be no match for last year's IRON MAN

Ultimately, Iron Man performed like a monster deep into the summer. It was followed by the box office misfire Speed Racer on the following Friday, giving the Jon Favreau-directed comic book adaptation basically 17 days alone in the marketplace. Wolverine doesn’t have that luxury with the aforementioned Star Trek, arriving next Thursday starting at 7pm.

Additionally, Iron Man was jet-powered by spectacular reviews (93% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes)
and excellent word-of-mouth. It’ll be more of a mixed bag for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, standing at 41% Fresh on RT as of Wednesday night. The multiplier for Iron Man was 3.22 (the number by which you multiply the opening weekend figure by to arrive at the ultimate domestic gross). Wolverine is more likely to finish with a multiplier of 1.8-1.9. If the picture hits my opening weekend number, that multiplier will put the final US total at something in the $165M-$175M range.

In addition to my final weekend prediction, I also believe that Wolverine may scratch and claw its way to one of the top five or six opening days ever for a comic book movie. That could make it the 2nd-biggest opening day ever for a film from the X-Men franchise, trailing only the first day for X-Men 3.

ALL-TIME TOP 10 OPENING DAYS FOR COMIC BOOK ADAPTATIONS
1. The Dark Knight – $67.1M
2. Spider-Man 3 – $59.8M
3. X-Men: The Last Stand – $45.1M
4. Spider-Man 2 – $40.4M
5. Spider-Man – $39.4M
6. Iron Man – $35.2M
7. X-2: X-Men United – $31.25M
8. Watchmen – $24.5M
9. Hulk – $24.2M
10. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer – $22M

There is always room for an inspired piece of counter-programming, and Warner Bros is apparently executing just that. The Matthew McConaughey-Jennifer Garner-Michael Douglas rom-com Ghosts of Girlfriends Past could reach a very solid $18M by appealing to Females 25 Plus.

The only other wide release is Battle For Terra (Lionsgate/Roadside Atttractions), a sci-fi 3-D release unluckily sandwiched between Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) and Pixar’s Up (Disney) on the 3-D release schedule. Despite essentially decent early reviews (70% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), Terra will not be putting up much of a Battle. The 3-D screen count will be low, and there has been no real marketing money spent on getting this one launched. I’m predicting about $3.4M, which might be enough to “sneak it” into the top twelve for the frame.

FINAL PREDICTIONS FOR THE WEEKEND OF MAY 1-3
1. NEW – X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) – $92M
2. NEW – Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner Bros) – $18M
3. Obsessed (Sony) – $10.2M
4. 17 Again (Warner Bros) – $6.5M
5. Earth (Disney) – $5.6M
6. Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $5.5M
7. The Soloist (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $5M
8. State of Play (Universal) – $4.3M
9. Hannah Montana The Movie (Disney) – $3.9M
10. Fighting (Rogue) – $3.8M
11. Fast & Furious (Universal) – $3.5M
12. NEW – Battle For Terra (Lionsgate) – $3.4M

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.

Beyonce does battle with the sexy Ali Larter (HEROES) in OBSESSED

OPENINGS FOR BEYONCE MOVIES
1. Austin Powers: Goldmember – $70.3M opening
2. Obsessed – $27.5M opening (projected)
3. Pink Panther (2006) – $20.2M opening
4. Dreamgirls – $14.1M wide break (after a platform start)
5. The Fighting Temptations – $11.7M opening
6. Cadillac Records – $3.4M opening

Now a million-selling solo artist with ubiquitous hits like Irreplaceable and Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It), she is beginning to cash in at the box office. She parlayed supporting roles in Mike Myers Austin Powers: Goldmember and Steve Martin’s Pink Panther into the showy Deena Jones role in the film adaptation of Dreamgirls, which topped $100M domestic (although the most of the awards hardware was ultimately taken home by Jennifer Hudson, winning Best Supporting Actress at both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards). Beyonce received generally good notices for her turn as Etta James in Cadillac Records in December, although the movie was a box office dud with just $8.2M domestic. Now she has managed a surprise hit on her own with Obsessed.

By all accounts the movie is not very good. Sony didn’t screen it for critics, and the early reviews trickling in decidedly negative (25% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). Perhaps the excellent Pete Hammond from Hollywood.com sums it up best saying, “It’s strictly a generic thriller, perhaps the 105th blatant rip-off of Fatal Attraction, but not without its own guilty pleasures.” My hunch is that there is some trashy fun here with a “girl-on-girl smackdown” (Geoff Berkshire’s words from his review on Metromix.com), and the other girl is the stunning Ali Larter from NBC’s Heroes. Still when all is said and done, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine (Fox) and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner Bros) starring Matthew McConaughey, both due next Friday, are certain to make Obsessed a one-week wonder, and it may get a speeding ticket on its way to home video.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE kicks off the summer next Friday

Even if Beyonce’s “movie legs” aren’t as long as her real (and shapely) legs, Obsessed has set a new opening record for the last weekend of April, traditionally a studio dumping ground for schlock and tough-to-sell movies.

ALL-TIME TOP 10 OPENINGS ON LAST WEEKEND OF APRIL
1. Obsessed (2009) – $27.5M (projected)
2. Mean Girls (2004) – $24.4M
3. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe (2005) – $21.1M
4. Baby Mama (2008) – $17.4M
5. RV (2006) – $16.4M
6. Identity (2003) – $16.2M
7. Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (2008) – $14.9M
8. XXX: State of the Union (2005) – $12.7M
9. Driven (2001) – $12.1M
10. United 93 (2006) – $11.5M

Former A&F model Channing Tatum is flexing his box office muscle this weekend in FIGHTING

Aside from the monstrous upside surprise for Obsessed, the strong performance of Fighting (Rogue) ranks as the biggest box office upset of the weekend. This Channing Tatum vehicle from his A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints director Dito Montiel didn’t seem to have much traction in pre-release audience tracking, but the PG-13 street fighting yarn has actually delivered the second-best Friday gross with about $4.46M. It will be pretty front-loaded, but should still reach a better-than-expected $12M by Monday, enough for second-place.

Zac Efron is proving to be a little less durable among the teen and pre-teen set than I would have thought. 17 Again (Warner Bros), also starring Matthew Perry and Mrs. Judd Apatow (Leslie Mann) has delivered a second Friday in the $3.85M range. The weekend could hit $10.83M or so, second for the 3-day, for a new 10-day cume of $39.13M, but that represents a deeper-than-expected 54% drop.

Next comes the long-delayed Robert Downey Jr./Jamie Foxx project The Soloist (Dreamworks/Paramount). Originally slated for December with hopes of a Best Actor nomination for Downey, Jr., the Joe Wright-directed tearjerker was first moved to March before settling into this unfriendly last weekend of April slot. Reviews are respectable (61% Fresh on RT) and Downey, Jr. and Foxx both have real drawing power. At just over 2,000 playdates, the movie has managed a tuneful $3.43M (#4 for the day) to start the frame, and opening weekend could reach $10.29M, good for fourth place. The 25 Plus appeal, especially with women, gives this one a chance to do respectable business over the next couple of weekends as counter-programming to the first few summer blockbusters.

A Great White Shark lunging out of the ocean to snatch a seal in Disney's EARTH

Rounding out the top five, and a bit of a disappointment, is Earth (Disney). The studio’s calculated use of Earth Day to release its Cliffs Notes version of the BBC miniseries Planet Earth has, however, paid some dividends. The 11-hour miniseries has been boiled down to the cutest and scariest animals along with the most fascinating images and picturesque landscapes in a tight 90-minute package, and the re-purposed result generated just over $4M for Wednesday’s Earth Day celebration, adding another $1.6M or so on Thursday. Now the nature doc, which is running at 83% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, has slumped to an estimated $2.9M in Friday sales. It will play big with family audiences on Saturday and Sunday (the kids will be unable to resist baby polar bears sliding down a snowy arctic slope), but I am penciling in Earth for a 3-day of only $10M. That still gives it the biggest 3-day opening ever for a nature doc, although this is also the widest opening ever for a movie of this type.

ALL-TIME TOP 3-DAY OPENINGS FOR NATURE DOCS
- total domestic cumes included -
1. Earth – $9.39M (projected)
2. March of the Penguins – $7.1M opening – $77.4M cume
3. Two Brothers – $6.1M opening – $19.1M cume
4. Winged Migration – $470,000 biggest weekend – $10.7M cume
5. Arctic Tale -  $207,000 opening – $830,000 cume

2004’s Two Brothers, a story of tiger cubs from director Jean-Jacques Annaud, was a wide release like Earth, but the other 3 films listed above were platformed. Disney’s abridged version of Planet Earth has no chance of reaching the staggering success of 2005’s March of the Penguins, but Earth could get to the $30M range even with summer’s biggest guns blazing starting next Friday.

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY FRIDAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Obsessed (Sony) – $11M, $4,375 PTA, $11M cume
2. NEW – Fighting (Rogue) – $4.46M, $1,932 PTA, $4.46M cume
3. 17 Again (Warner Bros) – $3.85M, $1,183 PTA, $32.15M cume
4. NEW – The Soloist (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $3.2M, $1,581 PTA, $3.2M cume
5. NEW – Earth (Disney) – $2.9M, $1,608 PTA, $8.54M cume
6. State of Play (Universal) – $2.08M, $741 PTA, $20.31M cume
7. Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $2.05M, $579 PTA, $168.34M cume
8. Fast & Furious (Universal) – $1.93M, $541 PTA, $141.09M cume
9. Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) – $1.77M, $548 PTA, $60.98M cume
10. Crank: High Voltage (Lionsgate) – $850,000, $382 PTA, $9.96M cume

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Obsessed (Sony) – $27.5M, $10,939 PTA, $27.5M cume
2. NEW – Fighting (Rogue) – $12M, $5,197 PTA, $12M cume
3. 17 Again (Warner Bros) – $10.83M, $3,327 PTA, $39.13M
4. NEW – The Soloist (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $10.29M, $5,084 PTA, $10.29M cume
5. NEW – Earth (Disney) – $10M, $5,543 PTA, $15.64M cume
6. Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $8.5M, $2,531 PTA, $174.79M cume
7. State of Play (Universal) – $7.1M, $2,529 PTA, $25.33M cume
8. Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) – $6.65M, $2,058 PTA, $65.86M cume
9. Fast & Furious (Universal) – $5.79M, $1,625 PTA, $144.95M cume
10. Crank: High Voltage (Lionsgate) – $2.8M, $1,259 PTA, $11.91M cume

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.

The 4 new wide releases and 1 major specialty release set to debut this weekend will face an onslaught of mega-hits over the next month. How can Obsessed (Sony), Earth (Disney), The Soloist, (Dreamworks/Paramount), Fighting (Rogue) and The Informers (Senator) possibly find an audience with X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Fox) and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (Warner Bros) arriving next weekend followed by, in successive weeks, Star Trek (Paramount), Angels & Demons (Sony), the combo of Night at the Museum 2 (Fox) and Terminator: Salvation (Fox) and Disney/Pixar’s Up?

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE starring Hugh Jackman will be unleashed next weekend

End of April starters have tended to be genre pics like 2003’s Identity and The Invisible (2007), mid-budget messes that have fallen short of expectations like the ridiculous Next (2007) starring Nicolas Cage and XXX: State of the Union in ’05, and tough-to-sell pictures like the excellent United 93 (2006) from director Paul Greengrass and the good-hearted 2006 movie Akeelah & the Bee. Tina Fey is the unofficial queen of the last weekend of April, writing and starring in Mean Girls and mugging her way through Baby Mama with Amy Poehler last year.

30 ROCK's Tina Fey has starred in 2 of the 3 biggest last weekend of April openers ever

ALL-TIME TOP 10 OPENINGS ON LAST WEEKEND OF APRIL
1. Mean Girls (2004) – $24.4M
2. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe (2005) – $21.1M
3. Baby Mama (2008) – $17.4M
4. RV (2006) – $16.4M
5. Identity (2003) – $16.2M
6. Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (2008) – $14.9M
7. XXX: State of the Union (2005) – $12.7M
8. Driven (2001) – $12.1M
9. United 93 (2006) – $11.5M
10. Stick It (2006) – $10.8M

The likely weekend winner will be either Obsessed or Disney’s nature doc Earth, which opened Wednesday to about $4M, but I am giving the nod to recording superstar Beyonce despite the fact that Sony has kept its exploitative-looking thriller completely under wraps. Under its Screen Gems banner, Sony knows how to squeeze one good weekend out of movie like this regardless of how bad it is. Last year, Screen Gems scored excellent 3-day starts for sub-par movies like Prom Night ($20.8M), First Sunday ($17.7M), Lakeview Terrace ($15M), Quarantine ($14.2M) and Untraceable ($11.3M). Industry tracking suggests that Beyonce could drive the certain-to-be-forgettable Obsessed to a decent $15M opening weekend, and it will likely play very well at inner city theatre properties.

That would push Earth to #2 for the frame. The Earth Day opening was successful, and critics love the film (83% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). Family audiences love cute baby animals so Disney has excerpted the amazing BBC miniseries Planet Earth to fashion their own March of the Penguins-style narrative nature doc. It’s hard to imagine anything cuter than baby polar bears sliding down a snow bank, and it’s hard to come up with anything scarier than a Great White Shark lunging out of the water after its prey. I have seen the full length miniseries, but not Disney’s movie. Still it’s hard to imagine this not being unbelievably compelling stuff, even in its 90 minute theatrical version (although I still recommend tracking down the full BBC series instead). I am forecasting a possible $13.2M for 3-days, which would mean a 5-day start of just over $19M.

Last weekend’s champ, 17 Again (Warner Bros) starring ‘tween heartthrob Zac Efron, should hold up fairly well. The word-of-mouth is very positive, and that could mean a drop of only 46% or so to about $12.7M and a new cume of just over $40M by Monday.

Oscar nominee Robert Downey, Jr. (TROPIC THUNDER) and Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx (RAY) star in THE SOLOIST

The Joe Wright-directed The Soloist has been juggled around the release schedule with abandon, but it has been very well marketed with a heavy TV campaign, especially during shows geared for the 25+ crowd. The reviews are a mixed bag (54% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but there will be some business in this title. Some of my sources are saying $12M-$14M, but I am calling for a possible $11.6M.

The well-reviewed Russell Crowe journalism thriller State of Play (Universal) will almost certainly hang onto a spot in the top 5. The dip will be gentle (maybe 35%-40%), and this very good adult film could generate another $9M in ticket sales.

FINAL PREDICTION FOR APRIL 24-26
1. NEW – Obsessed (Sony) – $15M
2. NEW – Earth (Disney) – $13.2M
3. 17 Again (Warner Bros) – $12.7M
4. NEW – The Soloist (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $11.6M
5. State of Play (Universal) – $9M
6. Monsters vs. Aliens (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $7.9M
7. Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) – $7.4M
8. NEW – Fighting (Rogue) – $7M
9. Fast & Furious (Universal) – $5.8M
10. Crank: High Voltage (Lionsgate) – $2.8M
11. Knowing (Summit) – $2M
12. NEW – The Informers (Senator) – $1.7M

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.

I knew they were going to get punked! They were going to Punkedville! In fact, I was so sure of it, I was the one who broke the story in the US off the French wires to Drudge and Nikki Finke.  One Hollywood Jihadi PR roadside bomb detonated. War Is Hell.

Look at their trip from my POV. I remember the whole balls-to-the-wall anti-Apartheid campaign from the mid-eighties. ‘I Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City,’ remember? By the way, wasn’t Little Stevie great in that video? Love him! Point being, if the racist South African apartheid regime was unworthy of cultural exchange, why was the gay-hanging, women-stoning, child-executing, blogger-killing, hostage-taking fascist regime in Iran worthy of a gold-plated Academy PR kiss?

But let us start at the beginning. I first started dabbling in screenwriting about ten years ago. Had a couple successes with short stories in years before, but started getting some movie ideas. Lot less words, too. Way less typing. So I’m lazy, okay? I admit it! Anyway, I got my first real success in Hollywood out of the blue back in early 2005, with a script I’d been working on for five years. My first.

Did very well in amateur competitions all over. Even passed a gauntlet of judges comprised of some of the top talents in the industry. Made the Top Ten out of well over a thousand scripts submitted to that contest, and it was a Big One! Yahoo!

My first Hollywood Scream. From here in New Hampshire. Probably could have heard me in Hollywood, too! Anyway, it resulted in a couple jaunts to the Friendly Skies of A-List Red Carpet bashes at the WGA Theater as a screenwriting finalist. Open bar! Something else to Scream about! Rubbed elbows, did the whole Jed Clampett thing, you know? Total rube first trip out. Duh-h-h! But I thought I was a lock in Hollywood now.

Took me a year of grueling pitching and marketing to finally option my script. Have finished two since, one of which resulted in my own ill-advised tangling with my two coverage providers, with whom I strongly disagreed on their assessments of my Great American Screenplay.

Know better now. They’re in, I’m not. There’s a reason for that. Got it. Regardless of the difficulties, and the fact that my option has since lapsed (not unusual for this vicinity), my successes with amateur contests and an option had me feeling pretty good. Inspired me to go forward.

My coverage providers and I are now BFF. On the same page. They even say now my work is getting much better. Dialogue, in particular. And that’s okay. We seek progress, not perfection. And more open bars. By the way, as a conservative Republican, I was a little shaky heading into the Lair of the Beast. Though very excited over the Awards Galas, I somewhat feared that one wrong word could end my screenwriting career very quickly. In fact, I was ecstatic to discover a total disinterest in politics with all the people I met.

And they were ALL phenomenal people, especially all the ground-level types like me trying to take off. Actors and actresses, filmmakers, fellow writers. It was all about living life and the dream, all the time. Better than Viagra. I could have no higher opinion of the real worker bees in Hollywood. And a number of A-listers that were generous enough to give my Jed Clampett the time of day. And let us not forget the Open Bar. Screams all around!

Had even more Screams at the 2006 Screenwriting Expo, to which I got a great Gold Pass discount as a Semifinalist in their competition. Alas, no Open Bar. But a Human Circus Par Excellence!

So here I am in the present day, working on my fourth script, IMHO the best of the bunch, a contemporary, high-concept, low-to-medium budget screwball romantic comedy that is actually a loving tribute to the Oscars and the Academy itself. Really crazy stuff, but all in fun. Treated everyone special, the Academy in particular. And I could not have been more inspired by the story, the concept and the absolutely crazy characters I had populated it with.

See, what REALLY made the Academy special to me were board members like Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, Producer Kathleen Kennedy, even the Great Fonz, Henry Winkler. Loved their work, loved their efforts for the Academy, and just loved who they all were, and are. Cream of the Crop. It broke my heart to have to use the instrument of my Hollywood dreams as a weapon of war against them.

I don’t want to rehash all that. It’s beating a dead horse now.

But any Hollywood illusions I had about some of the top names in Show Biz being the human rights champions they claimed to be have been thoroughly shattered. Dustin Lance Black has been dead silent on Iran’s Gay Holocaust, Penn even worse. Not only was Mr. Penn sending flowery Mad Mullah PR dispatches from Tehran, the epicenter of today’s Auschwitz for Gays, back in 2005, he now pals around with Hugo Chavez even as gays are persecuted in Venezuela. Some hero. Like this article states correctly, Sean Penn may not be a gay rights advocate, but he plays one on TV.

Like Annette Bening praising women’s rights in Iran, both have done extraordinary damage to the cause of gay and women’s rights there. Not only did they completely overlook or ignore the real horrors of modern-day Islamist Iran for women and gays, they gave that extremist Hitlerite regime its PR blessings with not one word of condemnation. And Team Oscar is just as guilty as they are, giving theirs and the Academy’s PR blessing to today’s Third Reich. None could deserve it less.

They may say they separated politics from art (and have), but in an all-powerful Hitlerite regime, there is no separation of anything from ideology. Not only does Iran have a film industry worthy of Goebbels, they’ve even sentenced filmmakers to death for celluloid slanders!  Iranian-American filmmaker Esha Momeni is now awaiting trial in Iran on the same charges.

What makes Iran worthy of cultural exchange and South Africa not? South Africa wasn’t sentencing filmmakers to death or exterminating anyone. Certainly not the gays Hollywood Heroes like Penn and Black so profess to represent.

And I said I wasn’t going to beat a dead horse. I’m a writer! Whattaya want?

All that said, I do want to praise, rather than bury, some top-shelf Hollywood players who could not be more honorable in their outspoken, and out-of-pocket, humanitarian efforts to help the helpless and make the world a truly better place, at least for some.

Jim Carrey. Angelina Jolie. Brad Pitt. Matt Damon. Don Cheadle. Jerry Weintraub. George Clooney (though I am upset that he didn’t slam Team Oscar for staying in Iran during this) and father Nick. Mia Farrow. The list in Hollywood really is a long one.

And all that doesn’t even take into account all the Hollywood heroes to our heroes in uniform: Bruce Willis, Gary Sinise, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Davi, Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black. Again, far too many to mention. But I thank them all. Cream of the Crop Every One!

But boy, are the bad apples really stinking up the joint! And you can tell who they are. They visit dictatorships to fawn over strongmen like stooges once fawned over Hitler. They praise systems or heroes that are abject failures or worse while denying or deriding our own worthy heroes and endeavors. They talk a great story, like Penn and Black, but all it takes is a few Google searches to sniff out the BS.

By the way, Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez kicked Human Rights Watch out of the country, but still welcomes with open arms Sean Penn, Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte. Don’t answer, it’s a rhetorical statement. Although I do believe now Mr. Penn will make a great Stooge. Practice makes perfect. You can call it the Stalinovsky Method.

So there it all is. This officially wraps Adventures in the Scream Trade. Tired of the bad screaming. Wishing for a lot more good. All things considered, I’m expecting a lot more of the former than the latter. I can only say Thank You to John Nolte and Andrew Breitbart et al here at Big Hollywood for giving me this forum to address you, My Dear Hollywood Readers and Fine Human Beings Everywhere, on the important issues of our day.

And how to know BS when you smell it. Hell, I’m choking on it. Stinks to the Hollywood Hills!

Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams!