Loaded Couch Potatoes

After a couple of high-profile box-office weekends, this one was just plain old boring.  Thing are going to be lively enough come Wednesday, though, so don’t feel too bad for all those ticket sellers and popcorn slingers.

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July the 4th fell on a Saturday this year, so rib bones and corn-on-the-cobb put a bit of a dent in the box-office.  Or did it?

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What the fuck, America?

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According to Variety, the Oscars will, beginning in 2010, begin nominating ten movies for Best Picture.  This will be the first time since 1943 that the Academy has nominated that many films for its top prize; that year’s winner was Casablanca.

The move toward more nominess seems to be specifically engineered to include more popular films, and, I suspect, to boost ratings for the telecast of the show.

So, what box-office champs will benefit from the decision this year?  Could we be looking at the first-ever Best Picture-nominated Star Trek movie?  Or could Pixar finally get their due?  I’ll go ahead and put my bet on The Hangover, and I make to you this promise: if Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is nominated for Best Picture, I will never watch the Oscars again.

So … did the three dudes with headaches hang over to a third weekend at the top of the box office?

Hah-hah-heh-hah-hah!  Get it?  Hang over?  Ooh-eeh-hooh-hah-hah!  (EDITOR’S NOTE: Ting-tang, walla-walla bang-bang…?)

You know, like the movie The Hangover!  Is big hit!  You like!

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The Hangover spends a second consecutive weekend at the number one spot, barely staving off a blockbuster opening by Eddie Murphy’s Imagine That.

To find out which part of that is bullshit, keep reading.

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On their most recent podcast, KUFO-Portland’s Cort and Fatboy had an interesting talk with local film critic Mike Russell in which they discussed Pixar’s current box-office goldmine Up.

Russell floated an interesting theory about how to interpret the film … one involving Carl dying at an early point in the movie after being court-ordered to vacate his home.  In this reading of the film, everything in the movie beginning with the morning on which Carl and his helium-powered home take flight represents a deathbed fantasy of how the elderly widower wishes his life could play out.

I have to say that I definitely come down on the Fatboy side of this argument in feeling like this particular reading is probably the wrong way to go.  However, Russell makes some good points, and it’s an entertaining discussion no matter which side of the issue one lands on.

What I ended up taking away from the conversation was no small amount of amazement that a summer kiddie movie could spark this type of conversation.  That, and a renewed conviction that Pixar is the best thing going in Hollywood.

Click here to visit Cort and Fatboy’s website.  The podcast in question is the one labelled Thursday, June 11, 2009 (Part II).  The talk about Up begins at about the 28-minute mark, but as always with Cort and Fatboy, the entire show is well worth a listen.

Who won the weekend?  Was it Will Ferrell, Ed Asner, or Mike Tyson?

Here’s a hint: it wasn’t Will Ferrell.

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Honk Mahfah ranks the ten feature films from Pixar, worst to best.  Heh.  “Worst.”  What a silly word to type in an article about Pixar.

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Honk Mahfah reports on the weekend box-office, which finds Pixar going ten-for-ten at the bat.

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