$ummer

My estimates for the summer:

Pirates 3 - 390 million

Spiderman 3 - 360 million

Shrek 3 - 320 million

Transformers - 24o million

Potter - 235 million

Bourne Ultimatum - 185 million

Surf's Up - 180 million

Oceans 13 - 150 million

Fantastic Four - 170 million

Knocked Up - 160 million

Ratatouille - 140 million

Die Hard 4 - 130 million

License to Wed - 150 million

Chuck & Larry - 120 million

Mr. Brooks - 110 million

Evan Almighty - 90 million

Hostel 2 - 75 million

1408 - 60 million

28 Weeks Later - 30 million

Bomb of the summer - I Know Who Killed Me (sorry Linds) - I bet it won't clear 20.

Possible sleepers of the summer: Superbad & Hotrod

Finally My Meme (Updated!)

Been out of the loop for the past week due to CPU issues (thanks, Comcast!). That MovieQuill punk tagged me to answer his 5 things nobody knows about me meme. Here goes.

I had to go back and add this. Consider this 1A - I thought it'd be a good addition to my list, so I guess I got six things listed. Anyway:

White pregnant with me, my mom smoked like a chimney and worked in some kind of plant, and I was born with a birth defect! Thanks, Ma! Bitch! Anyway, the middle of my chest was sunken in. Sweet!

Had operation when I was 5 by C. Everett Koop (went on to be Surgeon General). And they installed a metal plate in my chest so I wouldn't die and all (I wouldn't have made it to my teens they said). Now I've got a cool scar to prove it! And no, I do not set off metal detectors.

1. Growing up, I'd eat salad plain. No dressing. I finally upgraded to French in my 20s, and now in my 30s I'm moved up to Creamy Italian, too.

2. First movie experience that I remember - Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind - Got scared shitless, made Grandparents get me the hell out of there. The fucking toys came alive, man!!!

3. Career - Growing up, I wanted to study oceans. Then I wanted to be a forest ranger. Then a pilot, preferrably of an Apache helicopter. Then I wanted to be an Architect. Then I graduated high school and did squat for a few years. Finally I decided to become an actor. I met my future wife, she put the kabosh on that and I decided to study journalism, which led to screenwriting, which led to producing & directing, which led to producing & directing extremely low budget movies that went nowhere, which led me back to screenwriting. Too late to study oceans?

4. I have a hatred for assholes who smoke in front of their kids. Hey guys, you're killing them!! I saw some dopey bitch driving the other day, her window cracked, her cigarette dangling from her ashtray mouth, and her little kid is in the backseat sucking in the smoke. Real nice, dope! Might as well just shoot him. By the way, guys are obviously as guilty, I was just using this lady as an example. I've seen plenty of dopey pricks doing the same thing.

It also bothers me to no end when I see kids/babies not buckled, or sitting in the front passenger seat with their mommies - Hey people, if you get into an accident your kid is gonna get torn to shreds - Wake up, fuckers.

5. I've never been to a strip club. Nope. I'm 34 now, and I've never been. And we have a few around here, I've just never gone.

So, I shall now tag Tommygun Crymes & Scriptweaver, mainly since they're bastards and haven't posted in a long damn time.

3:10 To Yuma

This just looks great. Directed by James Mangold, it stars Christian Bale, Russell Crowe (playing a really bad guy), and Peter Fonda, in a really cool western. Coming October 5th. Could be Oscar bait!

Norton = Hulk

Edward Norton has been cast as the Hulk in the sequel to Hulk, called The Incredible Hulk. That's a lot of Hulk. He's a great actor, so I think it could work. Thoughts?

Oh Uwe

If you wanna get pissed off, check out this link for a horrible trailer from the WORST director/boxer working in movies - Uwe Boll. It's for his latest piece of videogame-to-movie garbage, Postal. The link takes you to joblo.com, then just click on the trailer. Simply tasteless.

Wah-Wah

What movies make you cry like a little bitch? C'mon, be honest. Here's some of mine:

Old Yeller - Brutal, especially when I was young. He shot poor Yeller in the face, man! And throwing him a freakin' puppy at the end is useless. He'll probably just blow it away some day anyways. Thanks, Disney.

White Dog - Movie about a racist dog starring Kristy McNichol & Paul Winfield. Pretty bad movie, and any racial theme went well over my head at the time, all I know is at the end a really pretty doggy is lying in a pool of its own blood.

King Kong (late 70s with Jeff Bridges). Hey, I was young, man. Cried myself to sleep that night. Thump-thump...thump-thump...thump.....

The Elephant Man - All he wanted to be was normal, and get a decent night of sleep! Poor bastard.

ET - This is a no-brainer. Fucked me up for weeks.

Gallipoli - You won't breathe for the last 10 minutes of this.

Platoon - Powerful stuff. The ending always gets me.

Field of Dreams - Yeah, that's a big one. Great, great movie, too.

Dead Man Walking - I cried at this, not because I felt bad for the brutal rapist (Sean Penn) but I think at the whole screwed up tragedy of the situation. Powerful film.

Saving Private Ryan - I sobbed at this. Sobbed! Most I've ever cried at a movie. Ever. Starting with Jackson's death through the death of capt. miller, I felt the tears coming, then went into a full waterfall by the end in the cemetery.

United 93 - Amazing, amazing movie. Can't take my eyes off the screen for this, but the part that gets me bad is when one of the guys on the plane (I forget the name of the guy) is saying that he loves his wife, and "his boys." He knows he'll likely never see them again, and in that moment you can sense that all he wants is for them to grow up and live amazing lives.

Your turn!

R.I.P. Premiere Magazine

Damn, I've had a subscription to this mag for years, since 1989. The 1st issue I received had Indy 3's Harrison Ford & Stevie Spielberg on the cover.

With movie news galore all over the net, it's certainly past its prime. But I always got a kick out of getting the latest issue and filling up on pretty useless movie trivia and news about upcoming releases.

Premiere - godspeed.

Poster Coolness

I came across this pretty cool poster for MR. BROOKS, an upcoming Kevin Costner summer movie (thriller) that's getting good "buzz." I like it because it doesn't throw the typical dopey faces photo-shopped onto the poster.

And don't forget this classic poster, from the great STRAW DOGS (threatening to be remade, by the way):