Ashton Kutcher Is All Your Fault
Cinema's most annoying actor is absolutely your fault, because you keep going to see movies that he is in! Stop doing that! But please keep going to see The King's Speech, because that makes us look good.
1) No Strings Attached — $20.3M
Well, you've gone and done it. I hope you're happy with yourselves. I mean, you do know what you've done, don't you? By seeing this movie this weekend and making it a hit, you've now ensured that some cheese-eating studio executive will someday very soon say "Oh, I know who'd be great for the male lead: Ashton. I mean, he just had a hit with Strings." Whereas before this, people might have looked at the epic failure of Killers and not made him their top choice. But no. You've gone and seen this movie and now they'll hardly even count Killers anymore. I don't care if you went to see the movie for Natalie Portman. Ashton Kutcher is in it. You need to be more responsible. You wouldn't send money to the Nazis just because you think Germany is beautiful, would you? I don't think so. So I don't care if he's the third extra on the left in a movie starring Meryl Streep, the ghost of Jack Lemmon, and Tina Fey. You can't see that movie. You can't see that movie even if there's a 30-minute-long Taylor Kitsch/Andrew Garfield sex scene. You can't see that movie if they're giving out hundred dollar bills with the popcorn. They are tricky and they are trying to get you to see movies with Ashton Kutcher in them, so they can put him in more movies. You must and should resist this. Even if the movie is called Brooklyn Decker's Tits for Three Hours, if Ashton Kutcher even appears in one single frame of the film, you cannot see this movie. Got it? Good. Don't fuck this up again.
2) The Green Hornet — $18.1M
I'm tempted to say "repeat above, only switching out Ashton Kutcher for Seth Rogen," but I don't think I will. I don't think Seth Rogen quite deserves that yet. Though, I would urge everyone to not see any movies involving superheroes or other masked crime fighters for a long, long while. I mean, are people still even enjoying them? Remember Iron Man 2? That was certainly no good. The aforementioned Andrew Garfield is going to set loins ablaze when he does Spider-Man next year or whenever, but beyond that, what have we got? Thor? Captain America? Pretty bleak, folks. Let's maybe just stop saying "Yes" to these movies and then they'll move on to some new trend that we'll like at first and then get horribly sick of. We have the power! We are the engines and energy of this whole thing! I mean, look what happened with Gretchen Mol! Hollywood, big mean Hollywood, was all "Here, like this person. Like her!! We command you to like her!" But then the unwashed masses, as a solid unified entity, put their hands up and said "No. No. We will not like her." So it's happened before. And it can happen again. Power to the people!
3) The Dilemma — $9.7M
Not a terrific second week for this dark-seeming comedy. Is Winona Ryder's hot streak over??? Ha, no, I don't think it's even getting started yet. But when it does, I hope it lasts a long, long time, because, and this is crazy to think about, I've enjoyed her for twenty years. Twenty years! Hachi machi, it is weird to think about that. More than twenty years even! Oh man, the world is terribly old. But not Winona Ryder! No, she, of course, is young forever. Mind you, I'm not telling you to go see The Dilemma. I'm just urging you to silently root for her and try to will other, less discerning people to go see The Dilemma and pad its coffers, and thus hers. I think that's fair.
4) The King's Speech — $9.1M
I'm so heartened by this film's success. Not that it's the most complex movie in the world, but I do like that Americans, dumb cornstarch exhaust fumed Americans, are going to see, in large numbers, a movie starring no terribly huge movie stars that's about old British people and speech therapy. I mean, isn't that kind of impressive? Of course, it's reflexively depressing that this is all it takes for us to be impressed with ourselves as a nation, but still! Yay, Americans! Good number four movie choice, two weeks in a row. Sure there's Ashton and Hornet up there, sure. But don't worry, no one notices that stuff. They're looking right at The King's Speech there and saying "Maybe I won't just plunder their clothing stores and gadget emporiums with my all-powerful pound/Euro when I'm there on holiday. Maybe I'll get to know some people, too." That's what they're thinking when they see a movie like The King's Speech in our top five box office. So feel good about that.
9) Yogi Bear — $4M
Then they see this and it's all ruined again.