Blech. I can’t imagine what a Russell Brand kiss would be like. I imagine sort of like the mashing of sweetly decaying mango with the hairy tickle of an ape called Trudy.
You guys, though — you guys think he’s a movie God derived straight from Zeus’s naughty place. Behold what you’ve done.
1) Hop — $21.7 Million
A drunk bunny living in a penthouse. He’s walking the streets of New York City hoping to find love, a purpose, possibly a mother figure conjured out of a shrewish Mary Poppins person but with less singing, and more commentary than is comfortable about his sexual exploits. Since the biggest fear a drunk bunny can ever have is being a destitute drunk bunny, he needs to find a wife. Preferably one who’s obviously in the rages of a severe career meltdown to have thought hanging out with a drunk bunny, and his bevy of unfunny jokes about being a stunted toddler, was the way to say to the world, “Hey, I’m not just the wife of an actor whose best movie was being the best friend of another actor. Oh, no! I’m my own person. I’m funny. See! I’m funny!” cry, garble, cry, crumple-face. But the drunk bunny doesn’t want Jennifer Garner as his love interest. No, he wants Greta Gerwig, strange, indie, earnest-faced sibling-esque Gerwig, with whom he actually has no romantic chemistry, mostly because the world is really all about him, and his silly pants, and his Silly-Putty face-mush, and his desperate, all consuming need for us to love him, his bunny feet, and his dervish of random banter resulting in the destruction of comedy as we know it.
2) Arthur — $12.6 Million
Russell Brand (in a top hat no less!) and James Marsden are roommates! This dynamic duo team of Bosom Buddies is all about rock and roll, chicks (like literally) and Holiday Jesus marshmallow fun! R.Bro and J.Dude are going to set the world on fire with their ability to woo the likes of any upright standing female, from popstars to c-list actresses. No one will ever be better at catching the ladies than these two. Except they need to have access, and a ladies-only apartment building is just the place. Uh-oh…but they’re guys. What will they do? Well, of course dress up as women and move in! Hopefully no one will notice the two broad shouldered, coarse-haired, gigantic ladies with Adam apples the size of the Chrysler building. Of course they won’t. But every time these two lotharios come in close contact with the unsuspecting ladies, something wonky happens and oops what do you know hijinks ensue complete with make-up, pantyhose, and wigs made from the regenerating scalp Donald Trump keeps in a hyperbaric chamber. While Brand falls all over himself with his palsy-ridden, elastic bones — Marsden will keep the ladies entertained with his shirtless meanderings and mouth as wide as two Julia Roberts mandibles full of Velociraptor teeth and the skinless skulls of various paparazzi!
(Does it really matter that these two movies are completely different? No. It’s all interchangeable really. America has made no distinction between Russell Brand and the existence of movies that he isn’t the star of.)
3) Hanna — $12.3 Million
A blond snow princess will break all your body bones and then run for hours. This movie should have been titled, Hanna Will Run Nonstop — Pop Your Tibia — And Then Run Some More. The End. No, seriously, this was really it. Oh, some people will be all angry weird because she’s a running, bone-crunching machine. I imagine there are uses for these types of teenagers in the world. Instead of texting, sexting, and twittering their Facebooks off and the like, they should be trained to dislocate shoulders. I think this could be a useful trade. Sort of like working for the DMV. The people at the DMV secretly love their jobs, especially watching you walk from line to line, just to say that you don’t have Form B, or you didn’t fill out section 17a, and then send you back to line 4, which hasn’t moved in over an hour because line 6, which you’re currently in, sends everyone back to line 4. Yes, yes, I think there is joy in this. And so would there be for patella-punching teens. Imagine the DMV with more Kung Fu and broken kneecaps! Fantastic. Teens need an outlet, I think. I’d rather they slap an eardrum than let the bastion of exploitation named Teen Mom decide their futures. Right? Right.
4) Soul Surfer — $11.1 million
Well, obviously, if you want to see some sort of religious movie that stars a vicious non-human creature than you should see Hop, or Russell Brand and James Marsden yukking it up, or Peter Scolari doing dinner theatre in Albuquerque while he writes threatening messages to Tom Hanks. No, no, that’s not it. You should probably see this little movie about a girl with one arm and prayer. Or maybe not. This country is sad. We don’t like miracle sea-limbs. We’d much rather see a drunk vaudevillian carnival carney with Land of the Lost Chaka-brows. Yes, that’s it. Sorry soul-surfing teen with your celestial surf board. You’re really no match for the anointed, walking Katy Perry tattoo. He’s really that unstoppable. Maybe if you crash into him with your board and can maybe pop some patellas, like the snow princess who may have burst from Eric Bana’s boring loins, you may stand a chance of dethroning our new president, King Hairy Chuckle-Pants.
5) Insidious — $9.7 Million
Have they really tried to rid the house of all evil? Not just the little evils that live in the basement, or the attic, or under the sink. But all the little dusty evils under the bed? Because obviously, when they work their way up to the bed proper, they get caught in the mattress folds and then you have an infestation. That’s what leads to possession. It’s not really the evil you can see and hear. It’s the teeny, tiny, little evils that you can take with you to your office. The ones that stick to your desk chair and the carpeting. Next thing you know, you need an exorcism in your bedroom, and then at your office, because all the evils have procreated and multiplied. Now you have evils and devils. The devils…yeah, those are just the worst. They just impregnate everything. Next thing you know you have to burn your sheets, because you can’t just wash out the devil. You literally have to set it on fire and then buy all new things. But you better make sure you’ve completely rid the house of everything, or they’ll just come back, with more and more, because they’re so stubborn those evils and the devils. So just be sure you get it all.
Apropos of Nothing:
Your Highness came in sixth place raking in $9.5 million, which means Natalie Portman’s brilliant Oscar follow-up was this close to getting in the top five this weekend, which would have meant at least something redeemable, maybe. To not even get on the board means starring in this movie was as bad a decision as she thought it would be. She’ll laugh it off, though. And when someone brings it up, she’ll look really tight in the face and remark how genius she thinks James Franco is and how much she’d like to work with him in the future on a more serious project. To which Franco will say, “Bong! Pass it over.”
