Scary Movie 4 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The Jan 8-14 print edition of Variety lists the 250 films at the domestic box office in 2006, arranging the numbers in a different way from those of us who compile a top ten of a given year. For one thing, there's a considerable amount of overlap from 2005. For another thing, the prestige films of 2006 hadn't benefited yet from their predicted Oscar boost or a wide release, and dawdle at the end of the list. Anyway, here are the numbers we're sure you cannot live without:

Of the 250 top films of 2006, 23 were sequels (including prequels); 20 were remakes or spinoffs from TV shows (Miami Vice and so forth). Add that number and you have 43. 43 out of 250 means nearly a one out of six chance that you were watching a story you'd seen already in some other form. There were 16 animated films in release, with Cars, of course, as the biggest hit at more than $244 million; the least-earning on the list was Chicken Little, at just over $3 million.

The most successful horror film of the year was Scary Movie 4 (wow, scary) with the $80 million-grossing Saw III in second place; bringing up the rear was the assortment of controversial indie horror flicks, 8 Films to Die For. 18 movies broke the $100 million mark; Borat, at $125 million, is probably the most lucrative subtitled film ever made; no other foreign-language film made more than $10 million.

A few days ago, Slither-maker James Gunn mentioned on his MySpace page that his adorably splattery sci-fi horror rom-com was the receipient of four Fangoria Chainsaw Award nominations. My response was "Hey, cool. Where are the rest of the nominations?!?!?" And now, a few days later, here they are. Neat-o.

Although Fangoria has been doing their annual Chainsaw awards for over a decade now, 2006 marks the very first time the event will be televised, much to the delight of zombie freaks and slasher geeks all over North America. The event will be held in L.A. on October 15th, although the Fuse Network won't be airing it until the 22nd. (Which means if you want to watch the event "un-spoiled," I wish you luck.) Want to throw your own votes into the tally? Fine. You can vote right here, but only between September 1st and 13th (which is a Friday, mwaahaaa!)

After the jump you'll find a complete list of all the 2006 Chainsaw nominees, plus my own predictions on which flicks would win if the event were called Amazing Geek Weinberg's Horror Awards instead of The Chainsaws.

Recent Theatricals

Hoot (New Line) -- That movie where that kid saves those animals. This time it's owls. (filmmaker commentary, six featurettes, blooper reel)

RV (Sony) -- That movie where wacky things happen to jerks on vacation. Only it stars an old Robin Williams instead of a young Chevy Chase. (director commentary, five featurettes, gag reel)

Scary Movie 4 (Dimension) -- Wacky pratfalls and movie references. Part 4. (filmmaker commentary, copious deleted scenes, six featurettes, blooper reel)

Catalog Picks

Apocalypse Now (Paramount) -- This "Complete Dossier" Edition includes both versions of Coppola's classic, and more supplemental material than you'll know what to do with.

Heart Like a Wheel (Anchor Bay) -- Bonnie Bedelia is pretty darn excellent in this forgotten-but-not-gone biopic. (director commentary, retrospective featurette)

Safe Men (Universal) -- Amusing indie mob comedy with a pretty colorful cast: Sam Rockwell, Steve Zahn, Paul Giamatti, Mark Ruffalo ... (director/actor commentary, deleted scenes, short film)

Direct-to-Video

The Hard Corps (Sony) -- Just another Van Damme action flick, but the title makes me giggle. (no extras)

I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (Sony) -- I'll always know this series sucks major butt. (director commentary, featurette)

Snakes on a Train (Asylum) -- Whaaaaat? On a TRAIN? That's just wacky! (filmmaker commentary, featurette)

Survival Island (Showtime) -- The movie Billy Zane doesn't want you to see ... because his girlfriend shows her big naked boobies in it! (no extras)

Despite a lack of pre-release reviews, Silent Hill drew young male audiences to the tune of $20.2 million this weekend, a total that earned it first place in the box office battle, just ahead of last week's champ, Scary Movie 4. Finishing third was the second of the week's three debuts, The Sentinel, which took in $14.6 million -- not a particularly impressive bow, but more than executives reportedly expected. Whatever their feeling about the open, the team behind The Sentinel can take some solace from the fact that they're not connected in any way to American Dreamz, which debuted in the eighth spot with a disappointing $3.7 million on 1500 screens (it earned only $2460/screen, as opposed to $6903 for Silent Hill, and $5196 for The Sentinel).

The top five was rounded out by a pair of animated films: Ice Age: The Meltdown made $12.8 million, bringing its four week total over $165 million (more than twice its budget), while The Wild took in $8.1 million in its second week of release. The full top 10 is after the jump.

Comedy Central has done some serious wooing (is wooing an actual word?) of the Weinstein Brothers, scoring the broadcast cable rights to half a dozen of Weinstein Co.'s newest flicks. Despite the fact that actual work has yet to begin on the film, Sin City 2 is among those properties. I hear you saying "Wait a minute, I don't really think there's a lot of comedy in Sin City." And you are right, for the most part. So instead of Comedy Central, the film will debut on the channel's "sibling" Spike TV -- a much better fit.  In the deal, Comedy Central will also pick up rights to new flick Scary Movie 4 and upcoming Kevin Smith film Clerks 2. This deal should be noted because it may mark the first good programming to air on Spike TV.

Am I excited for Sin City 2. You bet I am. Am I excited for it to be on network television? No ... not really. I don't actually tend to watch much television to begin with, and I can't imagine how heavily butchered this sucker is going to have to be before they'll allow it on cable. Besides, by the time it makes it onto television, I plan on owning the fancy special edition DVD which will no doubt exist.

Today in the podcast: news on the tax incentive exodus, the weekend dominance of Scary Movie 4, and the end of Grind House. But, more importantly, we've narrowed down the options for our new name, and we want you to vote. Note that some of the submissions we received were great, but, unfortunately, were already in use by other sites. So let us know what you think, and we'll post your decisions later this week.

CNN: Cinematical News Network - Suggested by reader Proteus

Cinematicast - Suggested by reader Alex

Cinephilia - Suggested by reader James P.

CINE:TV - Suggested by Karina, writer/host of this podcast

Fill-in-the-Blank - Should we just keep the temp name? That's been thrown out by many including Randall, the producer/editor of this podcast.

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00:00 - Hollywood backlots no longer center of the film universe
03:00 - Robert Rodriguez rumor mill churning: Why did Grind House grind to a halt?
05:23 - Scary Movie 4 wins the box office, with fart jokes and Carmen Electra in tow

Over the religious -- and apparently spoof-filled -- holiday weekend, Scary Movie 4 destroyed the box office competition, taking in $41 million, more than twice that of Ice Age: The Meltdown, its nearest competition. Despite the impressive numbers, however, that total is actually down from the opening weekend of Scary Movie 3, which means that, if the returns for each film in the series decrease at a similar rate, producers will only get worried at about installment #10 (and yes, number five is already being planned). Though it stayed strong in the second spot with $20 million earned for the weekend, Ice Age 2 was down over 40% for the second week running, and looks to be starting what may be a rapid slide down the rankings. In third place this weekend was The Benchwarmers, whose $10 million meant that it just out-earned The Wild, which made a dismal $9.6 million in its opening weekend. Rounding out the top five was Take the Lead which, though down about 45% from last weekend's earnings, still took in $6.7 million.

Notable among the also-rans was the Jennifer Aniston-starrer Friends with Money, which made $805,000 on only 42 screens (an incredible $19,166/screen), which was good enough for 15th place place for the weekend, well above a slew of films with far greater exposure. Full numbers are after the jump.

Two films open wide today, one of which involves Shaq and Dr. Phil chained together (yes, someone has unearthed that old chestnut again), while the other features animals escaping from a zoo to rescue their ... wait a minute. That just sounds so familiar, I'd swear I saw it somewhere before. (Finding Nemo? No, that wasn't it, that was about fish. Toy Story 2? No. Well, sort of, actually.) In sum, a surprising number of critics don't hate Scary Movie 4, and Ty Burr pretty much sums up the reaction to The Wild when he describes it as "Technologically incredible, aesthetically pretty hideous, and narratively lumpy." Details below.

• Scary Movie 4: As there is between our own Scott and Rob, a fair amount of disagreement over this one exists among critics. While no one is really saying its very good, there are some who enjoy the movie for what it is, and feel that its gags succeed more often than their fail. In the other camp, however, are those who think it's a tired, pathetic excuse for a spoof film, and that the series really should have curled up and died a few installments to go. Both groups like Anna Faris, though -- that's something.

• The Wild: Most critics agree that this is just another in the long line of painfully average animated films (and, yes, they all mention its uncanny resemblance to Madagascar) that have hit theaters recently. If you look hard enough, however, you can find a couple of positive reviews (it has a good message, apparently), but they're few and far between.
  

It all started, more or less, with a kooky little movie released way back in 1980. It was called Airplane!, and I think it's one of the finest American comedies ever made. (Yes, I'm serious ... and don't call me Shirley.) Not many young filmmakers can rightfully claim to have created an entirely new sub-genre, but the goofball team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker were just silly enough to chance upon a comedy gold-mine: straight-faced, yet unequivocably outlandish satire that could effectively skewer a convention as readily as embrace it. (Let's face it: Airplane! poked a lot of fun at Zero Hour and the four Airport movies, but I bet you the ZAZ boys really like those flicks.)

With the disaster genre well and duly spooferized, the trio went on to lampoon spy movies (1984's hilarious Top Secret!) and police procedurals (Police Squad! on television and The Naked Gun trilogy in theaters) before mounting their first "straight" farce -- a rather brilliant kidnapping comedy called Ruthless People. After that, the boys amicably chose to go their separate ways: Jim Abrahams would go on to direct Big Business (1988) and Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael (1990) before heading back to spoofsville with Hot Shots! (1991), Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), and Jane Austen's Mafia! (1998); Jerry Zucker would move on to direct Ghost (1990), First Knight (1995), and Rat Race (2001); his brother Dave would solo-helm the first two Naked Gun flicks, as well as BASEketball (1998) and My Boss's Daughter (2003). So clearly these are the guys to talk to when the topic of conversation is "movie spoofs."

A good parody is hard to spin beyond the here and now. Take "Weird Al" Yankovic, for example. The pop-music jokester has put out 11 regular albums since 1983, when the accordian-playing nice guy's spoof of The Knack's "My Sharona" (titled "My Bologna" and recorded in the men's room of his college radio station) started his career as a musician, comedic icon and food fetishist when it blew up on The Dr. Demento Show. However, every hilarious and unforgettable cut like "Eat It", "Like A Surgeon" and "Smells Like Nirvana" that hit was matched by fade-away tracks like the New Kids jape "The White Stuff" (an ode to Oreos), the Rocky III goof "Theme From Rocky XIII (The Rye Or The Kaiser)" or the misjudgment "Taco Grande" (a riff on Latin rough-boy Gerardo's only hit, "Rico Suave"). The secret to a successful parody is complex, involving a careful balance of picking a song that is big enough, worthy of a good-natured dressing down and most important, funny. The same is true with movies, and the latest in the popular Scary Movie series is a great example of what can go right and wrong with such an attempt.