The Love Guru will Tank

Don't worry, I'm not going to get all box office forecaster on you, (even though I should do that constantly, because I'm fucking sick at it), but my senses are telling me that there isn't a shot in hell that two weeks after this movie is released it is going to be called a hit. There are so many factors against it, it's probably funnier than the movie itself. Let's go down the line.

1) It's opening against 'Get Smart', Steve Carrell's new action comedy which has been getting good buzz for a couple of months now, and mediocre-to-good reviews. Box office pundits have it opening somewhere between $30-50 million, depending on who you talk to. That alone eats $50 million worth of people who would have been suckered into seeing Mike Myers fuck around with a gay looking Justin Timberlake.

2) The trailer is absolutely terrible. It is so terrible, it has spawned more message board threads than needle marks on Amy Winehouse's arm. The juvenile humor looks so low grade that adolescents beyond fourth grade would cringe. Yes, even fifth graders would.

3) The reviews pouring in have been worse than 'The Happening', which was to be relegated the title of 'Worst Summer Movie 2008'. M. Night's movie has even DOUBLED the amount of positive notices on Rottentomatoes.com. That's 11% vs. 22%, but still.

4) After opening this afternoon, audience reaction on Yahoo! Movies, a good indicator of general audience appeasement, had the movie at a C- grade after only an afternoon worth of showings in which hardcore fans line up first. In contrast, the Happening had a so-so B- (which after a week of play has downgraded itself to a C-)

I'm still guessing with a built-in fan base for both Myers and Timberlake, 'The Love Guru' should still crack the $20 million barrier its opening weekend, only if poor word-of-mouth doesn't spread quick enough for it to experience day-to-day drop offs. If that's the case, Steve Carrell's fucking his wife twenty times over for getting all that free business. Do it gently though Steve, it's going to be a happy weekend for you.

Lil' Wayne is the new Kanye West

So I guess the music industry isn't dead, but rock music maybe. Lil' Wayne took whatever expectation any musical pundit had bestowed on him and shat heavily on it with his 1.005 million unit debut last week on the Billboard Charts. That outweighs the roughly 960,000 units Kanye West sold his first week out, though Kanye was heavily aided by the massive publicity push dealing with his debut battle with 50 Cent, (50 lost). Many questioned how Wayne pulled this off given the fact that the album leaked a good few weeks in advance; but, as he has proved time and time again, this dude just shits on conventional wisdom.

Those same pundits clearly overlooked that the boy has been steadily building a heavy fanbase over all genres and races, guesting on tracks from Travis Barker to Kelly Rowland to Jay Z. If you look on any radio airplay chart in the past three years, you'd be hard pressed not to find him featured on someone's single. That's almost like subliminal advertising right there. And kudos to him for it as well, Wayne has serious talent and deserves the accolades that are coming his way right now. But what now? As many people who actually like hip-hop know, (not the pubescent 17 year old white kids who thought Lollipop was one of the greatest lyrical 'hip-hop' songs in history), Wayne's just released 'Tha Carter III' disappointed in the rap game. It has some solid tracks, but is generally all over the place, perhaps to appease a growing, diverse fan base. He'll either go two ways with this: He'll put out another album a year from now, just as half-crap as this new one, and possibly a couple of guest spots on singles from Jessica Simpson and the next year's American Idol. Or he'll smarten up and get back to the days of his mainstream debut 'Tha Carter'. With all the money rolling in right now though, if I were him - Jessica Simpson doesn't seem all that bad...especially with the inevitable side benefits that will come along with it. Can I get a HELL YEA?!

The Downfall of M. Night Shaymalan

Now, I idolize Night, so I'm going to keep the hate to a minimal, but what the fuck was he thinking. As many of you may know, he just released his new eco-thriller "The Happening" on June 13th, and it was a monumental failure. It's been a long while since a non-comedy elicited as many unintentional laughs as this. The casting was HORRIBLE. The dialogue was brutal and the general story was so stupid, I don't understand how he was expecting it to be at all suspenseful. Killing people on screen is a terrific idea, so I can see how he jumped the gun a bit on this one...but running scared from wind?

I think he has reached a point now where taking the normal format of storytelling and adding his own spin on it is no longer the greatest idea. "Unbreakable" took the classic comic book idea and told it from a brooding, dramatic, everyday point of view: brilliant. "Signs" took the classic alien invasion story and told it from a very simple, introverted perspective: very effective. "The Village" was loathed by many because it was marketed as a horror movie, not as a social experiment: one of the greatest twists in the past decade. After that, "Lady in the Water" didn't really take a conventional idea and tell it differently. It flat out tried to create a new cinematic genre, a hybrid brooding, dramatic, creepy fairy tale - and taught us that you simply cannot do that. So why after learning such a lesson would he keep de-railing on the same track? Many blame his ego, but I don't think he believes himself to be better than the Spielbergs out there. I'm pretty sure he knows he has the talent; his films are always shot beautifully and even with his most incredible disasters, there are still always moments of sheer brilliance. I just hope he understands that he needs to hone that talent on something a hell of a lot more simple-minded, because with the verbal attacks he's been getting as of late, my idol might get left in the dust harder than your everyday Taylor Hicks...and don't get me started on fucking Taylor Hicks.