WTF? Avatar Falls to Dear John!

Avatar’s seven week reign as the box office champ ended this weekend and it wasn’t John Travolta and From Paris with Love that kicked the Na’vi in the groin. No, it was Dear John, the movie starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried, which is based on the Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name. Yes, the movie that’s currently boasting a 29 percent fresh rating on RottenTomatoes.com.  Dear John took first place with an estimated $32.4 million and Avatar was next in line with $23.6 million. From Paris with Love was a distant third with a paltry $8.1 million and will most likely be forgotten come next weekend.  One can only pray that Dear John will suffer the same.

Despite Avatar’s drop, it has made $630 million in eight weeks. If it wins the best picture Oscar on March 7^th, you know the studio is going to milk every drop and get as much mileage from that victory as possible. I’ve shown that I suck at predicting the box office (since I was the one who said Avatar wouldn’t break the global or domestic box office grip of Titanic), but I have a feeling Avatar will settle in the record books somewhere near $695 million.

Movie Review (Dan’s Take): From Paris With Love

Those French. They may look down their collective noses at fat Americans, but they sure do love the way we get s**t done. Luc Besson– cinema’s most prolific Frenchman– has unleashed another action drenched story template (ala Taken, The Transporter) and cozied up with his “Besson School of Filmmaking” graduate Pierre Morel (Taken and the upcoming Dune remake) to offer up the guiltily pleasurable From Paris With Love.

Together, Besson and Morel massage French-American relations like it’s nobody’s business. If there was ever an homage to the American action stereotype, From Paris With Love is it; a story-lite action flick that knows exactly what it wants to be and clocks in with a lean and functionally breezy 95 minutes to deliver the goods. Morel’s crafted a movie that placates its American audience with backslapping proclamations like “We saved your frog leg eating asses in two World Wars!” and gun-loaded, badly behaved, star-spangled ass kicking, but alternately winks at its French viewers with a nod of “stupid cowboys”.

It’s panderingly duplicitous… and it works.

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From Paris With Love French Redband Trailer

I’m not dying to see From Paris with Love, but I will admit, a bald-headed, foul-mouthed, nasty John Travolta is much better than the goofy, hair-plugged Travolta in Wild Hogs and Old Dogs. From Paris with Love is directed by Pierre Morel and also stars Johnathan Rhys Meyers (Mission: Impossible III) and hits theaters on February 5, 2010. Morel was the director of last year’s Taken, starring Liam Neeson. According to IMDB.com, he is set to direct the remake of Dune, taking over for Peter Berg (Hancock) who is too busy with his next film, Battleship. Yes, based on the Parker Brothers game. Yes, I think that movie sounds stupid. Any other questions? Good. Now watch the French redband trailer for From Paris with Love and let me know if I’m wrong thinking this could be kind of fun.