Other number ones for the week ending 9/1-9/7/08
The #1 movie over the past weekend (8/29-8/31) was Tropic Thunder for a third weekend. It came in with $14,602,121 for a total gross so far of $86,935,945. The movie that came in #2 ($11,541,571) was the futuristic Vin Diesel Children of Men-rip off flick Babylon A.D. Despite the brief return to real acting in Sidney Lumet’s Find Me Guilty two years ago, Diesel continues his downward slope into crappy action flicks. This one wasn’t screened for critics (shocker!), so I had to see it over the weekend. It wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen (or even the worst Diesel movie I’ve ever seen…which would be 2005’s The Pacifier), but it was just so bland for an action flick. There were a couple of cool toys, like a paper map that you could scroll down in the way you can do if you use Google Maps, but overall, it didn’t do anything for me. If you want to see a good movie from last weekend, check out the #5 movie ($11,507,654 from the previous Wednesday)…the political thriller Traitor, starring Don Cheadle and co-written by comedian Steve Martin. Think 2005’s Syriana…only not so long and boring.
The #1 TV program, according to the Nielsen Ratings for the week of 8/25/08-8/31/08, was NBC’s “Deal or No Deal.” Since I’ve long stopped watching Howie and the Case Girls, I will continue my fascination with the #2 show…Tuesday’s edition of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent 3.” The semifinal rounds started and 10 out of the top 40 performed for a chance for America to vote them into the top 20. My favorite of those ten that was voted into the top 20 was 32-year-old insurance salesman and opera singer Neal Boyd. There is another overweight everyman opera singer in the competition, but Neal is my favorite. The one that was eliminated that I’m bummed about is Alexandra Pyles, a 10-year-old martial artist who beat up her dad in her first appearance. She was just cool. There was no act that annoyed me that week (catch me next week when I talk about this week’s truly annoying acts.)
The #1 Fiction book according to the New York Times Bestseller Lists is the Star Wars-related The Force Unleashed by Sean Williams, and the #1 Non-Fiction book this week is still The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome R. Corsi for a fourth week.