“The Hangover” and “Up” retained the top spots at the box office with $33.4 and $30.5 million, respectively, forcing Tony Scott’s pointless “Pelham 123” remake to an ignoble third-place debut with a $25 million gross.
And though “Land of the Lost” placed fifth in its second week with just $9.2 million, that’s still better than the new Eddie Murphy-and-children comedy “Imagine That”, which tanked profoundly with a $5.7 million opening-weekend gross. Ouch.
Also: The Onion AV Club’s summer-hiatus television coverage reaches back into the glory days of the 1990s for some excellent running coverage; among this week’s columns are Donna Bowman’s appreciation of my very favorite episode of “NewsRadio”, “Arcade“, and over in the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” section, Noel Murray’s reviews of the key third-season episodes “Lover’s Walk” and “The Wish” have launched a few truly awesome comment threads, including some great discussions of what it truly means to be an ensouled vampire.
Spoilers for “Buffy” and “Angel”, obviously:
For the record: Angel is a vampire who’s been given a brand-new soul as punishment for his evil deeds: He’s still Angelus, with all of the instincts and desires of a monster, but now he understands the pain he causes, and it cripples him into seeking redemption. (One of the commenters calls it a “moral shock collar”, which is something like genius.)
But Spike, having sought and reclaimed his original human original soul — the soul of William the bloody awful poet — is a different case; it’s suggested by the middle of season seven of “Buffy” that he’s found a way to reconcile the two selves, and in classic Spike fashion has simply decided that he bears no responsibility for anything he did in his soulless days, since he was a monster and operating under the appropriate monster rules.
Hey, it worked for Oz and Nina …
Thanks for adding a little Spike to my day (James Marsters should always bleach his hair and speak with a British accent except for guest appearances on Torchwood). I’ve been in a very vampire mood having just given in and watched season 1 of True Blood in just a few days.
Speaking of vampires…why oh why is anyone talking about redoing the Buffy movie without the TV show’s cast and without Joss Whedon? And, having watched Dr. Horrible a couple of times since getting it for Mother’s Day, when do we get a big screen adventure with Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion? And Dark Horse? And Fake Thomas Jefferson?
What, you’re not excited about the news of Megan Fox starring as Buff… Buff…. Bu….
OK, I couldn’t even finish that sentence. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
I think I’ve been reacting to the thought of a non-Whedon “Buffy” venture the way the citizens of Sunnydale react to supernatural activity — “oh, that can’t be what I thought it was, it must be punks on PCP or something.” Makes it much easier to deal with.
For example: Megan Fox? Really? No, no, someone’s put LSD in the reservoir again, we’re all just hallucinating. Everything will be back to normal in the morning, surely.