If you are so incredibly stupid that your mere existence reduces the human race’s collective intelligence quotient to sub-tree-sloth levels, virtually guaranteeing that our species will not only NEVER crack time travel — never mind eliminate our dependence on non-renewable fossil fuels, or figure out a way to reverse global warming – but will most likely devolve into gelatinous, boneless blobs of fat who do nothing all day but watch reality TV and act as energy cells for our robot lords and masters – chances are pretty good that you’re a TV executive. Or possibly a creative exec on the feature side, or one of the co-hosts of The View, but most likely you are indeed a TV executive. And being too stupid to realize that the only good you could ever do the world would to jump in front of a moving bus you probably spend your days drooling all over yourself, smearing your office walls with feces, and coming up with incredibly stupid ways to “rebrand” your network like, oh, I don’t know, spelling its name wrong. Per their press release (as lifted from /Film):

“Syfy — unlike the generic entertainment category “sci-fi” – firmly establishes a uniquely ownable trademark that is portable across all non-linear digital platforms and beyond, from Hulu to iTunes. Syfy also creates an umbrella brand name that can extend into new adjacent businesses under the Syfy Ventures banner, such as Syfy Games, Syfy Films and Syfy Kids.”

First of all, no it doesn’t. All it does is confuse your small-but-loyal core audience who tune in one day only to discover that their beloved Science Fiction Network has been replaced by The Syphilis Channel. Second of all — who wrote that stupid press release? A stroke victim? Way to tie yourself to “buzz” brands like Hulu and iTunes. How very Facebook Web 2.0 of you. But are you really delusional enough to believe that the Sci-Fi, er “Syfy” channel has all this massive, untapped lateral-expansion potential? Syfy Kids? Doesn’t Jerry Lewis do a telethon for them? Reality check: Outside of BSG the only reason to watch your network is for old Twilight Zone reruns or if you’re too stoned to change the channel. You run like fifteen low budget CGI robot-shark movies a week. Given a choice between that and the Shamwow guy I MIGHT watch, if the remote’s WAAAY on the other side of the coffee table and I’ve been huffing model glue all night. But it’s certainly not going to win you the kind of brand devotion that makes Syfy energy drinks and colon-cleansing kits seem like a worthwhile purchase. Like my roommate’s Match.com profile, this move just reeks of desperation.

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We let our guard down. With our attentions focused on all things Oscar – which parties to attend, which black dress to wear, how much cocaine to bring — Tyler Perry managed to once again slip past our defenses, kill our end-of-level boss and rule supreme over yet another box office weekend. And while I’ve yet to be able to willfully sit through more than a minute or two of any of his entertaintainment properties, I say more power to him. Seriously. Because hopefully Tyler Perry can finally bury the misconceit that you can’t let a black man top-line a movie unless a) his name is Will Smith or b) he’s sharing top bill with a Chinese guy. Maybe all you studio execs, oblivious to the irony inherent in that Obama sticker on the bumper of your Prius, will finally stop asking writers to figure out ways to make all the characters in their urban comedies white. Maybe you’ll stop using international box office as an excuse to Clorox every film on your development slate. And maybe, just maybe, Tyler Perry can pave the way for a NEW generation of Tyler Perrys, a generation that actually makes watchable, entertaining films instead of whatever that feces is that Tyler Perry squirts out. Seriously — every film he makes has the writing, acting and production value of a bad Canadian movie-of-the-week. Only Canadian drag-queens are at least funny. But whatever, you keep doing what you’re doing, Tyler Perry. I’ll never have the stomach to sit through one of your movies, but as long as someone does, you serve as a beacon of CHANGE and HOPE and all that awesome Hands Across America crap.

The weekend top ten is listed below.

1. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail(LGF)… $41,120,000
2. Taken (Fox)… $11,400,000
3. Coraline (Focus)… $11,031,000
4. He’s Just Not That Into You (NL)… $8,540,000
5. Slumdog Millionaire (Searchlight)… $8,050,000
6. Friday the 13th (NL)… $7,825,000
7. Confessions of a Shopaholic (BV)… $7,019,000
8. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony)… $7,000,000
9. Fired Up (SGem)… $6,000,000
10. The International (Sony)… $4,450,000

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Given the success of recent horror reboots like Halloween and The Hills Have Eyes, it should come as no surprise that New Line’s re-launch of their Friday the 13th franchise, featuring America’s favorite immortal zombie street-hockey goalie Jason Voorhees, wound up a severed head above the competition. What’s notable however is just how much box office booty the machete-wielding one managed to pillage, i.e. $45.2 million, or per the industry expert parlance “a shitload.” Also notable is how evenly divided the horror pic was among the genders, skewing only slightly to the penis-owning side of things at 51%. Masked maniacs chopping horny teenagers to bits might not be the most romantic thing to watch, but it does prove my long-held theory that nothing gets you in a woman’s heart-shaped crotchless Victoria’s Secret thong faster than scaring the living shit out of her. Fear is like nature’s roofie. I hope you ladies remember this the next time I come crawling through your bedroom window wearing a ski mask and brandishing an ice pick; the only felony I’m committing is the crime of loving too much.

New Line also took the number two spot for the weekend with their rom-com He’s Just Not That Into You – which, as predicted in this column last week, saw only a 15% drop from its debut the week previous – taking in an impressive $23.4 Million. Film’s success owed in no small part to the fact that the title gave its largely female audience an immediate answer as to why they were alone and dateless on Valentine’s Day. Ben & Jerry’s missed out on the perfect cross-marketing opportunity for their new product line “…Because You’re a Fat-Ass,” containing chunks of chocolate, Heath bar, xanax, desperation and failure.

Way to go, New Line. Guess laying off 90% of your staff was a recipe for success.

Also continuing to impress was Luc Besson’s sleeper hit Taken, starring Liam Neeson. Non-sexy kidnapping flick was actually UP 8% over the previous week and in just three weeks has taken in $150 million worldwide. The aforementioned triumvirate fueled one of the box office’s best Valentine’s weekends evar, proving that YES the studios made the right decision by laying off all those people last month, because their business is definitely on the skids… in Bizarro Superman’s world. In our slice of the multiverse however, it supports the historical data that when the economy’s in decline, the box office will shine. I’m sure that news is like a ray of sunshine on a rainy day for you former studio employees reading this on your iPhones/Blackberries as you wait in line for your unemployment checks.

The weekend’s complete top ten resides below.

1. Friday the 13th (NL) — $45,210,000
2. He’s Just Not That Into You WB (NL) — $23,365,000
3. Taken (Fox) — $22,200,000
4. Coraline (Focus) — $19,109,000
5. Confessions of a Shopaholic (BV) — $17,303,000
6. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) — $13,850,000
7. The Pink Panther 2 (Sony) — $10,800,000
8. The International (Sony) — $10,700,000
9. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox) — $8,725,000
10. Push (Summit) — $7,931,000

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Hey. You there. Studio exec. So I hear you’re making a Stretch Armstrong movie. That’s a great because I know how popular Stretch is with the kids these… wait, what? They stopped making Stretch Armstrong dolls in the early 90s? And the toy’s true popularity peaked over 30 years ago? Ahhh, so this isn’t about the kids at all then, is it? This is about you. You and your clichéd gen-X-man-boy obsession with the Taiwanese-made plastic garbage that cluttered your family’s rec room because your parents knew you were too big of a pussy to play with something COOL, like a gun or a Bowie knife. Well tell you what: After you’re finished digging through the box of crap in your parent’s attic looking for relics from your childhood to turn into shitty movies, why not revisit a few more precious memories from that epoch? For instance why not make a movie about the time you shit your pants in kindergarten and had to sit there in the principal’s office with a load in your drawers until your dad came to pick you up? Why not make a movie about your dad’s look of disappointment, or his silence on the long car ride home – which, unbeknownst to you at the time, was him stewing in the utter regret of not having pressured your mom into getting an abortion?

Or hey, here’s an idea: Why not make a movie about the time in third grade when a gang of fifth graders pinned you down in the playground and took turns spitting loogies in your mouth? Or the time Rusty the school janitor locked you in the boiler room and took all those Polaroids of you wearing nothing but Underoos and red lipstick? Or why not make a movie about the time in junior high when the teacher made you stand in front of the class and your Gap corduroys were tented by a raging boner? And how everyone called you “Woody” after that, straight through your second year of college? Why not make a movie about the time when your prom date disappeared at Kevin Garvin’s after-party, and when you went to get your coat you found her on all fours on Kevin’s parent’s bed with Rod McQuarry’s dick in her ass and Ted Miller’s cock in her mouth? Hey, why not make a movie about senior year, when you WOULD’VE lost your virginity if you hadn’t prematurely ejaculated all over Sarah Wilson’s leg while fumbling with the condom wrapper? Of course the sequel would be about when you finally did lose your virginity, freshman year of college, to a 200-pound field hockey goalie with a cleft palate and weird hairs growing out of her nipples. And how it was over in about 15 seconds, and how she told you it was okay because your dick was too small to satisfy her anyhow. Or wait — why not make a movie about your first serious girlfriend — Karen Pirelli — who cheated on you with pretty much every straight guy in the drama department? Why not make a movie about the time she gave Chlamydia, or senior year when she turned dyke and left you for a 60-year-old women’s studies professor? Why not make a movie about how you were so heartbroken after the breakup that you actually attempted suicide, and had to take a semester off because you’d turned into a manic-depressive pill popping wreck, and how you ended up stalking Karen until she served you with a restraining order, and how even now you still think about her pretty much every day, knowing full well that she probably barely remembers your name? Why not make a movie about that shit? Because isn’t nostalgia awesome?

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