Box Office BidnessPeople Have No Taste

Meet the world’s most inept Kentucky Fried Chicken employees.

1. Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed – $30.7 million – I’ll let Ebert do the talking here, “it will certainly be titled in France, Scooby-Doo Deux.”

2. The Ladykillers – $13 million – Despite the mixed reviews, nothing was going to stop me from seeing a Coen Brothers’ movie… even a remake! In fact, I’ll see any movie made by brothers: The Hughes, the Marx, the Polish, the Estevezez, or even the Ringling… if they ever get around to it. Anywho, while the movie is no Lebowski, it’s mos def NOT Intolerable Cruelty (or how I felt after seeing that dreck). The laughs are thin, but I muss say I was entertained throughout. Tom Hanks finally took a break from boring weepy flicks and delivered an eggsalad performance as an eccentric Poe-spouting, Kentucky-fried-looking, heist-maestro, Goldthwaite Higginson Dorr III. All the character’s names were um-credible. How could “Lump Henderson”, “Garth Pancake”, and “Weemack Funthes” not raise a smile? But I muss say, the brothers Coen are slipping a bit. Not as much as The Simpsons have, but I’m starting to see a decline.

3. The Passion of the Christ – $12.5 million – Next weekend will be the true test. Moses vs. The Christ. Why shell out 10 clams when you can see a real epic/expensive soap opera, The Ten Commandments, for free next Sunday on ABC. Time to break out your matzah.

4. Dawn of the Dead – $10.3 million – I was never going to see this movie ever until my boy Wannamaker won cash-money in Vega$ and bribed me to tag along. And since he paid, I’ll quote em, “If they took the best parts of the original and the best parts of this one, it would make a much better movie.” Save yourself the trouble, Netflix 28 Days Later instead.

5. Jersey Girl – $8.3 million – How did this movie make more than 36 cents? I’d rather take shots of Liquid Drano than sit through a Kevin Smith directed romantic comedy starring Ben Affleck.

6. Taking Lives – $6.5 million – Angelina Jolie’s lips sicks ships… and apparently movies too!

7. Starsky & Hutch – $6.3 million – According to the latest Thighs Wide Shut poll, people are clamoring for a Riptide movie. Somewhere Perry King and Joe Penny are blowing the dust of their resumes.

8. Hidalgo – $5.43 million – That’s pronounced, “hee-daawg-gogh.”

9. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – $5.42 million – Best movie out and it’ll be gone from theaters in weeks. What’s this movie missing? Boobs? A guy riding a horse? A dude with holes in his hands?

10. Secret Window – $5.4 million – Looks like the buying public placed an A/C unit in the Window cause this puppy has cooled down.