I Love You, Beth Cooper

Aliens in the Attic, which was not pre-screened for critics, got mostly ho-hum reviews from them over the weekend. Peter Hartlaub's review in the San Francisco Chronicle was typical: "It's doubtful that many people will be asking for their money back after seeing this movie," he wrote. "But they won't be remembering too much about it 24 hours later, either." Linda Barnard in the Toronto Star had the identical reaction, calling the movie, "a forgettable bit of fluff that will zip out of your orbit as soon as the credits roll." Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel offered a few ideas for an ad campaign for the movie: "Aliens in the Attic: At least it's not I Love You Beth Cooper!" "Aliens in the Attic: Cheaper than G-Force 3D." Or "Aliens in the Attic: See it or we'll make a Chipmunks sequel!" At least Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Times found it "better than most movies that aren't screened in advance for critics."

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When it comes to I Love You, Beth Cooper, most critics don't. These are some of their descriptions. Claudia Puig, USA Today: "This leaden teen comedy is meant to be lively, but it's curiously bland." A.O. Scott, New York Times: a "drab and incoherent teen comedy." Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: an "unfunny, unoriginal, charmless teen comedy." Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: "The distance from shameless rip-off to loving homage may not be far, but it is a chasm this film fails to jump." On the other hand, Kyle Smith writes in the New York Post that the movie "isn't especially hilarious, but it has a warm sense of humor instead of a string of gross-out jokes. It'll be a cable mainstay."

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Like the title character in the movie, Brüno made a spectacular entrance on Friday, earning $14.4 million and leading some box-office forecasters who had predicted a $40-million weekend debut for the film to proclaim, “I told you so.” But between Friday and Saturday, Brüno took an outrageous 39-percent tumble to just $8.8 million. Universal estimated that it would sell about $7.2 million worth of tickets on Sunday, giving Brüno a $30.4-million total for the weekend, but given its huge Friday-Saturday slide, all bets were off; it could do far worse. Marc Lacter on the LABizObserved blog observed: “In an age when young moviegoers routinely text-message critiques to their friends while they’re still watching the film on a Friday, such a dropoff could signal some seriously bad buzz.” Nevertheless, the weekend total will unquestionably wind up being greater than the 2006 opening for Sacha Baron Cohen’s previous Candid-Camera-like feature, Borat, which debuted with $26.5 million, but analysts were quick to point out that while Borat opened in just 837 theaters, Brüno did so in 2,756, then went on to earn $28.3 million in its second weekend when it moved into a total of 2,566 theaters. Analysts see little hope that the new film will retain even 40 percent of its audience next weekend, when the discomfited queen of the realm will have to vie against The Half-Blood Prince, the latest Harry Potter sequel, as well as a new assortment of family, horror, and “chick flicks.” While this weekend’s box office was down about 5 percent from the same weekend a year ago, when Hellboy II: The Golden Army opened with $34.5 million, next weekend’s is expected to go through the roof. (This weekend’s wasn’t helped by the fact that the only other film to open wide, the teen comedy I Love You, Beth Cooper, found hardly any love at all as it took in just $5 million.) On the other hand, holdovers performed reasonably well. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs remained in second place with about $28.5 million -- pushing its total to about $120.6 million after 12 days. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen dropped to third place from first as it added $24.2 million to its gross, which now stands at $339.2 million. Public Enemies fell 44 percent in its second weekend to $14.1 million, while The Proposal rounded out the top five with $10.5 million, down just 18 percent from the previous weekend.

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