Give yourself a nice, big pat on the back, Debbie. You have saved me and millions of others a ton of disposable income by telling us about all the turds that Hollywood keeps serving. I can count on 1 hand how many movies i've seen in the theaters this year, and 3 of them have been kids movies with my daughters.

I've liked Debbie's recommendations more as I usually can pretty much guess which ones to avoid.

Movie Avoidance Checklist:

1. It stars Streisand, Ben Stiller, Clooney, Sarandon and Mr. Robbins-Sarandon, Sean Penn, a rap star, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Rosie O'Donnell, Robin Williams, Johnny Depp, gay characters, especially gay cowboys.

2. It's directed by Clooney, clever but not genius Speilberg (exception Indiana Jones movies), Oliver Stoned, Rob Reiner, Richard Donner, the truly atrocious Joel Schumacher, and it goes without saying the absolutely worst Michael Moore, the phony who thinks he really can fool people with his "everyman" act by wearing a baseball cap.

3. Subject is McCarthy (heroic, perfectly honest media, poor persecuted liberals), prostitutes (heart of gold, misunderstood), Christians/Big business/government/military (evil white men), gays (sweet, open minded, more normal and loving than closed minded, bigoted straight people).

4. Recommended by Ebert...not always, but 90%.

Even though it placed 12th overall, Munich appears to have had the top per screen average. Depending on how many screens it opens up on during the coming weeks, it might end up taking the top spot at some point.

If I see it I will definitely not pay to see it.

I won't see it. The Shlemiel-berg name guarantees a certain audience, not me. I still say he's vastly overrated, trying to manipulate and manufacture rather than letting a story unfold.

I think it'll end up tanking, whether it has the top per screen average or not. The built-in Shlemiel-berg audience on the coasts will go, but it's not anything to get the mainstream out to the theatre.

It will be a big hit at Oscar time with the Shlemiel-berg name and they'll want to do something to ensure gay movies don't totally dominate. Like all lefties, Hollyweird likes it both ways, they want to be all "tolerant" but wants us to fund it with movie ticket revenue.

...if '911 According to Oliver Stone' is the next
masterpiece to come out,we need recruits to fly
planes into the set with him on the top floor.

While Clompo is correct that it did well on a per screen basis, it is not expanding to more screens until January 6th, and at that point--as already is happening--the hype will have died down completely. Few movie theaters want to give screens over to an almost three-hour movie, anyway, unless it is a monster hit like "King Kong." Don't look for "Munich" to be. The bottom line is that it didn't make a lot of money and wasn't high up on the list at the box office, not how many screens it was on. The bottom line for "Munich" will remain a failure.

"...Few movie theaters want to give screens over to an almost three-hour movie, anyway, unless it is a monster hit like "King Kong"....

Posted by: Debbie Schlussel at December 27, 2005 12:51 PM"

Hey Deb, they're doing a Bio on Oprah's life?

I'm not sure how many folks here are interested in veracity, but the majority of Ms. Schlussel's reporting on "Munich" has been full of not only errors, but outright lies.

To point out the problems with her odd celebration here (why the hell is she so personally excited about what she thinks is one movie's failure?), here are some cold hard facts.

"Munich" opened on 525 screens on December 23. Over the four-day holiday weekend, the film ranked #8 at the box-office despite being in limited release, earning $4.2 million. The film drew in a per screen average of $7,805.

There's no point in surmising that "few movie theaters want to give screens over to an almost three-hour movie anyway..." since the film is already set to expand in to 1,800 screens, an standard, respectable amount of screens for a drama skewed toward adult audiences. And after seeing the performance that people in the real world have seen "Munich" do this weekend, exhibitors should be happy to have "Munich" coming there way next week. Considering "Munich" made more money on a per-screen average (it did better than any other film in the top 10 for the weekend), Ms. Schlussel may want to re-check her bottom line.

More non-fanasty land stats. Jennifer Aniston's "Rumor Has It" placed at #10 on the weekend box-office rankings, two spots below the so-called failure of "Munich" (maybe Ms. Schlussel was looking at the list upside-down?) with a draw of $3.5 million ($1,232 per screen) despite its very wide opening on 2,815 screens. Even more interesting is the fact that the juggernaut "Harry Potter," a film that has been performing very strong for five weeks in a row, placed below the "failure" "Munich" at #9 with a take of $1,554 on 2,521 screens. True, "Potter" has probably seen its run with an impressive domestic gross of $260.6 as it starts to peter off, but it's interesting to compare two successful films ("Rumor Has It" is only successful in Ms. Schlussel's accounting department) against a film that is supposedly D.O.A.

Happy Chanukah, Debbie Shlemiel-ussel. Your absurd lies are sunk.

If anyone can find a way to spin these honest facts in a way better than Ms. Schlussel (outside of ignoring the facts like she has to support her lie-filled thesis), then you've got a wonderful future in politics ahead of you.

I should make one correction to my post: I said four-day holiday weekend but I should have said three-day weekend.

To be fair to Ms. Schlussel, if we look at the four-day picture (as I had written), yes, "Munich" did come in one spot below "Rumor Has It" in the actuals, but we're still comparing apples to oranges. "Munich" drew in a starting total of $11,400 on 532 screens—still a greater per screen average than anything in wide release and anything in the top ten, including "Kong."

"Rumor Had It" did make more than "Munich" in total, but in comparison drew in almost $8,700 less on a per screen basis than a film that opened on almost 2,300 screens less than it.

Three-day, four-day, anyway you slice it, "Munich" is anything but a failure. The film will open on 1,800 screens next week, and filmgoers will be able to go see the film for themselves. Come back and read all of Schlussel's articles on the film and marvel at the utter lie-filled contempt she has for the film. You may find yourself wondering how many other stories she's written contain similar lies.

I know nothing of the 'biz' but I'd wager you could repackage Aeon Flux with Spielberg's name on it and have a cash cow. That said, no way will Munich play to a wide audience (compared to his other movies) - regardless of how it handles the subject. And with left-wing wetdreams like Syriana and Paradise Now still getting buzz I doubt it'll fair well at the Awards shows, either. As for contempt toward the film, no one needs to lie about anything to find reasons to hate it. It couldn't fail enough to redeem itself in my eyes, so its a moot point.

Yo'Spielbergfilmsho-According to your cheap morally illiterate Unich Review(punch in this schmuck's URL-Spielbergfilms) which refers to
"cheap,lying spotlight grabbers like Debbie Schlussel", criticizes Schlemiel's morally "having
to defend himself as a Jewish man",refering to
the controversy surrounding this epic piece of
shit as "baseless",the Ebert "critique"...Nightline(12-28) did another
moral/relativity/"cycle of violence" show on the remake of 'Sword of Gideon';these films are too advanced for you,stick with 'Plan Nine From Outer Space.'

Hey speilberdFan(films);Do you do Steve's windows too?

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