10 January Movies That Ate Your Money
by Reg Seeton

Have you ever put your bank card into an ATM only to have the machine either eat your plastic or not give you the cash you so casually requested? You know that sinking feeling you get when you realize $40 (or your card) just vanished into thin air. It's the same type of feeling you get when you walk out of a theater knowing you just spent $10 (plus eats) on a movie so unfulfilling that you could've stayed home, watched the trailer (again), and simply fed a $20 into the shredder for entertainment value.

But what about those movies that you don't mind wasting money on? You know the movies that eat your dough but at least you feel you've gotten something out of the experience. Sometimes it's a lot like eating fast-food that tides you over until the DVD release. Other times it's like eating a four-course meal at your favorite restaurant or chowing down on an all you can eat buffet at Bally's in Las Vegas.

What movies ate our money in January 2008? How did a lot of movie-goers feel after this month's movie meal was over? Here's out list of the 10 January Movies That Ate Your Money...

STILL HUNGRY (that empty void in your stomach):

One Missed Call (January 4):
Was this one of the last death rattles of the modern Asian remake? Not quite, but One Missed Call "missed" the opportunity to attract a wide mainstream audience beyond a select few horror lovers despite the presence of Honolulu born hottie Shannyn Sossamon and the almost always consistent Ed Burns. A remake of the Japanese horror Chakushin Ari, One Missed Call had a cool concept going for it - the characters begin to receive voice-mail messages from themselves in the future - but didn't have enough pop to kick 2008 off with a bang. Although it failed to become a big January hit, One Missed Call was barely marketed to fans a on a wide scale in order to succeed. If there's a lesson to be learned, it sometimes takes more than a week or two of selective marketing for a movie to catch on with the public, especially with an niche market Asian remake.

First Sunday (January 11):
What happened to Ice Cube and movies like Boyz 'n the Hood? What about Ice Cube and the Friday movies? We love Cube, especially when he's gettin' down just for the funk of it like an Atomic d-o-g, but First Sunday had DVD written all over it from the get-go. It's not that Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan, and Katt Williams aren't funny dudes, it's just that movies like First Sunday are a hell of lot lighter than what we've come to expect, especially from Cube and his grittier persona. It's like Metallica and the "Master of Puppets" album as compared to Metallica and their "Load" and "Reload" releases - same band, much, much lighter sound. Since Chris Tucker now only makes a Rush Hour movie once every few years, there's ample time for both to make another Friday. Then again, it’s looking like Cube might be in The A-Team, so we can cut him some slack.

Mad Money (January 18):
Aside from the disappointing end result at the box-office (only $7.7 million in its first three days), the sad reality for Mad Money is that Callie Khouri's latest film opened on the same weekend as Cloverfield and 27 Dresses, two of the strongest January releases ever. Given how the audiences for 27 Dresses were predominately female (87%), movie-goers simply didn't have any more "mad money" left over for Diane Keaton, Katie Holmes, and Queen Latifah. Sure Mad Money didn't do much at the box-office, but it didn't stand a chance either. Despite how you feel about the quality of the film, Mad Money was "mad moot" on January 18 no matter how you count the money.

Untraceable (January 25):
We all know that Diane Lane can hold up a movie. At times, though, even the best actresses can't do much by try their hardest to make things work. Unfortunately, after making only $11 million on its opening weekend, Untraceable became the final week of January's "Mad Money" to Meet the Spartans and Rambo. The difference between Untraceable and Mad Money was that females had the option to see either Diane Lane in a cyber-thriller or Carmen Electra in the mindless Meet the Spartans.

10 January Movies Page 2: Back To The Buffet