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Sean Collier: I'm with Reagan. They're strong actors and nice compliments to a well-rounded cast, but neither has their own drawing power. If I had to pick one to have the better career, in traditional terms, I'd have to go with Bana; I wouldn't only say that McAdams doesn't want it, I'd go so far as to say I'm waiting for her to just call it quits outright.

Should have been called The Bads

Kim Hollis: The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard opened to $5.4 million in 1,838 venues. How should Paramount Vantage feel about this result?

Josh Spiegel: Not so good, I'd wager. Granted, opening on under 2,000 venues isn't the biggest release, but with the amount of advertising (or at least, advertising on networks and TV shows I watch often) and online and other marketing, I think Paramount Vantage is wishing the movie opened to something closer to $10 million. This is a case where, it seems, people just weren't interested in Jeremy Piven as a sleazeball; I guess that's more a TV role for him.

Scott Lumley: This honestly has to be considered a disappointing result by everyone involved. Piven did just about everything he could personally do to sell this as well, including appearances on Raw and on Big Brother, which I heartily applaud. There was a reasonable amount of advertising for this film, but the trailers that I saw were generally frenetic crap and did a terrible job of presenting this film. It's definitely disappointing as this did look genuinely funny once I took a closer look.





Eric Hughes: Paramount should feel like they got what they paid for. Aggressive marketing campaigns - that Big Brother appearance for instance - are only half the battle. You have to actually be promoting something that either A) is good or B) sells itself. The Goods didn't do either.

Reagen Sulewski: They were stuck in a difficult situation here, since the movie was largely being sold on its raunch, but weren't able to show that stuff on TV to get people into it. I actually thought the theatrical trailer (and more so, the red band) was completely hilarious, but the TV spots were beyond dire. This is a film that should have been able to build off The Hangover's success, but they completely and utterly botched the campaign.

David Mumpower: I enjoyed the symbolic, symbiotic link between the premise of the film, desperate salesmen, and the incautious marketing attempts to make it a success. Street corner whores have more pride than was displayed by The Goods' would-be marketers. This is the proverbial lipstick-on-a-pig scenario.

*Swoon*

Kim Hollis: Ponyo, the latest movie from Hayao Miyazaki, opened to $3.6 million. Should Disney be happy with this result?

Josh Spiegel: I'm sure there is one person at Disney (John Lasseter) who wishes this movie did ten times that amount, if only because more people would get to see a Hiyao Miyazaki film for once. However, considering how different Miyazaki's films look compared to Disney, DreamWorks, or even Pixar movies, I feel like this number is pretty good, especially considering the film opened on fewer than 1,000 venues.

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