Posted 1:30 PM by Gene

Poor PAUL DRECK must have laryngitis, but we wonder about his epochal B. O. triumph. It's as if every week the same pool of stupid blind teens gathers to make a number one hit, usually godawful horror movies. We should not be surprised if the relatively stable performance of teen-oriented garbage owes to high-school clannishness and youth's numbing conformity (not to mention that many of the popcorn restaurants are in malls, traditional delinquents' hangouts); everyone HAS to see whatever the piece of junk of the moment is -- and this week the piece of junk was THE GREATEST COMEDY OF ALL TIME.

We have said this before too: DICK SCHICK said seven years ago the movies are no longer a mass medium. Take stupid teens out of the equation you've taken out a third of your audience; take out the prefab stupid computer animations and "family" gross-out flicks and there's a good chunk more. How many go to see a movie for reasons beside peer pressure and humoring their kids?

We must congratulate one of the true Lex Luthors of our time, RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Opening at 800 "screens" was better than opening at 2,000. We're now suspecting He did this on purpose. Indeed given show-biz' veracity we question the definition of "screen." Whether His brilliant move will look so brilliant next week remains to be seen.

And thank YOU, David "Non" Germain -- we now know what that DIMWIT Michael Sragow had in mind when he wrote of "ADVERTISING."