As summer dies down with explosive fire power and spiritual journeys to other lands, I recall the glorious action fest that was The Expendables. In turns out Julia Roberts has nothing on protein packed men with a mission on their minds. My female counterparts have voiced their love of meaty men in droves and unexpectedly taken away business from Julia’s love fest. Nearly 40 percent of The Expendables‘ audience was women. X-Men Origins: Wolverine‘s audience raked them in as nearly 50 percent of the audience was female. It seems women have tired of the boys akin to Michael Cera and instead jones for something with a little more muscle. Stallone should have learned the key to Hugh Jackman’s success to driving women in throngs- taking off his shirt.

I hear Hugh gave up his lead in Avon Man to start his insane work-out to become the ferocious mutant once again. If you take months upon months to beef up like these 80‘s action legends did, you’d think they’d want to show it off. Plus, wasn’t it super hot in Louisiana and Brazil where The Expendables shot? It was like 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity. Stallone couldn’t have been the only one who was feeling the heat.  Take off those shirts and up your female movie-going audience to 51 percent.

Several movies have made the grade with critics of late, but enthusiasm for Scott Pilgrim and now Piranha has not lead to large numbers at the box office.  It has been very disheartening to see how poorly some movies have done at the box office.

Piranha should have been a slam-dunk for the Weinstein Company and Dimension, but the film only managed to snag sixth place, and did not break $10 Million over the weekend.  That is with 3D ticket prices tallied in, which makes it even more disappointing.

Audiences that did see the movie didn’t really like it. The film only got an exit poll score of “C” from film-goers, according to Entertainment Weekly’s Hollywood Insider.

Nobody seemed  too interested in seeing any of the new offerings.  Holdover Expendables won the weekend with $16.5 Million.  The film dropped about 50%, and its two week total is $65 Million. Take that, naysayers.

Vampires Suck nabbed the number two spot.  The team that brought you the Scary Movie franchise, Date Movie,  Epic Movie and many more, decided to parody the Twilight franchise this time around.  The film has made about $18 Million since its opening day last Wednesday, with $12 Million of that coming from the weekend.

The Twilight series is ripe for parody, but the film clips for this film just weren’t that funny

Well, Stallone and company have still got it. Score one for the aging action geezers, they dominated the box office with over $35 Million for the weekend. Expendables, a testosterone laden action movie, was a big hit with men, particularly those who grew up seeing members of the cast in iconic 80’s action movies.

Most people I know who saw it admitted that it was not a great movie, but thought that it delivered exactly what one would expect-lots of senseless action.  That is more than can be said for the priv-lit drama Eat Pray Love.

As you read in our review here on The Flickcast, the movie failed to capture what many women fell in love with from the book.  The inner turmoil of the protagonist was glossed over, disappointing fans of the book.  Still, Eat Pray Love, starring Julia Roberts managed to make  $23.7 Million.  This is the best opening Julia Roberts has had since 2001, when she co-starred in America’s Sweethearts, with Catherine Zeta Jones and John Cusack.

Sadly, Scott Pilgrim vs The World (one of my favorite films of 2010) didn’t fare very well at all. The film placed fifth, and only made $10.5 Million, far below expectations.  This is very similar to what happened with Kick Ass back in April.

Kick Ass was widely anticipated in film circles, hailed by critics and fanboys  alike as a great, original  movie, yet it failed to muster much at the box office.  Kick-Ass debuted to $19 million its opening weekend, shocking prognosticators.  After its entire run, the film only made $48 Million domestically.

Now, we have a film that has gotten even better reviews (as of this writing, it has an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes), and has had most  industry insiders cheering for its success, yet it barely registers in the top five for the weekend.  *Sigh*

SVGNGR is a new mobile application that allows you to complete challenges at different places you check into. Think of it as FourSquare, with a kick. From an official press release:

Playing SCVNGR is simple. It’s a game all about going places, doing challenges and earning points. Challenges are quick, casual, fun things to do at places. Building on SCVNGR is just as simple. Everyone who plays SCVNGR can also build SCVNGR by adding challenges to their favorite locations.

Eat, Pray, Love follows the journeys of Liz Gilbert (played by Julia Roberts), who travels to Italy, India and Bali on a journey of self discovery. Columbia Pictures has announced that they are teaming up with SVGNGR to bring you the feel of these exotic locales right from your phone.

Twenty six cities across the US have been selected and identified with Eat, Pray, Love locations. Players can compete in movie based challenges and earn badges.  To learn more, visit  the official website for this Eat, Pray, Love partnership, letyourselfgo.com/svgngr

SCVNGR is available for the iPhone and for the Android.  Eat, Pray, Love will be released in theaters on August 13.