There’s a new box office champion for the fourth consecutive week, as the Vince Vaughn-Reese Witherspoon holiday comedy Four Christmases debuted with a $46.7 million take to knock Twilight out of the top spot. This was a strong opening for Four Christmases despite generally poor reviews and word-of-mouth.
Twilight earned $39.5 million in second place, while the Disney family movie Bolt came in third with $36 million in receipts.
The heavily-publicized Hugh Jackman-Nicole Kidman epic Australia took in a disappointing $20 million, and proves once again that Kidman is simply not worth her high salary. When is the last time one of her movies actually earned some decent money?
Two other new films debuted well enough to place in the top 10: Transporter 3, which grossed $18.5 million, and the Sean Penn movie Milk, with a paltry $1.87 million in sales.
Here’s the complete Top 10 at the box office for the weekend ending 11/30/08:
- Four Christmases, $46.7 million
- Twilight, $39.5 million
- Bolt, $36 million
- Quantum of Solace, $28.1 million
- Australia, $20 million
- Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, $19.6 million
- Transporter 3, $18.5 million
- Role Models, $7.81 million
- The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, $2.19 million
- Milk, $1.87 million
Whenever I look for a new author to read, one thing I’m sure to check is how many published works the author has to his or her name. Granted, that doesn’t always mean much in and of itself (just ask Harper Lee), but for the most part, it usually indicates that an author sells well enough to justify the publishing expenses. Authors that sell well probably have some talent and some interesting stories to tell, which makes me all the more willing to roll the dice on their books. Authors that publish entire series are even more attractive to me for obvious reasons.
Films about child kidnappings and murders are always hard to take, but the emotions involved are usually heightened whenever the story is based on true events. That’s the case with Changeling, from Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood. The movie recounts events that happened in connection with the disappearance of Walter Collins, nine-year-old Los Angeles boy who went missing back in 1928. I expected to have my heartstrings tugged at this one, but because some of the events were so absurd, I found myself shaking my head in anger instead.
Private Practice 2×07 — “Tempting Faith”: I thought this was a very solid episode from beginning to end. I liked how the obvious differences between Addison and SWAT guy were finally addressed (and look at that — he was wearing a new shirt!), because it’s clear that the whole blue-collar thing had to come up at some point. What wasn’t clear was whether or not Addison and Kevin actually broke up. When they were talking at the hospital, it sounded like it was over, but when Addie returned home, she told her brother that Kevin is “her boyfriend”. I don’t know, maybe her “don’t quit on me” speech got to him. (Aside 1: Their mother’s name is Busy?? Aside 2: I was sooo hoping that the intruder was Mark Sloan! Aside 3: Addison has a $25 million trust fund waiting for her? Wow!)
Bones 4×11 — “The Bone That Blew”: This was another great episode of Bones as well! I’m very happy with the way the writers have decided to tone down on all the constant flirting between the two leads and instead just give us little moments, like the two minutes at the end of the ep when Booth and Brennan were watching Brennan’s dad with Parker. That’s much better than clobbering us over the head with all the sexual tension stuff, as they were doing earlier this season.
House 5×09 — “Last Resort”: This whole storyline felt familiar to me, as though I’d seen something similar before. I watch so many movies and TV shows, however, that it’s impossible for me to remember the details. But the scenario of someone holding a gun on doctors and forcing them to treat him, while testing out meds on other people first, was totally like déjà vu.
Entourage 5×12 — “Return to Queens Blvd.”: I loved how Vinnie fired E. He actually had a point about all of Eric’s missteps in terms of not listening to Ari, so I wish that whole thing had been allowed to carry over for at least one more episode. I thought they made up far too quickly — though I suspect that their relationship has been damaged at least a little by the firing.
Two years ago I embarked on the rather ambitious project of reading all of Agatha Christie’s mystery novels in chronological order. Ambitious, I say, not because the books themselves present difficult reading material (they’re a breeze), but because she was such a prolific writer during her career. Indeed, there are about 66 full-length novels in all, and I’ve only finished 37 of them — in two years.
Last night’s episode of How I Met Your Mother was called “The Naked Man”, and for me at least, wasn’t very enjoyable at all. The entire ep consisted of a running joke about one of Robin’s hookups who claims to have an extremely high success rate of bedding women with a technique called The Naked Man.
Although I’m getting pretty tired of the Apatow crew appearing in so many comedies these days, I have to admit that I like Jason Segel well enough to see almost anything that he’s in. That’s why I decided to give Forgetting Sarah Marshall a try, despite the fact that annoying (to me) Apatow regular Paul Rudd is also in the film. Thankfully, Segel was up to the task of carrying the comedic lead, and Rudd had a relatively minor role, making for a pretty enjoyable feature overall.
The teen vampire romance story Twilight, based on the hugely popular Stephanie Meyer book series, was the runaway winner at the box office this weekend, earning a massive $70.6 million to knock Quantum of Solace out of the top spot. Thanks to heavy fan anticipation and midnight showings, Twilight got off to a fast start and never looked back, despite relatively lukewarm reviews.
I very rarely bother going to see comedy films while they’re still in theaters, unless the movie in question has generated lots of good reviews or word-of-mouth buzz. This happened with There’s Something About Mary (a film I never would have seen based on previews alone) a decade ago, and more recently with Tropic Thunder over the summer. I really had no intention of going to see the Paul Rudd-Seann William Scott flick Role Models either, but was swayed by a couple of positive reviews from top critics including Roger Ebert. What a mistake that turned out to be!