The Screening Room

Slamming on the brakes
Just two weeks into the summer movie season, the first bomb has dropped. Speed Racer, the $120 million adaptation of the television cartoon, earned just $18.6 million and a third-place finish. Meanwhile, Iron Man continued its heroic pace, earning another $51 million to bring its two-week total to $177.8 mil. It should come as no surprise that Paramount has already ordered up the franchise's next installment.

As we reported during SXSW, The Visitor star Richard Jenkins did some time at the Dallas Theater Center (Former DTC honcho Adrian Hall worked extensively with Jenkins at the Trinity Square Repertory Company in Providence).

Hall once brought Jenkins out to Big D to act in Sam Shepard's Fool For Love. Keep reading for a funny Jenkins anecdote on DTC's sometimes-squeamish audiences.

Dynamic duo
A pair of martial-arts masters helped push overall box-office grosses to the first up weekend in four weeks when compared with the same time period last year. The Forbidden Kingdom, the first pairing of Jet Li and Jackie Chan, pulled in $20.8 million to take the top spot, while the R-rated Forgetting Sarah Marshall also opened impressively at No. 2 with $17 million.

In My Blueberry Nights Dallas' Norah Jones plays Elizabeth, a heartbroken traveler with a taste for blueberry pie. Audiences might have a hard time figuring out what makes the character tick. At first, so did the star.

Here's some good movie stuff from the folks in Metro and Religion about Ben Stein and his film Expelled. Thanks guys.

Blood bath
Prom Night, the horror fest loosely based on the 1980 film by the same name, cashed in on the impending high-school formal season with $20.8 million and a victory at the box office. The scarier scene came from the overall box-office picture, however, as the industry suffered a fourth consecutive down weekend when compared with the same period last year.

Hit me again
Critics booed it, but audiences doubled down last weekend for 21, which remained atop the box-office charts with $15.3 million. The tale of Las Vegas card counters edged out two new releases: the family flick Nim's Island ($13.2 million) and the George Clooney football comedy Leatherheads ($12.7 million).

Winner, winner, chicken dinner
Despite sub-par reviews, the blackjack drama 21 proved to be a winning hand for Sony, taking in $24 million and the top spot at the box office. Meanwhile, Horton had a tough time hearing those Whos as more coins clinked into its coffers, bringing its three-week total to $118 million.

The winner and still champion
Horton Hears a Who! decided to play two, topping the box office for a second weekend with $24.6 million. Right on its tale was the latest from Tyler Perry, Meet the Browns, which opened impressively at $20 million. That marks the first time since mid-January that two films earned $20 million or more in the same weekend.

The appropriately named Movie Food publishes recipes for dishes that match the theme of a particular movie, a cool idea for your next movie night.

So, for Ratatouille, for example, the site tells you how to prepare the dish that melted Ego's icy heart.

(Photo: Movie Food)

There are only a handful of recipes so far, but the "Upcoming Dishes" list looks promising.

I might skip the spaghetti the next time I'm watching Alien, though.
View image

Trunk show
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! stomped out the competition in its opening weekend, earning $45 million to become the biggest opener thus far in 2008. Overall, the weekend was up 8.5 percent over the same weekend in 2007, the first "up" weekend in four weeks.

Shooting bricks
Semi-Pro, on the strength of star Will Ferrell's tireless promotion, topped the charts with a well-below-expectations $15 million. That's the lowest chart-topping total since Sept. 14-16, when The Brave One won the weekend with $13.4 million.

Clear view from the top
Vantage Point, the political thriller about an assassination attempt viewed from multiple angles, found plenty of eyeballs over the weekend on the way to $22.9 million and the No. 1 spot. It proved to be the only real success of the four new movies with semi-wide distribution.

Hop to the top
A couple of new franchises and an established one took the top three spots at the box office over the extended Valentine’s Day through President’s Day weekend. Jumper ($32 million) and The Spiderwick Chronicles ($24.7 million), both of which could spawn a sequel, took the top two spots, while Step Up 2 the Streets, the follow-up to Step Up, earned $22 million to keep the machine humming.

‘Gold’ rush
Fool’s Gold followed a tried-and-true formula (hot stars + plenty of skin = big pile of cash) over the weekend to claim the No. 1 spot at the box office with $21.6 million. With Valentine’s Day plus a holiday weekend also in play, look for this date movie to chug along nicely.

Chris Vognar broke down our strange love affair with the movie hit man in today's GuideLive, and now we ask for your favorite movie hit man. Also, can anyone shed anymore light on why we seem to like these killers?
My favorite is kind of an obvious one, but I never tire of watching Samuel L. Jackson's Jules in Pulp Fiction. The way the tension builds up as he toys with his prey in that apartment, eating the guy's Hawaiian burger and drinking his soda before reciting some cold-blooded Bible verse -- it's a strange combination of joy and dread.

Miley high
Hannah Montana cannot be stopped. The teen sensation’s concert film easily took the top spot at the box office with $31 million, more than double what its closest competitor, The Eye, pulled in. Of course, jacked up ticket prices and drummed-up demand due to a supposed one-week airing didn’t hurt any.

A send-up stands up
It looks as if you are all in on the joke. Meet the Spartans, the spoof of last year’s 300, among others, topped the box office with $18.5 million, edging out Rambo by about $300,000. Spartans’ opening weekend is right in line with the openings of the last two year’s similarly minded spoofs, Date Movie ($19 million) and Epic Movie ($18.6 million).

Now that Sylvester Stallone has released long-unawaited sequels to Rambo and Rocky, what's the next 20-year old flick that he should follow up on.
Share your thoughts below. Here are some suggestions:
Cobra
Over the Top
Tango & Cash
Rhinestone

A monster opening
Cloverfield, armed with an effective viral marketing campaign and a devoted fanboy crowd, easily vanquished the competition over the holiday weekend. Its $46 million opening weekend was good for the best January debut on record.

The ‘Bucket’ does the kicking
After three weeks at the top of the charts, National Treasure: Book of Secrets was finally taken down by a couple of old guys. The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeeman as terminal cancer patients, won the weekend with $19.3 million in it first week in wide release.

It had to happen. Some nefarious YouTube geniuses have created a video mash-up of Daniel Day-Lewis' "I drink your milkshake!" rant from There Will be Blood and Kelis' booty dance anthem "Milkshake." Short, but in my opinion pretty darn brilliant. Check it out (courtesy of New York Magazine) here.

Keep on keepin’ on
National Treasure: Book of Secrets maintained its stranglehold on the box office, earning another $20 million. That’s good for three-straight weeks at the top, and $170.8 million domestically. And let’s not forget the $102 mil. it’s earned abroad. No doubt Disney hasn’t.

Same ’ol, same ‘ol
National Treasure: Book of Secrets retained its stranglehold on the top spot, bringing in another $54.5 million over the extended, five-day weekend, for a total of $149.9 million. Meanwhile, Alvin and the Chipmunks proved it, too, is a juggernaut, earning $41 million to bring its total to $153.6 million in three weeks.

No new movies hit the screen today, but we've still got your film fix. Chris Vognar and Stephen Becker name their picks for the top 10 flicks of 2007. Did they get it right, or totally miss the mark? Share your picks and pans.

Read more observations from 2007:
Year in Review
The best of the best from Dallasnews.com and The Dallas Morning News

Doubling up
National Treasure: Book of Secrets smartly went with the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach, sticking with its established kid-friendly brand of action moviemaking on its way to a $45 million opening weekend and the top spot at the box office. That figure is $10 million more than what the 2004 original brought in, and that film went on to make $173 million domestically.

Mr. Smith goes to the bank
Question: Why was New York City abandoned in I Am Legend? Answer: Everyone was in the theater watching the movie. Legend pulled in an astronomical $77 million in its opening weekend, good for the largest December haul ever. The previous record had been held since 2003 by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Pointing south
Some films benefit from a little controversy, and some are The Golden Compass. The fantasy film based on a series of books by noted atheist Philip Pullman won the weekend with $25.8 million but fell well below expectations.