1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — $79.5 million
Did you have to sit in the front row this weekend because all the cineplexes were packed with hooch-swillin hipsters and wonderment-enthusiasts? We did! But wasn't it grand (in spite of Snape's man bangs)

2. Ice Age: Dawn of The Dinosaurs — $17.7 million
What kind of fun-hating parent dragged their kid to see this CGI'd kind of dullness instead of Harry Potter this weekend? Shame on them! Is it because of Potter's pagan themes or sexually subversive undertones? It's a bewildering world when a project involving Dennis Leary is considered family friendly.

3. Transformers: Rise of the Fallen — $13.8 million
Bay's mediation on the illusory nature of plot still continues to resonate with movie goers. In the cacophony of noise and the visual abyss nestled between Megan Fox's chest orbs, the modern movie man can confront the terrifying absurdity of existence. I mean, it's tough now-a-days to get audiences to sit through an art flick so a drop to third place this week is still an admirable position to be in.

4. Brüno — $8.4 million
Aw, you guys remember Brüno? You know that hateful little mockumentary that shoved a mirror in Appalachia's meth ravaged face and said "Look! Look at what an ugly homophobic face you have!" And how we talked about it! As if it would be some kind of milestone in cinematic gay-straight relations. But now, just two weeks since Brüno's shoved his gadfly tushie in our bigoted faces, we realize that the culture has shifted beneath Brüno's Bavarian feet. Audiences don't seemed thrilled to witness others humiliated just to prove a political point.

5. The Hangover — $8.3 million
The man driven laffer continues to pull in the cargo-short set. And good for them! Warners hasn't made this much money with an R-rated summer comedy since Beverly Hills Cop — not to be confused with Beverly Hills Ninja which stared Chris Farley. Hm, is Zach Greekname the thinking man's Farley? Or is he like the hipsters' Eddie Murphy?

6. through 9. The Proposal Up My Sister's Public Enemies — various millions
Sandra Bullock's embargo on time travel movies has proved to be a wise decision with another $ 8.3 million for The Proposal this weekend. Public Enemies, Michael Mann's 2-hour love letter to boring made $7.6 million. What's Up is that Pixar is still being beautiful and rich at the box office with $ 3.1 million this weekend. And even though My Sister's Keeper, which made $2.8 million, looks like 90 minute paper cut we should all still think good thoughts about Abigail Breslin because she's just a walking glob of adorable talent.

Her success has only made the 12 year-old more brazen about her shocking lack of technique. Breslin's latest slap in the face to true students of the dramatic arts is so horrifying that it must be hidden after the jump.

In her latest film, the G-rated salute to overpriced dolls, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, Breslin couldn't even be bothered to sport the appropriate period hairstyle. She brazenly admitted to the LA Times Dish Rag blog that her "side-parted blond page boy" cut was a wig. Said Breslin, "I really don't know if I could handle having my own hair really short, but wearing the wig was fun. I'd never do that to my real hair, because I like putting it in a ponytail."

Breslin refused to undergo even the mild inconvenience of waiting a couple months for her hair to grow out. How long will this shocking insistence that she can portray a character without embracing the pretentiousness of method acting be allowed to continue? Next we'll learn that she didn't demand her parents divorce to enhance the emotional truth of her performance in Definitely Maybe.

• Abigail Breslin refuses to cut her hair like Kit Kittredge! [The Dish Rag]

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl has no sex and not much of a city.

But this G-rated movie adventure is shaping up as Hollywood's next serious bid for female viewers, some of whom showed their power by pushing the R-rated comedy Sex and the City to surprisingly strong first-weekend ticket sales of more than $57 million two weeks ago. ...

[American Girl]'s mail-order catalog, a primary engine for sales, has a blurb promoting the movie on its May cover. Cities with American Girl retail outlets — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and suburban Atlanta — will get to see the movie early, beginning on June 20. That first round is being helped along on the Web with Kit's movie blog and, at the Grove shopping mall in Los Angeles, with the giveaway of "Kit's Home on Abbott Place," an elaborate playhouse built by Pardee Homes as part of a benefit for the homeless.

The homeless angle! Why didn't Speed Racer think of that? That's hardly it, though; there's the in-store, mother-daughter dining parties and the dynamic approach to the film's G rating, featuring young Kit's (Abigail Breslin) Depression-era spunkiness and "doubts" about her father, played by Chris O'Donnell, upon learning he once voluntarily portrayed Robin in a Joel Schumacher film. WB brass, meanwhile, at least one high-ranking member of which has gone on record suggesting marketing is secondary to the movies it supports, are insisting today that the experimental "poster defacement" phase of its Get Smart campaign is coming along exactly as planned. We can only wonder how Picturehouse would have done it.

• More Girls, Little Ones, Try to Take Back the Multiplex [NYT]

In this video clip from TMZ, you'll see an adorable Abigail Breslin about to leave the event in her white stretch limo when she hears someone calling her name. That someone would be the aforementioned Sean Faris, who butters up the precocious Fanning Slayer by telling her (and we quote), "You're awesome. You're an awesome actor. High five. I can't wait to someday work with you." While we're fairly certain that everyone's intentions here were admirable, surely there are better ways to introduce yourself to one of Hollywood's youngest power players than by stalking her limo while it waits outside of The Avalon. Right?

• Breslin Buttered Up By Older Man

boomp3.com

Little Miss Sunshine herself, Abigail Breslin, made a pledge in a ceremony yesterday afternoon that she will not become another Lindsay Lohan, nor will she write and perform weird poems like Leelee Sobieski. She also explained that she would avoid getting Gary Busey-esque caps on her teeth like Hannah Montana, and that she would do her best to avoid becoming whatever Tatum O'Neal became. Breslin then promised that she'd at least try to make the successful transition from child actor to adulthood like Jodie Foster, but was overheard admitting to close friends afterwards that there's a good chance that she could become the next Kristy McNichol.

[Photo Credit: Splash News]

"I want to do a fashion line too, but not an 'Emma' fashion line," she said, clicking through her mental check list. "I want to do a real fashion line and sell it out of a boutique in Barneys or Neiman's. Like Mary-Kate and Ashley's line [the Row] but a really cool line of jeans or maybe dresses like [British pop singer] Lily Allen. [...]

And the teen who plays her is smart enough to know that to have the career she envisions, she'll need to move beyond the roles of nice girls in small movies. For a start, she'd like to do a horror movie, she says, and a comedy. Further down the line, "I would really like to own my own production company some day," Roberts mused. "I read scripts that I'm not right for, but I would still like to see the movie get made. I would love to produce."

While a part of us wants to believe that Roberts' royal bloodlines afford her some sort of immunity to the problems that have plagued Lohan (and, for that matter, one of her beloved Olsens), we fear that her combination of ambition, intellect, and genes will merely serve to make her into some kind of super-hellion when she succumbs to Hollywood's inescapable temptations. Perverting the detective skills she learned on the Drew set, she'll infiltrate Hyde and Teddy's at a younger age than her dimmer predecessors, and always be one step ahead of the bumbling authorities desperate to take her down; just when the cops think they've finally caught up to her, they'll discover that the unconscious, underaged actress slumped behind the wheel of Roberts' freshly crashed Mercedes is in fact Dakota Fanning, then shake a frustrated fist in the air, knowing their formidable adversary has once again slipped through their grasp.

• It's a green light for stand-up girls' roles [LAT]

The academy won't publicly discuss which categories aren't allowed, but sources said they include deodorants, feminine hygiene products, anti-depressants, erectile dysfunction pills, laxatives or anything else it deems distasteful. As AMPAS executive administrator Ric Robertson joked by way of explanation, "The academy doesn't recognize aging." He would not specify which product categories were off-limits, but did acknowledge that the academy strives "to maintain a level of elegance and class to the event."

Most important is the academy's strictly enforced policy against ads that feature any Oscar nominee or presenter during the broadcast, said Robertson. "That's one of our most important issues," he explained. "In the same vein, neither can a studio run an ad of an upcoming release. We don't want there to be the slightest hint of any conflict there."

That second-to-last rule of course eliminated Abigail Breslin's HP photo printer ad from the running, instantly dashing the company's high hopes that their 10-year-old spokesperson could help guide Americans confused by a crowded home printer market towards their product through the basic thought formula: "That's the girl from that movie! I loved that movie! And I love printing photos! HP is the brand for me!"

• Ads You Didn't (and Won't) See On The Oscars Telecast [Adweek/Yahoo]

On the Oscar® red carpet, when asked how Breslin is responding to the attention as a Oscar® nominee (nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role), Arkin said, "I hope she loses frankly. No, I'm serious. I am not joking."

Arkin added, "I hope she loses. What, next year she is going to get the Nobel Prize, it's enough. She has had enough attention. I love her and I love her family; and I feel enough is enough. She is a kid; she needs to have a childhood....I hope she loses."

Sunday truly was Arkin's night: Not only did he send Eddie Murphy into a sure spiral of despair (we expect that tomorrow he's going to announce that he's done with any roles in which he can't shield himself from disappointment beneath a protective layer of latex cellulite), his red carpet hex shielded Breslin from Oscar's corrupting influence. And he did it relatively tactfully: He didn't even need to mention the words "Dakota Fanning" for us to know he doesn't want his onscreen granddaughter winding up in any rape movies until she's a little more grown up.

• 2007 Oscars [Access Hollywood]