What say we lighten the mood and swing into a productive 2009 with some box office numbers?

1. Marley & Me - $24.1 million
In what will certainly go down as the Holocaustiest holiday movie season in history, it was the story of a disobedient Golden Lab with no known ties to the Nazi party that again managed to capture America's hearts. With an 11-day total of $107 million, Marley is well on track to becoming the Highest Grossing Live-Action Dog Movie of all Time, rocketing past previous record holders like 1972's Lassie Tangos in Paris and Richard Attenborough's 1982 masterpiece, Benjhi.

2. Bedtime Stories - $20.3 million
We finally have some clue as to what co-star Keri Russell was talking about on a recent Late Night with Conan O'Brien appearance, as this mostly family-friendly offering does feature one disturbing sequence in which the actress is spirited away from a campfire by a Benjamin Buttonesque goblin-manchild.

3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - $18.4 million
We think we know what would have made Button work better: having Brad Pitt in one outfit throughout his remarkable transformation. Think about how much more you would have been invested in the journey had the film been book-ended by baby-sized Button swaddled in the adult tuxedo and top hat he eventually grows into somewhere around the two-hour mark.

4. Valkyrie - $14 million
Valkyrie is the rare Hitler-hunting movie that rewards repeat-viewings, as director Bryan Singer has loaded his film with dozens of easter eggs just waiting to be discovered by WWII buffs. For example, in the suitcase-bomb rigging scene, if you look on the bookshelf behind Col. von Stauffenberg, you'll notice a copy of "Ein Sehr Hitler Weihnachten" ("A Very Hitler Christmas"), the Fuhrer's little-known, disastrous attempt at invading the holiday album market.

5. Yes Man - $13.9 million
We'd be happier for star Zooey Deschanel and Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard engagement had we no suspicions that the entire thing was just an elaborate promotional stunt, set to climax with the words "Yes Man, I Do" at the couple's DVD-release-themed wedding.

• January 2–4, 2009 [Box Office Mojo]

WHAT'S NEW: High stakes are hardly unusual for a holiday frame, but their sheer volume in 2008 is slightly disturbing: Last week's new-movie nomads shall be consumed wholly by a pack of heavyweight predators in wide release. Their top grosser should be Disney's Bedtime Stories, a sizable stride in the slow Eddie Murphyfication of Adam Sandler, playing a novice storytelling uncle who is shocked when his tales come to life. Hijinks ensue while conjuring the most explicit double entendres he can imagine, thus leaving both the kiddies and himself fulfilled when the gumball rain outside yields a ball-gum flood requiring Keri Russell's careful attention. Expect Stories to win the long weekend with $39.9 million.

The bourgeois-white-assholes-and-their-crazy-fucking-dog tearjerker Marley & Me won't be that far behind at $35.7 million, defying Disney's covert spoiler ops to steer people to their own family offfering. Behind that, look for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to officially launch its Oscar crusade with $22.6 million, hindered by its nearly three-hour length and more-than-expected siphoning off by Valkyrie (which we'll get to in a bit). At the bottom of the scrum you'll find The Spirit, Frank Miller's spectacularly awful adaptation of Will Eisner's comics classic, pocketing $11.9 million for Lionsgate. Also opening in limited release: The Cannes darling, Oscar-probable animated documentary from Israel, Waltz With Bashir.

THE BIG LOSER: There aren't enough pejoratives in the world to pile onto Revolutionary Road, Sam Mendes's misbegotten attempt to steal another Oscar while the Academy reaches for its collective Kleenex. Or checks its watch; the reunion of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet is an interminable slog that, with any justice, should see its early, positive numbers reverse dramatically as Los Angeles and New York audiences flee theaters in search of refunds. What more can we say? Oh — lots.

THE UNDERDOG: We probably have no right to place a Tom Cruise film in this spot — especially one so expensively ubiquitous of late. But after all those months of speculation and dread surrounding Bryan Singer's $90 million thriller about the failed plot to kill Hitler, let's be fair: Valkyrie is a solid if weird popcorn thriller. The first act drags, Singer gets a little too cute for anyone's good (may we never again be subjected to his spinny Phonograph-Cam™), and you never do totally sink into Cruise and castmates Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson and Kenneth Branagh as English-speaking German officers. Still, the assassination conspiracy and its momentary glimmer of success is a captivating fluke of history handled articulately and tastefully — and sure, entertainingly — by Singer and Cruise. Even if you don't contribute to its $18.2 million opening, it's worth a look in the weeks ahead.

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD releases include the Statham-y holiday favorite Death Race, the underrated Coen Brothers caper Burn After Reading, Anna Faris's Playboy commercial-cum-college comedy The House Bunny, and a couple of the year's most notorious indie flops, The Women and Hamlet 2. Gather the family, and have a great holiday weekend!

Sandler visited David Letterman Monday to promote his new film Bedtime Stories, a nonsecular holiday blockbuster in which he seemed much less invested than his duty to explain the holidays themselves to his 2-year-old daughter. The gentiles at Defamer HQ can't imagine Chanukah being that bad, and in any case, it's the movie season around Christmas that ultimately necessitates something like Bedtime Stories in the first place. So enjoy your diabetic candy, Little Sandler; some of us have some serious atoning to do. [The Late Show]