1. Four Christmases - $18.180 million
The LAT's Patrick Goldstein laid out his compelling case over the weekend for why Nicole Kidman is not, in the traditional sense, a classic "movie star" ("...Exhibit 7D: Movie stars can arch one or more eyebrows..."), but we wonder how his litmus test would apply to Reese Witherspoon, who boasts the #1 movie in America for the second week in a row. Surely, if America's Jake-Wrangling, Alpha-Type Sweetheart can swindle another 18 mil for this drek, she's ably proven how she still meets every movie star qualification, thereby placing some breathing room between herself and fearsome salary-terrorist Katherine Heigl.

2. Twilight - $13.197 million
The incendiary "leaked" Facebook exchanges of Count Hair-Productula are looking more and more to have been the work of a malicious internet prankster. Unfortunately, the other circulating Twilight rumor—that director Catherine Hardwicke would be dropped from the sequel—has proven to be true. We've already offered our shortlist of names best suited take over the reins on this epic tale of sunlight-retardant vampires and the werewolves who sleep with their best friends's girlfriends. May the best director win.

3. Bolt - $9.696 million
Inspired by the town of Batman, Turkey's lawsuit against Warner Bros. for superhero-name-infringement, world's fastest man Usain Bolt is mulling his own lawsuit against Disney for appropriating his copyrighted brand for use in their unsettling, John Travolta-as-dog-who-hangs-out-with-a-gerbil-stuck-inside-a-Benoit-ball movie. Good luck, Usain!

4. Australia - $7 million
It was another modest weekend for Baz Luhrmann's sprawling epic about Australian history, but the director can always take some solace in knowing his tourism campaign for the land of the same name kept people away from Australia in even larger numbers, as world travelers opted for a vacation destination that didn't require them to first get dumped by a lover in a rainstorm and be visited later that night by aboriginal child-spirit Brandon Walters.

N/A. Frost/Nixon - $180,000
That's on just three screens, mind you—here, NYC, and Toronto—bringing in 50% more revenue than The Queen did in its limited release, and nearly twice the amount that appeared to us in our crystal balls. Still, it strikes us as weird, because the Cinerama dome was at least half-empty yesterday afternoon—though it's perhaps a bit too soon to start crying "Historical-Reenactment-of-WaterGateGate!"

• 'Christmases' still jolly at box office [Variety]

1. Four Christmases - $31.68 million
Stir-crazy holiday audiences were looking for literally any excuse to escape their parents' homes for a few hours that didn't involve tweenpires, hamster bowling, or Nicole Kidman brandishing a wombat rifle. Four Christmases therefore was the default candidate, and surprised everyone by becoming the third-highest Thanksgiving weekend earner on record (right back to the Mayflower days!). Unfortunately, Witherspoon and screen-spouse Vince Vaughn were barely able to mask what the Guardian describes as "the classic 'Hollywood romcom' face: waxy as a corpse, dead-eyed with self-loathing, and as smiley and blank as someone who has just consumed their bodyweight in Temazepam and Pernod." Apparently Paula Abdul's baseline mood is now an identified acting affliction!

2. Bolt - $26.596 million
Amazingly, 3-D animated family film Bolt saw a 1% increase in its second weekend in release. It's a rare gain Disney attributes to positive word of mouth, as audiences of all ages are responding to the story of a diminutive action-hero dog deluded into thinking he possesses special knowledge and abilities that place him above mortal dogs; he eventually learns a valuable lesson about humility after a series of severe career missteps—culminating in a starring role as a German Shepherd assassin assigned to hunt down history's most evil canine leader, Der Schnaüzer.

3. Twilight - $19.5 million
While it managed to crack $100 million, the Shoegazing, Neck-Sucking Tale of an Emo Generation saw its receipts tumble 62% since last week. As most hardcore Twilight fans have seen the movie several times already, new audiences were comprised mainly of confused Seniors thinking they were wandering into a promotional sales meeting for the apartment-style community services of Twilight Gables Assisted Living Center in Altamonte Springs, FL.

4. Quantum of Solace - $19.5 million
5. Australia - $14.815 million
Trying to focus on the marathon vs. the sprint, Fox senior VP of distribution Chris Aronson said, "Australia is a bold, unconventional film. It's haute cuisine, versus fast food." It's an apt metaphor, in that Australia offers the really expensive, overly precious 16-course tasting menu that takes four hours to get through, whereas Quantum just gives you the quick-and-dirty satisfaction of devouring a Daniel Craig corn dog in a couple of greasy bites.

10. Milk - $1.381 million
11. Slumdog Millionaire - $1.367 million
The eerily timely and heavily Oscar-buzzed underdogs were neck-and-neck, with Sean Penn's revelatory work in Milk just slightly edging out Danny Boyle's audience fave, which already lays credit to the quotable line of the 2008 awards season: "I'd like to use my phone-a-slum, Reeg."

• November 28–30, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

WHAT'S NEW: Speaking of recipes, Four Christmases sure has a fresh one! Mix Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. Add two cups of diced ensemble players including Robrt Duvall, Jon Favreau, Kristin Chenoweth and Sissy Spacek. Flavor with ball-kicking, pratfall and baby-vomit jokes. Bake for two hours. Serve lukewarm. It's good for about $40 million over five days. Transporter 2 is a little simpler hors d'oeurve for the guys out there, with Jason Statham liberally seasoned with bullets, quick cuts and decibels, turning out $18 million before the main course on DVD.

But if you're allergic to the multiplex, you may be best best suited to skip ahead to this week's new home video releases; the art-house kitchen appears to be closed to deliveries for the holiday weekend.

THE BIG LOSER: Australia is almost three hours' worth of the expansive (and expensive, at $130 million) hisorical epic no one makes anymore. And despite Oprah Winfrey's lavish endorsement, there's a reason for that: It's one in a generation that actually finds any traction in the two female quadrants whose repeat viewings push it toward box-office longevity and, almost necessarily, Oscar luster. Fox needs half a Titanic here (thus its Hugh Jackman heartthrob push at non-starter Nicole Kidman's expense) to make this work, and for the sake of the studio and director Baz Luhrmann and all involved, we hope they get it. But the middling, $26 million reality — especially on Twilight's likely second week at No. 1 — is what it is.

THE UNDERDOG: Instant-message quibbles aside, Milk is far and away the best thing opening this weekend; expect sell-outs and a per-screen average of at least $39,000 in 17 markets. (It opens wide Dec. 12.)

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD's include Will Smith's brooding hero Hancock, the summer champs Meet Dave and Space Chimps, more Vaughn holiday frolic in Fred Claus, the TV knockoffs A Colbert Christmas and 24: Redemption, and just in time for the holidays/white-elephant gift exchange, Beverly Hills 90210: The Complete Sixth Season.

So will your Turkey Day food coma overlap into moviegoing? Is it more of a football-and-shopping weekend, or will the budgie-smuggling pull of Australia be just too challenging to withstand? In any event, have a fantastic holiday, and should you brave Space Chimps, please let us know what we're missing.

VINCE VAUGHN LOOKS A LOT LIKE VINCE VAUGHN, ONLY BIGGER...His face is full, puffy enough to make him sometimes look as though he's fighting to keep his eyes open—not as though he's just woken up but as though he's never bothered to go to bed in the first place. His shirt is open at the collar, probably because it has to be. It's also open at the waist. Even from across this crowded restaurant, it's possible to see a jumbo slice of Vaughn's naked belly. It's too much to ignore, this great golden acreage, because he leads with it and because it's probably been kissed by Jennifer Aniston, standing on her tippy-toes.

Yes, well, that's surely a mental image that won't go away! However, the writer is not yet done pounding home Vaughn's bloat. Gorge on these excerpts:

· He's the biggest man in the room. And because of his size, and because he inherited from his salesman father a competitive streak as well as a knack for volume business, he is voracious in his appetites (steak and lobster and creamed spinach) and his desires (to be loved).

· He sinks deeper into the couch, exhausted by his lies.

· There is only one question that Vaughn will answer without reservation. He answered it the night before, at the steakhouse, underscoring every elaborately constructed sentence, paragraph, and punctuation mark with a forkful of lobster meat...

· He swells up and starts shouting again.

· Favreau shows up and Vaughn makes room for him on the couch. He's just wearing a T-shirt and jeans, sucking on a mint for lunch, ready to go to work. It's funny seeing them like this, the two guys from Swingers at their ten-year reunion, a little older, a little fatter, a little tired-seeming and wrung out.

· And just then, Vince Vaughn looks the way a big man looks when someone stands up to him for the first time in his life.

"...Like a fat dude caught stuffing cake in his mouth," right? We're just guessing!

• Vince graces the cover of Esquire magazine [Vince-Vaughn.com]

Boomp3.com

After a lunch date with a good friend, Four Christmases star Reese Witherspoon went in for a kiss since she felt the meal went well. However, Witherspoon’s companion gracefully glided Witherspoon to her cheek. The companion said, “Lunch dates get the cheek. Now, take me to Katsuya and maybe I’ll reconsider the lips.”

[Photo Credit: X17]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Is it simply that studios are too terrified to give a woman first billing over a male star, lest people then think the film to be a chick flick? After all, Vaughn's last hit was The Break-Up, the rare romantic comedy with strong male appeal, something that marketing folks might have felt was in jeopardy had costar Jennifer Aniston been first-billed. Four Christmases isn't a romcom but a flat-out comedy, but would it be perceived as the former if Vaughn was subservient to Witherspoon in the billing block?

Yes, when compared to Witherspoon, the presence of Vaughn in this film makes us more likely to see it (though still? not very likely), simply because the actor has a track record of enlivening even the most formulaic films with his improvised comic riffs. Still, we wonder just how B- and C-list you'd have to go to find a male costar whom the studio would allow Witherspoon to supplant. In an alternate Four Christmases, could the actress vault over Colin Farrell to claim first billing? Or will she have to settle for a part opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. to claim what, by rights, should be hers?