Like John F. Kennedy, Obama will inspire a younger generation and invigorate the older generation to take greater part in their government, society, and community. But there are many obstacles this New Era will have to face. A sagging economy. War abroad. Faltering education.

And, worse of all [sic], the movie Horton Hears a Who.

"Hey, it's just a cartoon," you might say. But this particular cartoon will be seen by millions of children around the world. And they will come away with a clear impression that a single son is worth more than 96 daughters. Those boys are inherently more valuable than girls, and more likely to be successful (in this case, in saving the world) than girls.

And there is soooo much more to digest where that came from; you really must read it to believe it. Or maybe not "believe it," but... you know. On the court, of course, a common reaction to such violent rim-clankery is to exclaim to an unsympathetic ref that you were fouled. Alas, that excuse doesn't fly in Abdul-Jabbar's case because clearly no one was guarding him. All we can imagine from a look at the replay is that he was just trying to do too much with the ball as time ran out; glum coaches told reporters afterward they would continue to develop the big man's outside game in the days and weeks ahead.

• Horton Hears a Racist [The Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Blog]

1. 21 - $15.1 million
The geeks-take-Vegas opus shocked observers by not only sustaining its top spot for a second consecutive week, but also by outlasting consistently sluggish reviews (thus establishing critics' rumored irrelevancy beyond a doubt and putting in motion a unilateral purge of the eight remaining full-time reviewers working in the United States).

2. Leatherheads - $13.4 million
George Clooney's latest directorial/starring effort was easily the week's most stirring disappointment, pulling in woefully less than the $20 million forecast by observers last week. Analysts point out potential stumbling blocks from a misleading marketing campaign to a football film opening on a basketball/baseball weekend, but let's face it: No film can survive an opening-weekend torpedo from the influential critical duo Reel Geezers, who "felt bad for the cameramen and everyone involved."

3. Nim's Island - $13.3 million
Before this morning we'd never even heard of this movie, the script for which a Fox executive is said to have discovered under his passenger seat while searching for his dropped Bluetooth earpiece. Was this actually released, or was this just a WGA-engineered ploy to make its newly fi-core archenemy Clooney feel worse about Leatherheads?

4. Horton Hears a Who! - $9.1 million
Plunging nearly 50 percent from its bridesmaid perch last week, Horton nevertheless sustained a Top-5 berth. Jim Carrey spent the weekend calculating the dynamics of his newfound leverage, which should be just enough to get his and Spike Jonze's Ripley's Believe it or Not adaptation pushed up to a 2017 release.

11. Stop-Loss - $2.3 million
Is Hollywood out of touch when it comes to the Iraq War? Oh, wait.

1. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! - $25.1 million
A second solid week atop the box office officially cements this all-CGI adaptation of the beloved children's verse as a bona fide blockbuster. Proving a perfectly successful Seuss adaptation can come from not veering too far from the source material, directors are now lining up to pitch their own faithful versions of works from his canon. First up: Oliver Stone's searing take on The Butter Battle Book, tweaked to better evoke the Iraq War with suicide-Eight-Nozzled Elephant-Toted Boom Blitz-bombing Zook-insurgents.

2. Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns - $20.01 million
Oh, who really cares if it's anachronistically racist, sexist, and/or homophobic: Madea's back! And her legions of fans were eager to part with their disposable leisure-dollars just to catch the latest adventures of their favorite gat-toting drag-grandma.

3. Shutter - $10.7 million
Yet another horror thriller from the Far East about spooky digital photos that sneak up on you in the bathroom mirror de-Asianized for American consumption, the critically trounced U.S. version of the Thai original is notable only for starring Joshua Jackson, offering plenty of opportunities for smart-ass entertainment reporters to ask the, "Talk to Katie Holmes lately?" question at press junkets, just to see him get pissed off.

4. Drillbit Taylor - $10.2 million
Owen Wilson's return as a leading man was met with a lackluster response, as this Seth Rogen-co-written, Judd Apatow-produced comedy about—a kid bodyguard, or something?—lacked the menstrual blood heart of the creative team's last teen raunchcom foray.

5. 10,000 B.C. - $8.66 million
Run! CGI mammothsaurs! They'll kill us all!!!

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE March 21-23, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

1. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! - $45.1 million
"It's a who-mongous opening," Fox senior VP of distribution Chris Aronson said about their CGI adaptation of the classic Dr. Seuss book bearing the moral, "A person's a person no matter how outlandish their schizophrenic hallucinations regarding tiny societies inhabiting a speck of dust." Fox can trumpet their who-horns as loudly as they please, as Horton lays claim to the biggest opening of 2008, and fifth-biggest opening of a children's animated movie of all time. That all but guarantees a long run of equally successful sequels, sending Fox execs to their dry-erase boards to conjure up all new who-prefixed synonyms ("who-uge!" "who-pping!") for the boastful concept of "shitload-earning."

2. 10,000 B.C. - $16.415 million
There was a precipitous fall of 54% from its opening weekend for Roland Emmerich's exhaustingly researched retelling—like HBO's John Adams, more a historical documentary than a movie, really—of the days J.Lo video background-dancers hunted woolly mammoths. That suggests to us that audiences might prefer a touch of fantasy and whimsy thrown in with their history lessons. Oh well—something to think about for next time, Emmerich!

3. Never Back Down - $8.61 million
7. Doomsday - $4.743 million
The surprise sleeper of the week came from Djimon Hounsou-slumming, martial arts drama Never Back Down, with Summit Entertainment greatly underestimating the number of gay men who'd gather around the movie in a circle, waving disposable income in the air and cheering on a half-naked Sean Faris and Cam Gigandet as they faced off in ultimate fighting duel, The Beatdown. (First rule of The Beatdown: Everyone wins!) Doomsday, meanwhile, underperformed for Universal/Rogue Pictures, with only the rare moviegoer taking up the offer, "Hey, honey—what about this really hacky-looking rip-off of The Road Warrior?"

4. College Road Trip - $7.893 million
Road Trip marks the second installment of what will eventually come to be known as Martin Lawrence's Family Journeys Trilogy, which began with Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins, and will end later this year with Driving Grandma Josephine To Her Grave, in which Lawrence will play all parts including the titular, [spoiler alert!!!] not-quite-dead corpse.

5. Vantage Point - $5.4 million
We're rubbing a four-leaf clover hoping this is Vantage Point's last week in the top five, as we ran out of multi-P.O.V. presidential-assassination thriller jokes about movies we've never seen pretty much in Week One.

• BOX OFFICE MOJO WEEKEND BOX OFFICE March 14-16, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]