Franco is currently on the pineapple express to Homotown while studying writing at Columbia and taking some at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Word is that he enrolled in an undergrad queer film class, but missed his first session. Considering his penchant for napping during lectures that's not much of a surprise. If he manages to show up in future week's he'll be treated to learning about things like "'Bottom Values: Anal Economics in History of Black Neighborhoods' and 'When are Dirty Details and Scenes Compelling? Tucked in the Cuts of Interracial Anal Rape.'" Sounds just like a class from an all-boys Catholic high school!

Back in the day, actors wouldn't touch gay roles for fear of being labeled as gay or typecast in only homo parts. Franco's last project was playing a big ol' Mary in Milk and his next gig lets his limp wrists wiggle as gay poet Allen Ginsberg in Howl. And if his turn in gay indie film Blind Spot and as probably bi actor James Dean in the made-for-TV biopic weren't enough, he's even directed some hardcore man-on-man action. His last student film for Tisch was a dirty gay fantasia that featured a boy dreaming in graphic detail about the jocks on the basketball court.

With all this hardcore action, can his next big deal be signing a an exclusive contract with Colt Studios? Or maybe he'll cast future pornstar and gay icon Levi Johnston in his next film. That would be more priceless than a million Spider-Man sequels!

[Image via Getty]

Will someone please tell Gus Van Sant that he is not an angsty gay teen anymore? While we're not asking him to make G.I. Joe 2, he couldn't do something a little bit more than Restless, the story of a young, moody boy who goes to strangers' funerals to cope with his parents' deaths. He meets a young girl in a graveyard who only has six months to live. The film's budget is set at $15 million, $2.5 million of which is reserved for the eyeliner and Manic Panic.

Don't get us wrong, we loved Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, and Good Will Hunting. He even managed to change his formula up by introducing an sad teen (Joaquin Phoenix, before the beard) to an a deluded, ambitious older lady (Nicole Kidman, before the Botox) in To Die For.

But who out there suffered through Elephant, Paranoid Park, Gerry and Last Days? Yeah, we didn't think so. Probably because his experiments on getting depressed teens to improvise for the camera became staid and tedious. We were hoping that Milk, with its message of political empowerment and a movement coming into its own, would be the start of the dear director's second act. Guess we were wrong.

Isn't it time to make some more movies about grown ups? Even Woody Allen went from making movies about young neurotic New Yorkers sleeping with girls way out of their league to making movies about old neurotic New Yorkers sleeping with girls way out of their league. The rest of us are miserable too, Gus. Where's our movie?

For one thing, it's set in a strange land, with small children who run around covered in poo. Americans might be confused and stuff!

Not to worry!

The only feel-good movie of the year—or any year, really—that features (SPOILER ALERT) homeless children blinded with acid and forced to sing and hustle for money is doing quite well post Oscar-win.

Its Friday numbers were up 53% from last week, finishing third behind such worthy opponents as The Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, and Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Jail.

Other Oscar flicks experienced an uptick, as well, including the previously unmarketable The Reader, which, in recent ads (which we're trying desperately to find for you) is being pitched as a sex-filled courtroom drama, filled with intrigue and mystery, starring "Academy Award Winner Kate Winslet!"—and is missing all of those foreboding sad piano tones found in the original trailer, and downplays that whole Nazi thing. Well, at least they figured out how to sell tickets.

Milk and The Wrestler also did well at the B.O. post Oscars-even though Mickey Rourke was a loser. The former's gross went up a whopping 37.5%-bringing the total take to $28.8 million. Guess we are commie homo-loving sons of guns, after all.

Today, we bring you Milkyrie—described by its makers as "Milk meets Valkyrie. Deal with it." Yes, they've gone and done it: With the help of an all-the-rage time-travel plot device, they've transposed late-70s Castro with late-WW2 Berlin, and let the two film's various heroes, anti-heroes, ruthless dictators, and tenaciously gayfro'd campaign managers mingle in a Milk-Nazi smoothie. Does it make sense? No. Did we laugh? Yes. Particularly when Cleve Jones assured Col. von Stauffenberg, "I don't do...losing."

While Slumdog Millionaire (writer Simon Beaufoy won the WGA's Adapted Screenplay prize) and the usual acting suspects spent the weekend tightening their chokeholds on Academy voters, Black was the Guild's only dual-winner: First for the previously announced Paul Selvin Award honoring attention to social issues, and a few minutes later, in the West Coast awards' last hand-off of the night, the Best Original Screenplay trophy. He delivered the modestly tear-streaked acceptance speech he hopes to deliver Feb. 22, assuming he can fend off In Bruges's BAFTA award-winner (and fellow Focus Features stablemate) Martin McDonagh, Happy-Go-Lucky's Mike Leigh and ultimate underdog Courtney Hunt, whose own Big Issues movie Frozen River has a small but intensely devoted constituency in the writer's branch.

Meanwhile, Breaking Bad, 30 Rock and Recount were honored as well, thus putting a seasonal end to TV's cute but annoying imposition on the Slumdog juggernaut. We'll see them back on their own diluted awards home front this fall.

• 'Milk,' 'Slumdog' top WGA Awards [Variety]

Shot by Gus Van Sant for Vogue Hommes International (and dutifully scanned by MCN's David Poland), the pictorial plucks Black from Roland Emmerich's twink-filled compound and juxtaposes him with the photographs and memorabilia of the man whose life story he penned. We hope that the frequently shirtless screenwriter sees his gambit pay dividends; Jenny Lumet, now you know what you have to do next time.

• Gus van Sant Shoots Dustin Lance Black For Vogue Paris pour Hommes [Hot Blog]

· Have you ever seen Disney's 1940 Pinocchio on the big screen? Now you can. It's playing at the El Capitan until February 12.
· Nightmares on Wax (George Evelyn aka DJ EASE) plays the Echoplex.

The Reader and Milk didn't get very far at all in their first weekends of wide(-ish) release, despite the latter film's particular efforts to separate itself from the Slumdog/Frost/Nixon pack that got a head start a week earlier. Focus pulled in $1.414 million on 882 screens — actually $39,000 less than last November's opening-weekend gross on 36 screens. The $1,603 per-screen average was still enough to knock Frost/Nixon off, but not enough to surpass The Reader, itself a disappointment with barely $2.3 million on 1,000 screens.

And of course all of them succumbed once again to the muscularly rabid breed that is Slumdog — as noted, a $7.6 million-grossing, crap-covered Oscar darling if ever we saw one. Sean Penn and Kate Winslet remain safely in the lead on their own tracks, meanwhile, redeeming at least some of Focus's and the Weinsteins' strategies. Thank God the acting branch remains lousy at math.

• Weekend Box Office, Jan 30 - Feb. 1 [Box Office Mojo]

As noted last night by Anne Thompson, Focus waited to enter Milk in the wide-release scrum where Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon battled last week. The strategy accomplished more than just simple separation; it allowed the distributor to pocket the money it would have dumped on garden-variety awards-season ads and spend more aggressively tomorrow, calling attention to eight actual Oscar nods.

On one hand, it's not like Focus had much choice — Milk only had one Golden Globe nomination to pimp (a loss, at that). On the other, it's still a savvy economization of punches in the week when ballots were sent out, and in any case it has Thompson (and now us) surmising a scenario in which "Slumdog and its main rival, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, split the vote and Milk takes the best picture win."

It's not out of the question; if anyone knows about peaking too soon, it's Focus, still stinging along with the rest of us three years after Brokeback Mountain. We don't know when or even if Button will peak at all, but Slumdog is having a miserable time holding on to "darling" status while press on three continents chatter on about Child-ExploitationGate. We'll leave the sociocultural debate to the experts, but we were way in front of the raging Oscar-cultural debate as to which Slumdog nemesis might have pushed the story to coincide with the ballot-mailing. And don't look at Harvey, folks; he's just happy to be here.

• Oscar Watch: Is Milk Coming Up on the Outside? [Thompson on Hollywood]

Via AfterElton comes this truly awkward clip, in which no amount of Lance Bass-led media training has guarded Fatone against asking uncomfortable questions about Franco's decision to "play a homosexual, correct?" After a full minute of suffering through Fatone's remedial queries and sexual double entendres, Franco looks ready to administer a patented "Rinna lip" to Fatone using his own fists; we're shocked that the 'N Syncer didn't make it all the way to, "So what was it like to kiss Sean Penn, who was also playing a homosexual?" but by then, he was no doubt receiving "wrap it up" signs from his producer, his horrified stylist, and a cackling Rinna (who would have been licking her lips, had she the energy for such a formidable task).

• "Milk" star James Franco accosted by Joey Fatone, asked inane questions about playing "a homosexual" [AfterElton]

While he didn't call Russell Crowe an "asshole" this time, nor flirtatiously butter up Sean Penn, Brolin did manage to fire off a verbal fusillade at several of the assembled celebrities, says Vulture:

"Josh Brahlin," he drawled when he took the podium at the National Board of Review awards ceremony, mimicking host Whoopi Goldberg's mispronunciation of his name. "That's how fucking famous I am... I just whispered in her ear, I said, 'What the fuck is the matter with you?' And she goes, 'I don't know. I'm high.'...I know that ninety percent of you right now are going, what’s he going to say?"

He introduced The Visitor's Richard Jenkins, the Spotlight Award winner, as a Hollywood newcomer: "It’s amazing that he’s just in his early twenties, yet he portrayed Professor Walter Vale as a man in his late fifties, early sixties, with such conviction and grace... We’re all on the edge of our seats as to what he’ll do next." Also, he marveled at the fact that Jenkins has starred in "in excess of fifty movies in the past three years," calling the actor a virtuoso whose talent surpassed that of Day-Lewis, Crowe, DiCaprio, "and of course, Clint Eastwood, wherever you are, who many also think is in his sixties or seventies, but who is really 32." Brolin further noted that 2008 was a great year for Jenkins, "the sexiest man alive, a tireless spokesperson for Rogaine, opening up new pathways for the future of acting." He paused dramatically, and then said, "Okay, that’s all the funny shit."

Suddenly, we've just imagined an Oscar ceremony where the stars align so we can see random, blubbering speeches from all four acting winners (Brolin, Mickey Rourke, and a twice-honored Kate Winslet). Sorry, Heath Ledger—we'd rather throw our support behind the only nominee likely enough to swig from a flask onstage and aggressively mumble, "Hugh Jackman's our host, folks. Give him a hand. What, they couldn't get Josh Hartnett?"

• Josh Brolin Politely Corrects Whoopi Goldberg on Pronunciation of His Name [New York]

Brolin was at the Palm Springs Film Festival last night, where he attended yet another fete honoring Sean Penn's performance in Milk. Sadly not invited to encore the tipsy range of fraternal sensitivity — with Penn on the "amazing" end and Crowe on the "asshole" extreme — reporters instead cornered Brolin offstage for a clarification:

Realizing he shouldn't have joked like that about a respected actor, Brolin later blamed it on the booze. He admitted to the film critics audience that he'd been drinking earlier that night. [...] Brolin was on his best behavior last night. When asked about the Crowe comment, Brolin told reporters, "It was the ambiance of the room. I love him. I think he’s amazing. He’s a friend. I was bummed out when I saw that today."

Maybe it was ambiance, maybe it was six or seven glasses of ambiance, we'll never know. But to the uncanny extent Brolin could channel that ambiance for his aggrieved character in Milk ("I'm Dan White! I have issues! *burp*"), we'll take his word for it. This man is a professional.

• Josh Brolin Regrets Russell Crowe Comments [Hollyscoop]

Penn and Brolin presented each other's prizes for Best Actor and Supporting Actor for Milk, with one attendee noting that the latter star "perhaps unnecessarily mentioned he'd been drinking." We're not sure if that admission came before or after his broadside against NYT theater critic Ben Brantley ("Honestly, I hate that motherfucker. ... And I don't think he's a good writer"), but its awareness nicely underscored his Penn introduction that followed:

"Quite an actor, Sean Penn, quite an actor. [Pause] Amazing. [Pause] And now I'm an asshole. Like Russell Crowe. Because I'm not as smart as Sean. [Pause] Quite an actor. [Pause] Amazing actor. I've loved you in Milk, I thought what you did with that role was incredible. We've known you as an actor who doesn't smile very much. And the fact that you smiled as much as you did in this film is amazing. Truly incredible. You are an amazing actor. You are going to get the Oscar. Because you smiled so much."

As expected, Penn's own ball-busting praise for Brolin — "I always wrote him off as a handsome square-jawed actor...There's no one who's as big a nightmare as him. ... No one has much endurance at night and as little during the day" — had the venue security guards' hands on their tasers. But! Crisis averted, at least until Sunday's open-bar Golden Globe Awards. We're pulling for you, Josh!

• At New York Film Critics Circle, Brolin being Brolin [Risky Biz Blog]

The Daily Beast reports that Rourke has been talking down Penn's Milk performance all month—a crusade that has culminated in an accusatory text written wholly in Courtney Love-ian hierogylphics.

After his December 23 appearance on David Letterman, Rourke told someone backstage that he was surprised that so many people seemed to think that Penn was his Oscar competition since “I’m not even sure he’ll get a nomination.”

On December 28, a Los Angeles entertainment honcho shared a text message that Rourke had sent him: “Look seans an old friend of mine and i didnt buy his performance at all—thought he did an average pretend acting like he was gay besides hes one of the most homophobic people i kno" [sic]

“It’s a shame,” says one veteran Hollywood lawyer. “Mickey should be looking at this as a once in a career chance for a fresh start. But dumping on Penn is not going to win him any friends. It’s not the way to get Oscar votes.”

Perhaps, but it does dovetail nicely with the recent criticism Penn faced for palling around with anti-gay world leaders. Can Rourke withstand the accusations to open a new front against Penn, or will the combined might of aggrieved Daily Beast readers and a terribly miffed Raul Castro thwart his attempted Ram Jam?

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Rourke Trashes Penn [The Daily Beast]

The keen, homoerotically-attuned eye of Towleroad noticed unmistakable similarities between Gus Van Sant's shot, and an important work by artist David Hockney:

[I]t struck me that Van Sant must have been inspired by David Hockney's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" and, lo and behold, Franco got the stroke, and Van Sant the angle, just right.

Lo and behold, indeed!

• A Big Gay Hockney - Van Sant Milk Mash-Up [Towleroad]

Conservative writer James Kirchick started the fire in The Advocate, where he excerpted a Nation article Penn wrote and took him to task for being buddy-buddy with Hugo Chávez and Raul Castro:

Chávez and Castro are guilty of flagrant human-rights abuses, Kirchick writes: "Gay rights are human rights, as Milk said, and Penn discredits both when he rationalizes illiberal ideologies as 'anti-imperialist' and rushes to the defense of thugs who posture as victims of the West." [...]

Kirchick's story includes a quote from Human Rights Foundation President Thor Halvorssen, who says: "That Sean Penn would be honored by anyone, let alone the gay community, for having stood by a dictator who put gays into concentration camps is mind-boggling."

Penn's publicist Mara Buxbaum freaked out to Page Six, and Milk subject Cleve Jones added a rebuttal in The Advocate that more fully excerpted Penn's original article, where he includes an anecdote about his 14-year-old daughter complaining about homophobia in a face-to-face meeting with Fidel Castro:

At just the appropriate moment, still without a word from her, he asked what it is that's bothering her. She answered, "Why do you not offer the same human rights to homosexuals in Cuba as to heterosexuals? Why have you persecuted them?" She was ready for a fight. But no fight was forthcoming. Not even a hint of defensiveness. Castro seemed nothing but impressed with the question, patiently explaining that while homophobia had not been invented in Cuba, it had deep cultural roots, and that he and the revolution had made many mistakes as a result. But that there is an evolution involved in the process of change. And while they still made mistakes, there had been tremendous growth. (In 1979, Cuba abolished anti-sodomy laws. Today in Cuba, affirmation of same sex unions is scheduled for 2009, surpassing the pace of U.S. social reforms, and sexual re-assignment surgeries come compliments of the public health service) My daughter was disarmed and it was my turn.

While all this was going on abroad, Robin Wright Penn drove an SUV over to a friend's house to watch The O'Reilly Factor, for kicks.

• PENN'S TWO-FACED WITH GAYS [Page Six]

Granted, it's not what either starlet likely craves, with the Alliance of Women Film Journalists singling out Hudson as 2008's Actress Most in Need Of A New Agent and Olsen as the female half of this year's Most Egregious Age Difference Between Leading Man and Love Interest — duly noting her tryst with Sir Ben Kingsley in The Wackness. Katherine Heigl represents as well, with 27 Dresses entering the organization's Hall of Shame, and The Women and Mamma Mia! sharing the honor of being the Movie You Wanted To Love But Just Couldn‘t.

The AWFJ had the requisite list of conventional awards as well — not nearly as fun, featuring another Best Picture win for Slumdog Millionaire and Best Director Danny Boyle. Actress frontrunner Sally Hawkins split her prize with Kate Winslet (for both Revolutionary Road and The Reader), while Doubt's Viola Davis broke Penelope Cruz's streak for Best Supporting Actress. Sean Penn and Heath Ledger, naturally, won the men's acting hardware.

Elsewhere:

· In what could only have been the most fractious of voting environments, the hometown story Milk all but swept last night's San Francisco Film Critics Circle awards, taking Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and splitting Penn's Best Actor prize with Mickey Rourke. Hawkins and Ledger continued their runs as well, with Marisa Tomei sneaked in as Supporting Actress for The Wrestler.

· St. Louis's film-critic group chose The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for Best Picture, nevertheless recognizing Boyle for his Slumdog direction. Acting accolades went to Penn, Winslet, Ledger and Davis.

· And the more casual, Craigslist-assembled club known as the San Diego Film Critics Society honored Slumdog, Boyle, Rourke, Winslet, Ledger and Tomei in their big six categories. Congrats to all. Again.

The good news: Slumptastic Revolutionary Road finally got some awards season recognition! The bad news: It came at Milk's expense. And in the TV categories, In Treatment's five nods surpassed Mad Men, 30 Rock and Entourage, each with three nominations. A full list of nominees follows the jump. We'll have a closer read through the nominees later this morning after we properly suit up for another journey into Awards Hell, but for now we ask: James Franco as Best Actor for Pineapple Express? And: Between the four nominations apiece for Vicky Cristina Barcelona and The Reader, how about those Weinsteins?

FILM CATEGORIES

BEST PICTURE: DRAMA
· The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
· Frost/Nixon
· The Reader
· Revolutionary Road
· Slumdog Millionaire

BEST PICTURE: COMEDY OR MUSICAL
· Burn After Reading
· Happy-go-lucky
· In Bruges
· Mamma Mia
· Vicky Cristina Barcelona

BEST DIRECTOR
· Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
· Stephen Daldry, The Reader
· David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
· Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
· Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road

BEST ACTOR: DRAMA
· Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
· Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
· Sean Penn, Milk
· Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
· Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

BEST ACTRESS: DRAMA
· Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
· Angelina Jolie, Changeling
· Meryl Streep, Doubt
· Kristin Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long
· Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

BEST ACTRESS: COMEDY OR MUSICAL
· Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
· Sally Hawkins, Happy-go-lucky
· Frances McDormand, Burn After Reading
· Meryl Streep, Mamma Mia
· Emma Thompson, Last Chance Harvey

BEST ACTOR: COMEDY OR MUSICAL
· Javier Bardem, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
· Colin Farrell, In Bruges
· James Franco, Pineapple Express
· Brendan Gleeseon, In Bruges
· Dustin Hoffman, Last Chance Harvey

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
· Amy Adams, Doubt
· Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barecelona
· Viola Davis, Doubt
· Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
· Kate Winslet, The Reader

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
· Tom Cruise, Tropic Thunder
· Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
· Ralph Fiennes, The Duchess
· Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
· Heath Ledger,The Dark Knight

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
· The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
· Everlasting Moments (Sweden/Denmark)
· Gomorrah (Italy)
· I've Loved You So Long (France)
· Waltz With Bashir (Israel)

BEST ANIMATED FILM
· Bolt
· Kung Fu Panda
· Wall-E

BEST SCREENPLAY
· Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
· David Hare, The Reader
· Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
· Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
· John Patrick Shanley, Doubt

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
· Alexandre Desplat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
· Clint Eastwood, Changeling
· James Newton Howard, Defiance
· A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
· Hans Zimmer, Frost/Nixon

TELEVISION CATEGORIES

BEST DRAMATIC TV SERIES
· Dexter
· House M.D.
· In Treatment
· Mad Men
· True Blood

BEST ACTOR, TV DRAMA
· Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
· Michael C. Hall, Dexter
· Jon Hamm,Mad Men
· Hugh Laurie, House M.D.
· Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors

BEST ACTRESS, TV DRAMA
· Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
· Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU
· January Jones, Mad Men
· Anna Paquin, True Blood
· Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

BEST TV SERIES, MUSICAL OR COMEDY
· Californication
· Entourage
· The Office
· 30 Rock
· Weeds

BEST ACTOR, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY
· Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
· Steve Carell, The Office
· Kevin Connolly, Entourage
· David Duchovny, Californication
· Tony Shalhoub, Monk

BEST ACTRESS, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY
· Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
· America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
· Tina Fey, 30 Rock
· Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
· Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
· Cranford
· Bernard & Doris
· John Adams
· A Raisin in the Sun
· Recount

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
· Judi Dench, Cranford
· Laura Linney, John Adams
· Catherine Keener, An American Crime
· Shirley MacLaine, Coco Chanel
· Susan Sarandon, Bernard & Doris

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
· Ralph Fiennes, Bernard and Doris
· Paul Giammatti, John Adams
· Kevin Spacey, Recount
· Kiefer Sutherland, 24: Redemption
· Tom Wilkinson, Recount

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TV
· Eileen Atkins, Cranford
· Laura Dern, Recount
· Melissa George, In Treatment
· Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters
· Dianne Wiest, In Treatment

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TV
· Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
· Denis Leary, Recount
· Jeremy Piven, Entourage
· Blair Underwood, In Treatment
· Tom Wilkinson, John Adams

4. Go 180 degrees in the opposite direction. That years-old tradition continued today (with slight variation) when the NYFCC anointed Milk as its Best Picture for 2008.

LAFCA's own favorite, WALL-E, did make an appearance among today's awards, earning Best Animated Film, and the groups' choices for Best Actress (Sally Hawkins), Best Actor (Sean Penn) and Best Supporting Actress (Penelope Cruz) overlapped as well. From there, however, all the Dark Knight and Slumdog Millionaire love dissipated into sloppy kisses for Josh Brolin, Mike Leigh and Rachel Getting Married, among others. And yes, for the record: Revolutionary Road still has yet to win anything after more than a week of awards season.

The full list of winners:

Best Picture: Milk

Best Director: Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky

Best Actor: Sean Penn, Milk

Best Actress: Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky

Best Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin, Milk

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Screenplay: Jenny Lumet, Rachel Getting Married

Best Foreign Film: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

Best Documentary: Man on Wire

Best Animated Film: Wall-E

Best Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best First Film: Courtney Hunt, Frozen River

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]