THE LOVELY BONES
The Story: A slain 13 year old girl looks down from heaven recalling her rape and murder.
The Pitch: Witness meetsThe Ice Storm
Who It's For: Literary fiction devotees who haven't yet learned that adaptations of their beloved reading group selections always turn out badly.
Cause for Hope: Director Peter Jackson returns to his strongest Heavenly Creatures territory at the intersection of teenage girls and murder.
Cause for Concern: CGI-fantasyland version of heaven leads one to believe Jackson has spent too much time with trolls and giant monkeys to go back to making movies about humans again.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 7

INVICTUS
The Story: In the aftermath of apartheid, President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) attempts to unite his divided nation behind a mostly white, underdog rugby team.
The Pitch: Amistad meets The Bad News Bears
Who It's For: The entire family and your high school history class.
Cause for Hope: What could have been an overblown, pedantic story may be genuinely stirring in a non-manipulative way in the calm, understated hands of director Clint Eastwood.
Cause for Concern: Having to watch a movie about rugby, a sport combines the torpor of soccer with the meatheadness of hockey.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 8

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG
The Story: The story of the frog prince relocated to Jazz Age New Orleans.
The Pitch: The Little Mermaid meets Angel Heart
Who It's For: The kids.
Cause for Hope: Disney's first animated African-American star; the throwback 2D animation looks rather quaintly lovable.
Cause for Concern: Encouraging young women to commit intimacies upon reptiles promotes interspecies cruelty.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 7

A SINGLE MAN
The Story: A college professor (Colin Firth) in the early 60's struggles to come to terms with the death of his partner.
The Pitch: Brokeback Mountain meets Mad Men
Who It's For: The very artsy
Cause for Hope: The always watchable Colin Firth; designer Tom Ford's directing debut received very favorable festival buzz.
Cause for Concern: Trailers have attempted to majorly gloss over the film's central gay theme.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 8

THE SLAMMIN' SALMON
The Story: A down on his luck restaurant owner starts a table-waiting contest to repay his debts.
The Pitch: Best in Show meets Rocky Balboa
Who It's For: Comedy Nerds
Cause for Hope: The Broken Lizard Comedy troupe which made this film is always a delight.
Cause for Concern: Table-waiting comedy may not be ready for its moment in the sun.
Defamer Enthusio-Meter: 9

With Rushmore and Being John Malkovitch under their belts, they had finally made the multi-plex safe for The Quirkies, and with that door open, a great era was born. Well this month, both the wunderkinds are back, and the question rings out whether they will make triumphant returns to their rightful glory or a last stand for the once proud Ur-Hoodies.

The intervening years have not been so kind to the young Orson Welleses. For Anderson, the past half-decade has seen his once beloved off-kilter pastiche derided as hollow and increasingly irritating shtick with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou before he descended to the point of purest self-obsession in The Darjeeling Limited.

For Jonze, the burden of young genius seemed too much to bear. It has been a full seven years since he released his second and last film, Adaptation the mildy celebrated, repeat collaboration with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. In the intervening near decade, Jonze has publicly wrestled and flailed with an attempted adaptation of the Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, ultimately making what may ultimately be the last bad choice he ever makes, bringing on fellow wunderkind Dave Eggers to write the Wild Things script, after Eggers penned him a fan letter.

Early reviews are already very mixed at best. Variety wrote, boding ill for the Oscar trophy for which Eggers has no doubt already cleared out a spot on the mantle:

Where the Wild Things Are earns a lot of points for its hand-crafted look and unhomogenized, dare-one-say organic rendering of unrestrained youthful imagination. But director Spike Jonze's sharp instincts and vibrant visual style can't quite compensate for the lack of narrative eventfulness that increasingly bogs down this bright-minded picture.

However, at Hitfix, Drew McWeeny calls the film a "masterpiece." So don't break out the guillotine quite yet.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of his return with The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson is attracting the kind of attention boy geniuses typically attract from those little people who can't appreciate the true nature of boy genius. A startling LA Times profile of Anderson begins:

To be clear, Wes Anderson did not set out to direct his new movie via e-mail. Even if that's precisely how the writer-director's stop-motion animation version of Roald Dahl's beloved children's book "Fantastic Mr. Fox" — a jaunty visual joy ride that features voice characterizations by George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman — ultimately came to be, Anderson never intended to become an in-box auteur.

That choice was made all but inevitable, however, by the Oscar nominee's unorthodox decision to hole up in Paris for most of the shoot's one-year duration while principal photography commenced across the English Channel at London's venerable Three Mills Studios. He wasn't working on another project, and nothing Paris-centric demanded he be there; Anderson simply "didn't want to be at Three Mills Studios for two years."

The piece goes on to quote the film's director of animation saying "He has made our lives miserable." Just to put that quote in perspective, in Hollywood when you are on the crew of a film and you are asked about the director, if that director happens to be a tyrannical no-talent hack, the way you express that sentiment in the following words: "He was an incredible inspiration to work with. We looked forward to shooting every day." If the director spends the entire shoot in his trailer snorting coke and sexually harassing extras, the code for that is, "He knew how to get the best out of each and every one of us."

In Hollywood publicity-ese then, "He has made our lives miserable" is the real world equivalent of: this is the single biggest jerk-off anyone associated with this film has ever seen on or off the set. Hitler in the bunker would have been more fun to be around and this discarded Pringles tube understands moviemaking better.

In any event, judging by the trailers, Mr. Fox actually looks to be the most interesting film Anderson has made since....before he started making films, so perhaps the boy genius has actually stumbled upon a magic formula; perhaps Anderson on another continent from his movies is exactly the little something his films needed to make that leap to greatness. Hoodie directors take note!

1.) Debbie Rowe
Love her.



LOVE. HER.



You can see her wild side in her ear lobes.



And her T-shirts.



When I saw this shirt over the weekend, it immediately made me think of Aileen Wuornos' dream job of raising "she-wolves" on a farm with her girlfriend, as revealed in Nick Broomfield's doc.

2.) "What makes you think you're Paris Hilton or some damn body?"
Last night's 16 and Pregnant featured a teen and her mom, both of whom are pregnant (out of wedlock). They — and their boyfriends and pets — all live in the grandmother's two-bedroom home. Looking for a place to store her clothes in the cramped house, the teen began emptying out a junk drawer in Meemaw's room, where she found a mug with a penis as the handle. But it turns out the mug was not Meemaw's. It was Meemaw's mother's — the teen's great grandma.

3.) She's Totally "The Other Paris" Now



Or at least for this week.

Also: Why does a guy who is too straight for high heels even wanna be Paris' BFF?

3.) Gay in the Face
Katherine Jackson subscribes to the "gay face" theory, as evidenced by this old ass interview Entertainment Tonight dug up.

4.) Five Fun Facts Dr. Arnold Klein
He was Michael's dermatologist.
He is responsible for Debbie Rowe in our lives.
He is friends with Carrie Fisher.
He has no problem going on television and claiming that he jerked off in a doctor's office to donate sperm just for the hell of it.
CBS News finds his clothing incriminating.

5.) What We All Missed On TV This Week
Judge Judy was preempted on Tuesday because MJ's funeral ran way over. I was upset about it because I had been looking forward to the case after I saw this preview for it and learned that it involved a girl urinating on her roommate's sneakers in retaliation for something.

But I seen saw this:

6.) This Guy:

7.) Motorized Wheelchair Commercial Lady
She makes getting older look easy…and dizzy.

8.) Big Brother 11
Big Brother returned this week. Part of "the twist" of this one is that a cast member from a previous season was allowed to enter the house. It was Jesse, from season 10. I'm pretty happy with this decision. He says "sweet beans" instead of "cool beans."

9.) The "No Shit" Award Goes To…
Nikki was on Intervention this week. She's addicted to Methadone and Anti-anxiety medication, among other downers. Needless to say, she is chilllllllled.

Her sister has a personal opinion as to why Nikki likes drugs.

10.) Katie's Sign Off

You just knew this was coming, right? Sooner or later you just knew that the sweet and hopelessly ignorant kid from the Alaskan tundra who just wanted to float aimlessly through life hunting, fishing, playing hockey and banging chicks, would have his life destroyed by the sudden fame that came with having knocked up the daughter of the most ridiculous American public figure in the history of ridiculous American public figures. So very sad.

Renata Espinosa of The Daily Beast went shopping recently with Levi and his newly hired manager/bodyguard, an Anchorage-based lawyer, in Los Angeles, where they were "fielding pitches" for acting and reality show gigs or something.

Besides acting as Levi's handler, Tank is his personal Tim Gunn and Henry Higgins all in one, instructing him on the subtleties of wearing a fedora and reminding him to be open-minded about the different types of people he might encounter. Tank is the ultimate 21st-century version of an American father: multicultural and media-savvy.

Like the time Levi appeared on The Tyra Banks Show, with his mother and sister, and had to get his hair and makeup done, Tank had to remind Levi to relax.

"That was the worst," Levi tells me. "I had some dude singing to me, the whole time. He was real happy. Calling me ‘baby' and all that. I kept my mouth shut."

"I told him, you're going to meet all different types of people," interjects Tank. "Don't overreact. Nobody's going to hurt you. You gotta be accepting of all different types of people. You're talking about dealing with Hollywood? You're going to really meet some strange people."

To help Levi morph into the epic tool he needs to become if he has any hope of making it in Hollywood, Tank came up with the "Ricky Hollywood" idea.

Just so you're clear, when Levi Johnston is in L.A. with Tank and running around shopping with a reporter, trying on sequined jackets and pink fedoras and wearing bedazzled T-shirts that say "Go Girl" on them, that's not Levi you're seeing.

"What we did was, we came up with an alter ego, Ricky Hollywood," explains Tank. "Ricky Hollywood would iron his shirt." Levi looks at Tank and raises his eyebrows. "Yeah, right!" he says. "OK, well, I'd iron it. He doesn't know how to iron."

"We're not going to find my style out here," says Levi rather contentiously.

"Oh, yes, we will," says Tank. "We're going to find Ricky's style!"

No!!!! Just let Levi be Levi dammit and wear his jeans and t-shirts and baseball caps! He's been through enough—Leave him alone!

When asked by Espinosa about the Palin/Letterman controversy, Levi said that he didn't "think that David was trying to advocate any sexual misconduct of any nature."

You see—Levi actually gets it and is probably the only normal player in the whole Palin clown show. Leave him alone!

Shopping With Levi Johnston [Daily Beast]

Nikki Finke poured cold water on excited Poehler fans yesterday by posting the report, which showed that preview audiences thought the show was a "carbon copy" of The Office, "derivative," "forced," predictable," "unoriginal," and "lacking in character development, even for a pilot" (ouch!).

Parks and Recreation is from Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, who produce The Office, and it shares the hit show's mockumentary format as it follows a city bureaucrat played by Poehler trying to turn an abandoned pit into a park. NBC has high hopes for the show because—no wait, NBC Universal Chief Jeff Zucker abandoned all hope last week when he said that NBC would never be No. 1 in prime time again. Anyway, NBC still wants the show to do well, so Silverman tried to spin the leak to EW:

All of the research we do around initial rough cuts is negative. If you had seen the initial research on all of ours and our competitors' successful shows, it tends to be like that.

Bravo! No worries, then. Parks and Recreation will suck no more than anything else on TV.

Of course, if all focus groups always says they hate every show they're shown, that would raise the question as to why networks continue to pay research firms gobs of money to conduct them. A perusal of the Parks and Recreation report shows the depth of insight and guidance you can get from a gang of unemployed mouth-breathers:

1. People want a show that's exactly like The Office.

Expectations for this show are very high, especially among OFFICE viewers. Many had seen the promos and were expecting an "OFFICE-type mockumentary" with the same tone.

2. Parks and Recreation sucks because it is almost exactly like The Office!

But [they] felt the pilot was too close and similar to the OFFICE.

3. They hated The Office at first, too, but gave it time to grow on them.

However, many OFFICE fans were quick to point out that THE OFFICE did not become their favorite show overnight.

4. Parks and Recreation has about two episodes to become The Office.

[B]ut viewers will expect to see the show to be as good as THE OFFICE soon. Furthermore, labeling the show as being "from the producers of THE OFFICE" adds credibly (sic) to the show and helps raise viewers' expectations.

5. Too much of the show takes place at that abandoned pit.

Focus needs to evolve away from the pit—consider showing Leslie [Amy Poehler] and her team dealing with various parks and recreation duties.

6. More pit please!

Highest positive spike comes from Leslie falling into the pit.

The previous record for single-year Oscar futility is shared by 1977's The Turning Point and 1985's The Color Purple, both of which went 0-for-11. More recently, Miramax failed to capitalize on a single one of Gangs of New York's 10 nominations in 2002 — an accomplishment hinting that the Academy can willingly defy even the most art-directed, costume-designed, massive-budget prestige exercises of their respective years. Be afraid, Paramount, and here's why:

· Best Picture and Director: If the Slumdog juggernaut were stoppable, Button would be the likeliest candidate to step on its spry urchin heels at the Oscar-night finish line. It's a hit, after all, and an Academy with any populist conscience after last year's glum-indie orgy would at least give it Picture. Where's the harm? Except in recent instances where that's happened — most notoriously with Crash's win in 2005 — the Picture bone-throw has favored indies. So maybe David Fincher gets Director? Probably not; Danny Boyle's got his own momentum from critics associations, guilds and Globes behind him. If the DGA nods Fincher's way on Jan. 31, then it may be a race. If it doesn't, forget it. 0-for-2

· Actor: We know we were among those steering the Brad Pitt bandwagon back in those early, glimmering autumn days before the Oscar Turnpike froze over with Rourke/Penn hype and our man went skidding into an uncool embankment. That's no reason to choose to burn to death in the ensuing fire. We're out, Brad — help is on the way. Next year. 0-for-3

· Best Supporting Actress: This is Penelope Cruz's award to lose, and anyway, Taraji P. Henson swears she was asleep when the nominations were announced. Oscar is not impressed. 0-for-4

· Best Adapted Screenplay: Eric Roth already won this one for the same film 14 years ago. The writers branch loves him, but it loves John Patrick Shanley (Doubt) and Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) — in that order — far more. Even David Hare (The Reader) would probably trump Roth on the lone basis of adapting a short book to a film under two hours. 0-for-5

· Best Cinematography and Editing: There's a faction among technicians who cream over the potential of what Fincher and shooter Claudio Miranda accomplished digitally both in camera and with the aid of their visual effects crew. The problem is that The Dark Knight's Wally Pfister and editor Lee Smith did more fitfully revolutionary work with IMAX, and TDK eventually has to win something, so... 0-for-7

· Best Score: It's nominated alongside WALL-E, for which the score essentially is vast swaths of the film and for which voters who were passionate enough to nominate it will be passionate enough to nudge it to a win. 0-for-8

· Best Visual Effects and Makeup: Button's likeliest and probably most deserving shots at wins, it still must contend with not only TDK's admittedly inferior technical achievements but the more formidable politics of snub-backlash. The bottom line is it's more of a coin toss than anyone probably wants to believe, and this late, any when-in-doubt scenario would seem to automatically favor The Dark Knight. 0-for 10

· Best Art Direction and Costume Design: As mentioned above, Gangs of New York proves that no craft category shall be taken for granted as a token for losses incurred elsewhere — especially not opposite an actual, accomplished period drama like The Duchess. 0-for-12

· Best Sound Mixing: At this point Button's already got the record, but why not go all the way with it — 0-for-13, sort of the Detroit Lions of the Oscars. Should Fincher's quartet win, here's hoping the technicians refuse their statuettes in a gutsy act of loser solidarity with their taskmaster director. It's the least they could do for history's sake, and that lone "Academy Award Winner - Best Sound Editing" sticker on the DVD would look stupid anyway.

Zap2It's Korbi Ghosh was the first to dig up a show premise that wasn't merely a joke idea tossed off by Amy Poehler:

A couple nosy moles tell me that, like The Office, it's basically documentary style. Set in the parks & recreation department of a local city government in some podunk town, Poehler will play a delusional employee, totally unaware that she doesn't work in high ranking politics. And of course there will be supporting players around to make fun of her foolish idiocy. Sound too much like another show we already know? Well, I'm hearing that the writers are currently tweaking the concept a bit, but this is the general idea.

Though the current plot resembles The Office far too much for our liking, there's promise in the setting—if, that is, producers shoot the show like it was a Detroit city council meeting on public access television. Just as the Steve Carell iteration of The Office started by borrowing scripts and plotlines from its British progenitor, scenes of Amy Poehler calling Aziz Ansari "Shrek" could power this non-spinoff though May sweeps, at least!

• Quick TV Fix: Exclusive Details on Amy Poehler Show Concept, Plus '24,' 'House,' '90210,' Etc... [Zap2It via Vulture]

David Fincher won his first directing award of the season for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but the film failed to turn up hardware for Brad Pitt or Cate Blanchett. Instead, Clint Eastwood won Best Actor for his racist-grump musical swan song Gran Torino, and the Supporting Actress Award went to Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Anne Hathaway's turn in Rachel Getting Married earned Best Actress honors; and in a bit of a surprise, Josh Brolin's undercooked role as Harvey Milk assassin Dan White coaxed a Best Supporting Actor award from the mysterious NBR fraternity. (Slumdog lead Dev Patel, whom Fox Searchlight is pushing for a supporting slot at the Oscars, was recognized as the year's "Breakthrough Actor.")

The org's Top 11 of '08, meanwhile, comprise a typically tame late-year consensus: In addition to Slumdog, Button, Milk and Gran Torino, the NBR selected The Wrestler, WALL-E, Frost/Nixon, Defiance, The Dark Knight, Changeling and, in what we guess is its biggest upset, the Coens' Burn After Reading over the omitted Revolutionary Road, Doubt and/or The Reader. If you're reading this within 25 feet of Scott Rudin, duck.

• NBR names 'Slumdog' best of year [Variety]

• America's Next Top Model [The CW]

boomp3.com

While walking the carpet at the Teen Choice Awards, popular singer/actress Scarlett Johansson bent over when she noticed that someone had dropped a stack of business cards on the ground. The Scoop star bent down in a ladylike manner to pick up the discarded business cards, much to the dismay of the surrounding lensmen hoping to score a gossip blog friendly shot. A group of men ahead of Johansson dropped another set of business cards, but Johansson just stared at cards, shook her head and moved her fingers using the universal sign for "naughty naughty."

[Photo Credit: Splash Pic]

*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.

boomp3.com

While out running errands in Manhattan, Kirsten Dunst received some shocking news over the phone. Namely, that the Dick star would not be able to get into an IMAX screening of The Dark Knight. Dunst's friend said that they could always watch the movie during the week and that'll be the same movie. Dunst huffed and puffed that it wouldn't be the same if they had to wait a few days to watch the film and the situation is beginning to feel a lot when Dunst went to get a new iPhone. Dunst said, "First, I can't get the iPhone until next week or whenever they get a shipment in and now I have to wait to see the new Batman movie? What else could go wrong in my life? I swear." Dunst then asked if her friend could check out Craigslist or eBay for tickets and price was not an issue.

[Photo Credit: INF Daily]

*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.

To wit: Please! Make! The Heath Ledger posthumous Oscar talk! Stop!

"That's what Warner Brothers are saying, but they'll do anything to publicize their film," says Gilliam who was directing Ledger in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in January only days before the Australian actor died at the age of 28 of an accidental prescription drug overdose.

"That's just what they do and you can't get upset because it's bull——. They're like a great white shark which devours whatever it can."

To be fair, it was Parnassus that coincidentally (or otherwise) launched its official Web site in the days after Ledger's death, when the film was in limbo with its fate yet to be determined. And Ledger is still set to appear in Gilliam's fantasy, their first collaboration following the poorly received The Brothers Grimm in 2005. Parnassus benefits as much from the Ledger hype as The Dark Knight, the majority of which — let's face it — owes to the actor OD-ing at 28 than Warners pimping out a legitimately grand film.

Still, there is a certain ghastliness to it all. We recall interfacing with Ledger around the time of Brokeback Mountain, his naturally squirmy, nail-biting press-day tics exacerbated by his unchecked loathing of The Oscar Question. But at least he could deflect it, which he did in a manner closer to self-defense than self-effacement. It came up again and again — he hated the race, the hype, the politicking, the earnestness, and mostly the shadow over his co-stars, Ang Lee and others. And that was at year's end, when the mention (and arguably even the award) made relative sense against what preceded it.

But it's July, people. We know another nomination must be be coming, but if these vultures can't let the guy rest in peace, at least let him work in peace. There's only so much hype to go around — he's still got to do press for Gilliam's movie, for Christ's sake.

• Article Name [The Telegraph]

The 1950s belonged to Heston, an Evanston, Ill., native whose early roles as historical figures like Marc Antony (Julius Caesar) and Buffalo Bill (Pony Express) presaged more massive-scale work for directors Cecil B. DemIlle (The Greatest Show on Earth, The Ten Commandments) and William Wyler, who directed Heston to an Oscar in 1959's Ben-Hur. Heston notably (if unconvincingly) portrayed a Mexican narcotics detective in Orson Welles' noir classic Touch of Evil, moving on a decade later to the campy sci-fi allegories Planet of the Apes (1968), The Omega Man (1971) and Soylent Green (1973).

Despite stirring bit turns in Wayne's World 2 and the 2001 Apes remake, Heston's stint as the president of the National Rifle Association was perhaps his defining accomplishment of the last decade; waving a musket you could "pry from my cold, dead hands," his 2000 speech to his NRA constituency provoked Michael Moore's humiliating Heston-estate visit in Bowling For Columbine, among Heston's last and least-auspicious screen appearances. We at Defamer prefer to remember the better times, which is why we bring you a trailer for one of the underrated gems in the Heston oeuvre. Rest in peace, Chuck.

But with Stacey gone, we now turn to the second most interesting bottle-blonde prospect: actress Shayne, who in the premiere's most stunning confession, revealed that she has long lived in the shadow of her famous father and grandfather, Lorenzo and Fernando Lamas. So accustomed is this hottie—genetically engineered to withstand even her exacting father's laser-pointed flawbservations—to getting what she wants, she basically refuses to capitulate to the show's central premise of 25 desperate, backstabbing women "eyeing for" the blue ribbon steed of their dreams. In the confrontation above, she admits as much, whereupon Sexiest British Bachelor Ever Matt Grant calmly explains that, sorry lady, those are the rules, get back in line with the rest of the biological-clock-ticking wenches 'til your ovaries start salivating 'round rose-distribution time.

• The Bachelor [ABC]

Here's one thing we do know. Because early reviews have been mixed (Var liked Boleyn, THR called it "handsome but glum"), the studio can't necessarily count on rave reviews to drive people in the flyover states to the theaters. And even if the film did end up garnering significant critical buzz, period pieces haven't been raking in dough since Titanic. Not to mention the fact that the last time both Scarlett and Natalie donned period garb, the results at the box office were less than overwhelming (Girl With A Pearl Earring grossed $31 million worldwide; Goya's Ghosts made, gulp, $8 million). Hence, the reason that the evil geniuses in Sony's marketing department decided to convince the two to play the sapphic will they or won't they card while out on the publicity trail. However, here's what we can't figure out: if the studio decided that they wanted to market this film to the Girls Gone Wild demo, shouldn't they have just smacked a close-up shot of Scarlett's bodice-ripping cleavage on the one-sheets? That would've put some butts in seats. Including ours.

• 'THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL' REVIEW [Var]
• 'THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL' [THR]

1. Meet The Spartans - $18.725 million
2. Rambo - $18.150 million
America, it seems, has let Sylvester Stallone down. He gives and he gives, even a good twenty years past his cinematic prime, by offering up an exhausting 236 kills in a taut, blink-and-you-missed-the-slaughter- of-half-the-Burmese-army 93 minutes and still he's subjected to the indignity of finishing behind a third-rate spoof flick.

Still, Rambo performed well enough that executive producer Harvey Weinstein is already making noise about adding another chapter to the franchise, perhaps one in which the monosyllabic, mom-jeans-wearing killing machine plies his brutal trade back in the States, tripling his staggering Myanmar body count in an utterly punishing 68 minutes in an attempt to reclaim his rightful place atop the domestic box office.

3. 27 Dresses - $13.6 million
Meanwhile, in screenings of Rambo all over the country, guys found themselves powerless to stop the dates they'd cajoled into an evening of watching their favorite semi-retired vigilante blow holes the size of cannon balls into the midsections of his swarming, rape-crazed enemies from storming out of the theater, then seeking out the warm, comforting embrace of Katherine Heigl for a second time.

4. Cloverfield - $12.7 million
With a 68% drop-off from its January-record-shattering· opening weekend, we're forced to conclude that widespread reports about Cloverfield Barf Syndrome kept the weak of stomach far from the film and its vertigo-inducing camerawork.

5. Untraceable- $11.2 million
We realize that torture porn is a dying genre, but perhaps the Untraceable's debut performance would've been stronger if the studio had more fully embraced its sensational, gruesome-murder-by-online-video premise by titling it SnuffTube.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE January 25-27, 2008 [BoxOfficeMojo.com]