“House of Lies,” debuting at 10 p.m. EST, follows a team of management consultants led by lethal-in-a-board-room Marty (Don Cheadle). The supporting characters, however, simply fill out stereotypes. The two other men on Marty’s team exist for little more than to give some cheap, sitcom like laughs, and Kristen Bell exists as a foil for Marty. There’s supposed to be a sexual tension or, at least, tension between the two, but the script never sells the chemistry and neither do the two actors (mainly Bell, who still looks like she belongs in high school).

The show begins by thrusting us into the hectic mess that is Marty’s life. We are introduced to his ex-wife, whose management consultant team is number one (Marty’s is number two). We are introduced to Marty’s shrink father, his son who’s going through a very strange gender crisis, and Marty’s clients. Once we enter the business world Marty inhabits, the writing gets wooden and the politics go left… way left.

Marty’s team points out no more than three or four times how evil the people they work for are. They mention again and again that these people are responsible for the financial crisis and for people living on the street. The dialogue feels ripped right out of a Huffington Post piece and feels very disjointed and out of place. Right after these sucker punches, the characters go back to inhabiting their slimy evil selves. This is the other point the show wants us to understand: these characters are bad or, at least, doing bad things. Because Marty exploits the financial crisis towards the end of the show and states that he doesn’t care about the mortgage crisis, we are supposed to understand that he is selfish and needs to wake up. But these points feel way too heavily pushed and not entirely fleshed out in the script by Matthew Carnahan.

The show gives no mention or thought to the government ripping off the American taxpayer. It simply goes in with the preconceived notion that these men who own these companies are solely responsible and people like Marty only encourage them, but Cheadle plays Marty so we are supposed to hope that he wakes up pretty soon. Politics aside, the show is still pretty typical stuff and disjointed in many parts.

The pilot to “House of Lies” provides us with exactly what we have come to expect from Showtime: nudity, endless sex between strangers and enough cursing to make your Grandma Jones wish it was Sunday already so we could all repent. And there’s nothing wrong with any of this as long as it is organic to the show, but in “House of Lies” you sense that the producers are having a grand old time throwing in strip clubs, lesbian sex scenes and the like just because they’re on Showtime. Actually, when I go back and read that out loud it doesn’t sound too bad. Chalk up a point for this show!

The first episode also doesn’t give us much reason to want to follow these characters. A pilot is supposed to tell you just enough to reel you in and make you desperate to know what will happen to the main character. Showtime’s “Californication” has what could be considered a perfect pilot and it feels almost opposite to “House of Lies.” In that show, we were given laughs and we cared for Hank Moody (David Duchovny), while also despising him. When that final pensive moment came (they always do, even in this show) we desperately wanted to know more. “House of Lies” doesn’t leave us with that sensation.

“House of Lies” is not without merit. Cheadle does what he can with the character and makes some moments rather charming (especially ones where he breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience) and the pilot is shot incredibly well. But, there’s no surprise there. Stephen Hopkins has proven himself as an efficient television director before (he directed the previously mentioned and brilliant “Californication” pilot). Besides that, there’s not much here to justify a long-running series. The show could get better, and one hopes it does because of the talent involved, but based on the pilot alone the show is an ambitious effort that lets partisan politics and a disjointed narrative and all too typical moments get in the way of it being great.

Williams imbues her character with class, sexuality and self-doubt, making her one of the front-runners for the best actress Oscar next year. She’s the focal point of this biopic and owns every scene she’s in. The screenplay, though, is strong enough to build a story around her mesmerizing performance.

The film revolves around Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a young man interested in the film business. Clark is so eager to be involved in the industry that he spends days camped out at the office of the famous actor/director Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh). Clark – the persistent and wide-eyed youngster – eventually gets his big break and is offered the job as an assistant director for the upcoming film, “The Prince and the Showgirl.”

Monroe, who is acting alongside Olivier in the film, arrives on set and Clark quickly becomes smitten with the seductive actress. Her fragility and self-consciousness only lure people closer to her. Despite her fame and overt sexuality, she longs for people’s approval and people, including her overwhelmed personal assistant, are happy to give it to her.

Monroe is such a fine actress that nobody wants her own insecurities to stand in her way.  As one character notes, “When Marilyn gets it right, you just don’t want to look at anyone else.” So people comfort Monroe like an up and coming starlet, hoping and praying that she’ll have the confidence to be the actress they know she can be.

And Williams is at her best portraying the awe-inspiring star.

Although some might have reservations about casting the former “Dawson’s Creek” actress as Monroe, it’s hard for viewers to hold onto those doubts when Williams appears onscreen. She embodies the role. Monroe was a woman who many men fell in love with onscreen. I didn’t grow up in that generation. But I was immediately attracted to Williams’ portrayal of her. With the tenderness of a young girl and the charisma of a seductive flirt, Williams shows the many different sides of the well-known actress. When her husband Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) says “She’s devouring me,” audiences everywhere can understand the feeling.

Williams’ Monroe is a woman whose personality and popularity can consume you. But for Clark, being engulfed in her charismatic web is a thrill, not a turnoff.

The supporting cast is well-rounded and helps show the different reactions to the movie star. Olivier is the consummate professional director, calling attention to Monroe every time she arrives on the set hours late. On the other hand, Dame Sybil Thorndike (played by an impressive Judi Dench) is a fellow actress who supports Monroe despite her obvious flaws. Then, there’s Lucy (Emma Watson), who starts dating Clark only to realize that he can’t stop staring at Monroe. Lucy is, in many ways, a stand in for the audience. She never comes too close to Monroe and is forced to stand on the sidelines and simply observe the power of the woman that everyone is talking about.

In the movie, that woman is Marilyn Monroe. Come awards season, though, the woman who everyone will be talking about is Williams.

—–

In this one, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) hails from the realm of Asgard, and is apparently more of an alien than a god or deity. Cast out of Asgard by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) as punishment for narcissism and disobedience, Thor’s stripped of his powers and banished to our little marble, landing in small town New Mexico. There, he’s confronted by a world that greets his stories of fantastic kingdoms and powers with scorn, and where his mighty hammer, containing the thundery awesomeness of his powers, remains inaccessibly stuck in a block of stone. Thor then must not only clash with a civilization that doesn’t respect his ancestry, but also with the machinations of villains back home and some surprisingly well-intentioned government agents.

Notably, this is the first Marvel film of the “Avengers” series whose hero is unburdened by the darkness and sorrow of a Tony Stark or Bruce Banner. Thor’s a proud, aggressive warrior, so merry that he manages to be pleasant even as he carelessly invades another planet to slaughter its monstrous inhabitants. Hemsworth, with his magazine cover physique and flowing blonde locks photographed to maximum effect, demonstrates an enormous likeability key to the film’s success. Coupled with his strikingly muscular presence, he doubtlessly has potential to be a common blockbuster presence for some time to come, provided he plays his cards right. He imbues the film’s best moments, in which Thor grapples with his ego and comes to put the welfare of others above his own hubris, with a dramatic heft that makes him an easy character to root for.

The aforementioned lightness of the tone doesn’t mean that the story is without weight, and Branaugh aptly balances the misadventures of the earth-trapped Thor with the royal intrigue on the other side of the galaxy. Back home, Thor’s brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) makes moves to seize the Asgardian throne, and apt writing and acting make him seem more dramatically misguided than villainous, giving the final confrontation an extra dramatic kick that would likely be absent were he just a cackling evildoer. Branagh’s action scenes, though not as impressive as the tech-heavy sequences from Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man,” aptly render straightforward superhero combat, and with more flair than I had expected.

One of the film’s more interesting moments is also its most ideological, when Thor tells the government agents (or the SHIELD agents to us geeks) that he recognizes their benevolent intent and offers his hand in an alliance. It’s a brief but memorable moment from an industry that has spent much time demonizing the intelligence community, especially in light of their recent very public success.

Natalie Portman, apparently one of Hollywood’s busiest actresses, plays Jane, Thor’s love interest and possibly the world’s cutest astrophysicist. Portman doesn’t have much to do other than smile for the camera and fawn over this handsome extraterrestrial, which results in a romance that’s somewhat lacking in the intensity department. Their relationship seems better suited for a hard crush than the passionate love the dialogue later suggests, though it’s easy enough to forgive as the plot gains speed.

Comic films of the past decade, good and bad, all seem to be either serious or grim, and it’s almost startling to remember that to many, the medium represents colorful, lighthearted entertainment.  Just as the story, with its otherworldly royalty and small town journey of discovery, is both epic and personal, it’s sufficiently heavy and certainly fun.

Unfortunately, the latest superhero epic “Thor” doesn’t have that basic human appeal. Instead, it offers up the incredibly convoluted tale of a Nordic god who falls to Earth when his hubris makes him overstep his bounds and risk the safety of his home planet of Asgard.

—–

The movie kicks off quickly with some impressive fighting between Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and a team of Asgardian super-warriors against an evil race known as the Frozen Giants from the icy realm of Jotunheim. The Frozen Giants are hoping to exploit the fact that Asgard’s aging king Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is attempting to hand over his power to Thor, and wage an attack on Asgard during the coronation ceremony.

The sneak attack provokes a desire for revenge from Thor and his closest warriors, and things go haywire when they act on it. As punishment, he’s cast to Earth (aka Midgard), where he crashes into the desert amid a furious flash of thunder and is discovered by a team of scientists that includes an astrophysicist named Jane Foster (Natalie Portman).

The crash rendered him without his magical hammer named Mjolnir (what IS it with all the convoluted names, too? They’re hard to understand, which only adds to the emotional coldness of the film) It’s key that Thor regain control of it if he’s going to save Earth from destruction by the Frozen Giants and forces unleashed by his own ruthless brother Loki, who learns some dark secrets about his own origin.

Thor is a pretty buff dude with a six-pack that could draw stares from The Situation of MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” so Jane is instantly interested in the guy for more than his mysterious entrance. It’s in these scenes in small-town New Mexico that “Thor” has its most purely enjoyable moments, as the Nordic god experiences some fish out of water moments that inspire some hilarious comments.

But as the bad forces of Loki and the Frozen Giants come to a head and threaten Earth with a giant metallic, fire-shooting creature, the fact that this movie’s Earth locations are all in a desert town just makes things seem rather unimpressive. It’s hard to fear for the fate of all humanity when you’re only seeing a couple hundred rednecks leaping into pickup trucks to get out of the way of a single alien warrior that looks barely advanced over the aliens from 1950s sci-fi movies.

It’s also hard to buy into the idea that Thor and Jane have some fantastic romance when they basically hang out for a couple of days. This isn’t the long-burning passion that Peter Parker harbored for Mary Jane in “Spiderman,” or the magical love of Superman and Lois Lane. It’s two cute people who are kind of nice and basically have a case of the hots for each other – not a dramatic enough angle to sweep us up, with neither Hemsworth nor this year’s Best Actress winner Portman showing much range either.

The movie does have a humongous budget, but most of it is spent in the confusing, overdone battles between Asgard and the Frozen Giants in their otherworldly realm. Director Kenneth Branagh, who has spent half his career making Shakespeare movies including a four-hour version of “Hamlet,” is an odd choice for a superhero flick that’s lacking in Shakespearean emotions.

If only he could have brought any emotion at all to this film, “Thor” might have been a classic on the order of “Iron Man.” But if Marvel Films, the company behind “Thor”, doesn’t dig deeper in the rest of its planned bevy of superhero films, they’re going to run the risk of seeming all too ordinary rather than awe-inspiring.

Here’s the crux of their discontent. Prince of Persia and The Last Airbender have male leads played by white actors; Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia and Noah Ringer as Aang in ‘The Last Airbender. So, like the predictable hacks they are, they jumped on the racism argument. Dancing around the “R” word by reciting the industry’s history of casting white actors in non-white roles.

Yes, that did happen a lot in the past, and it does happen on occasion now. But here’s where the stupidity starts. Persians, aka Iranians, are ethnically white. In fact, most people of Eurasian stock are considered ethnically white. Casting a white actor as a Persian is hardly a racially insensitive move. And the Last Airbender is directed by Indian-American M. Night Shyamalan, who took exception to the criticisms his movie has gotten on this subject.

“Ultimately, this movie, and then the three movies, will be the most culturally diverse tent-pole movies ever released, period,” he told the Los Angeles Times last summer.

The cast of the film includes people of all races. But the politically correct police aren’t satisfied.

This selective outrage is typical for the identity politics junkies who desperately look for something to ride their high horse over. If they were really concerned about the wrong race being cast in movies, why didn’t they get upset at Marvel and Kenneth Branagh, who cast black actor Indris Elba as the Norse God Heimdall in the upcoming Thor movie. They also cast Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano as one of the Warriors Three from the same film (all Norse gods originally). And don’t forget casting Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury, a long time white character in the comics (except in the alternate time line of the Ultimate Avengers). Funny, but we’re not seeing any outrage there.

In fact, over the years Hollywood has seriously considered casting Will Smith as Superman, and even cast him as Jim West in the execrable Wild, Wild West movie. The biggest protest heard over that flick was from people wanting their money back because it was so craptacular. Hollywood has played with casting black actors in white roles before, or even done things like have white and black actors play relatives as in Charlie’s Angels II, where Bernie Mac portrayed Bill Murray’s brother.

In film and the theater there’s a long history of casting actors in roles that may be “against type” in order to do something fresh. Actors are supposed to be able to take a character and bring them to life so you don’t question them as real. Sometimes Hollywood will throw in minority actors to round out a cast. In the case of the two films above, they were going for actors they thought might be more bankable. Asian kid actors haven’t yet hit the big time internationally. So they went with a more generic white kid in Airbender. The character in question doesn’t really have to be of any race. It’s not that important to the story. In the case of the Prince of Persia, they just needed a good-looking leading man with dark hair who can pull off the stunts. It seems Gyllenhaal fit the bill nicely.

There’s nothing really complex or surprising about that. But newspapers and blogs like to create controversy whenever they can to sell stories. Leftists especially like to play the race card whenever possible, as long as it’s done to make white people look bad. If a white actor is given a job playing an ethnic role, it must be racism. But if they cast a minority in a traditionally white role, that must be “progressive.” No wonder they’re losing readers.

We’ve seen many a black actor from Eddie Murphy to the Wayans Brothers put on white face to mock Caucasians in films and that’s accepted without question. Compare that to the hysterical scolding of these films where the characters are heroic and you can see the “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones” rule still applies.

Hollywood will cast actors who are available and bankable first. Race is less of an issue than it has ever been. They know that. We know that. They know that we know that.

The more the press continues to spout these absurd lies, the more they expose their own racist problem.

SUNDAY MORNING: Dog lovers everywhere united to make Fox’s Marley & Me the #1 Christmas weekend movie with an expected $51.18M in the Thursday-thru-Sunday period for a Per Theatre Average of $14,888. Pre-opening industry tracking pointed to a clear win for Bedtime Stories (Disney), but it was the lovable lab who finished on top.

As an aside, all of us who read John Grogan’s extraordinarily well-written novel should have seen this coming. The book is a joy, and anyone who has a dog, or has ever had a dog, could easily identify with the struggles and pleasures of having a 4-legged member of the family.

The success of Marley slightly mitigates a disastrous year for Fox. Its year started out well enough riding the huge success of 2007 release Alvin & the Chipmunks into January ($70M of Alvin’s gross landed in this calendar year). The January 18 release of chick-flick 27 Dresses scored for Katherine Heigl ($76.8M in the US), then Jumper was a good solid February hit, topping $80M, followed by the wildly successful Horton Hears a Who ($154.5M domestic). Little did Fox know that when the Ashton Kutcher-Cameron Diaz comedy What Happens in Vegas played solidly to the tune of $80.2M domestic starting in May, it would be its last legit hit until Christmas’ Marley & Me. This is a huge, redemptive win for Fox, and its sentimental tear-jerker of a dog movie could near $100M domestic by Sunday.

There were 11 consecutive under-performing titles during the Fox drought of 2008, including expensive failures like mega-bombs Meet Dave ($11.8M domestic) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe ($20.9M cume). There were also misses like The Rocker ($6.4M cume),  City of Ember ($7.8M cume) and recent disappointments like Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (about $45M in the bank as its run winds down) and the critically-reviled The Day the Earth Stood Still, which picked up another $10.29M during the Christmas-thru-Sunday frame for a domestic cume of only $63M.

Despite the success of Marley, Fox will be #6 among the so-called “Big 6” studios in market share for the year. The winning studio , Warner Bros, essentially locked up the crown in late summer as The Dark Knight piled up meteoric grosses. As I have written in the past, the WB gang seemed destined to break the all-time single year record for domestic ticket sales, and now I can report that they have officially surpassed Sony’s 2006 record of $1.71 billion.

With the respectable hold for Jim Carrey’s Yes Man ($22.38M over 4 days for a 10-day cume of $49.8M), the continued success of Four Christmases (adding $7.29M for a new cume of $111.67M) and the excellent expansion of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (with a $38K or so cume at 84 locations), I am projecting a total domestic box office take of $1.74 billion as of today.  That is a staggering number, and it wasn’t all due to the success of mega-hit The Dark Knight.

Warner Bros perfectly marketed and distributed Sex and the City after picking up the baton from New Line. They also maximized the gross for the previously 3D-geared Journey to the Center of the Earth, selling it as a solid traditional 2D experience and generating $100M. And, they turned a pedestrian holiday comedy, Four Christmases, into a $100M smash. Expect a jubilant press release from Warner Bros in the next few days.

There is great news for Paramount and David Fincher in this holiday season. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a big hit. Based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, this spiritual tale starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett had only 2,988 playdates, but the screen count may be as high as 3,500 with Paramount securing multiple screens at many key locations for the 2 hour 48 minute epic. The film coaxed a magical $39.1M or so r the 4-day Christmas weekend.

Benjamin Button will do very steady business through awards season, and the spectacularly-reviewed film will likely have $70M-$80M in the bank by the end of next weekend.  It will continue to hold well through awards season with major nominations at the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards. I strongly believe that this movie is headed for something in the $170M domestic range and reaching $200M is not out of the question.

Only 2 of the last 11 Best Picture winners have failed to break through the $100M barrier, including last year’s Coen Brothers thriller No Country For Old Men.

BEST PICTURE WINNERS
2008 – No Country For Old Men – $74.2M
2007 – The Departed – $132.3M
2006 – Crash – $54.5M
2005 – Million Dollar Baby – $100.5M
2004 – Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – $377M
2003 – Chicago – $170.6M
2002 – A Beautiful Mind – $170.7M
2001 – Gladiator – $187.7M
2000 – American Beauty – $130M
1999 – Shakespeare in Love – $100.3M
1998 – Titanic – $600.7M

Academy Awards voters, whether they admit it or not, love big blockbusters, and after last year’s terrible Oscar broadcast ratings, there will be a strong yet silent, push to recognize films that movie-goers all over the country have seen. Benjamin Button is now likely to fit the bill nicely. Wouldn’t an Oscar night showdown between The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and mega-hit The Dark Knight make for a spectacular Academy Awards storyline (although, there’s always a chance that Danny Boyle’s gutty, little indie Slumdog Millionaire could steal the big prize from the big budget studio blockbusters).

#3 Bedtime Stories, also starring Keri Russell, Guy Pearce and the irrepressible Russell Brand from Saving Sarah Marshall, has managed $38.6M in just 4 days. It’s a fine showing, although most experts (including yours truly) thought it would be the weekend’s big winner.. The opening for Sandler is slightly under expectations and slightly below par with his recent hits, although it’s hard to compare a Christmas 4-day opening with a traditional 3-day weekend start.

Technically, the 3-day weekend opening (Friday-thru-Sunday) for Bedtime Stories was $27.6M or so. Accepting that Christmas Day took a great deal of “steam” out of the picture, that number compares favorably to July’s You Don’t Mess With the Zohan ($38.53M opening – $100M cume) and 2007’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry ($34.23M opening – $120M cume). Given that Bedtime Stories skews much younger and has family appeal, it should demonstrate great “playability” could very well have $80M in the bank by the end of New Year’s weekend.

A strong 3-day weekend came on the heels of a monstrous Christmas Day as Marley & Me, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Bedtime Stories all out-grossed the previous Christmas Day opening champion Ali ($10.2M). In terms of all-time best performance on Christmas Day, opening or otherwise, the three 2008 holiday box office juggernauts finished as the #2, #6 and #10 of all time.

ALL-TIME TOP 10 CHRISTMAS DAY PERFORMANCES
1. Meet the Fockers – $19.5M
2. Marley & Me – $14.67M (estimate)
3. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – $13.9M
4. National Treasure: Book of Secrets – $13.6M
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – $12.3M
6. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – $12M (estimate)
7. Night at the Museum – $11.7M
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – $11.5M
9. Cast Away – $10.9M
10. Bedtime Stories - $10.52M (estimate)

Tom Cruise’s Valkerie (MGM/UA) has out-performed industry expectations finishing 4th for both Christmas Day and the long weekend. The eye patch wearing Cruise seemed headed for another disaster with his Nazi epic, but it has finished the 4-day with just over $30M. You could have won some bar bets with studio execs if back in November you had wagered that this won would even crack $25M over the Christmas holiday. Holdover Yes Man (Warner Bros) rounds out the top 5 for the long holiday weekend.

The only other new wide opening is Frank Miller’s The Spirit (Lionsgate). No Sin City magic here as the movie has stumbled out of the gates with about $10.35M, and it is fading very quickly based on downright awful word-of-mouth.

Revolutionary Road (Dreamworks/Paramount) is officially a PTA monster. Opening on just 3 screens Friday, the Sam Mendes-directed drama grabbed over $22K per location on opening day, and it will finish the weekend with about a $64,133 PTA. Not only is that the best PTA of 2008 (topping Frost/Nixon’s number for December 5-7), it is the 29th-best 3-day PTA of all time.

It is very hard to say what the commercial prospects for this picture may be. It is brilliantly acted with perfectly modulated performances by Leo and Kate, a truly unique turn by New York stage actor Michael Shannon and certain-to-be-under-appreciated work from Oscar winner Kathy Bates. I would also like to single out Kathryn Hahn, who was brilliant in Broadway’s Tony-winning Boeing, Boeing. Something about neighbor Milly Campbell’s desperate “golly gee-ness” captures the era to perfection.

Bringing Richard Yates novel to the big screen was no small feat, and screenwriter Justin Haythe has winnowed the somewhat sprawling novel down to its most cinematic pieces. Haythe is a lock for a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the Oscars, and I would make Winslet the betting favorite for Best Actress for her work in Rev Road, but can the film break through in other categories?

DiCaprio has a strong shot at a Best Actor nod, battling with Richard Jenkins, Brad Pitt and Clint Eastwood for the final 2 spots (after Frank Langella, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke). It’s uphill for Shannon in the Best Supporting Actor category with Heath Ledger, Robert Downey Jr. and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as locks. Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel has picked up a great deal of momentum since his SAG Award nomination, he seems to have sewn up the 4th spot. That leaves one spot open for Josh Brolin from Milk, Ralph Fiennes for The Duchess, Eddie Marsan for Happy-Go-Lucky or, an extreme longshot, Tom Cruise for Tropic Thunder. At the moment, I am leaning toward Brolin who will also get credit for his work in W..

Gran Torino has expanded very well to 84 locations and quite a few multiple screen situations for a PTA of just over $38K. There is clearly some commercial viability here as this love it or hate it movie goes wider in January.The big question remains. Will Oscar voters nominate Eastwood for Best Actor for his snarling, racist Walt Kowalski performance? In my estimation, his performance is the weakest of the contenders, but viewed in the context of his career, it feels like a nice culmination of his acting work.

It is surprising how softly Frost/Nixon (Universal) is playing at 205 locations. It generated a $9,473 PTA, which is disappointing. This is a great film with a tour de force performance by Frank Langella as President Richard M. Nixon. It may be that the movie-going public isn’t interested in reliving the Watergate nightmare, especially when everyone has a general mistrust of government after the Bush years. Movies can be an escape from a tough economy, government corruption and political scandal. Thus, films like Slumdog Millionaire, Benjamin Button and Marley & Me are more attractive film destinations.

A lack of commercial success will not keep Langella out of the Best Actor category, but Ron Howard’s movie could be potentially handicapped in the Best Picture race if it doesn’t begin selling tickets at a better clip. Ben Button, Slumdog and The Dark Knight are all legitimate hits, appropriate to their scale. I am penciling in Milk (Focus) as a likely Best Picture nominee leaving one slot set aside for Frost/Nixon. Mega-hit Wall-E (Disney) could sneak in instead. Or, if The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) expands better than Howard’s political biopic – Mickey Rourke’s comeback delivered almost $28K per location over the Christmas 4-day – maybe Darren Aronofsky will find his movie among the big 5. The same goes for the aforementioned Revolutionary Road. A Best Picture nod would be a game-changer for Dreamworks/Paramount, and the slow start for Frost/Nixon may have left the door open.

FINAL 4-DAY CHRISTMAS WEEKEND ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Marley & Me (Fox) – $51.67M, $14,849 PTA, $51.67M cume
2. NEW – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) – $39.1M, $13,086 PTA, $39.1M cume
3. NEW – Bedtime Stories (Disney) – $38.6M, $10,486PTA, $38.6M cume
4. NEW – Valkyrie (MGM/UA) – $30.4M, $11,214 PTA, $30.4M cume
5. Yes Man (Warner Bros) – $22.38M, $6,517 PTA, $49.8M cume
6. Seven Pounds (Sony) – $18.2M, $6,599 PTA, $38.86M cume
7. Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – $11.37M, $3,659 PTA, $28.07M cume
8. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – $10.59M, $4,409 PTA, $63.4M cume
9. NEW – The Spirit (Lionsgate) – $10.35M, $4,126 PTA, $10.35M cume
10. Four Christmases (Warner Bros) – $7.29M, $2,904 PTA, $111.67M cume
11. Doubt (Miramax) – $7.1M, $5,604 PTA, $8.78M cume
12. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $5.81M, $9,417 PTA, $19.41M cume
13. Twilight (Summit) – $5.5M, $2,975 PTA, $167.06M
*Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – $3.2M, $38,155 PTA, $4.28M cume
*Milk (Focus) – $2.32M, $7,481 PTA, $13.52M cume
*Frost/Nixon (Universal) – $1.94M, $9,473 PTA, $3.58M cume
*The Reader (Weinstein) – $847,000, $7,302 PTA, $1.23M cume
*The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – $515,000, $28,611 PTA, $893,000 cume
*NEW – Revolutionary Road (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $192,400, $64,133 PTA, $192.400 cume
*NEW – Last Chance Harvey (Overture) – $132,000, $22,000 PTA, $132,000 cume
*NEW – Waltz with Bashir (Sony Classics) – $55,144, $11,029 PTA, $55,144 cume

FINALY 4-DAY CHRISTMAS WEEKEND PTA ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Revolutionary Road (Dreamworks/Paramount) – 3 locations, $64,133 PTA
2. Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – 84 locations, $38,155 PTA
3. The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) – 18 locations, $28,611 PTA
4. NEW – Last Chance Harvey (Overture) – 6 location, $22,000 PTA
5. NEW – Marley & Me (Fox) – 3,480 locations, $14,849 PTA
6. NEW – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) – 2,988 locations, $13,086 PTA
7. NEW – Valkyrie (MGM/UA) – 2,711 locations, 11,075 PTA
8. NEW – Waltz with Bashir (Sony Classics) – 6 locations, $11,029 PTA
9. NEW – Bedtime Stories (Disney) – 3,681 locations, $10,486 PTA
10. Frost/Nixon (Universal) – 205 locations, $9,473 PTA
11. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – 614 locations, $9,471 PTA
12. Milk (Focus) – 311 locations, $7,481 PTA
13. The Reader (Weinstein) – 116 locations, $7,302 PTA
14. Seven Pounds (Sony) – 2,758 locations – $6,599 PTA
15. Yes Man (Warner Bros) – 3,434 locations, $6,517 PTA
16. Doubt (Miramax) – 1,267 locations, $5,450 PTA
17. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – 2,402 locations – $4,409 PTA
18. NEW – The Spirit (Lionsgate) – 2,509 locations – $4,126 PTA