What a godawful weekend at the box office....

If you read any newspaper's weekend section, you would have seen reviews for Nick and Nora's Playlist, Religulous and Blindness and Beverly Hills Chihuaha was most likely relegated to the "Also Playing" section, because it didn't seem particularly noteworthy. Besides, you already pretty much know it's for the same crowd who finds those 30-second spots for Taco Bell amusing and figures that seeing a talking chihuaha on screen for a couple hours is a little safer than the 3 aforementioned films of Ed Harris' critically acclaimed Appaloosa, and there's not much to explain in the story.

Well, mediocrity wins again for a 3rd straight weekend: Previous box office champs have been Eagle Eye and Lakeview Terrace, neither of which have been appealling.

One notable thing about this weekend's winner is that it was directed by Raja Gosnell who Richard Roeper cited in his book "Hollywood Schlock" as one of the worst directors in America, and although Roeper is just one person, I'm moderately inclined to agree with him. Unless you found the Scooby Doo series to be successful, than anyone looking at his imdb profile could easily see he's produced bad movies all over the place. Roeper also notes in that same book that bad directors have the edge over good directors that they're name isn't attached to films. If a good or great director like Ron Howard (example of a good director) or Fernando Meirelles (example of a great director) makes a film, whether good, bad or slightly dissapointing, than people will remember it because their name is always marketed with the film. The fact that Raja Gosnell is nothing to be proud of means he has immunity and he can continue to go on and make awful movies.



Raja Gosnell who Richard Roeper lists as one of the handful of
1 N Beverly Hills Chihuahua BV $29,000,000 - 3,215 - $9,020 $29,000,000 - 1
2 1 Eagle Eye P/DW $17,700,000 -39.3% 3,516 +6 $5,034 $54,605,000 $80 2
3 N Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist Sony $12,000,000 - 2,421 - $4,957 $12,000,000 - 1
4 2 Nights in Rodanthe WB $7,355,000 -45.2% 2,702 -2 $2,722 $25,075,000 - 2
5 37 Appaloosa WB (NL) $5,015,000 +3,321.6% 1,045 +1,031 $4,799 $5,570,000 $20 3
6 3 Lakeview Terrace SGem $4,500,000 -35.4% 2,574 +107 $1,748 $32,140,000 $20 3
7 5 Burn After Reading Focus $4,083,000 -34.1% 2,397 -252 $1,703 $51,641,000 $37 4
8 4 Fireproof Gold. $4,069,000 -40.5% 852 +13 $4,776 $12,491,000 $0.5 2
9 N An American Carol Viv. $3,810,000 - 1,639 - $2,325 $3,810,000 $20 1
10 N Religulous LGF $3,500,000 - 502 - $6,972 $3,519,000 - 1
11 N Flash of Genius Uni. $2,328,000 - 1,098 - $2,120 $2,328,000 - 1
12 N Blindness Mira. $2,002,000 - 1,690 - $1,185 $2,002,000 - 1