slumdog-millionaire-small.jpgEarlier this month, I noted that no 10th-place-gross movie has ever won the Box Office Power Rankings title.

That's still true.

But Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire ? which expanded to 589 sites this past weekend and landed in eighth place in overall box office ? could have finished in last place and still won this week's crown.

Jim Carrey and Terence Stamp in Yes ManYES MAN

It feels as though the teasers for Yes Man have been running since the first Bush administration, so I'm assuming everyone is aware of the film's 10-word comic premise: Jim Carrey always says "no," then learns to say "yes." If you're thinking the setup sounds an awful lot like the conceit behind 1997's Liar Liar, you're not wrong, and in his one-joke role as a depressed loan officer who decides to embrace life by acting against his natural impulses, Yes Man also requires Carrey to goose the proceedings with the sorts of rubber-faced buffoonery and "spontaneous" madness that the actor can pull off in his sleep. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he appears to be doing here.

delgo-small.jpgIf you've heard of the animated Delgo, it's most likely for its infamy. Opening this past weekend in 2,160 theaters, it barely grossed $500,000. Its per-theater revenue was $237, meaning that with an average ticket price of $7 and five screenings per day, a little more than two people showed up each time the movie was exhibited.

Needless to say, Delgo does not show up in this week's Box Office Power Rankings, won once again by Bolt, which is feasting on weak competition such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, a bomb that looks like The Dark Knight compared to Delgo.

This past Friday, larger movie markets saw the debuts of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, and Steven Soderbergh's Argentinia epic Che.

Our market, meanwhile, only got The Day the Earth Stood Still, Nothing Like the Holidays, and Delgo.

Sigh. Let's dive in, then.

Jeffrey Wright in Cadillac RecordsCADILLAC RECORDS

At roughly 105 minutes, writer/director Darnell Martin's Cadillac Records is so jam-packed with character, story, incident, and musical interludes that it sometimes feels as though six or seven movies are being projected on the screen simultaneously. This is not meant as an insult. Films that overreach oftentimes give audiences too much of a fine thing, yet Cadillac Records is just enough of a really fine thing - a soulful, impassioned, beautifully enacted drama that delivers all the pleasures of the musical-bio-pic genre without the obviousness and sanctimony.

Adrian Brody and Jeffrey Wright in Cadillac RecordsCadillac Records opened this past weekend with a respectable $5,023 per theatre, and got good reviews. It came in second place in this week's Box Office Power Rankings behind only Bolt, the unstoppable force that nobody cares about.

But because it was only in 686 theatres, it couldn't make a box-office splash, earning $3.4 million overall and landing in ninth place. And because it was in 686 threatres, it was too big to be one-of-those only-in-major-cities movies that generate buzz and huge per-theatre numbers. (Think Milk.)

Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn in Four ChristmasesFOUR CHRISTMASES

In the spirit of those magical pre-Thanksgiving treats Fred Claus, Deck the Halls, and Christmas with the Kranks, director Seth Gordon's Four Christmases is Hollywood's annual, star-filled affair that celebrates the joys of the holidays through wisecracks, gaudy colors, pummeling "comic" violence, and occasional projectile vomiting. It differs from its predecessors, though, in one notable regard: It doesn't suck. At least not completely.

milk.jpgNo movie has ever won the Box Office Power Rankings with a 10th-place finish in overall ticket sales. It's certainly possible, but a film has to be perfect or nearly so in every other category to pull it off.

bolt-small.jpgAs we all expected, Bolt ran away with this week's Box Office Power Rankings ... .

Hmmm.

Let's step back a second. That Disney's computer-animated dog won isn't an upset, but its five-point margin is surprising. Even after I began plugging in the numbers, I was anticipating something close to a three-way tie between Bolt, Twilight, and Quantum of Solace. What I didn't process was the effect of the bunching of critical scores ? and the bunching of critical scores higher than we've seen for a few months.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart in TwilightTWILIGHT

Let's just get it out of the way: No, I haven't read Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, and no, I didn't really care for the film version. But I won't begrudge the movie its popular appeal, because while watching director Catherine Hardwicke's and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg's take on Meyer's teen-vampire tale, it was pretty easy to see what would make the material absolutely irresistible to its target audience. For those of us who aren't its target audience, maybe not so much.

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