Box Office Results, etc.

Not that it was too difficult of a call, but my predictions were correct. And it was a great weekend for the box office in general.

1. WALL-E ($62.5 million)
2. Wanted ($51.1 million)
3. Get Smart ($20 million)
4. Kung Fu Panda ($11.7 million)
5. The Incredible Hulk ($9.2 million)
6. The Love Guru ($5.4 million)
7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($5 million)
8. The Happening ($3.9 million)
9. Sex and the City ($3.8 million)
10. You Don’t Mess With the Zohan ($3.2 million)

Also, I have my first five-star movie of the year, folks. Drum roll, please! It's... Wall-E! I was both impressed and touched by this film, and barring any other big surprises, I fully expect it to take the Best Original Screenplay Oscar this year. So, if you're on the fence about seeing this one, well, you know my opinion.

Movies I Watched:

• Wall-E (5 stars)
• Thelma & Louise (2 stars) - I was very, very disappointed in this Oscar-winner. The pace was so slow, the characters were poorly motivated, and the ending was ridiculous.
• Bigga than Ben (3½ stars) - I went into this with pretty low expectations and was very pleasantly surprised. It's very obviously an indie, and it doesn't apologize for it. But it was consistently funny and occasionally poignant, and I'd like to catch it again on DVD if it's ever released in the States. That being said, I think having watched it in 5-minute clips on youtube officially makes me a fangirl. (FYI, clips 4 and 5 are out of order in the playlist, and I'm not enough of a fangirl to figure out how to make a new one. So, if you watch it, you'll have to click around when you get there.)
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (5 stars) - I'd seen this before in theatres, but it cemented its place in my list of favorite movies when I watched it again this week.
• Bonjour Tristesse (1 star) - I actually only got through about two-thirds of this movie. I was bored out of my mind and vaguely annoyed at most of the characters. The best part of the movie so far was the lounge singer who crooned the titular song at the beginning. I'll probably try to get through the last 45 minutes of the film this week, but I don't expect an improvement in the rating.

A quick note of explanation about my rating system: Every movie I watch gets a default three stars. If the movie meets my expectations, it gets a solid three. Thus, movies like Bigga than Ben and What Happens in Vegas are at an advantage over films like Wall-E and Thelma & Louise. I try not too pay too much attention to marketing or reviews, but the truth is movies often do come with a reputation. Whether or not they live up to it certainly affects how I rate them.