It's not official until Tuesday, but I am back from a much-needed vacation in British Columbia with a look at projections based on early Friday numbers. Based on these, progosticator Steve Mason sees a three-way photo finish for first place, with the romantic comedy "All About Steve'' narrrowly edging two holdovers that are also heading for the vicinity of $14 million for the

I never thought of Diana Dors as a serious actress, more like a dumb blonde a la Jane Mansfield. (She was, in fact, billed as "the British Marilyn Monroe.'') On Sunday, at Film Forum, I saw Dors in "Yield to the Night,'' a British crime drama directed by J. Lee Thompson in 1956, which made me rethink my opinion of the actress. She's surprisingly impressive as a woman waiting in

First Independent Pictures

In today's Post I give three stars to the dark comedy "Big Fan," in which the rotund comic Patton Oswalt (above, who voiced the central character in "Ratatouille") shows dramatic chops as an obsessed New York Giants fan who has an encounter with his favorite player that will change him forever. Yesterday we ran my favorable review of the Anna Wintour

Lincoln Center will never be confused with Xenon or 54, but last night the Walter Reade theater celebrated disco with a little screening and party for Whit Stillman, the writer-director of "Metropolitan," "Barcelona" and "The Last Days of Disco." The latter film, the DVD of which was out of print for years and was being hawked on eBay for $150, is finally getting its due with a

Dimension Films

Looks like a bloody weekend at the box office, with two horror flicks that weren't screened for critics: "The Final Destination 3D," the fourth go-round in a really tired saga about teens losing their lives in a variety of Rube Goldberg contraptions, looks like it'll bring in some $21 million, says Box Office prophets, while Rob Zombie's reboot of "Halloween,"

Roadside Attractions' "The September Issue" In today's Post I offer up an amused three-star review of the new R.J. Cutler documentary about the making of Vogue, "The September Issue." The star, Vogue's celebrated and feared editrix Anna Wintour, is far too clever to be caught on film berating the help or anything along those lines, but the movie comes reasonably close ... MORE

Dimension Films Somehow, "Halloween II" doesn't cut it as a title for a second attempt at a movie with that title. "Halloween II II" is more like it, or maybe "Halloween II" redux. I enjoyed Rob Zombie's roadhouse Hitchcock rethink of "Halloween" a couple of years ago (though it wasn't as good as Zombie's trashterpiece "The Devil's Rejects") and I'm disappointed this one won't be ... MORE

It's spookier than anything in "Twin Peaks" or "Blue Velvet": The secret history of Billy Ray Cyrus, who credits David Lynch with launching his acting career and, by extension, that of his ubiquitous daughter. After Billy Ray won a surprise slot in Lynch's "Mulholland Drive," Lynch encouraged him to keep up the acting, which led to a TV career and the resulting pan-cultural Miley

One of my favorite filmmakers of the 1990s, Whit Stillman, hasn't released a film in over a decade so it's high time you went back and watched his sublime trilogy again. The third film of his preppies-in-doubt series, "The Last Days of Disco," is being reissued this week in a handsome new DVD edition by Criterion, which is presenting a new transfer together with commentaries by

The Weinstein Co. Box office prognosticators couldn't see Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" earning more than $25 million or so in its opening weekend -- but preliminary estimates are over $36 million for this two-and-a-half-hour homage to everything from "The Dirty Dozen" to "Cat People." Could it be that major enthusiasm from lots of critics has something to do with ... MORE

Universal Pictures

If you're among those who complain that Hollywood movies are always about robots instead of humans, or that they're about effects instead of words, or engineered for 15-year-old boys, consider "Duplicity," which arrives on DVD this week -- and tanked in theaters because it can't be explained in a 30-second TV commercial.

I was less ecstatic than Lou Lumenick

A hungry crowd of awed fanboys packed the IMAX theater at Lincoln Square in Manhattan Friday night to be blown away by the worldwide premiere of 20 minutes of footage from James Cameron's first full-length feature since "Titanic," the sci-fi epic "Avatar." Aug. 21 -- "Avatar Day" -- saw the worldwide rollout of action-packed 3D scenes from the $200 million film, which debuts

In case anyone had any doubt after that cheesy trailer, Paramount has bitten the bullet and moved Martin Scorsese's thriller "Shutter Island'' with Leo DiCaprio out of the Oscar race and into the wastelands of next February. Fox Searchlight immediately took advantage of the vaccum and moved Drew Barrymore's directing debut "Whip It'' with Ellen Page up a week to Oct. 2, the old

James Cameron's long-awaited Dec. 18 sci-fi adventure "Avatar" is going to be one of the hottest tickets at the movies this weekend -- even though Fox is only showing 20 minutes of footage. My sci-fi pal Todd was prepared to go out to the far reaches of Brooklyn to see the clip, which is debuting at 6 o'clock tonight in theaters nationwide and tickets for which disappeared

I'm taking a very-much-needed vacation and won't be back until after Labor Day, so I'll keep this short and sweet so I can get back to finishing my review of next Wednesday's "Taking Woodstock'' (meh) before I leave. The only movie that matters this weekend is "Inglourious Basterds,'' with a performance obviously crucial to the faltering Weinstein Co. Predictions for the opening

My 3.5 star review of Quentin Tarantino's highly entertaining (if historically unreliable) "Inglourious Basterds'' appears in today's print edition, along with an explainer of some of the more obscure film references. I didn't have space to note that "Nation's Pride,'' the German film-within-the-film directed by Eli Roth and starring Daniel Bruhl as a German war hero playing

George Hamilton has plenty of experience in biopics -- he's played Evel Knievel, Hank Williams and playwright Moss Hart on screen -- so it's interesting to see Hamilton himself played in a movie, by Logan Lerman (right), with Renee Zellweger as his mother and Mark Rendell as his gay brother, who in this version ends up as a Hollywood art director (he actually worked as an interior

George Hamilton has plenty of experience in biopics -- he's played Evel Knievel, Hank Williams and playwright Moss Hart on screen -- so it's interesting to see Hamilton himself played in a movie, by Logan Lerman (right), with Renee Zellweger as his mother and Mark Rendell as his gay brother, who in this version ends up as a Hollywood art director (he actually worked as an interior

George Hamilton has plenty of experience in biopics -- he's played Evel Knievel, Hank Williams and playwright Moss Hart on screen -- so it's interesting to see Hamilton himself played in a movie, by Logan Lerman (right), with Renee Zellweger as his mother and Mark Rendell as his gay brother, who in this version ends up as a Hollywood art director (he actually worked as an interior

Back when the Warner Archives was launched in March, George Feltenstein promised us that collections of theatrical short subjects would be offered along with features, and the first three sets have just turned up on the WA website for pre-order. Just $20 buys all 53 post-Hal Roach "Our Gang'' comedies -- many with Mickey Gubitoski, now known as acquitted murderer Robert Blake --

Many early reviews have mentioned that "Inglourious Basterds'' centers partly on a plot to lock the Nazi High Command in a burning Paris cinema during a premiere, but I haven't read anyone mention the historical incident that seems to have inspired Quentin Tarantino's revenge fantasy. In June 1944 -- the same month chosen by Tarantino for his climax --- German soldiers locked 642

Pardon the bad pun, but I was surprised to read that the Weinstein Co. is planning an Oscar campaign for Brad Pitt, who plays a Tennesee reneck leading the titular, mostly Jewish World War II outfit in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds,'' which is finally arriving in U.S. theaters on Friday despite months of predictions to the contrary by yours truly. Sure, Brad is very

It's not just that Sony's critically acclaimed $30 million "District 9'' snatched first place from the fast-fading, critically reviled $175 million "G.I. Joe'' in the blockbuster's second weekend. More humiliating for Paramount was the surprisingly huge margin of victory, an estimated $35 million to an estimated $22 million -- not even close, though Paramount has spent more than

Can a starless, critically acclaimed $30 million sci-fi mockumentary shot in South Africa knock a named-filled, critically reviled $175 million Hollywood blockbuster from the top spot this weekend? Prognosticators have "District 9'' finishing Friday through Sunday in the low-to-mid '20s, the same territory where the expect the second weekend of "G.I. Joe'' to end up. Sony,

Not satisified with offering George Clooney in Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air,'' the Toronto International Film Festival has announced a second Clooney film on the roster. "Men Who Stare at Goats,'' the directing debut of Clooney's longtime collaborator Grant Heslov (screenwriter and producer of "Good Night and Good Luck'') co-stars Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges in a comedy about

The movie that Heath Ledger was shooting when he died will probably be released later this year. Variety reports that Sony Pictures Classics is close to a deal for the Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Dr. Paranassus,'' which he completed with Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell in uncompleted parts of Ledger's role. The flick debuted to mixed reviews at this year's Cannes ... MORE

Starting Monday at noon PST, Fox will be distributing free tickets to free 3-D screenings of a 16-minute extended trailer for "Avatar,'' with an on-screen introduction by director James Cameron. Tickets (two to a customer) will be available at avartarmovie.com for two showings next Friday, Aug. 21, which has been dubbbed "Avatar Day'' by Fox. The free screenings will be held at 70

"The Wizard of Oz,'' which had its last theatrical reissue in 1998 via Warner Bros., is getting a one-performance revival around the country to celebrate its 70th anniversary and and the Sept. 29 debut of its latest restoration on Blu-ray. Turner Classic Movies' Robert Osborne will host an all-digital presentation on the evening of Sept. 23 that will be shown in Queens, The Bronx,

Veteran French director Alan Resnais will open this year's New York Film Festival with his 10th feature at Lincoln Center, "Wild Grass,'' on Sept. 25, as the festival moves back into the newly-renovated Alice Tully Hall following stints at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Time Warner Center auditorium and the Ziegfeld. There are lots of familiar helmers represented in the heavily

Veteran French director Alan Resnais will open this year's New York Film Festival with his 10th feature at Lincoln Center, "Wild Grass,'' on Sept. 25. There are lots of familiar helmers represented at the fest, which closes with Pedro Almodovar's "Broken Embraces'' on Oct. 12. Both these titles bowed in Cannes. From Sundance comes the centerpiece, Lee Daniels' "Precious: Based on

Twenty-five years ago yesterday, Twentieth Century-Fox released one of my favorite films of the '80s, W.B.L. Norton's existential sci-fi farce "The Adventures Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension!'' Actually, Fox, distributing for Fred Silverman's Sherwood Productions, was utterly baffled about to handle this demented film (just watch the trailer) and slowly opened it in

It's no secret that the recession has taken its toll on the release of classic films on DVD. Fox, which had one of the most ambitious release schedules in this area in recent years, including box sets devoted to John Ford, Frank Borzage and F.W. Murnau, has put out exactly one new-to-DVD vintage title this year, Fritz Lang's "Man Hunt.'' After issuing splendid Natalie Wood, Troy

Sony announced today that it plans to release a film crafted from footage of Michael Jackson's final rehersal on October 30 after striking a deal with the late singer's concert promoters and the Jackson estate. "People who have seen this footage are astounded by the amazing quality of Michael Jackson's performance," said Michael Lynton chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures

Warner Home Video has finally confirmed Nov. 17 as the release date for the 70th anniversary edition of "Gone With the Wind,'' which will also be the first time the Civil War classic is available on Blu-ray. In addition to copious special features ported over from the 2004 DVD Collector's Edition, the Ultimate Collector's Edition will include, as we predicted, the "1939'' ... MORE

"I'm more troubled about the haste to declare that 'Funny People' failed to connect with its audience,'' says A.O. Scott of the New York Times in a Sunday column about the domination of the summer movie markeplace by mindless blockbusters. "A similar rush to judgement greeted Michael Mann's "Public Enemies,'' and in those prouncements you can hear the shape of conventional wisdom

While it's not the disaster that some predicted, the $56.2 million domestic weekend take being reported by Paramount for "G.I. Joe'' is on the lowish side for a movie with a reported $175 million budget. Paramount's "Star Trek'' reboot, which allegedly cost $25 million less, took in $75.2 million in North America over three days. They're probably celebrating more heartily at Sony,

While it's not the disaster that some predicted, the $56.2 million domestic weekend take being reported by Paramount for "G.I. Joe'' is on the lowish side for a movie with a reported $175 million budget. Paramount's "Star Trek'' reboot, which allegedly cost $25 million less, took in $75.2 million in North America over three days. They're probably celebrating more heartily at Sony,

Paramount's policy of restricting advance screenings of "G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra'' to friendly fanboy reviewers seems to have worked on opening day yesterday. Early estimates indicate it took in around $22 million and appears to be headed for a $55-$60 million weekend. The second weekend, of course, will tell whether Paramount and its financial partners have a prayer of

The season's most incongruous boxoffice matchup pits two American icons, G.I. Joe and Julia Child, and I bet the final results will not be quite as lopsided as the experts predict. Conventional wisdom is that "G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra'' will open in the neighborhood $50 million vs. under $20 million for "Julie & Julia.'' What the experts aren't sufficiently factoring in, I

A veteran of the first Gulf War, my intrepid colleague Kyle Smith was not deterred by Paramount's determination to shield its $175 million bomb "G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra'' from sniper fire from professional critics. You won't find a review in the Times or The Snooze this morning, but our print edition this morning carries a hilarious, withering half-star takedown from my