'Inception' stays at the head of the table, with 'Dinner for Schmucks' close behind

By Sarah Sluis

For the third week in a row, Inception led the pack at the box office. The dreamy sci-fi movie dipped just 35% to $27.3 million, for a total of $193 million. That means the movie will cross the $200 million mark within the next few days. If it continues to drop around 30% for the rest of its run, it will finish just shy of $300 million.

Debuting in second place, the Steve Carell-led Dinner for Schmucks rang up $23.3 million. Based on the French comedy Le Dner des Cons, the remake received mixed reviews (averaging 51% on Rotten Tomatoes). The question here is if the movie will end up with a run similar to Carell's April release Date Night, which opened to $25 million but finished with a figure four times its opening weekend. The tamer PG-13 Date Night, which also co-starred a woman, has more of a mass-market appeal, but Schmucks features Carell as an oblivious buffoon somewhat similar to his Michael Scott character on "The Office," which could draw in audiences.

The idea of pet movies as box-office gold suffered a setback with the $12.5 million debut weekend of Cats & Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. The first Cats & Dogs, which released ages ago in 2001,

opened to $21.7 million. With all the original fans of the series now in their teen years, it's no wonder the sequel failed to generate significant buzz.

Zac Efron was able to secure a $12.1 million opening for his romantic drama Charlie St. Cloud, playing a sensitive young man overwrought with guilt over the death of his younger brother. Awareness and intent to see was high among teen girls, but for the movie to open higher it needed to

appeal to broader audience. Efron can enjoy the fact that his weepie romantic movie played better than that of the competition. Twilighter Robert Pattinson's Remember Me opened to just $8 million in March.

On the specialty front, The Kids Are All Right expanded yet again, going from 201 to 847 theatres and bringing in $3.4 million for a total that's now hovering just under the $10 million mark.

Get Low, starring Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Billy Murray, had an equally starry debut in four theatres with a per-screen average of $22,700. The Weinstein Co.'s The Concert averaged $10,000 per screen on two screens, and the documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, Rebel earned $10,000 on one screen.

This Friday, Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell take on the buddy cop comedy in The Other Guys, and Step Up 3D brings urban dancing to theatres everywhere.

'Schmucks,' 'Cats & Dogs,' and 'Charlie St. Cloud' compete for audiences

By Sarah Sluis

Three new wide releases join the fray this weekend, but Inception is expected to hold strong and rise above the pack of schmucks, mutts, and saints.

The first adult comedy in a month, Dinner for Schmucks, will unspool in 2,911 theatres. Starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, with noteworthy performances from Zach Galifianakis and Jemaine Clement, the movie should laugh up $20 million or so, and finish the highest among all new releases. Audiences won't be treated to laugh-out-loud comedy on the order of last year's The Hangover, though the movie is much less painful to watch than Grown Ups. Director Jay Roach (Meet the Parents) is committed to letting his actors improv, which is both a positive and negative. "Because the actors fully commit to their outsized portrayals...they earn big laughs onscreen," critic Ethan Alter explains, but "when the actors aren't clicking or, worse, if they push themselves too far and cross the line from funny to irritating, the movie comes to a complete standstill."

Kind of like Spy Kids but with pets and more James Bond references, according to critic Maitland McDonagh, the "clever touches" in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore will "keep adults from dozing off" and give kids some giggles in 3,705 theatres this weekend, including over 2,000 3D locations.

The set design is "occasionally brilliant," imagining MEOW's underground command center as a "deluxe cat condo with a '60s molded-plastic and shag-carpeting vibe, accessorized with state-of-the-art computers and flat-screen TVs!" Unfortunately, the special effects are noticeable, and "every cut from a real animal to an animatronic or CG stand-in is joltingly obvious."

Zac Efron of High School Musical fame stars as a sensitive, brooding boy in Charlie St. Cloud (2,720 theatres). Holding himself responsible for

his younger brother's death, he abandons Stanford and sailing to play catch with his dead brother every day. Swoon? According to McDonagh, many "teenagers [are] so in thrall to Efron's dreaminess that they'd watch him sort M&Ms." The movie itself is "sincere but formulaic," though it does boast a twist ending.

Plenty of specialty releases will round out the mix of films. The Weinstein Co. releases The Concert (NYC/LA), a French/Russian language film and hit in France, though "the faux pas of Slavs grotesquely mauling the mother tongue will be lost on American viewers." Melanie Laurent, last seen in Inglourious Basterds, leads the cast.

Though it's unclear whether TMZ or Perez Hilton fans will appreciate a look at one of their antecedents, the documentary Smash His Camera (NYC) profiles the famous paparazzo Ron Galella, who had his teeth smashed by Marlon Brando and a restraining order filed against him by the considerably more calm and collected Jackie O. Rounding out this week's indie selection, the adaptation of a Jonathan Ames novel The Extra Man (NYC/LA) stars Kevin Kline and Paul Dano but is "too broadly played and unfocused to click." Finally, in a "carefully paced showcase," Robert Duvall stars as a man who decides to hold a living funeral in Get Low (4 theatres), which also features a performance from Bill Murray, as the undertaker.

On Monday, we'll see how loudly Cats & Dogs meowed and barked, how many people bought ringside tickets to the Dinner for Winners, and if female audiences fell for Charlie St. Cloud.

Zach Galifianakis adds another film to his slate

By Sarah Sluis

Since The Hangover became a runaway success, its stars have been busily lining up projects. Zach Galifianakis, the misfit in the movie, has become the rising star of the group. He has queued up an impressive array of projects, including Dinner for Schmucks and Due Date, and is currently considering a role in It's Kind of a Funny Story.

Based on a teen novel, the story centers on a depressed 15-year-old who is sent to a mental institution for five days, where he turns around thanks to his interactions with the other patients. Galifianakis will play a patient, which sounds like a perfect role for his unhinged style of humor. Focus Features is producing the picture, and it's rumored to offer Galifianakis a meatier performance than straight comedy. So far, his only co-star is Emma Roberts, who will play a patient and love interest. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who directed/wrote Half Nelson and Sugar, are re-teaming for the movie. There's a long history of great mental institution/hospital films in Hollywood--One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Girl, Interrupted among them--so It's Kind of a Funny Story will have good company. The announcement also comes as Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch, an action film taking place in a mental institution, has started filming in Vancouver.

Galifianakis is on the cusp, as he transitions from smaller roles to bigger ones, so you can catch a glimpse of him as a homeless man in Gigantic (recently released on video, and you can read my interview with the director), a man in a suit in G-Force, and a trailer-trash boyfriend in upcoming Youth in Revolt. He's also appearing in HBO Brooklyn-set crime show "Bored to Death." Whew.

In the meantime, he's wrapped Due Date, a road trip film he stars in with Robert Downey, Jr., who must endure the man in order to make it to the hospital in time for his wife's birth. He's set to play another pitiable/annoying appendage in Dinner for Schmucks, where he will play an assistant manager in a mattress store who is dating Steve Carell's ex-wfe. Then there's The Hangover 2, which will start shooting this year. Galifianakis' career is going straight up--let's hope he can hang on and enjoy the ride.