Box Office - 'Dear John' Whallops 'Avatar'

Not only did Dear John muss up Avatar's hair and take over the top spot at the box office this weekend, the surprise hit also set a Super Bowl weekend record with $32 million. At least according to the early projections, John beat the Hannah Montana concert movie from 2008, which debuted with $31.1 million. Projections can be undone by the real numbers (released tomorrow), but for the time being, Dear John has a record-breaking performance.

How did it happen? Chicks. They almost made When in Rome a hit last weekend, but given the chance to cry during a movie, women rarely turn it down. And they haven't had a movie created expressly for them in quite a while. Even still, this is a much bigger turnout than people anticipated. The $32 million was $10 million more than Avatar, that's about 30% more in almost exactly the same number of theaters. Avatar didn't get an Oscar spike, although that would be limited more than normal because the film has already beaten every known box office record. There's not a lot of mystery left for people. But those were the only two movies to even break $20 million this weekend, and taking it a little further, they're the only two to break $10 million.

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Box Office - 'Dear John' Has Bad News for 'Avatar'

Avatar has been conquered. Eight full weeks after its release, the biggest movie ever has been taken down by a weepy Nicholas Sparks drama. Here's how we know: On Friday, Dear John made almost as much money as it was projected to earn in the entire weekend, more than doubling Avatar, which - it's safe to say - now looks kind of pedestrian.

No hulking weekend for James Cameron on the heels of the Oscar nominations, no real shot to overcome the deficit the rest of the way (because Sunday is the Super Bowl and that shouldn't hurt Dear John as much as the other front runners), and finally, a second-place finish for the all-time box office champ. Dear John put together around $14 million on Friday - excuse me? - to Avatar's $6.1 million and is estimated to go for about $32 - $34 million for the weekend. That's double what the predictions were anywhere you looked this week.

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Movie Review - 'From Paris With Love'

From Paris With Love Starring John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers Directed by Pierre Morel Rated R

What a shame that From Paris with Love decides halfway through that it wants you to take it seriously. Because you can't. Not at all. And if director Pierre Morel took a cue from his star, John Travolta, and went strictly for the ridiculous, this could have been fun. Look at it this way: The title is tongue-in-cheek, Travolta is as unbridled as he's ever been (which usually doesn't serve him well), and there's not much of a story going on. So why not play to the limited strengths the film has? Better to be a good bad movie than a bad bad movie, after all. There are simply too many regrettable habits in From Paris with Love that the film shouldn't have even bothered trying to fix them. It begins with the dialogue and extends to what little character development that shows up, and when those two things are afflicted, there's pretty much no hope for anything else. So Travolta does the smart thing: Distract the audience with such a laughable character that the crowd doesn't notice what's really going on. It's like very loud, irritating sleight of hand. Why the film takes a turn for the consequential is just beyond me. Travolta plays a CIA agent named Wax. Naturally, he's the best at his job. How absurd is that? I wouldn't let a guy like that wash my windows, much less work intel for our government overseas. Wax punctuates his conversations with pop culture references, though I suspect that's mostly unconscious as far as the character's concerned. I do wish Travolta had overruled the filmmakers to exclude a tip of the hat to his "Royale with Cheese" speech from Pulp Fiction, but otherwise, it's not a bad affection.

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Fearless Forecast: From Pandora With Love

The only thing left to watch for in terms of Avatar's assault on box office records is what the final number will be. As of this writing, it's closing in on $2.1 billion, and in the US alone, it just beat Titanic. So there are no more feats to accomplish other than the number we'll quote when something threatens it, if that ever happens.

For the purposes of history, it would be great if Avatar makes another $300 million and change around the world so that, even without most of the record-breaking US performance, it would still have outgrossed Titanic. Can you imagine a film making $600 million more than Titanic, a full 33% more than the all-time number? By Monday, that global figure will be closer to $2.2 billion, thanks in no small measure to the film's eighth consecutive win at the domestic box office. Most of these haven't even been close, by the way. And again, it will outperform its nearest competitor by almost 150%. What that nearest competitor will be is the only thing left to determine.

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Video - 'From Paris With Love' Red Band Clip

You know the clip probably isn't safe for work when you can't even print its title without very likely offending people. Welcome, then, to this restricted clip from the new Travolta flick, From Paris With Love.

It's the new film by Taken director Pierre Morel, and I don't mind telling you it doesn't look nearly as good as last year's Liam Neeson flick. Part of that is a rather familiar combination of sources - good cop/bad cap, lots of explosions, and all set in a European world capital - and part of it, frankly, is Travolta. I just don't know who keeps whispering in his ear that he can play these laughing tough guy roles. He's usually OK in other stuff and embarrassing in movies like Swordfish and Face/Off. But they keep hiring him to do it, so maybe that's where the blame should lie. His co-star, Jonathan Rhys Myers, appears to be playing a deer caught in Travolta's headlights, which really isn't a good counter balance to a scene-chewing Vinny Barbarino. So we'll see if it plays out better than the pieces seem to be fitting together. Here's a brief glimpse:

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