Right on the ‘Button’: Pitt & Co. stay atop weekend chart for Jan. 2-4

January 4, 9:52 PMAtlanta Movies ExaminerRyan McNally

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With no major films debuting this past week, there was a lot of jockeying for position on this weekend’s charts (an average of box office, critics' reviews and audience response**) among the previous Top 10. Here’s how things shook out:

1) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1). It’s Brad Pitt’s fifth movie—and third with director David Fincher—to top the “classic” 8.0 mark among IMDB users, joining Fight Club, Seven, Snatch and Twelve Monkeys.

2) Slumdog Millionaire (2). Actually increased 11 percent at the box office from the previous weekend—impressive for a film in its eighth week in theaters—and re-entered the B.O. Top 10.

3) Doubt (3T). It’s Philip Seymour Hoffman’s 17th film to score 75 or higher on the tomatometer scale. The highest of those featuring Seymour Hoffman in a major role? Capote (91), The Savages (89) and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (88).

4) Milk (3T). Only the second film of Sean Penn’s illustrious career to score 8.0 or higher at IMDB—the first being the Clint Eastwood thriller Mystic River, for which Penn won his first Academy Award.

5T) Gran Torino (6T). Speaking of Eastwood, his latest jumped 21 percent at the box office without adding any theaters. Look for it to make a strong run at #1 next week when it opens wide. (For a full review of Gran Torino, click here.)

5T) Valkyrie (6T). It dropped 4 points at Rotten Tomatoes since last weekend, moving it from the “fresh” category to the “rotten” one. Still, it’s faring considerably better among critics than Cruise’s last starring flick, 2007’s Lions for Lambs (27 tomatometer)

7) Marley & Me (5). This week’s box office champ crossed the $100 million mark, and at $106.5 million it’s closing in fast on passing The Break-Up ($118.7 mil) to become Jennifer Aniston’s most financially successful leading role to date.

8) Bolt (9). It’s currently the 4th-highest-grossing PG-rated film of ’08, behind Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, though it’ll likely be surpassed by Marley & Me later this week.

9) Frost/Nixon (8). The Oscar hopeful increased its weekend gross 6.3 percent, but at $6.3 million total to date, it faces tough odds: only four films in the last decade earning less than $10 million before nominations came away with a Best Pic nod (Letters from Iwo Jima was the last.)

10) Yes Man (10T). Showing impressive legs at the theater, it dropped only 17 percent from last weekend—solid figures for a film with mediocre reviews and a decent-but-not-great 7.3 IMDB rating.  

**Tired of reading about the latest dumb action flick, lame gross-out comedy or played-out torture porn horror pic that took home the box office crown? Wish the media balanced screaming headlines about box office winners with more stories about “the top reviewed films” or the “films audiences loved the most”?

I’m with ya. And that’s why I’ve devised a new ranking system (see list above) that combines critics’ reviews, audience response and, yes, box office to deliver a comprehensive list of what’s hot in theaters in each weekend. (The previous week’s chart position is listed in parentheses after the film title.)