Arts & Entertainment

Comedic 'Just Married' topples Jackson's monstrous 'Towers' 

By Mason Lerner
The Daily Cougar

In the midst of the mid-winter doldrums that immediately follow the big releases of the holiday season, two young actors managed to throw a coming out party. Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy made the move from being just two more pretty faces in Hollywood to being bona fide box office attractions. In its first weekend out of the gate, their new release, Just Married surpassed Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings as the top grossing film of the weekend in the United States and pulled in an impressive $18 million.

Though it was only screened in a relatively modest 2,764 theatres, the impressive release signals a temporary rest from all of The Rings hype, which grossed $14.9 million this weekend, upping its total sales to $283 million. Honestly, how long can people rave about some dude on a black horse chasing after a bunch of midgets?

Leonardo DiCaprio had another good week at the office. Although Catch Me if You Can fell from the second slot to the third on the box office charts, the kid still pulled in nearly $15 million over the weekend. Gangs of New York, thick on history but thin on plot, dropped two slots and settled into the eighth spot on the charts grossing only $5 million. 

The romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice placed fourth in the nation this weekend gaining $6.7 million. This film stars Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant, and explores the question of whether it's ever too late to say 'I love you.'

Fifth over the weekend was About Schmidt, grossing $6.2 million. Warren Schmidt, played by Jack Nicholson, is forced to deal with an ambiguous future as he enters retirement. 

A change of pace in the film industry is always good, and Chicago has been called simply the reinvention of the American movie musical. After a weak attempt by last year's Moulin Rouge to fill the role, Chicago is a refreshing change in artistry. Starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renee Zellweger as convicts trying to become superstars, the 1920s musical came in sixth over the weekend grossing $5.6 million.

If you really have a lot of time on your hands and everything else is sold out you can still catch J-LO in Maid in Manhattan, which came in seventh and made $45 million. 

Antwone Fisher, Denzel Washington's directorial debut, quietly brought in $4 million on only 1,006 screens and placed ninth. Denzel is still the closest thing to a sure bet when it comes to gambling cash on the price of a ticket.

If anybody didn't get enough of Jason Patric as a cop in Speed II you will be thrilled to know that you can catch him again in the only other new release of the weekend. In Narc, Patric teams with Ray Liotta to play two undercover cops trying to bring their version of justice down on a cop killer. A word of advice to the bad guys in this movie and any other movie like it: the undercover narc is always the white guy with the knit cap pulled down over his eyes. Duh! Narc grossed $2.7 million while being shown in 822 theaters nationwide.

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