Tropic Thunder

• American Idol has added songwriter Kara DioGuardi as a fourth judge for the upcoming eighth season. — BuzzSugar
• Tropic Thunder won the top spot at the box office for a second weekend in a row with $16.1 million. The House Bunny opened at the number two spot, earning $15.1 million. — BuzzSugar
• Barenaked Ladies singer Ed Robertson and three other passengers survived a plane crash in Ontario on Sunday. — The Intelligencer
• Four members of Helena Bonham Carter's family died in a minibus crash during a South African safari earlier this week, and she has stopped filming Terminator Salvation to fly back to the UK. — Sunday Express
• The Dancing With the Stars contestants for the seventh season were released today, and Kim Kardashian announced she will still be participating, despite recently injuring her foot. — Good Morning America
• Amanda Bynes was involved in a minor car accident on Sunday in LA; she was found to be at fault but nobody was injured. — People

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Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder won the top spot at the box office for the second weekend in a row, earning an estimated $16.1 million. This makes Tropic Thunder, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight the only movies to have stayed at No. 1 for two consecutive weeks this Summer (so that's two major box office winners for Robert Downey Jr.!).

Following closely behind in the No. 2 spot was The House Bunny, which earned an estimated $15.1 million its first weekend out. Coming in third was the Death Race remake with about $12.3 million. In fourth place was The Dark Knight, followed by Star Wars: The Clone Wars at No. 5.

I didn't think the Rainn Wilson comedy The Rocker would do very well, but I'm surprised to see how badly it did. The comedy failed to crack the top 10 and only earned about $2.7 million.

Hamlet 2, which was all the rage at Sundance this year, had a limited release and brought in an estimated $435,294. The offbeat comedy will have a wider release this Wednesday.

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

• Thousands of people attended Bernie Mac's memorial service in Chicago on Saturday, including friends Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey, and Samuel L. Jackson. — Chicago Tribune
• Tropic Thunder won the top spot at the box office this weekend, earning an estimated $26 million and dethroning The Dark Knight, which came in second with $16.7 million. — BuzzSugar
• Brad Pitt is teaming up with Kiehl's to launch an aloe vera body cleanser, and 100 percent of the profits will go to JPF Eco Systems, the green charity Brad and Kiehl's created. — BellaSugar
• ICYMI, Michael Phelps broke a world record with his 8th gold medal at the Bejing Olympics this weekend, while 41-year-old Dana Torres won three silver medals. — FitSugar
• Daniel Radcliffe suffers from a brain disorder called dyspraxia, which impairs the organization of his movement. — Us Weekly
• Jared Leto and his band 30 Seconds to Mars are being sued for $30 million by Virgin Records for failing to deliver three albums required by contract. The band's response is that this is completely ridiculous. — AP
• Shaq and his wife have decided to call off their divorce and reconcile their five-year marriage. — Extra!
• Taylor Hanson and his wife are expecting their fourth child this winter. — People

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Even though Tropic Thunder is technically No. 1 this weekend, The Dark Knight is still being called the biggest winner because it is "the second highest grossing pic of all time after Titanic domestically." Ben Stiller's comedy earned an estimated $26 million while the Batman sequel took in $16.7 million and has a total gross of $471.5 million.

The rest of the top 10 was shaken up a bit as well this weekend: Star Wars: The Clone Wars came in third place, followed by the horror flick Mirrors at No. 4 and Pineapple Express rounded out the top five.

Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona opened this weekend at No. 10, and the new 3-D animated flick Fly Me to the Moon came in at No. 11.

Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures

The men of Tropic Thunder paid a visit to TRL yesterday afternoon, showing off their comedic skills for a slightly younger audience. The trio made us all laugh during their MTV Movie Awards skit, so they're more than in with the MTV set — you know, beyond the fact that they're major movie stars. From there, it was group date night out at the Waverly Inn, joined by Ben's wife Christine Taylor. The boys' movie hit theaters yesterday and while it's been boycotted by some, it's also getting pretty good reviews, including from Buzz! Not winning quite as many raves? RDJ's mustache.

To see more of Ben, Robert, and Jack, just read more

I never really thought I'd say a Ben Stiller comedy was genuinely smart and funny, but here I am, saying just that. It's partly the talented cast and partly Stiller's collaborator on the film, Justin Theroux, but whatever the cause, Tropic Thunder is a hilarious movie that doesn't completely rely on gross-out humor or cheap shots for laughs. The entire thing exists to comment on the hypocrisy, egotism, delusional sense of self-importance and backward moral codes of the people who keep the Hollywood machine churning. And it's all set against the backdrop of one of the most serious film genres: the war movie.

Stiller plays Tugg Speedman, a has-been action star who hopes that the filming of the war movie Tropic Thunder will restart his fading career. Soon, however, the film's director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) decides to drop the film's stars into the middle of the jungle to get some "grittier" footage. The group of actors includes the Australian Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), an Academy darling who has surgically changed his skin color to play a black character, an actual black actor named Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), newbie actor Kevin Sandusky (the beloved Apatownian Jay Baruchel) and goofball comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black). The men find themselves in a real combat situation, and it takes them a while to realize that they're not actually on a controlled movie set. The whole thing is a series of jokes, explosions and gunfire, resulting in a kind of giant comedic spectacle. Those are just the basics, though, so read more