True Grit

True Grit

This update of the classic 1960s Western scored 10 Oscar nominations, including one for its young breakout star, Hailee Steinfeld. Steinfeld plays Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl who hires a reluctant U.S. marshal, Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), to track down the man who killed her father. She's also aided by a Texas Ranger, played by Matt Damon. I enjoyed the Coen brothers' entertaining drama, mostly due to the fantastic performances from Steinfeld, Bridges, and Damon. The DVD extras include a theatrical trailer and several featurettes about the making of the movie.

96%

Just Go With It

In this romantic comedy, Adam Sandler stars as Danny, a plastic surgeon who's content to be a player until he meets gorgeous Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), a woman he thinks might be the One. When she finds a fake wedding ring he wears to attract women, he lies and says he's soon to be divorced. Next he recruits his employee Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) to pretend to be his future ex, but when Palmer wants to know more, the lie snowballs. The DVD's extras include a blooper reel, deleted scenes, a commentary track with Sandler and a separate commentary track with the director, as well as a couple making-of featurettes.

18%

Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher's romantic comedy No Strings Attached had no problems getting audiences to commit to seeing it — the new release won the weekend box office race, earning $20.3 million. In second place was last week's champ, Seth Rogen superhero flick The Green Hornet, with $18.1 million.

Vince Vaughn comedy The Dilemma pulled into third place with $9.7 million, followed by award season favorite The King's Speech, which made $9.1 million (perhaps folks were eager to see Colin Firth's Golden-Globe-winning performance). The Coen Bros. western True Grit completed the top five with a haul of $8 million.

The January box office slump persisted over the Martin Luther King weekend, with the low numbers making it the least attended MLK weekend since the mid '90s. Those who did make it to the theater were looking for some action, because Seth Rogen's foray into superhero territory, The Green Hornet, came in first with $34 million.

The masked Rogen beat out the other new release, Vince Vaughn's comedy The Dilemma, which pulled in $17.4 million to get it into second place. In the number three was last week's winner, True Grit, which earned $11.2. Another success of the week was The King's Speech — between the wide release and awards buzz, it catapulted from the ninth to the fourth spot with $9 million, for the first time in the box office top five! And in the fifth spot was fellow award season darling Black Swan, which earned $8.1 million.

Box office numbers were down over the holiday break, and the slump continued this weekend. The box office fell 30 percent from last weekend's tally, making it one of the worst first weekends of January since 2000. But at least there's good news for True Grit. The Western took in $15 million, making it the first Coen brothers film to pass the $100 million mark. It also pushed the film ahead of reigning champ Little Fockers for first place. Little Fockers slipped to second with $13.7 million, while the Nicolas Cage flick Season of the Witch debuted at third with $10.7 million.

Tron: Legacy took the fourth spot with $9.8 million, followed by Black Swan, which took in $13 million and cracked the top five for the first time. Though Gwyneth Paltrow's Country Strong went wide in more theaters this weekend, it wasn't enough to push the film to the top of the competition; it came in sixth with $7.3 million.