'New Moon' keeps shining with $42.9M weekend

LOS ANGELES -- "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" finished at the top of the Thanksgiving weekend box office with $42.9 million, while "The Blind Side" ran a close second at $40.1 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "The Twilight Saga: New Moon," Summit, $42,870,031, 4,042 locations, $10,606 average, $230,947,696, two weeks.

2. "The Blind Side," Warner Bros., $40,111,364, 3,140 locations, $12,774 average, $100,238,841, two weeks.

3. "2012," Sony, $17,651,729, 3,444 locations, $5,125 average, $138,451,427, three weeks.

4. "Old Dogs," Disney, $16,894,511, 3,425 locations, $4,933 average, $24,228,546, one week.

5. "Disney's a Christmas Carol," Disney, $15,758,273, 3,013 locations, $5,230 average, $104,927,816, four weeks.

6. "Ninja Assassin," Warner Bros., $13,316,158, 2,503 locations, $5,320 average, $21,193,565, one week.

7. "Planet 51," Sony, $10,218,641, 3,035 locations, $3,367 average, $28,487,409, two weeks.

8. "Precious: Based On the Novel `Push' By Sapphire," Lionsgate, $7,081,032, 663 locations, $10,680 average, $32,433,482, four weeks.

9. "Fantastic Mr. Fox," Fox, $6,965,267, 2,033 locations, $3,426 average, $10,024,072, three weeks.

10. "The Road," Weinstein Co., $1,502,231, 111 locations, $13,534 average, $1,977,453, one week.

11. "The Men Who Stare at Goats," Overture, $1,501,837, 1,119 locations, $1,342 average, $30,521,930, four weeks.

12. "The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day," Apparition, $1,301,197, 373 locations, $3,488 average, $5,722,723, five weeks.

13. "Pirate Radio," Focus, $989,260, 478 locations, $2,070 average, $6,830,855, three weeks.

14. "Couples Retreat," Universal, $960,995, 862 locations, $1,115 average, $106,700,205, eight weeks.

15. "An Education," Sony Pictures Classics, $911,388, 265 locations, $3,439 average, $5,563,649, eight weeks.

16. "Michael Jackson's This Is It," Sony, $828,976, 576 locations, $1,439 average, $71,844,424, five weeks.

17. "Law Abiding Citizen," Overture Films, $786,534, 584 locations, $1,347 average, $71,505,530, seven weeks.

18. "The Princess and the Frog," Disney, $786,190, 2 locations, $393,095 average, $1,216,860, one week.

19. "The Fourth Kind," Universal, $618,265, 552 locations, $1,120 average, $24,605,935, four weeks.

20. "De Dana Dan," Eros, $577,381, 69 locations, $8,368 average, $742,377, one week.

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On the Net:

http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice

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Universal Pictures and Focus Features are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co.; Sony Pictures, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount and Paramount Vantage are divisions of Viacom Inc.; Disney's parent is The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is a division of The Walt Disney Co.; 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a consortium of Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Sony Corp., Comcast Corp., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Quadrangle Group; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC Films is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue Pictures is owned by Relativity Media LLC; Overture Films is a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp.

Polanski stuck in jail; must pay full $4.5M

GSTAAD, Switzerland -- Roman Polanski remained in jail Monday, despite visits from his lawyer and a French diplomat, and it was unclear if the director had met Switzerland's demand of a full bail payment of $4.5 million to be released.

The Swiss Justice Ministry declined to say what guarantees Polanski needed to give to be transferred from the jail near Zurich to house arrest at his chalet in the luxury resort of Gstaad.

In addition to bail, the 76-year-old filmmaker must surrender his identity papers and be fitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet. He would not be allowed to leave his property as he awaits a decision on whether he will be extradited to the U.S. for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.

"The bail must be wired to a bank account, and the bank must then notify us that it has received the bail," ministry spokesman Folco Galli said. "Nothing happens before that."

The full bail payment is standard practice in Switzerland, Galli said.

That is different from other countries such as the United States, where bail bondsmen often post a percentage of the total payment required by a court.

Polanski has been in Swiss custody since being arrested Sept. 26 on a U.S. warrant as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award at a film festival. Authorities in Los Angeles want him returned to be sentenced after 31 years as a fugitive.

The director of such film classics as "Rosemary's Baby," "Chinatown" and "The Pianist" was being held at a jail in Winterthur, near Zurich, where he was visited Monday by his lawyer Lorenz Erni and French diplomat Jean-Luc Faure-Tournaire.

"He is in good spirits. He is very happy about how he has been treated here," Faure-Tournaire said. He expected Polanski to leave jail soon, but he could not say how quickly.

Erni stayed for several hours in the jail, and refused to answer questions when he left. Contacted by telephone, Polanski's Paris lawyer Herve Temime also declined to comment.

In the central resort town of Gstaad, however, workers were seen clearing heavy snow from the road leading up to Polanski's property, a three-story stucco and wood home with its own garden. The chalet is where he would be confined until extradition is decided and any appeals are complete.

An alarm will ring if Polanski leaves the property, but no special police protection will be provided. The director will be able to go outside to check the mail or entertain guests in the garden. He also will be able to make calls, send e-mails and work on his films. Phone conversations will not be monitored.

It was unclear when Polanski's wife and two children would join him in Gstaad. His sister-in-law, Mathilde Seigner, told the Le Parisien newspaper that his family usually goes to the chalet around Christmas and plans to meet there again this year.

Polanski was initially accused of raping the girl after plying her with champagne and a Quaalude pill during a modeling shoot in 1977. He was indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molestation and sodomy, but he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse.

In exchange, the judge agreed to drop the remaining charges and sent him to prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation. The evaluator released Polanski after 42 days, but the judge said he was going to send him back to serve out the 90 days.

Polanski fled the U.S. on Feb. 1, 1978, the day he was to be formally sentenced. He has lived since then in France, which does not extradite its citizens.

Polanski claims that the U.S. judge and prosecutors acted improperly in his case. His attorneys will argue before a California appeals court in December that the charges should be dismissed.

Jackson's 'This Is It' out on DVD in January

NEW YORK -- "Michael Jackson's This Is It," a film about the King of Pop's final rehearsals before his death, will be released on DVD on Jan. 26, 2010.

The DVD release was announced Monday by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

"This Is It" captures Jackson's final performances as he rehearsed for his concerts in London. He died June 25, just weeks before his marathon of 50 concerts was to begin.

The DVD includes two documentaries, "Staging the Return: Beyond the Show" and "Staging the Return: The Adventure Begins," which highlight Jackson as he prepared for the concerts.

The film has grossed more than $70 million in the United States.

On the Net:

http://www.thisisit-movie.com/

http://www.sonypictures.com/

Review: Ninja Assassin About What You'd Expect

"A series of ninja fight sequences splattered with gratuitous amounts of blood and gore, minus much of a plot or coherent storyline to hold it together."

I implore anyone not to smile when purchasing a ticket to see Ninja Assassin. Just saying the words "Ninja Assassin" should spark a silly grin on your face. It's not an award movie, or a movie that will spawn deep conversations about life. It's Ninja Assassin, and blood splattering action is the name of the game.

Ninjas are being hired by foreign and domestic governments in Berlin to kill certain targets. Europol research agent Mika (Naomie Harris) picks up the money trail, thus making her a target of the ninjas-for-hire (known as the Ozunu Clan), whose very existence is one of myth and mystery. Raizo (Rain) is an ex-ninja Clan member, hell-bent on killing the entire Ozunu Clan after the wrongful murder of his friend. Unfortunately for the ninjas, Raizo was the best ninja the Clan ever produced. By saving Mika from certain death, Raizo teams up with the Europol agent to destroy the Ozunu Clan forever.

To have fun with Ninja Assassin, you have to know what you're getting into: a series of ninja fight sequences splattered with gratuitous amounts of blood and gore, minus much of a plot or coherent storyline to hold it together. To put it another way, Ninja Assassin is a blood-drenched popcorn movie that knows how to have fun and doesn't waste time on story or colorful characters, nor does it take itself too seriously. And how can it? It's about an ex-ninja killing other ninjas using a plethora of impressive ninja weapons, including ninja swords, ninja throwing stars, and ninja knives connected to ninja chains. It's all very ninja. And that's where the fun is.

But unlike other ninja movies, Ninja Assassin doesn't hold back on the blood-soaked carnage, turning up the gore to extreme levels. Hands, arms, legs, heads -- if it can be chopped off, sliced up, or removed with a splash of the red stuff, it is, without blinking an eye. It's comic book violence to the umpteenth degree. When the action is unfolding on screen, you can't help but have a good time. And while much of the blood is likely CG, I couldn't tell (unlike Blood: The Last Vampire, which had similar amounts of CG blood splatter that was obviously fake).

However, the things that Ninja Assassin lacks are a coherent narrative, an easy to follow storyline, and enough steady action to keep the flow of the movie going. While the premise is fairly basic, it's also a little too complicated for a film called Ninja Assassin. A lot of time is spent on the upbringing of Raizo in the ninja camp, time that easily could have been cut in half. More scenes featuring Raizo fighting and assassinating ninjas were needed to warrant the title of Ninja Assassin; instead, we're stuck in the past watching him train, creating longer and longer down time between action sequences, thus relying on characters, dialogue, and story to move the film along. For something like Ninja Assassin, that's not a good thing.

Ninja Assassin may be the definition of "entertaining trash." It's a mindlessly entertaining movie filled with gory, bloody violence that would make most horror fans cringe, featuring ninjas doing ninja things, from vanishing into thin air, hiding in shadows, and climbing up walls Spider-Man style, to kicking, punching, slicing, dicing, and throwing ninja stars with the speed and accuracy of a machine gun. As strange as it sounds, however, there simply isn't enough ninja action to hold the film together. The weak storyline, excessive flashback sequences, and boring characters aren't enough to fill the void in between the ninja killing. Ninja Assassin holds its own against other ninja films, but it isn't the defining piece of ninja cinema that you may have hoped for.