Apparently this weekend was a time for folks to head to the theater and watch robots fighting it out with one another.

Real Steel, starring Hugh Jackman, made it to the top of the box office over the weekend with an estimated $27.3 million.  A healthy showing for a fall debut, and exit polling was mostly positive, so it’ll probably have some life to it.  Who knew people were so anxious to see boxing robots?

Coming in a distant second was George Clooney’s political drama, The Ides of March.  The new film landed with $10.4 million which is squarely in the center of George Clooney movies as of late.  Not a huge disappointment, but there’s a reason these sorts of films usually hit in the fall.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good political thriller … at home.

Dolphin Tale slipped 34.2% to land in third, bringing in $9.16 million. A decent performance for any film in its third weekend, and brings its domestic total to $49 million off of a $37 million budget.

The Brad Pitt vehicle, Moneyball, came in fourth with $7.5 million inching its cumulative total to $49.5 million off of a $50 million budget, so it still has some ways to go for it to hit profitability.

Rounding out the top five was the cancer drama 50/50 with an estimated fall of 36.4% to $5.5 million. Considering the dark subject matter, this is a surprising hold for the film.

Next weekend is a mess with the remake of Footloose, the prequel to The Thing and The Big Year.

And from the “movie disasters” department, the Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle, I Don’t Know How She Does It lost 505 theaters and took a 76.8% fall to a paltry $93,000. This brings the total to $9.48 million off of a $24 million budget. I don’t picture Ms. Parker getting a whole lot of work any time soon.

It took a dolphin to knock the lion out of the top box office spot.

Dolphin Tale took the top spot at the box office this weekend, leading a pack of non-new releases from cracking into the top three. The movie based on a real life “tail” (ha! See what I did there?!?) dropped 25.6% from last weekend, but scored a healthy $14.25 million. The percentage drop was far better than expected, and took many by surprise.

Holding on to second place was the Brad Pitt vehicle, Moneyball. It dipped 35.9% which was a bit steeper than some expected, but wasn’t horrible by any stretch of the imagination and it brought in $12.5 million.

The 3D re-release of The Lion King took a 49.6% fall to bring in $11 million.  Considering it comes out on home video on Tuesday, the $79.7 million the re-release has brought in over three weekends is nothing to sneeze at and brings the lifetime earnings of the film to $408.2 million.

Fourth place was the best showing for any new release this week and saw the cancer-themed 50/50 bring in $8.85 million over the three days. Considering the subject matter, it wasn’t a horrible showing.

Rounding out the top five was Courageous with $8.8 million which was an impressive showing for only 1,161 locations.

Following up some recent disasters at the box office, the Sarah Jessica Parker vehicle, I Don’t Know How She Does It took a massive 80% hit from last weekend and brought in a paltry $400,000 brining its three weekend run to $9.2 million off of a $24 million budget. Meanwhile, Killer Elite starring Jason Statham fell 48.1% to $4.85 million bringing its two week total to $17.4 million off of a $70 million budget.  In short, things are not going well in several different genres of films at the moment, but that certainly won’t stop Hollywood from continuing to over spend.

Next week sees the debuts of The Ides of March and Real Steel.

The winners for the 81st annual Academy Awards have been announced, and, not too much to my surprise, I have seen hardly any of these films so far.  I have been dying to see Slumdog Millionaire, and surprisingly, it is actually in my town now!  I’m going to try to sneak out of work and see it as soon as possible.

That being said, there weren’t too many surprises with this year’s awards.  Slumdog Millionaire winning just about everything was expected, but I find it fascinating for all of the awards it won, it received no acting nominations.  Did the script just magically appear on screen without anyone acting it?

- Kudos to Kate Winslet for finally winning on her sixth outing.  She is a great actress and has been deserving for some time of winning.

- Heath Ledger put in an amazing performance in The Dark Knight, but I wonder how much of his win was his passing away and how much was truly the role.  I felt he was deserving, but you will alway shave to wonder.

- Hugh Jackman did a good job hosting, although the format was way different than it has been in the past.  And yay for him getting to sing.

- How was Don LaFontaine left out of the remembrance video of those who passed this year?  He was the voice of the movies to millions of people.

- What was Whoopi Goldberg wearing?  Did she get dressed in the dark?

- On the flip side… Tina Fey was… wow.

- Speaking of Tina Fey, her bit with Steve Martin was fantastic just for the thinly veiled joke at Scientology.  A mighty brave move in Hollywood these days considering the big names that buy in to that sham of a “religion”.  Wonder how many of the millions of people watching actually caught the meaning of that joke.

See all the nominees and the winners after the jump.

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The nominees for the 81st annual Academy Awards have been announced, and, not too much to my surprise, I have seen hardly any of these films so far.

Every year I wait for the Oscar nominations, and each year I walk away saying, “Wow, wish I had seen most of these.”  I think it is a combination of my living in a small town that doesn’t get the lesser known films, and even for the major releases such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I simply don’t have the time to get out to the theater often enough.  This film will probably be the big winner this year as it has 13 nominations (second only to Titanic that holds the record with 14… and I can still say I have never seen it), but there have been other big disappointments in the past, so who knows.

The most intriguing category is Best Supporting Actor.  Lots of people debated if Heath Ledger would make the cut for his turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight, and he did, but you wonder if it isn’t based somewhat on sympathy.  I felt it was a brilliant performance, and worthy of the award, but it will always be questioned if he wins.  And did anyone see Robert Downey, Jr. getting a nod for Tropic Thunder?  I haven’t seen it yet, and I heard he was amazing in it, but still a bit of a surprise for a comedy to get in there.

Overall, an interesting mix this year, and several films I am dying to see (most notably, Slumdog Millionaire), but, for now, we will just have to stay happy with the nominations.  I’ve listed them all below the cut for your convenience.

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