1. "2012" ($65 million)
2. "A Christmas Carol" ($22.3 million)
3. "The Men Who Stare At Goats" ($6.2 million)
4. "Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' By Sapphire" ($6.1 million)
5. "Michael Jackson's This Is It" ($5.1 million)

The world may have ended in "2012," but Roland Emmerich's disaster epic is just getting started at the box office. The John Cusack-starring film finished its opening weekend in theaters in first place with a walloping $65 million domestic intake. But moviegoers beyond American borders came out in full force for the end-of-days flick, giving "2012" a massive $225 million total worldwide. Read more...

1. "2012" ($23.5 million)
2. "A Christmas Carol" ($5.6 million)
3. "The Men Who Stare At Goats" ($1.95 million)
4. "Precious: Based On The Novel 'Push' By Sapphire" ($1.94 million)
5. "The Fourth Kind" ($1.8 million)

Moviegoers braved Armageddon on Friday night by confronting "2012," the Roland Emmerich-directed disaster epic. The film boasts some considerable star power such as John Cusack, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson and Amanda Peet, but "2012's" major draw has nothing to do with the acting and everything to do with the action of a world-ending calamity. Despite its subject matter, however, "2012" was anything but a disaster as shown by its whopping $23.5 million intake on Friday evening, with a likely weekend total of over $60 million. Read more...

1. "A Christmas Carol" ($31 million)
2. "Michael Jackson's This Is It" ($14 million)
3. "The Men Who Stare At Goats" ($13.3 million)
2. "The Fourth Kind" ($12.5 million)
5. "Paranormal Activity" ($8.6 million)

Did Ebenezer Scrooge learn his lesson at the box office this weekend? It's difficult to say, as the Jim Carrey-starring "A Christmas Carol" certainly took the top prize with a $31 million weekend, though the result is considered relatively disappointing given the film's potential draw to family crowds and its hefty budget of $200 million. The odds of the holiday movie recouping that number anytime soon are rather small, though we've certainly seen stranger box office occurrences lately. Read more...

FROM MTV.COM: What went wrong with this movie? The subject — the U.S. military's apparently actual flirtation with paranormal warfare — has rich comic promise. And the cast — George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges — couldn't be much stronger. But while the trailer for "The Men Who Stare at Goats" suggests a quirky, Coen-esque romp, the picture itself lacks the Coen brothers' sardonic intelligence and deft pacing. It wanders and wilts and very quickly falls apart.

The story begins in 2003, with aspiring combat reporter Bob Wilton (McGregor) waiting in Kuwait for clearance to cross over into Iraq. Biding his time, he encounters Lyn Cassady (Clooney), a man with a strange tale to tell. Cassady says he's a "Jedi warrior" (wink, wink) in the New Earth Army, a sub-rosa military unit dedicated to psychic battle strategies — mind-reading, "remote viewing," the whole new-age imaginarium. He says he's been reactivated to locate Bill Django (Bridges), the ponytailed Vietnam vet who founded the NEA back in the early '70s and has now gone missing. Wilton senses a story here, and decides to tag along.

Continue reading 'The Men Who Stare At Goats': Destination Nowhere, By Kurt Loder

He may be best known for going to battle over his beloved red stapler in “Office Space,” but character actor Stephen Root has also stood out in several films with a darker edge, including “No Country for Old Men,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Leatherheads.” Now, the "Zelig"-like supporting star is working alongside George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges in one of the most eagerly-anticipated -– and oddly named –- films of this upcoming winter.

“It’s a movie about the late Seventies, when the army was in a dispirited state and was trying a lot of things,” Root said of “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” the sci-fi/drama/comedy directing debut of frequent Clooney collaborator Grant Heslov. “[The military] was open to a lot of hippie-dippie stuff.” Read more...