Weekend report

Regardless of whose estimates you follow -- Box Office Guru, Box Office Mojo, or Leonard Klady at Movie City News -- it was a good weekend for freshmen. Both "Casino Royale" and "Happy Feet" cracked the $40 million mark, and only when final box office tallies are reported later today will we know who actually was the box office champ, if this matters to you.

To my thinking, "Casino Royale" was the bigger triumph: featuring an unknown Bond (to most audiences), it doesn't have the family appeal of "Happy Feet" and, more crucially, the running time is almost twice that of the penguin movie's. That means theater owners can show "Casino Royale" only half as often -- and it still pulled even at the box office.

In other news, Clint Eastwood has decided to release the Japanese half of his Iwo Jima duology in December, to make it available for this year's Oscars. Not because "Flags of Our Fathers" is doing so well (despite critical acclaim, it's stiffing at the box office) but because they apparently really love "Letters from Iwo Jima" in Japan. The film was originally scheduled to open in the U.S. in February.

Also, David Lynch is sitting on a corner in Hollywood with a cow. Really.