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It may not be the future of film as some herald it, but it doesn't take a psychic to realize that 3-D, gimmick it may still seem, is here to say. Two unrelated news items today coalesced together into a dawning realization, is an Academy Awards category for Best 3-D Film inevitable? But before the examination of such a hypothetical category, let's take a look at the news that inspired this post.

The Final Destination wins the international Hollywood box office.
According to Screen Daily, The Final Destination took in $17.3mil on its opening weekend run around the globe. Considering how poorly received the newest entry in the death-claims-all franchise was critically, that may seem like a surprise, but the mere presence of eye wear is the chief explanation for the successful haul. Russia alone accounted for roughly half of the weekend total, and according to the same report, half of Russia's contributions were driven by the extra premium charged for the third dimension.

What's that mean? Well for one, more crappy horror movies are going to go the 3-D route from now on. This trend was already on the rise, but studios will not ignore a win at the domestic and international box offices. And for two, more 3-D films of all genres will be on the rise. Clearly The Final Destination is not the sole catalyst for this gimmick renaissance, but it is the latest check box in a long column of studio wins.

The Hole wins the inaugural Persol 3-D Award for the Best 3-D Stereoscopic Film of the Year at the Venice International Film Festival.

So here we have it, the summer movie season finally winding down, and maybe it's just us, but a couple of peculiar trends have cropped up since May that we thought were worth bringing to light. For starters, we've only further elaborated on Eric's early indicator that puking was 'in' this year (seriously, it's gotten to be a pretty considerable theme), and as for the rest, you can check them out after the jump. Some spoilers follow. And if there are any corrections or additions to be made, please pipe up in the comments, and do so gently.

Are we in a golden age of animation? To start, Pixar just keeps getting better and better; critics almost unanimously voted WALL-E the best picture of 2008 -- not just the best animated film, but the best film. And their new Up has racked up nearly equal praise. So far two of the best films I've seen in 2009 are animated features, Henry Selick's Coraline and Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues. Coraline was filmed in stop-motion 3D, and Sita was mostly hand-drawn with some computer assist. Filmmakers seem to have perfected 3D this year, not only in live-action features, but in animated features like Coraline, Monsters vs. Aliens, Battle for Terra and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

Computer animation, which recently looked like it was going to take over for good, has now simply become one of the many tools an animator can use: Disney has gone back to hand-drawn this year with the upcoming The Princess and the Frog, and Hayao Miyazaki's hand-drawn Ponyo is also opening Stateside soon. And best of all, some animated features are being aimed at grown-ups, such as Sita Sings the Blues and Tatia Rosenthal's terrific $9.99. In recent years, even the Oscar-nominated short films have been released to theaters as a collection. And there are still at least half-a-dozen more big films coming out by the end of the year (including 9, Astro Boy, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, etc.)

Well, don't we all feel a little silly. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the movie that received the most hysterically negative reviews of 2009 opened to by far the year's biggest numbers -- $201 million since Wednesday, according to estimates. That's just a couple million shy of the first-five-days-of-release record set by The Dark Knight, though that movie opened on a Thursday. (It's tough to truly compare opening weekends of mega-blockbusters these days, since God knows on what day of the week they all hit theaters.) I hope everyone is looking forward to Transformers 3, where Autobots will discover fart jokes.

The only movie to dare take on Revenge of the Fallen in wide release, was the Nick Cassavetes weepie My Sister's Keeper, which opened to a respectable $12 million -- almost as strong as Cassavetes' The Notebook, though unlikely to be carried to an $80 million cume by good word-of-mouth. Year One took a big tumble, falling off 70% its middling opening; I guess Michael Cera and Jack Black aren't quite the automatic draw that battling cyborgs are. And The Hangover continues to ride a wave of audience goodwill; it will likely have reached $200 million by this time next weekend.

As for your weekly Up v. Finding Nemo update -- it's still neck-in-neck, with Nemo ahead by about $3 million after five weeks of release. If this weekend's heftier drop-off for Up is any indication, it may be starting to lose a little steam, which would mean that Nemo would get to hold on to the Pixar crown.

The full top 10 after the jump.

Disney buffs are no doubt aware of the theme park's "Living Character Initiative," where guests of Walt Disney World (and the surrounding parks, like Disney's Hollywood Studios and Epcot Center) are treated to a live-action experience with some of the more memorable Disney/Pixar animated characters. I believe the initiative began a couple years ago with the Muppet Mobile Lab, and it continues now with the character Remy from Ratatouille (who hangs around French restaurants at Epcot Center) and the newest edition -- Luxo Jr. (aka the hopping Pixar desk lamp), who visitors to Disney's Hollywood Studios can now see hanging out over at Pixar Place.

We posted videos of both Luxo Jr. and Remy after the jump, as well as the inflatable Up house stationed over at Downtown Disney. And now if you'll excuse me, Wall-E is about to start on cable and the thing looks absolutely smashing in HD. Enjoy your Sunday!

It may have seemed like an "off" week by summer standards in terms of releases, but two debuts and two strong holdovers meant that four films grossed $20 million or more, which is rare for a non-holiday weekend. The top dog, surprisingly, turned out to be The Proposal, which rode a genial marketing campaign and a set of sneak previews to $34 million dollars -- Sandra Bullock's best opening weekend ever, by far. (Related question: did Bullock "open" this movie? I'm inclined to think not, though it's a perfect role for her.)

Year One is a bit tougher to read. Certainly with the Cera/Black/Ramis combination, it was expected to open bigger. Generally poor reviews didn't help; I haven't seen the film, so I'm a bit handicapped in the analysis. If I had to guess, I'd say that people saw it as a bit of a novelty item. Silliness can be hard to sell if it's not low-brow.

But the weekend's real story, I'd say, is once again The Hangover, which stuck around in second place after dropping less than 20% in its third weekend. It's hard to find a precise analogue for it at this point; Box Office Mojo stretches with "R-rated summer comedy breakout," which category it will dominate after it speeds ahead of Wedding Crashers in about two weeks. The movie did add nearly 200 new screens; still, when people talk about word-of-mouth giving a movie legs, this is what they're hoping for.

Meanwhile, Up is now pretty much running neck-in-neck with Finding Nemo for the title of highest-grossing Pixar release. It will be close.

The full top 10 after the jump.

I'm used to getting a little misty-eyed around Pixar's flicks. Those animation magicians are as good at studying the human condition as they are at making pretty pictures that walk and talk ... but this is something pretty special. I'll refer you to the full story at The OC Register, but the short version is this: A 10-year-old girl was dying of cancer, and her last request was to see Pixar's Up. Unfortunately she was too fragile to make a trip to the multiplex ... so Pixar sent someone to her house with an Up screener and an armful of presents.

Young Colby Curtin died about seven hours after the movie.

Our hearts go out to her friends and family, and (once again) we owe a debt of gratitude to the Pixar people. They did all they could to make Colby's final hours as sweet as possible, and they never once looked for any attention or praise for their actions. Well, we want to give it to them anyway. Stay classy, Pixar.

The Hangover is officially the summer's biggest breakout hit. Its closest analogue is Wedding Crashers, which, four summers ago, was carried by positive word-of-mouth to a final gross nearly seven times its opening weekend. The Hangover has bigger raw numbers, but its second weekend drop -- 25% -- is comparable. For a film that opened to $45 million, and without any sort of holiday boost, that's pretty remarkable. It will have some competition next weekend in the form of Year One, but it may not matter much; its word-of-mouth appears to be the stuff that dreams are made of.

Pixar's Up is also going gangbusters in second place. It is now running a mere $4 million behind Pixar box office champion Finding Nemo. At this point it's anybody's game.

The weekend's two wide openers -- The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and Imagine That Imagine That opened pretty much to expectations. Pelham did a respectable $25 million, which is pretty close to previous Denzel Washington-Tony Scott collaborations (Man on Fire and Deja Vu). And Imagine That's $5.7 million pretty much precisely mirrors the opening of Eddie Murphy's Meet Dave this time next year. Murphy really needs to do something to shake things up a bit.

The full top 10 after the jump.

Over at NPR.org, writer Linda Holmes dared to blog an open letter to Pixar, politely asking to see a few adventures with, maybe, girls as the main characters. Her tone was set nicely in the opening of her piece, titled "Dear Pixar, From All The Girls With Band-Aids On Their Knees":


Holmes points out that of the ten features that Pixar's released theatrically so far, all ten have been boy's adventures. She acknowledges that the movies "feature women and girls to varying degrees -- The Incredibles, in particular -- but the story is never 'a girl and the things that happen to her,' the way it's 'a boy and what happens to him.'" She mentions again that she loves Pixar's movies ... she'd just like to see a character like Up's Ellie or The Incredibles' Violet as the main character for a change.

There are over 100 comments on the piece and, this being NPR, the overwhelming majority of the responses are intelligently expressed and in agreement with Holmes point of view. But if you skip over to Jerry Beck's animation blog, Cartoon Brew, you'll find a lot of readers with a different perspective.

Up's 35% second-weekend drop -- allowing it to barely hang on to first place with $44.2 million, at least according to Sunday estimates -- is remarkable, placing it very nearly in Finding Nemo territory. (It's currently running around $7 million behind Pixar's highest grosser.) I am loving Up's success, not just because it's a terrific film, but because it has the least obviously commercial concept Pixar's ever tackled. (Though, as I mentioned last week, Wall-E -- which Up will now surely top -- is actually the more challenging film.)

The Hangover, meanwhile, rode great buzz and good reviews to $43.3 million, which is the second highest opening weekend ever for an R-rated comedy, behind American Pie 2. (Unless you subscribe to the ludicrous notion that Sex and the City is a comedy, in which case it's third.) If you've seen the movie, you know why it's been rapturously received. If you haven't, you should.

On the other hand, Land of the Lost was punished by reviews and a muddled marketing message, landing in 3rd place with $19.5 million. The folks at Universal tried hard to push this into the summer blockbuster A-list, but I think they would have been better off pushing it as what it is: an above-average Will Ferrell comedy. As it stands, the funny film got its ass kicked by Semi-Pro, which is sort of unacceptable.

Drag Me to Hell had a disappointing second weekend, with hopes that good word-of-mouth would help it overcome its weak opening weekend evaporating. I suppose the movie was likely inexpensive enough that its $40-million-or-so domestic final won't be seen as a total bust.

Nia Vardalos' half-hearted comeback attempt My Life in Ruins grossed $3.2 million in 9th place, which is... exactly how much Connie & Carla made in its first weekend in 2004. Oh well.

The full top 10 after the jump.