Heartless personality Jonathan Nail interrogates helpless patrons during opening weekend of Iron Man. | Video courtesy of Just Us Films No one doubted that Iron Man would easily top the box office this weekend, but the scale of its success is virtually unprecedented. The latest entry from Marvel's deep stable of superheroes blasted early estimates of $60-70M by raking in a mammoth $104.3M since Thursday night's late showings. It was the second-largest, non-sequel debut......

Repulsors fire! | Photo courtesy of Paramount What else can I say about Iron Man that I didn't say in my rave yesterday? According to the great Nikki Finke, it looks like it's going to be a monster hit so I guess I don't need to encourage you to go see it. I'll actually be seeing it again this weekend because I failed to stay through the entire end credit roll and see the......

Is there anyone on the planet who doesn't love Robert Downey Jr. as an actor? | Photo courtesy of Paramount I won't keep you in suspense a moment longer: Iron Man is a rousing start to the summer movie season. It succeeds not only as a visually dazzling popcorn movie, but as a human drama about a man forced to finally consider his former and future place in the world. Great credit must be......

How did they convince Downey to actually fly this high? What a brave actor. | Photo courtesy of Paramount If you absolutely can't wait until 12:01 am on May 2nd to see what's looking to be the summer's first big blockbuster, the Aero Theater in Santa Monica is holding a charity screening of Iron Man on May 1st at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $20 and proceeds go the Aero Building Fund Donation. If seeing......

It's a fairly busy release schedule tomorrow with a few studio pictures and a bunch of indies hitting the screens. Neil Jordan directs Jodie Foster in The Brave One (or, as it was originally titled, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang: The Lady Bernie Goetz Story). Reviews are mostly positive and it does have the supremely underrated Nicky Katt (and the formerly underrated, now probably properly rated Terrence Howard), so I'll give it a......

Tonight - Monday - March 19th, 2007 Dancing With the Stars (ABC, 8:00 p.m.) Season premiere. Featuring peg leg Heather Mills, Ian Ziering, Clyde Drexler and Paulina Porizkova, Cliff Clavin, that skating guy Apollo Ono, etc. How I Met.../The New Advent.../Two and a Half.../Rules of Engag.../CSI: Miami (CBS, 8-11:00 p.m.) All new tonight. Prison Break/24 (FOX, 8-10:00 p.m.) New episodes for old thrillers. Larry King Live (CNN, 9:00 p.m.) Senator and prez wannabe Barack......

Thora Birch turns 24 today. She was great in American Beauty, but perfect as the movie version of Enid in Ghost World. Don't worry, be happy: musician Bobby McFerrin celebrates his 56th. And a handful of hyphenate birthdays: Oscar-nominee Terrence Howard is 37, Jackass-actor Johnny Knoxville is 35 and actor-director Peter Berg is 42. And Long-Island-lover-turned-porn-dude Joey Buttafuoco is 50 today. Supreme Court watchers may be interested to know that Antonin Scalia turns 70......

Sly Stone gets on stage for the first time in 19 years. That made the Grammy Awards worth watching. Was there anything else that did? U2 and Mary J. Blige singing "One" together — that woman can put it all on the line. Matt Dillon saying that they were a tough act to follow. Kanye winning. Dave Chapelle. Jay-Z's John Lennon t-shirt. Bruce Springsteen. Sam Cooke. What could we have skipped? The cheesy black-and-white-ification of......

The SAG awards start with a bunch of actors telling their stories to the camera. 8:04 Sandra Bullock, the first presenter, is wearing a cute dress. Too bad she spits out her lines like they're cedar chips. She introduces Crash, for best ensemble film. 8:05 Eva Longoria looks amazing, of course, except for her 50s-era hair tragedy. Patricia Arquette, on the other hand, has '30s era hair that works for her. Will she beat out......

Horseraces! Handicaps! No sooner had we posted about the not-quiet-announced Oscar host than the SAG Award nominees were announced. The biggest surprise must be the nomination of Hustle & Flow in the "best performance by a cast" category (SAG's version of "best picture"), while none of the cast members were nominated individually. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Terrence Howard was robbed. Other than that, it's what you'd expect. Both leads......