Box Office Power Rankings: June 22-24, 2007

My predictive powers have again proved to be less than stellar. (Anxiety over imminent surgery is my excuse.)
Last week, I predicted that a steady Ocean’s Thirteen would displace Knocked Up at the top of Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings.
Not only did that not happen, but 1408 – an adaptation of a Stephen King story – came out of nowhere to tie Knocked Up for the top spot in this week’s rankings. It placed second to Evan Almighty in box office and per-screen average and was shockingly well-received by critics.
I won’t get burned again. This weekend, I’m taking the easy money and saying that Pixar’s Ratatouille will top our rankings, barring stellar notices for Live Free or Die Hard. See how I hedged?
Continue reading for the full rankings and the methodology.

Box Office Power Rankings: July 27-29, 2007

I’m a big enough person to admit that I was wrong, particularly when I was wrong in such a public fashion. So: I was wrong. My prediction that The Simpsons Movie would tank was woefully off the mark, and two bottles of wine have been delivered to Mike, per our bet. I shan’t even mention the fact that Mike bought 5,632,229 tickets to The Simpsons Movie last weekend.

Paul Auster’s Locked Room

There is the sneaking suspicion reading The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster’s collection of short novels, that the works are related. The hunch is not only that the stories are related thematically or in their ultimate message or outcomes – they most certainly are – but that they represent a single, cohesive work rather than three repetitive novellas.