With Valentine’s Day hitting on Tuesday, it only makes sense that the box office would reflect that feeling of love we’re smelling in the air. It looks like guys and gals together made sure Valentine’s Day won the weekend, as Screen Gems’ The Vow starring Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams managed to take the weekend with an estimated $41 Million.

In a very close second, the Denzel Washington vs. Ryan Reynolds flick Safe House brought in an estimated $39 Million, which wouldn’t be bad if the film’s budget wasn’t a total of $85 Million. Right behind that one was another financial conundrum, Dwayne Johnson’s Journey 2, which cost about $80 Million and only only netted $27 Million here in the states.

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This week’s pick is the post Cold War thriller Crimson Tide which stars Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman as U.S. Submariners who clash over their orders to launch nuclear weapons in this Tony Scott action classic. Crimson Tide begins during a period of political unrest in post Soviet Russia when military forces crush a rebellion in neighboring Chechnya.

Violence begins to spread throughout other republics and ultra nationalists headed by a man named Radchenko criticizes American, British, and French involvement which cuts off aid to Russia as a protest of its hostilities towards its neighboring country. Radchenko’s forces seize a Russian ICBM missile complex and threaten to launch nuclear weapons if either the U.S. or its allies move in to stop him.

After several years of peace, the Cold War begins to heat up once again.

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It was  surprising to find out that Unstoppable was indeed stoppable at the box office over the weekend.  The movie did extraordinarily well with critics and audiences alike, so its modest (but solid) take of $23.5 Million was a bit of a head scratcher. The Denzel Washington/Chris Pine action thriller is the fifth collaboration between director Tony Scott and actor Denzel Washington.

Megamind was the big winner of the weekend once again, adding another $30 Million to its two week total for a cumulative take of $89.8 M.  It dropped about 35% from its opening weekend, which is typical.  Megamind and Unstoppable both had per screen averages of around $7,000, which were the best of the top five this weekend.

The road comedy Due Date came in at third place with $15 Million.  Despite taking a 52% tumble from last weekend, the film is poised to break even with its budget. It has made $59 Million in two weeks, and its budget was $65 Million.

Skyline wasn’t screened for critics, and it has received some of the most scathing reviews of the year, but it still was able to scrape up $11.6 Million, good enough to place in fourth.

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I’m somewhat at a loss to explain how good a film Unstoppable is. Once it starts, you think you know everything that’s going to happen—a train gets out of control, and two guys need to stop it. Along the way they’ll encounter some human obstacles and gain a few allies, and, oh yeah, the stakes have to be really high, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Denzel Washington is the old hand working for the railroad company who knows all the tricks that those fancy, rich-and-inexperienced college kids (Chris Pine), with their degrees in Physics, Metallurgy, and What-Have-You think they do. Rosario Dawson plays the station controller racing-against-time and being the mediator who’s trying to juggle both Washington, trying to stop the train, and the head of her company, who’s trying to minimize the casualties and maintain the bottom line.

The situation itself begins harmlessly enough: Ethan Suplee is a dim-witted railroad worker who’s switching trains at the station and leaves his cab to manually change a switch. He fails to catch up to the train, and the situation escalates from there due to a series of train mechanics I won’t even attempt to describe. But the point is things get out of hand, and soon a half-mile freight train filled with combustibles and toxic gas is barreling at 70 miles per hour down the tracks and hell-bent on taking out a nearby city.

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As far back as I can remember, I’ve been a fan of Denzel Washington. No matter what film he’s been in or if they’ve made money or not, he’s always fun to watch and a great actor as well. I’m sure most people would agree.

Conversely, people may criticize me for this but I’m also a fan of director Tony Scott. Sure, he’s not as artsy or sophisticated as his brother Ridley (His name is Ridley, after all) but he does know how to use a camera and call tell some pretty interesting stories when he puts his mind to it. So naturally, when these two get together on a film, as they have before for Crimson Tide and Man on Fire and now for the upcoming Unstoppable, I’m going to give that film my attention.

In the movie, Washington and Star Trek‘s Chris Pine are struggling to stop an out of control train before it derails on a curve and causes a toxic spill that will decimate a town. The trailer, while superbly put together, does seem to give quite a bit of the movie away. However, it does look pretty good — at least to me.

Judge for yourself after the jump. Unstoppable, which also features Rosario Dawson and Ethan Suplee, hits theaters on November 12th.

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Another week, another Avatar win, more records broken, blah, blah, blah. No seriously, Avatar dropped a measly 16% from last week and added another $36 Million for a domestic cumulative of $552 Million in just six weeks.  It now stands as the number two motion picture of all time having beaten The Dark Knight over the weekend and at this rate will end up beating the number one record holder Titanic very soon.

New release Legion was not screened for critics in most areas, but it still managed to make over $18 Million.  Word of mouth was bad, though. According to Entertainment Weekly, the film only got an exit score of C- from theater goers. Denzel Washington’s Book of Eli held on to the third spot, dropping almost 50% for $17 Million.  Its two week total is $62 Million.

New release Tooth Fairy made $14.5 Million for fourth place. It actually got a rather high cinemascore of A- from audiences polled. The Lovely Bones rounded out the top five, dropping about 50%, and making about $8 Million.  It has now earned  $31.6 Million total.

Outside the top five, the first film from CBS films, Extraordinary Measures, had a pretty bleak debut, making about $7 Million.  The combined star power of Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser wasn’t enough to get people in the seats. On an up-note, It’s Complicated is about ready to cross $100 Million, as its cumulative total now stands at $98 Million.

Saturday morning I thought that The Book Of Eli might actually pull off the feat of toppling the unstoppable Avatar, because it did lead the box office on Friday. Well, close, but no cigar. Avatar reigned supreme once again, and made an astonishing $41.3 Million in its 6th week of release, and it is still playing on over 3,000 screens.

Avatar has now surpassed Star Wars as the number three highest grossing movie of all time with a cumulative total of $491 Million. The Dark Knight stands at number two, with $533 Million.

The Book of Eli had a pretty decent showing, with $31.6 Million on just over 3,000 screens. If the movie gets good word of mouth, it should do well in upcoming weeks. In third place was The Lovely Bones, which fared better than I thought it would. It was postponed from last year, and has received somewhat of a critical drubbing, but it still managed $17.1 Million.

In my opinion, this is a testament to how much readers loved the book. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, hung around and made $11.5 Million for fourth place. The movie is closing in on $200 Million, as it now stands at $192 Million.

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The Book of Eli is an overly stylized movie that takes itself way too seriously, features hammy acting and laughable dialogue.  You could drive an eighteen-wheeler through its gaping plot holes, but despite all this, I rather enjoyed the film. If I’m going to have to eat some cheese, this is the type of movie I prefer to dole out my rations.

Brothers Allen and Arthur Hughes (From Hell, Menace II Society) are the directors of the post-apocalyptic tale of Eli (Denzel Washington), who traverses a bombed out tundra while traveling westward with a precious undisclosed cargo. For the first 20 minutes or so, The Book of Eli looked to be an exact retread of The Road, which was just out in theaters a few months ago.

The movies share the exact same vision of a dystopian future. Color is bleached from the scenery, light ash appears to constantly fall, and all humans are bedraggled, filthy, and desperate. Both films feature cannibalism as a major threat to their protagonists, and both show how precious throw-away commodities from modern society become in this world.

Cigarette lighters and individual wet wipes from KFC are bartering fare, not money. If you are a shoe whore, you should be set, because apparently shoes are one of the most valuable and hard to come by possessions when everyone has to walk everywhere.

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Over at USA Today they’ve posted the first pictures from the Denzel Washington starrer The Book of Eli. In case you’re not familiar, the film, which is directed by The Hughes Brothers and co-stars Mila Kunis, Gary Oldman, Ray Stephenson and Jennifer Beals, concerns a man who’s fighting his way across a post-apocalyptic America to protect a book that hold the key to saving humanity.

In addition to the photos, USA Today also posted some questions and answers with the film’s directors. Some of the tidbits that the brothers reveal include the fact that Washington shed 55 pounds for his role in the film and that shooting conditions in Albuquerque, New Mexico were less than ideal, but did provide a great location that really helped enhance the depiction of post-apocalyptic America.

“You occasionally ask yourself why you’re shooting a movie in these conditions,” says Allen Hughes, who co-directs the film with his brother Albert, in the article. “When the wind is really blowing, it looks like the earth is meeting the sky. It looks like the end of the world.”

The desolate landscape also helped set the mood of the film as well. “We had one scene where Denzel had to kill off one of his enemies,” said Albert Hughes in the article. “Right after he kills the guy, a little dust storm picks up and blows right over them. It was eerie. We’re going to have people thinking an effect was computer-generated, when really it was just from shooting out here.”

The Book of Eli hits theaters January 15, 2010. Check out the larger version of all the pictures after the jump.

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