We got the Best and now here's the "worst", at least in my opinion, of the over 300 movies I saw in 2007. Yes, some of these I walked out of and believe me, I feel somewhat bad about including those, but at the same time, I know if I stayed any longer, they would have ended up even lower on the list. They were that awful and reprehensible. The ones I did wish I walked out on but stayed through the end never got better and probably never will get better.

As much as I wanted to include movies like War and Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding and the recent dog Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem on this list as well as a few others, my attempt to limit the list to 25 was very difficult, because there were so many movies I wanted to trash one more time before putting them into the vault, hopefully never to see or write about them ever again.

And away we go...

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Be sure to check back on Monday for final figures based on actual box office.

The last weekend of the year was even busier than normal between the five new movies from last week and three new movies added on Tuesday, but while Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem (20th Century Fox) was expected to destroy all competition, that's not quite what happened, as it could barely hold its own against a number of returning movies including a little underrated indie that exploded over the holidays.

Even so, Jerry Bruckheimer's National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Disney) remained on top for a second weekend with $35.6 million, a 20% drop from its opening before Christmas, bringing its total to $124 million in just ten days. In their third weekend together, the family film Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox) overtook Will Smith's sci-fi thriller I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) to take second place with $30 million and a cumulative gross of $142.4 million. Legend dropped to third with $27.5 million and $194.5 million total, putting it in line to cross the $200 million mark by the end of the year on Tuesday, placing it amongst the Top 10 grossers for 2007.

After opening on Christmas Day with $9.5 million in just over 2,500 theaters, Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem (20th Century Fox) quickly tanked, dropping drastically over the next few days to the point where it only made $10 million over the weekend and $26.8 million over the six days, roughly $10 million less than the original movie made in its first weekend.

Even more embarrassing for the creature battle sequel was that Fox Searchlight's indie comedy Juno beat it into the Top 5 by a mere quarter of a million dollars, grossing $10.3 million in its first wide release into less than a thousand theatres, seeing a 200% increase from before Christmas as it moved up five places. The award-nominated comedy from Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody and starring Ellen Page had the highest per-theatre average in the top 10 of roughly $10.3k per theatre, and it's grossed an astounding $25.7 million after less than a month in theaters.

Things are looking a lot clearer now that we have the actual box office for the pre-Christmas weekend but most of our weekend predictions remain fairly close with a few exceptions. (Unfortunately, we didn't get any screen counts for the weekend, which doesn't help matters.)

Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem did better than expected on Tuesday but quickly tanked on Wednesday, so it's looking like it will end up more in the $15 million range for the weekend. The Water Horse will probably end up just slightly under our earlier prediction and Juno will wind up well above. As expected many of the movies that opened last weekend are having strong legs over the week but we'll see how that translates over the weekend. The big surprise is how Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's Sweeney Todd continues to drop while other movies pick up business so we may see Hilary Swank's P.S. I Love You overtake it, if it maintains the business it's picked up over the holidays.

Updated Predictions -

1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Disney) - $40.5 million - 11% (same)

2. I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) - $27.3 million - 19% (down .7 million)

3. Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox) - $23.8 million - 16% (down .8 million)

4. Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem (Fox) - $15.3 million N/A (Down $2.5 million!)

5. Charlie Wilson’s War (Universal) - $11.3 million +18% (Up .7 million)

6. The Water Horse (Sony) - $9.8 million N/A (down 1 million)

7. P.S. I Love You (Warner Bros.) - $8.4 million +29% (up .9 million)

8. Sweeney Todd (DreamWorks) - $8.2 million - 12% (up .4 million)

9. The Great Debaters (The Weinstein Co.) $7.6 million N/A (same)

10. Juno (Fox Searchlight) - $6.9 million +59% (up $1.5 million)

Well, it's that time of year again and as usual, I'm behind the pack on sharing my list of top movies of the year. The first thing one must set aside is the thinking that this is a list of the "best movies of 2007" since that would be far too subjective. There are plenty of movies on here that technically might not be considered the best filmmaking, but these movies are the ones that had the most impact and effect on me, so look at it more as my list of "favorite movies of the year."

This has been an especially tough year getting this list down to 25 choices because out of the over 300 movies I've seen, many of them twice or even three times, so many of them were considered worthy of a 9/10 or higher, with only one exception, that I had to weigh them all against each other and take more factors into account than usual. Surprisingly, I wound up with far more comedies and genre films in my list than ever, mostly thanks to filmmakers like Judd Apatow, Edgar Wright and Bong Joon-ho. It probably isn't too big a coincident that many of my favorite movies came out earlier in the year or played at festivals, allowing me to see them two or three times by year's end, although a couple of them I've seen even more times than that.

The list starts after the jump...

Writing about the box office every week might always be my first love, but I'm really proud of how my interviewing skills have improved and how the resulting interviews have turned out this year. Without question, I did even more exclusive interviews with some of my favorite filmmakers and actors than the year before, starting at the Sundance Film Festival and continuing through the entire year. Unfortunately, the nature of the entertainment business is that these things have a very short lifespan on the front page of ComingSoon.net so if you didn't read them before the movie came out, you probably missed them. These are interviews that were fun or were with people who I generally liked talking to, and no, it's not too coincidental that many of the people on this list are either British or New Yorkers with very few exceptions… because let's face it, New York and the U.K. are great!

I'd like to dedicate these interviews to my good friend Daniel Robert Epstein who sadly, passed away very suddenly this year. The guy was a real inspiration to me, as he was probably one of the best interviewers on the web, and it was a huge loss to have him taken from us so suddenly, which really pushed me to try to live up to the standards he set for internet interviews.

Without further editorial or comment, here are 25 or so interviews I really enjoyed doing this year (after the bump):

Welcome back to the last Weekend Warrior of 2007 and the last weekend of the year starts early with three new movies opening wide tomorrow on Christmas Day, as well as a popular limited release expanding significantly wider. Although Disney’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets and Will Smith’s I Am Legend will probably hold onto a significant amount of business, some of them will probably cut into the latter, most notably Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem (20th Century Fox), a sequel to the successful 2004 franchise face-off, which should make a play for the #1 or 2 spot on Christmas Day, but will likely drop-off over the course of the week to wind up third or fourth place by the weekend.

A new family movie that should thrive from the lack of family fare in theatres is the fantasy adventure The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (Sony), about a boy who finds a creature that ultimately turns into the mythic beast within Loch Ness, but it doesn’t have a particularly strong cast and it may be too British for American moviegoers.

On the other hand, Denzel Washington's second movie as a director The Great Debaters (The Weinstein Co.), about a debating teacher who makes a difference with three kids by inspiring them to strive for bigger challenges, is getting a huge push from producer Oprah Winfrey, which should help it do very well over the next week despite its moderate release into less than 1,500 theaters. One can expect to see some impressive numbers for what should be the first choice for most African-American audiences over the next week.

Also, Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody’s acclaimed comedy Juno (Fox Searchlight), starring the multiple award-nominee Ellen Page, will expand nationwide into nearly 1,000 theatres on Christmas Day, and the buzz behind the movie should help it make another $10 to 11 million over the next six days before it expands even more in the new year. (It's a classic case of Fox Searchlight's impressive ability of building word-of-mouth and expanding at just the right pace to take advantage of it.)

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Be sure to check back on Monday for final figures based on actual box office.

This was a busy pre-Christmas weekend with five new movies in wide release trying to shake up last week's juggernaut duo of Will Smith's I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) and the family comedy Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox). The Top 10 did indeed look very different as it turned into a battle of the box office stars to see which of them could convince holiday travelers and shoppers to take in a movie amidst their Christmas planning.

The winner of that battle was clearly Nicolas Cage, starring in the first sequel of his career as he returned for producer Jerry Bruckheimer's National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Disney), which grossed an estimated $45.5 million in its opening weekend, an opening 30% higher than the original movie that might have been even higher if not for the pre-holiday downturn in theaters.

Dropping to second place, Will Smith's sci-fi thriller I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) took a 56% tumble to make room for the anticipated sequel, grossing $34.3 million in its second weekend after grossing over $100 million in its first week. With a gross of $137.5 million, it has already topped Ridley Scott's American Gangster as the biggest movie of the year's 4th quarter.

In third place, the family holiday comedy Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox) wasn't hit nearly as hard in its second weekend, with a modest 35% drop from its astounding opening weekend, adding roughly $29 million to its impressive take of $84.8 million.

Fourth place was a tight race between four enormous box office stars with Johnny Depp and Tim Burton on one side and Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts on the other. While the former's take on the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (DreamWorks) won out on Friday, it was hit hard on Saturday, dropping down to fifth below the Hanks-Roberts political flick Charlie Wilson's War (Universal), which grossed an estimated $9.6 million to Sweeney Todd's $9.3 million. Granted, the Burton-Depp film was playing in half as many theatres as Charlie Wilson, and these estimates based on Friday and Saturday numbers could prove low for both movies if things pick up on Sunday.

This is the last update for the year but essentially, National Treasure, Charlie Wilson's War and Walk Hard are down slightly from our predictions earlier in the week. National Treasure is getting significantly more theatres but will probably be hurt by the holiday traveling weekend, while Tim Burton's Sweeny Todd and the Hilary Swank romantic comedy P.S. I Love You are up slightly, both with a slight increase in theatre counts from our estimates earlier in the week. Should be a decent weekend with at least $150 million grossed by the Top 10 but being the killer pre-holiday weekend, one can expect everything to do worse than expected but then pick up a huge amount of business next week.

Also, look for Juno to make a play into the Top 10 just narrowly defeating Atonement as both of them expand into roughly 300 theatres.

Oh, and remember that next week's column, the last of the year, will be live on ComingSoon.net on Monday, just in time for Christmas!

Updated Predictions -

1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Disney) - $45.8 million N/A (-2.8 million)

2. I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) - $33.8 million -56% (same)

3. Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox) - $24.8 million -44% (down -.4 million)

4. Sweeney Todd (DreamWorks) - $14.6 million N/A (+1.3 million)

5. Charlie Wilson's War (Universal) - $10.8 million N/A (-.5 million)

6. Walk Hard (Sony) - $9.4 million N/A (-.1 million)

7. P.S. I Love You (Warner Bros.) - $8.1 million N/A (+.9 million)

8. The Golden Compass (New Line) - $4.3 million -53% (+.1 million)

9. Enchanted (Walt Disney) - $3.3 million -41% (same)

10. Juno (Fox Searchlight) - $3.0 million +100% (NEW)

Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend's new movies, and after an absolutely nutty crazy busy weekend, we've reached the last weekend before Christmas, preceding a week where everybody and their family who haven't seen a movie all year heads to the movie theater. This weekend tends to be hard to predict since so many people are doing their last minute shopping or traveling early for the holidays and movies aren't exactly the first thing on everyone's mind. Very often, movies opening this weekend tend to underperform but then make 5 or 6 times the weekend amount by the time they leave theaters the following January. Most if not all people will have Monday off, being Christmas Eve, so there should be less frontloading to Friday, although there's just as likely to be people traveling on Friday and Saturday.

Still, it's a great time for the sequel to Nicolas Cage's biggest blockbuster hit to date National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Disney) to be out there to grab the millions who loved the first movie and want to see more of Benjamin Gates' adventures. While the pre-Christmas weekend (and stronger than expected openings for I Am Legend and Alvin and the Chipmunks) might keep it under the $50 million mark this weekend, with so many people off work and school over the next two weeks, one can expect this to give Will Smith a run as the top grossing holiday movie.

Cage has some rough competition among older audiences with the reteaming of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton for their version of Stephen Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (DreamWorks) and Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in the political drama Charlie Wilson's War (Universal), although the latter will more likely be duking it out for fifth place with the Judd Apatow produced musical comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Sony) starring John C. Reilly and Jenna Fischer. Either way, the latter two will be pushing for $40 to 50 million total, while the Sondheim musical could end up grossing over $80 million as it starts stacking up some inevitable awards for Depp and Burton.

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Be sure to check back on Monday for final figures based on actual box office.

In one of the most astounding weekends since the summer, two movies opened and far exceeded all expectations, predictions and studio tracking as Will Smith opened his latest sci-fi action flick I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) in December with the type of opening weekend that's genearlly only seen during the summer months. With an estimated opening of $76.5 million in regular and IMAX theatres, an average of over $21,000 per theater, Legend has set a new opening record for Smith as well as the new record for December, surpassing The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the finale to the popular fantasy trilogy which previously held the record with $72.6 million.

Even more surprising might be the success of Alvin and the Chipmunks (Fox) in finding a huge family audience to the tune of $45 million, more than DreamWorks' highly-publicized Bee Movie last month, but produced for just $60 million rather than the $150 million spent on the Seinfeld comedy. Alvin averaged nearly $13,000 per theatre over the weekend, becoming one of the top 8 openers for the month of December, and it should continue to do well over the busy holiday week to come.

As it gets closer to the opening of Will Smith's new movie, we're going to give a little more weight to the IMax screenings and that special early footage from Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, which should be worth another $3 to 5 million for the weekend even opening in a December weekend where things usually slow down. (There just hasn't been a big movie since Enchanted a few weeks back so we're probably due another hit.) With Smith's movie taking over the IMAX screens, Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf loses nearly half its theaters and is likely to crash down to the bottom of the Top 10 without much chance of picking things up over the weekend.

Updated Predictions -

1. I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) - $50.6 million N/A (up $3 million)

2. Alvin and the Chipmunks (20th Century Fox) - $15.7 million (up .4 million)

3. The Golden Compass (New Line) - $13.7 million -47%

4. Enchanted (Disney) - $6.6 million -38%

5. The Perfect Holiday (Yari Film Group) - $4.3 million N/A

6. No Country for Old Men (Miramax) - $3.3 million -20% (down .1)

7. Fred Claus (Warner Bros) - $3.1 million -28% (up .2)

8. This Christmas (Sony/Screen Gems) - $3.1 million -39% (up .1)

9. August Rush (Warner Bros.) - $2.3 million -38% (same)

10. Beowulf (Paramount) - $2.1 million -53% (down .3)

Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend's new movies.

As we head into three of the busiest weekends of the holiday movie season, we kick things off with what might be one of the biggest movies of the holiday season, that of course being I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) helmed by Constantine's Francis Lawrence. A straight-on action genre film, Smith's first since 2005's I, Robot, it should be another successful hit, although opening so close to Christmas might keep it just under the $50 million mark, and it might have a hard time maintaining that business with so many big movies being released the following week.

Then there's Alvin and the Chipmunks, a holiday family movie starring the loveable Christmas critters with the squeaky voices, which is 100% kids' fare for the under-10 crowd and the poor, pathetic parents who get dragged to see it. While the quality might be better than Fox's version of Garfield and Fat Albert--could it possibly be worse?--it's likely to have a moderate to decent opening and then make most of its money based on the holiday legs that help all family films.

Yesterday, the National Board of Review (NBR) announced their choices for their annual awards, which tend to be the first real awards of the coming Oscar season, and though their choices don't always align with those of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, there's always some connection in terms of their choices being at least a part of the race if not always the winners.

This year, the NBR spread the wealth, picking Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men as their Best Picture and awarding it for its adapted screenplay, but then giving other awards to other films and performances. Tim Burton was bestowed with their Best Director award for Sweeney Todd but neither movie was considered worthy for their performances as their Actor and Actress awards were given to George Clooney for playing Michael Clayton and Julie Christie for Sarah Polley's Away from Her, probably the biggest surprise since many thought that Marion Cotillard had this award in the bag for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.

Casey Affleck and Amy Ryan took the Supporting honors, Affleck for The Assassination of Jesse James and Ryan for Gone Baby Gone, the former also somewhat surprising due to the NBR's support for No Country for Old Men. Foreign film was given to Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and animated to Pixar's Ratatouille, no surprise there.

You can read the press release containing the full line-up of the NBR's picks including their Top 10 after the jump.

Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend's new movies, where once again, we have just one new movie in wide release, that being the fantasy epic The Golden Compass (New Line), based on the first of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" books, starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and newcomer Dakota Blue Richards. With no other movies to claim any business away from it, a definitive victory over the weekend box office should be in store, even if it doesn't match the success of New Line's Lord of the Rings franchise or Disney/Walden Media's The Chronicles of Narnia. There may be some tentative parents wondering if they should bring their kids based on the complex storytelling and possible anti-religious sentiment in Pullman's books (which are completely non-existent in the movie) but fantasy fans in their teens and older should give this a look, and word-of-mouth should help carry it through the holidays even with some heavy competition on the way from Will Smith, Johnny Depp and Tom Hanks.

This Week's Predictions -

1. The Golden Compass (New Line) - $37.4 million N/A

2. Enchanted (Disney) - $10.2 million -45%

3. This Christmas (Sony/Screen Gems) - $4.5 million -44%

4. Beowulf (Paramount) - $4.4 million -46%

5. Fred Claus (Warner Bros.) - $3.4 million - 38%

6. August Rush (Warner Bros.) - $3.2 million - 37%

7. Hitman (20th Century Fox) - $3.1 million -48%

8. No Country for Old Men (Miramax) - $2.9 million -35%

9. Awake (The Weinstein Co.) - $2.8 million -52%

10. Bee Movie (DreamWorks) - $2.6 million -42%

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Be sure to check back on Monday for final figures based on actual box office.

Only one new movie opened in wide release this weekend, that being Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba's medical thriller Awake, but struck by the usual post-Thanksgiving decline, it grossed just $6 million in 2,000 theatres, allowing Disney's Enchanted and Sony/Screen Gems' ensemble holiday film This Christmas to remain in the Top 2 placements for a second weekend in a row.