With less than $300,000 separating the top three films this weekend, the final order of the domestic top ten has been difficult to call. Sunday’s estimates have End of Watch and House at the End of the Street tied for first with $13 million each. Warner Brother’s Trouble with the Curve is not far behind, however, so more definitive results will have to wait until Monday. One thing we can say for sure? Dredd 3D is off to a rough start.

January suffered another down weekend, with estimated grosses for the top ten films down almost 56% over this weekend in 2010.  Paramount had reason to celebrate, as True Grit outdrew Little Fockers in the weekend race for the first time.  Season of the Witch, 2011’s first new title, struggled while Sony/SG’s Country Strong did modest business in its first expanded nationwide run.

It’s another weekend for the box office record books. Sort of. One week after Jackass 3D claimed the month’s highest opening weekend with $50.3 million, Paranormal Activity 2 has scored the highest opening ever for a supernatural horror flick. In terms of general horror titles, PA2 now ranks third.  First or third, with an estimate of over $41 million, the sequel is opening scary-huge.

Somewhere around 1988′s Bird, Clint Eastwood’s career took a turn for the respectable. Four years later he had two Oscars for Unforgiven. And though Eastwood’s career as an auteur has had some detractors (people either love him, or find him highly overrated), his run in the 21^st century has shown that he’s given up his “Right turn, Clyde” ways and been fully embraced by the academy. Except as an actor.

And Eastwood’s acting career has always been defined by what Sergio Leone said about him, and that’s that he’s basically a brick, a piece of stone to which you work around. And being leaden and of small range has always been the main criticism leveled against him. Like Jimmy Stewart, he played with that image, often turning his hard characters into psychotics, or fetishists (Tightrope and White Hunter, Black Heart come to mind), but he never received much love from the Academy.