Those of you who like a side of certainty with your box office entrée may want to dine elsewhere this morning. That’s because we’re witnessing an extremely close race between Safe House and The Vow for number one. As estimates currently stand, Safe House seems to have the edge – $23.9 million to The Vow’s $23.6 million. But the real news is how none of the new President’s Day releases – including the 3D sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance – could threaten the holdovers in their fight for first.

If you’re a film nerd, you immediately recognize the name Janusz Kaminski. That’s because as the director of photography on The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, War of the Worlds, Jerry Maguire, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, Schindler’s List, Catch Me If You Can, and so many other great movies, Kaminski has clearly demonstrated that he’s one of the best cinematographers in the world. So when I was offered the chance to interview him at the New York City press junket for director Steven Spielberg‘s fantastic new movie, War Horse, I jumped at the chance.

During the interview he talked about how he picks his projects, if the location where a movie is being made influences him, his thoughts on film vs. digital, the difficulty of setting up a scene when a horse is a major character, and I tried to get him to talk about Lincoln.  However, while he wouldn’t say much on Lincoln, he did say his next project will be Harmony Korine‘s Spring Breakers.  Hit the jump to watch.

After just one weekend of excitement surrounding the release of The Green Hornet, the box office reverted to more modest numbers this weekend.  As the week’s sole new release the romantic comedy No Strings Attached came out on top, bringing in a higher than expected total estimated at $20.3 million from its 3,018 locations.

Being the only major wide release of the week has its benefits.  Despite the recent radioactivity of the romantic-comedy genre, No Strings Attached managed a first place debut on Friday with an estimated $7.3 million from its 3,018 locations.  Considering that that estimate is nearly equivalent to the first weekend total of the box office’s last romantic comedy release – Sony’s How Do You Know – No Strings Attached is looking like a winner for Paramount.  The weekend projection for the film is now about $18 million, meaning it is poised to top The Green Hornet for the weekend crown.  Last weekend’s big winner fell to number two on Friday with $5.1 million for an eight day total of $50.4 million.  Full details on the weekend box office tomorrow.

Christmas Day didn’t add much cheer to this year’s box office: holiday receipts were down approximately 44% over 2009.  Little Fockers stayed on top for the three-day weekend, earning an estimated $34 million from 3,536 locations and a five-day cume of $48.3 million.  Fox’s Gulliver’s Travels opened Saturday, meaning it had one less day to work with when it came to tallying up weekend earnings.  The Jack Black adventure inspired only $3.5 million in its debut, giving it a two-day estimate of $7.2 million.

Five, count ‘em, five releases went wide this weekend, including the much anticipated Tron Legacy from Disney.  The 3D spectacle ran circles around the competition – bringing in an estimated $43.6 million in first place, or 62% more than Yogi Bear managed in second.  Meanwhile, How Do You Know could not even live up to the very modest expectations of Sony Pictures, placing eighth for the weekend with just $7.6 million.

We have four clips from the upcoming James L. Brooks film How Do You Know.  The plot centers on a love triangle between an athlete who has been cut from her team (Reese Witherspoon), an innocent businessmen who may be headed to jail (Paul Rudd), and a narcissistic baseball player (Owen Wilson).  Hopefully, How Do You Know will showcase the warm, character-centric dramedy that Brooks can deliver when he’s at his best.

Hit the jump to check out the clip.  How Do You Know opens December 17th.

Pop quiz: what do Denzel Washington’s Antwone Fisher, Matt Ruskin and Chris Rolle’s documentary The Hip-Hop Project and James L. Brooks’ upcoming rom-com How Do You Know all have in common? Any guesses? Anyone?  Okay, I’ll tell you: all three films, in their finished form, include over one use of the word “fuck” during the course of their running time. Yet oddly enough, despite the MPAA’s staunch ‘one ‘fuck’ per PG-13 film’ rule, two of these films–Antwone Fisher (three “fucks”) and The Hip Hop Project (seventeen)–somehow managed to avoid being slapped with an R-rating, and instead were deemed suitably appropriate for a PG-13.

How Do You Know, on the other hand, hasn’t been quite as lucky. Earlier this week Sony found their film slapped with an R-rating, on account of the film’s usage of the word ‘fuck’ three times. After losing an appeal to overturn the rating, Variety is now reporting that Sony will take the film back to the editing room in the hopes of securing a more audience-accessible rating for its December release. Hit the jump for some of my thoughts.