Whoo-hoo! The last weekend of the box-office year was a record breaker ($278 million). OK, megabucks were taken in by the shoddy likes of *Sherlock Holmes* ($65 million) and *Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel* ($50 million).

But the big news is the humongous $75 million jackpot for *Avatar* in its second week, a scant drop of 2.5 percent from its debut. Most blockbusters drop 40-to-50 percent when it comes to second helpings. Translation: *Avatar 3D* is officially a word-of-mouth phenom. People talk to me of little else. The reviews have been glowing with most critics (me included) willing to overlook the film’s clunky dialogue in the face of the film’s visual astonishments.

No related posts.