Director Spike Jonze’s movie adaptation “Where the Wild Things Are” proved naysayers wrong this past weekend with a strong opening at U.S. box offices, making $32.5 million. The film brought Jonze’s hipster ethic to a popular 1963 children’s book, and managed to attract both adults and kids.

Of course, other movies have done that before, including this year’s Disney/Pixar film “Up.” But the doubters were particularly vocal about “Where the Wild Things Are” because early in the production process there were questions about whether the film was too scary for young kids and not scary enough for adults. You can read about some of it here, but none of those past concerns seemed to matter over the weekend.

Other movies that opened this past weekend included the thriller “Law Abiding Citizen,” about an average guy who takes the law into his own hands. The horror movie “Paranormal Activity,” which cost $15,000 to make and has been widened out each week to more theaters, also did well, and has made $33.7 million since it opened in limited release on Sept. 25.

We talked to movie fans this weekend to get their opinions on the latest releases. You can see the video by clicking below.

(video by Marc Price)

The Pusan International Film Festival opens its 14th edition with “Good Morning President”, a movie taking a warm-hearted look at the ruthless and cold-blooded world of South Korean politics.

The festival is Asia largest and runs from October 8-16 in the South Korean port city of Busan. Organisers on Tuesday unveiled the line-up for the festival where 355 films from 70 countries will be screened, including 98 that will be world premieres.

The festival has its red carpet where several of South Korea’s and Asia’s biggest stars parade before the cameras but it pales in comparison to the glamorous showings in Cannes or Venice. What the Pusan fest does best is celebrate and promote Asian films. It is also one of the biggest film markets in the region where producers from, say, Malaysia can pick up distribution deals in Japan.

Influential Bollywood director and producer Yash Chopra will be honoured as filmmaker of the year at the festival, which is considered one of the top cinema honours in Asia.

The festival will have a special programme celebrating Hong Kong’s Johnnie To, called “The Hood in the City”, while French director Jean-Jacques Beineix will heads the jury for the New Currents award that honours new Asian directors.

“The Message”, a spy thriller set in 1942 in a part of China ruled by a puppet government controlled by Japan, closes the festival. The movie is from Taiwanese director and producer Chen Kuo-fu. A complete listing a films is available at the festival’s web site.

And to answer a question that comes up every year, Pusan and Busan are one of the same. The city was named Pusan when the festival began but after then, the South Korean government changed the style it used for Romanizing place names. Under the new system, the city became Busan. The name of the festival did not change.

(Handout pictures provided by the Pusan International Film Festival of "Good Morning President" seen above and "The Message" below)

U.S. pop star Madonna has won a bid to move her children to the United States from Britain, ending a battle in her brutal divorce with British director Guy Ritchie, London’s Evening Standard newspaper reported on Friday.

The paper reported that Ritchie had wanted the couple’s biological son Rocco, 8, to be educated in Britain, but that Madonna’s lawyers argued he should not be split up from his siblings, Lourdes, 12, Madonna’s daughter from a previous relationship, and David, 3, who was adopted from an orphanage in Malawi.

“Everything is going to be resolved in the next couple of weeks. Everything is going well. It’s pretty amicable at the moment. Things are progressing,” a source close to the negotiations told the Evening Standard.

Liz Rosenberg, Madonna’s longtime spokeswoman in New York, declined to comment on the report.

Madonna and Ritchie announced their split in October, nearly eight years after their wedding at Skibo Castle in Scotland, and were granted a “quickie” divorce in November.

Ritchie is a British film director who is making Hollywood blockbuster “Sherlock Holmes” starring Robert Downey Jr. as the Victorian-era super sleuth.

The couple’s combined wealth has been estimated at about $525 million, but Madonna accounts for most of it.

 Netflix Inc <NFLX.O> apparently didn’t get the memo: there’s a recession on.

The online DVD rental company is aiming for “at least” 12 percent net earnings growth in 2009 and will invest any “surplus profit” — terms not heard much on Wall Street these days — in growing its subscriber base and streaming content, Chief Executive Reed Hastings told investors on Monday.

The comments, made amid a storm of bad news from other U.S. media companies, came as the Los Gatos, California company posted a 45 percent rise in quarterly profit that even its own executives weren’t expecting.

“Our October forecast of slowing growth turned out to be wrong,” Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy admitted on a conference call with analysts. “We continue to see strong momentum in our business, quarter to date.”

And then there was this: McCarthy said so many Netflix users are streaming content to their PCs and set-top boxes that they aren’t ordering as many DVDs online. This equals fewer costs and more profits if this streaming thing takes off.

The relentlessly cheerful news continued: Netflix is still hiring! It is testing weekend shipping in some markets to speed service! It is within 0.4 percent of the 10 percent improvement it sought in its movie recommendation algorhythm!

On and on: More subscribers are upgrading to more costly plans than are cutting to cheaper plans! Free cash flow and gross subscriber additions hit a new record! “We will reach 10 million subscribers this quarter!” Hastings said.

The company says no data supports the idea that its growth is due to “cocooning” consumers who are trading expensive trips to the movies for DVDs — so rivals can’t even feel the satisfying schadenfraude of knowing that Netflix is profiting from misery.

What’s with this company? Don’t they know there’s a recession on?

The studio behind Batman movie “The Dark Knight” has set Jan. 23 as the date for the movie’s re-release in IMAX and conventional theaters.

Studios often re-release movies in the lead-up to the Oscars, and “The Dark Knight” has been talked about for a number of trophies.

The biggest buzz surrounds the late Heath Ledger, who played Batman’s Machiavellian arch enemy The Joker and died last year of an overdose of prescription drugs. His performance already won him a posthumous Golden Globe award for best supporting actor, and Ledger could get an Oscar nomination as well.

Industry watchers expect the re-release of “The Dark Knight” to push the film past the $1 billion mark in worldwide box office sales. The film is already the second-highest grossing movie behind the 1997 film “Titanic.”

“The Dark Knight” will play in 255 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, including 142 IMAX theaters, said studio Warner Bros. The movie will play in about 32 IMAX locations internationally, the studio said.

Segments of the film were shot in IMAX, a giant screen format that Hollywood has increasingly turned to in recent years. “The Dark Knight” last year made more than $48 million in U.S. and Canada box office sales from IMAX showings.

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

PHOTO:REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

Network Video, an Australian video retail company,  has come up with its list of the best and the worst move pick up lines.

Here’s the best…

1. ”We live in a cynical world. A cynical world. And we work in a business of tough competitors. I love you. You … complete me.”- Tom Cruise to Renee Zellweger in Jerry Maguire, 1996

2. ”Marry me, and I’ll never look at another horse.” - Groucho Marx to Margaret Dumont in A Day at the Races

3. ”I want to take care of you.” “Good … ’cause I really need to be taken care of.”
- Billy Bob Thornton to Halle Berry in Monster’s Ball

4. ”I want all of you. Forever. Every day.” - Ryan Gosling to Rachel McAdams in The Notebook

5. ”Mind if I get drunk with you?” - Clark Gable to Jean Harlow in Red Dust

6. ” I know what I want, because I have it in my hands right now. You.” - Gerard Butler to Hilary Swank in Ps I Love You

7. ”You came back to this bar to see me tonight, didn’t you?”"What if it wasn’t you I came here to see tonight?” “Well, ya’ got lucky.” - Paul Newman and Charlotte Rampling in The Verdict

And here’s the worst…                                                                            

1. ”You’re 38 and you look it” - Aaron Eckhart to Helena Bonham Carter in Conversations With Other Women

2. ”I appreciate this whole seduction thing you’ve got going on here, but let me give you a tip: I’m a sure thing.” - Julia Roberts to Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.

3.  “Are you stalking me? Because that would be super” - Ryan Reynolds to Tara Reid in Van Wilder.

4. ”I could find the whole meaning of life in those sad eyes.”- Nathan Fillion to Kerri Russell in Waitress

5. “You think I’m gorgeous … you want to kiss me … you want to hug me … you want to love me … you want to smooch me … ” - Sandra Bullock to Benjamin Bratt in Miss Congeniality

6. “You were hoping for a goodnight kiss?”"No, you know. I’ll tell ya, I was hoping to get goodnight laid…” - Matt Damon and Minnie Driver in Good Will Hunting

7. “Would you like to have breakfast with me?” “Sure, fine.” “Shall I phone you or nudge you?” - Mary Mcdonnell and Stephen Tobolowsky in Sneakers

What do you think was the best — or the worst — movie pickup?