Dakota Fanning

After giving us no less than 15 (!) movies over the last two weeks, Hollywood has decided to take it easy by throwing only four films out to the multiplex crowd this weekend. Thank heavens! This gives us time to take a breath and catch up. Here's a handy guide to the weekend's new releases.

Max Payne

What's the story: Mark Wahlberg (and his dickhead attitude) stars as the titular cop who tries to avenge the death of his family by killing a bunch of people in slow motion. The beautiful Mila Kunis co-stars in a film that looks like a combination of The Matrix sequels, Constantine and a Frank Miller comic.  read more »

Hounddog
Running time 93 minutes
Written and directed by Deborah Kampmeier
Starring Dakota Fanning, Robin Wright Penn, David Morse

Deborah Kampmeier’s Hounddog, from her own screenplay, has survived a disastrous screening of a rough cut at 2007’s Sundance Film Festival to open next week in New York. As Julie Bloom described this high-wire act in the Arts and Leisure section of the Sept. 14 Sunday New York Times, “It was known as the ‘Dakota Fanning rape movie’ [at Sundance]. The press screening for Hounddog elicited actual boos, not to mention eviscerating reviews. Even before that, evangelical groups protested the film after someone involved in its early financing alleged publicly and erroneously that Ms.  read more »

"It used to be that starlets opened movies, but those days are over.... Besides Walk the Line, projects with mainstream A-list actresses mostly landed with a resounding thud—or not at all—in 2005.... After the disaster that was 2005 for women, selling the world the next Julia Roberts might be even trickier. The franchise films will continue to sell big—and how many Narnias and X-Men do we have to look forward to?—while the romantic comedy genre languishes without a go-to leading lady, for now. Will it be Rachel? Will it be Reese? Or Keira? Will Dakota Fanning please report to puberty, stat?

"In 2005, there was not a single female-driven drama that was a financial blockbuster.... Even romantic comedies, long a showcase for actresses, are being replaced by male-driven comedies like "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Wedding Crashers."

In one study....[l]ooking across a sample of more than 2,000 movies exhibited between 1985 and 1996, they found that only seven actors and actresses—Tom Hanks, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jodie Foster, Jim Carrey, Barbra Streisand and Robin Williams—had a positive impact on the box office, mostly in the first few weeks of a film's release.