*It's M.M. Monday!*-Saw IV Kills 'Em Over The Weekend! *Graphic Photo*

*Who's Surprised?? This is the most well written, plot-twisting, gut-clenching, keeps you guessing horror movie of all time!*

Moviegoers Feast on Serial (Killer)
source


Los Angeles (E! Online) - Would-be Oscar contenders are flatlining. A writers' strike is looming. On the bright side, serial killers are still money.

The Jigsaw-graced Saw IV topped the weekend box office with $32.1 million, per estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations Sunday. The bow was Hollywood's biggest in more than two months.

Steve Carell, meanwhile, saw a nice but unspectacular debut for his non-serial-killer entry Dan in Real Life (second place, $12.1 million).

The opening was the smallest of Carell's still-young career as a movie star—even the much maligned Evan Almighty, for instance, started off with $31.2 million. But for a fall film in a fall that's been quite unkind to movies about people who don't kill vampires (30 Days of Night), slay zombies (Resident Evil: Extinction), wage a vigilante war on crime (The Brave One) or engage in an Old West gunfight (3:10 to Yuma), the gentle comedy-drama posted the season's biggest debut behind only Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? and The Game Plan.

That said, Dane Cook, who costars as Carell's brother in Dan in Real Life, saw a bigger opening for his much maligned star turn in Good Luck Chuck than Carell and company saw for their better-reviewed film.

Then again, Good Luck Chuck opened bigger, and has made more money to date ($34.8 million), than most of the season's offerings, especially the star-driven Oscar vehicles, à la George Clooney's Michael Clayton (sixth place, $5 million; $28.8 million overall), Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal's Rendition ($2.3 million; $7.7 million overall) and the Ben Affleck-directed Gone Baby Gone (seventh place, $3.9 million; $11.3 million).

The list of A-list fall bombs goes on and on, per Box Office Mojo stats: Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro's Things We Lost in the Fire ($715,000; $2.8 million overall); Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth: The Golden Age ($1.6 million; $14 million overall); and Brad Pitt's The Assassination of Jesse James ($430,000; $2.9 million), the smallest grossing film of its star's career, by a lot, in 14 years.

The fall has been so brutal that not even the magic words Ben Stiller comedy worked on audiences. In its fourth weekend, Stiller's The Heartbreak Kid ($1.8 million; $35.1 million) slipped out of the top 10 and into a coma.

Even the art-house circuit has been hit. Ryan Gosling's Lars and the Real Girl ($952,000, $1.4 million overall) isn't blowing up. Ang Lee's NC-17-rated Lust, Caution ($471,000; $2.8 million overall, per Box Office Mojo) isn't heating up. And Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited ($1.7 million; $6.1 million overall) isn't expanding, even as it moved into wide release for the first time in five weekends.

By comparison, by the time Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums moved onto 600-plus screens back in 2002, the movie, which was also in its fifth weekend, grossed $8.5 million, bringing its overall total to $20.7 million.

Given all the grim stats, it was no surprise that the box office posted its sixth straight down weekend when compared to last year's totals.

And more bad news for Hollywood might be on the way in the form of a midnight Halloween strike by union screenwriters. The good (or bad) news for moviegoers is that there are plenty of movies in the can or in the works should a walkout happen.

Saw IV, for one, tried its grisly best to help out, opening in line with 2006's Saw III ($33.6 million) and 2005's Saw II ($31.7 million).

Eighty-three-old director Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico), meanwhile, showed the youngens how it's done, posting the weekend's best per-screen average for his latest, the heist drama Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which took in $73,500 from only two theaters.

Here's a rundown of the top 10 films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. Saw IV, $32.1 million

2. Dan in Real Life, $12.1 million

3. 30 Days of Night, $6.7 million

4. The Game Plan, $6.3 million

5. Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?, $5.7 million

6. Michael Clayton, $5 million

7. Gone Baby Gone, $3.9 million

8. The Comebacks, $3.5 million

9. We Own the Night, $3.4 million

10. Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, $3.3 million

Like "Silence of the Lambs" in REAL LIFE **warning graphic details**

Mexican cops arrest cannibalism suspect **graphic**

source: Yahoo! News, AP (emphasis by Ivent)

MEXICO CITY - An aspiring horror novelist was arrested after police discovered his girlfriend's torso in his closet, a leg in the refrigerator and bones in a cereal box, the city prosecutor's spokesman said Thursday, and police suspect he may have been responsible for two other mutilation murders as well.

Jose Luis Calva pic told police he had boiled some of his girlfriend's flesh but that he hadn't eaten it, the spokesman said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. He said investigators were trying to determine if the chunks of fried meat found in a pan in the apartment were human.

The spokesman also confirmed other details about the crime scene released by the prosecutor's office Wednesday night: that body parts were spread throughout the apartment, and that Calva is being investigated in a total of three killings of women whose mutilated bodies had been found in and around the capital.

Calva told police he was a writer and poet — officers found the draft of a novel titled "Cannibalistic Instincts," the spokesman said.

Calva tried to escape when officers entered his apartment, but was struck by a car and had not yet recovered enough to give a statement to police, according to the prosecutors office. He was still hospitalized on Thursday, the spokesman said.

Police had come to Calva's apartment Monday to investigate the disappearance of his girlfriend, Alejandra Galeana, a 30-year-old pharmacy clerk and single mother. Her family had reported her missing on Friday and told police of her relationship with Calva, according to the prosecutor's office.

Galeana's dismembered body was discovered in a closet; a leg and flesh from an arm were in the refrigerator, and arm bones were inside a cereal box, the prosecutor's office said.

Calva also is being investigated in the mutilation killings of an unidentified prostitute in April and an ex-girlfriend, Veronica Martinez — also a single mother and pharmacy worker — whose dismembered body was found in 2004, the prosecutor's office said.

After his arrest was shown on television, Martinez's mother went to police saying Calva had also been her boyfriend, and showed officers a picture of them together. Her daughter's body was found chopped to pieces on the city's outskirts, the prosecutor's office said.

Neighbor Fermin Cruz, 41, lived several floors below Calva, and said he "seemed ill humored at times," adding, "one time he slammed the door on me."

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What can be said except, "what kind of world are we living in?!"