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Every year it is the same thing. Rushing around to greet grumpy relatives, opening gifts, feigning gratitude, piles of meat and cheese trays and ultimately a long, long nap – which is subsequently interrupted by a whiny child who needs batteries for their new gizmo that cost you an arm and a leg. Are we glad that it is over? Absolutely. Can we relax? Of course not! This is the movie business – time to rock and roll on into the New Year!

With Oscar on everyone’s mind and full bellies all around, it is time to look at some smaller releases coming up for this weekend, along with some clear cut winners from last weekend. We begin with last weekend’s box office results, illustrated by our friends at Box Office Mojo via the chart to the right. Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum took in the largest slice of the Box Office fruitcake at $42 million, followed not-so-closely by Will Smith’s Pursuit of Happyness. Rocky Balboa, a film that our readers voted as the favorite to finish at the top of this list, raked in $17 million to a 3^rd place finish.

So while 77% of those polled last week said Rocky would be victorious, the American public (and the annoying halflings that rule their holiday season) had something else to say entirely. This upcoming weekend could be much of the same, with many kids still out of school through New Year’s. Is that to say that Night at the Museum could run away with another weekend? Possibly. With the exception of Dreamgirls moving up to 825 theaters nationwide, there are 0 wide releases for the weekend.

But even though big blockbusters will be in short supply for the weekend of 12/29, there are plenty of great limited releases for everyone who lives in New York and L.A. Oscar contenders Children of Men, Letters from Iwo Jima, Miss Potter and Pan’s Labyrinth will all open on less than 25 screens. If you live in one of these cities, you are in luck – some great cinema lies ahead. For the rest of us, we are stuck with Ben Stiller slapping a monkey, which ain’t that bad. Look for Night at the Museum to have another strong weekend and finish 1^st, with Rocky in tow and The Pursuit of Happyness somewhere beyond that. At least that is what I think… What do you think?