Judd Apatow and friends (and the studio promotional vehicle) tried as hard as they could, but they couldn't hold back the martial arts tandem of Jackie Chan and Jet Li (who could, really?) as The Forbidden Kingdom fought its way to the top of the weekend box office, taking in $20.9 million on 3,200 screens, compared to $17.3 million on 2,800 screens for Forgetting Sarah Marshall. That's about $6,500 a screen for Jet Li and Jackie Chan; but the $6,200 take per screen for Jason Segel and Kristen Bell is nothing to sneeze at, either.

Tags: 21, 88 Minutes, forbidden kingdom, forgetting sarah marshall, horton hears a who, leatherheads, nim's island, prom night, street kings

Oscar-winning makeup man Rick Baker made Eddie Murphy look like a reasonably credible old Jewish man in Coming to America. Ben Stiller and company could have used his help on Tropic Thunder, the movie that reveals to the world that Robert Downey Jr. is not only a Black man, but one that couldn't have been created by the same God that gave me my permanent tan. In stills, Downey looks so unconvincing that he makes Al Jolson look like Wesley Snipes. I suppose Downey won't get the part if they remake Black Like Me. At least Downey's blackface is in service to Tropic Thunder's plot. During the studio system's heyday, White actors and actresses were constantly attempting to pass for something they were not. Remember Swede Warner Oland as Charlie Chan, Gale Sondergaard as evil Dragon Lady in Bette Davis's The Letter, and any number of white actresses playing tragic mulattoes? How about Elvis as an Indian or Mickey Rooney as an Asian? It seems like this trend is coming back in a way, though not with Tropic Thunder. 21 opens this week and the ads tell you it's "based on a true story and the novel Bringing Down the House. 21's casting, however, is as corrupt as the game show that bore its name back in the '50s. The protagonist of the novel is Asian, yet in the film, he has been recast as a white character played by Jim Sturgess. You may remember Sturgess from Across the Universe, the movie that made John Lennon spin in his grave like a propeller on crack. He played Jude, as in Hey, Jude, your movie's bad.

It's the filmmakers' right to change the race of their main character, but that should automatically cost them the "based on a true story yada yada yada." Denzel Washington and his filmmakers came under intense fire for The Hurricane and The Great Debaters for marketing those films as factually based though they had poetic license changes. Why aren't protesters bringing down the house over 21? Shouldn't we be holding Legally Blonde director Robert Luketic's feet to the fire for this, the way Washington's and Norman Jewison's were? If anything, Asians should be happy that Sturgess isn't playing the character as an Asian. After Breakfast at Tiffany's, anyone who attempts to do so should be shot anyway.

Tags: 21, Denzel Washington, Jim Sturgess, Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

This weekend, moviegoers resurrected the horror genre from the pits in which One Missed Call and The Eye put it in earlier this year (along with The Ruins, which is slowly deteriorating from the top ten), by making Prom Night the highest grossing movie at this week's box office (raking in just a little over $22 million), but it wasn't the only new release that made it out strong. Street Kings, a crime thriller starring a very discombobulated cast (Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Chris Evans, Cedric the Entertainer and Hugh Laurie... I kid you not) fell into the second spot with $12 million, while Smart People brought in $4.2 million, earning a spot in seventh place (that's like a C average, which is not very smart at all, but considering it was released in selected cities, it's a pretty triumphant premiere). Box office sweetheart, 21, took a fall to third place, which pushed the rest of its fellow champs down, especially George Clooney's Leatherheads (let's just hope this kills the forever mundane football genre once and for all). The biggest surprise of the week is seeing Superhero Movie and Drillbit Taylor still holding on to the top ten for dear life. (Whoever is still going to see these two movies needs to seriously reevaluate their movie choices and go see something better next week.)

The tally:
1. Prom Night, $22.7 million
2. Street Kings, $12 million
3. 21, $11 million
4. Nim's Island, $9 million
5. Leatherheads, $6.2 million
6. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, $6 million
7. Smart People, $4.2 million
8. The Ruins, $3.25 million
9. Superhero Movie, $3.1 million
10. Drillbit Taylor, $2 million

Tags: 21, drillbit taylor, horton hears a who, leatherheads, nim's island, prom night, smart people, street kings, superhero movie, the ruins