"X-Men: The Last Stand" opened with a $120.1 million this past holiday weekend, easily the biggest Memorial Day opening ever. E. Scott Reckard at the LA Times:

The 20th Century Fox comic-based adventure about misunderstood mutant heroes staged one of the biggest premieres ever, trouncing previous films opening over the weekend that traditionally signals the start of the summer movie season. That includes "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," which opened to $90.2 million in 1997 and "Shrek 2," which grossed $95.6 million in its second week of release in 2004.

More fuel for the debate about the rise of the critic-proof film? "The Last Stand" received mixed reviews, but then, so did "The Lost World." At least we seem to be safe from last year’s plague of stories about the death of the blockbuster and the drooping box office for a while.

Meanwhile, as Steven Rosen at indieWIRE writes:

At last the independent/specialty film world has a summer-season superhero to match Hollywood’s X-Men, Superman, Batman and Spider-Man.

Al Gore, man!

"An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary about global warming that combines Gore’s surprisingly witty and appealing stage presence with innovative graphics and even animation, debuted over the four-day Memorial Day weekend to some record-shattering numbers. Global warming has long been an issue of paramount importance to Gore, the former Democrat vice president and presidential candidate.

$91,828 per-theater average, and all for a doc that showcases a Powerpoint presentation — awesome! Of course, "An Inconvenient Truth" opens from four screens to 60-75 in the top ten markets this Friday, which will be really interesting. We honestly can’t see the film getting far beyond its built-in audience of urban liberals (who can sit there in the dark, clicking their heels together three times and murmuring to themselves "2008! 2008!") but we’d love to be proven wrong.

+ ‘X-Men’ scores a record weekend (LA Times)
+ Gore’s Global Warming Warning Scorches the BOT; Bollywood "Fanaa" Breaks Out Big (indieWIRE)