WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: 'Gatsby' Parties Large at #2, Comes Up Short Against 'Iron Man' Repeat

It wasn't no surprise that superhero juggernaut Iron Man 3 and Baz Luhrmann's stylistic retelling of F. Scott Fitzgerald's American classic would pack a 1-2 punch during this weekend's Mother's Day frame.

But was anyone expecting Luhrman's The Great Gatsby to benefit from being pushed back from a Oscar-bait holiday release to being sandwiched between two of summer's most anticipated releases, a spot dreaded by many jockeying for heated positions? $51 million says differently.

Now two weeks deep into an already lucrative summer movie season, the studio tentpoles on deck in the coming weeks have their work cut out for them. And will any be able to catch up to Iron Man 3's overperforming haul?
     

Tarantino's 'Django' Drives Old-Fashioned Revenge Home on Blu-Ray

Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) stands in the way of Django (Jamie Foxx) reclaiming his enslaved wife.

One of the perks of being Quentin Tarantino is wielding the power to end the lives of countless onscreen characters in the most stylistic bloody ways imaginable. Feel free to say that's a sadistic manner of thinking, but for Tarantino, that alone defines him as a director he is today and answers the reasoning behind the Spaghetti Western bloodbath simply known as Django Unchained.

After his recent cult classics, Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino has no issues amping up his blood-stained cinematic canvas set against a touchy subject such as American slavery and what's necessary to be free of the shackles of servitude. Enduring many years of hard service, Django (Jamie Foxx) finds himself freed by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and now with the means to seek revenge on a charismatic plantation owner keeping his wife all for himself.

Eastwood Slows Down with Hoover Bio-Pic

Beneath those layers of makeup, Leonardo DiCaprio emerges as a seasoned J. Edgar Hoover.

Something as simple as a name can trigger certain keywords about a person. Pioneer. Powerful. Controversial. Those three words can describe a number of people, yet one man who innovated untouched crime scenes, fingerprint identification and wiretapping is a perfect fit to that mold. 

Director Clint Eastwood’s J.  Edgar follows the rise and fall of the career and highly debated personal life of J. Edgar Hoover, embodied by the phenomenal presence of Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio is unquestionably the strongest asset of the production, maneuvering between Hoover in his heyday and in his twilight with his one of his most remarkable performances to date.