Laremy and I are starting to sound like broken records: "penguins and 007," "penguins and 007," "penguins and 007." For the third week in a row, Happy Feet [my review] and Casino Royale [my review] ruled the weekend, with the penguins taking in a little over $17 million, and Bond, a little over $15 million. Forget toe-tapping flightless birds: somewhere, marketing execs are doing a happy Snoopy dance.

Is it possible for movies to become instant comfort food? It looks like that's what's happening, with audiences continuing to flock to fun but not brainless flicks -- certainly, at least, the new dumb junk flopped spectacularly, with Turistas and National Lampoon's Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj barely making a blip on the radar, at $3.5 and $2.3 million, respectively. And though The Nativity Story [my review] could hardly be called "dumb," its utterly straightforward retelling of the original Christmas story, in earnest Christmas-pageant style, couldn't draw moviegoers looking for fantasy wrapped in more exciting packages: it was the highest ranking new film this week, at No. 4, with a less than miraculous take of $8 million. (Hanging on for dear life at No. 3? The Denzel Washington time-travel thriller Deja Vu [my review], which is more conventional than it would like you think it is.)

On the indie front, selectivity continues to pay off for Volver -- earning an average of $13,466 on 30 screens -- and The History Boys, with $10,350 on each of eight screens. Even the penguins couldn't touch that this weekend: their per-screen was only $4,480.

Next week's widest new release will be Unaccompanied Minors, opening on 2,500 screens, and with familiar-feeling holiday-themed fare going down in flames in recent weeks, this one has got to be shaking in its snowboots. And it's hard to see how the serious-minded Blood Diamond and Apocalypto, which will be on even fewer screens, will be able to push cute critters and escapist action off the top of the heap, as good as they are. So will it be "penguins and 007" for four straight weeks?

(Box office numbers via Box Office Mojo.)

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