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‘Thunder’ Strikes Again in Hollywood Holiday Wasteland

2:30AM STV | Rising and shining today after a long, lucrative season of hits and hits and hits — the second richest on record, we’re told — what better way to welcome fall than with a hungover glimpse at the Labour Day weekend’s multiplex triumphs? Another day off, you say? We’re afraid we can’t help you there, so for now, behold your Tuesday Morning Box Office:

Hollywood Treats Labour Day Moviegoers to Festive Abundance Of Crap

2:05AM STV | Welcome to a special Labour Day edition of Defamer Attractions, your regular guide to what’s new, noteworthy and potentially nausea-inducing this week at the movies. We’re as shocked as anyone to see another bottleneck for wide releases, with five films vying for scarce holiday dollars before studios roll out their fall collections. Alas, there they are — only one dumpee can finish on top, and our overeducated guess follows below. We’ve also got a hunch over who stands to lose big, our regular underdog pick for your consideration, and the best of the best new DVD releases for you three-day-weekend homebodies. As always, our choices are our own but positively elegant in their accuracy. You’re welcome!

Take it From its Director: ‘Babylon A.D.’ Sucks

2:25AM STV | After the stirring creative success of his English-language debut Gothika — still hovering around a 15% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes — no one could really fault French filmmaker-actor Mathieu Kassovitz for expecting miles of auteurist latitude on his new film, the sci-fi Vin Diesel thriller Babylon A.D. Least of all Kassovitz himself, it appears, whose journey to the farthest-flung frontiers of studio hackery (or Eastern Europe, whichever came first) nevertheless found him face-to-face with micromanagers from 20th Century Fox — “lawyers who were only looking at all the commas and the dots,” he recently told inquiring minds at AMC. More »