Animation Hybrids' Foreign Holidays

The overseas' derbies continue at full gallops.

Twentieth Century Fox's "Avatar" achieved what seemed inevitable over the Jan. 22-24 weekend, earning $108.3 million to become the highest grossing film ever at the international box office with a cume of $1.292 billion.The weekend tally was enough to push James Cameron's 3D opus past previous record holder "Titanic's" $1.242 billion ...

But Hayao Miyazaki toon "Spirited Away" still holds the Japanese record, topping the B.O. for 11 straight weeks, making it Japan's all-time highest grosser with $338 million

... [P]erforming well in repeat frames was Fox's toon reboot "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel." Toons typically do well overseas, but given "Alvin's" origins Stateside, pic's total gross of $175.2 million speaks to the popularity of the genre among foreign auds.

So Fox is doing well with its current animated offerings.

(Side note: There's been a lot of criticism in conservative blogs about how anti-American and anti-military Cameron's feature is, even though the human soldiers in the film are 22nd century Hessians -- contract mercenaries -- and not actual soldiers. Remarkably, I'm not aware of Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity railing against the movie -- although the fearless Stephen Colbert isn't afraid to take it on.)

So I guess those other lions of the Right are down with the big blue aliens.