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CHICK FLICKS RULE HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU NUMBER #1 @ BOXOFFICE

Women flexed their power at the boxoffice and made He's Just Not That Into You the number one movie. An all-star ensemble cast including Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connelly, Bradley Cooper, Drew Barrymore, Ginnifer Goodwin, Scarlett Johansson and Justin Long headline the romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You. The film is based on the bestselling book of the same name, which was written by former Sex and the City writers Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo, and is about modern day relationships and how men and women often misconstrue the intentions of the opposite sex. He's Just Not That Into You is directed by Ken Kwapis (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) and produced by Flower Films (50 First Dates, Charlie's Angels). We wonder how Confessions of a Shopaholic is going to do with the female crowd.

 Isla Fisher stars as a money crunched fashionista in Confessions which opens next weekend.

He's Just Not That Into You trailer

What started as an episode of the HBO series Sex And The City and then became a best-selling advice book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (and then Behrendt's blink and you missed it TV talk show), has now begat the major studio movie He's Just Not That Into You with an ensemble cast of famous and beautiful under-age-40 actresses playing for laughs their desperation to understand men not worthy of them in order to fulfill ambitions for love and marriage and babies. It's a definite throwback for women's pics among which the most memorable and successful often center on a message of female empowerment rather than submission to male whims. (As critic Manohla Dargis points out so drolly in her New York Times review of HJNTIY, "Where have you gone, Thelma And Louise?") Then again, this pic is from New Line/Warner Bros, a lethal combination when it comes to the body count in male action movies, but also the same duo that released SATC. Yet before I continue on my soapbox after having seen the film, I have to look at its financial reality: women turned out in droves for He's Just Not That Into You -- a staggering 80% of the audience was female -- and made it the No. 1 movie by a wide margin in North America this weekend. So it's hard to argue with success like that. It wasn't the runaway female box office phenom of Sex And The City, but many big city theaters reported IJNTIY sellouts by early afternoon for Friday night -- an indicator of "girls night out -- let's go to see this movie" -- because of the savvy marketing of Sue Kroll and her team. Unlike SATC, its grosses actually increased for Saturday, by 5%, to finish the weekend with a bigger-than-expected $27.4 million. Warner Bros noted it was the biggest 3-day February opening ever for a romantic comedy. "We are well positioned going into Presidents Weekend. And with Valentines Day falling on a Saturday, it will be a huge plus at the box office for this film," a WB exec told me.

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• Movie Review | 'He's Just Not That Into You': Young Women Forever Stuck at Square One in the Dating Game (movies.nytimes.com)

SNAG FILMS BETA WEBSITE LAUNCH

At a time when independent documentary films are experiencing a creative boom, yet theatrical distribution channels have gone bust, the beta launch of SnagFilms helps both independent filmmakers and iconic production companies – and the audiences that want to see their movies.

SnagFilms (http://www.snagfilms.com) was created to address the bottleneck in distribution for quality documentaries that has left many great films unable to reach their potential audience or to provide a viable financial return. It also offers established media companies with deep libraries a way of getting “long-tail” documentaries out of the vaults and before a worldwide, on-demand audience.

Founded by Ted Leonsis, AOL Vice Chairman Emeritus and producer of award-winning documentary films; backed by Leonsis, AOL co-founder and Revolution LLC Chairman Steve Case, and venture capitalist Miles Gilburne; and led by industry veterans, SnagFilms brings the best nonfiction films to a global web audience, promotes viral web distribution through virtual movie theater widgets, and encourages users to engage with the films’ issues and supporter communities. At launch, more than 250 films are available for immediate streamed playback, requiring no software downloads, sign-ups or waiting, and an additional 200 films, already under contract, will be added by mid-August.

Viewers who go to the SnagFilms website can find, view, “snag”, share, and support one of the hundreds of films available for free, advertising-supported viewing.

Find: Visitors to SnagFilms.com can find a documentary they would like to see via the search window; or by scanning a complete list of films, selecting from the most popular, most recently added; or from editorial recommendations; or by browsing eleven categories, from “Politics” to “Sports”, “Environment” to “Health”, from “History” to “Life and Culture”, and more. All of the films have information pages including descriptive, contextual material, in some instances chosen or created by the filmmaker exclusively for the SnagFilms’ audience. Films are also accompanied by a list of similar titles recommended by SnagFilms’ editors. Films offered include both recently produced documentaries, and some classics of the genre made available online by some of the industry’s most prominent distributors.

View: Viewers can choose to watch the documentaries on SnagFilms.com, with each film streamed via an embedded media player. Each film will include brief advertisements. Viewers will be able to comment on specific movies on the SnagFilms.com site by rating the film, providing reviews and recommendations, or posting comments on the film’s blog.