The Cineaste's Lament.

“Madagascar 3” enjoyed its second week atop the box office heap, beating out scary aliens and even scarier 80s hair metal, taking in $35.5 million over the weekend, according to the good folks at Box Office Mojo.

Here’s the weekend, by the numbers:

In the pages of The Observer of London, British actress Emily Blunt says she can’t believe her luck in a run of movies that’s made her a household name in the former 13 colonies.

Here’s the nut graf:

“Now 29, Blunt has come a long way since snagging her first theatre role opposite Judi Dench in Sir Peter Hall’s The Royal Family at the age of 18 (her role in cult hit My Summer of Love a few years later marked her breakthrough on to the big screen). After a turn as Meryl Streep’s bitchy assistant in The Devil Wears Prada introduced her to Hollywood in 2006, she has been there ever since, picking up lead roles in films such as The Young Victoria and The Adjustment Bureau, in which she played opposite Matt Damon. Her next two films – a poignant tale of sibling relationships called Your Sister’s Sister, and the latest Judd Apatow-produced comedy The Five-Year Engagement, in which she stars opposite Jason Segel – mark her second and third projects in as many months. “Oh God, it’s so nauseating,” she says, when I mention this. “Everybody is going to be like: ‘Get her off. Pleeease.'”

The directors of both films were such fans of Blunt’s former work that neither required her to audition. “I had seen her in the independent film Sunshine Cleaning and become a bit obsessed with her,” says Lynn Shelton, the director of Your Sister’s Sister. “She has such a presence on screen and you believe everything she does.”

Read the full story here.