Yup, the boxing robot movie was top dog robot this weekend, with little competition in sight. Politics came in second and, somewhere far down the list, lurched the human centipede.

1) Real Steel — $27.3M
 When you think about Hugh Jackman being in a movie called Real Steel, you don't necessarily think about a family movie about robot boxing. I mean not initially, right? When you think Hugh Jackman and Real Steel, something about a rugged steel worker who secretly dances comes to mind. (A remake of Bootmen, I guess.) Or you think about a guy who owns a special kind of nightclub called Real Steel and has to fight against the city to keep it open, because some of the conservative city fathers don't approve of it. You know, that kind of movie. Instead we got boxing robots and apparently lots of people want to see that. Nary a dance number or impassioned leather-clad protest speech to be found in the picture, and yet people went in droves, hoping to see all the rock 'em and sock 'em their hearts could desire, every metallic clank and pound lifting them up and out of their lives for just a moment or two. With every crunching thunk and thud and bang, the cares of this pointy world quieting ever still. So that's fine. Have your robots thwacking each other. Enjoy it. Maybe we'll get our other Hugh Jackman movie some other day.

2) The Ides of March — $10.4M
 I actually think this is a pretty good showing for a movie about the dark side of politics. I mean, we're already dealing with all that stuff in real life, so why would we want to pay money to go see it acted out all over again? We are so beleaguered and exhausted and beaten down about the whole political process after these eleven years of turmoil that it just seems like we shouldn't want to spend our blessed free time, the small bits of these trudging lives that we get to use for ourselves and enjoy, watching some imagined version of our presidential hopefuls turn to deceit or corruption or anything like that. We've had too much, it's all been too, too much. We are all too aware of this terrible darkness. Plus, uh, yeah there were boxing robots so who wants to go see some boring thing about talking? Forget it, jerks!

3) Dolphin Tale — $9.1M
 Those families that didn't want to go see robots pummel each other went to go see humans love-up a dolphin in this stirring prosthesis drama. Or maybe this was like family movie day and dad and son went to go see Real Steel and mom and daughter went to go see this and afterward they met up and son was like "And then this one robot hit this other robot and then another robot hit a different robot..." and daughter couldn't stop talking about how she wants to go see a dolphin at the aquarium and mom and dad smiled at each other as they drove to the Fudruckers for an early supper and it was a great day to be a family. Or, mom zoomed up to the movie theater, dumped the kids out, and yelled "Go see the one about the fish, I'll be back in three hours!" and she peeled over to O'Chuggins' pub to get a few in before meeting with the divorce lawyer and going to the TJ Maxx 'cause she's finally got a job interview tomorrow and she's fresh outta L'eggs. Either scenario seems likely to me.

6) Courageous — $4.6M
 Orrr the kids went to go see Dolphin Tale and the parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar let's imagine, went to go see this "adult-themed" movie about marriage and family and they held hands the whole time and at the particularly inspirational parts turned to each other and smiled beatifically and on the way home in their enormous party bus everyone felt like a great family. Then they went home and consumed three hundred pounds of food and disposed of fifty pounds of plastic and paper and ran thirty loads of laundry and they were unaware, unthinking, as their carbon footprint grew larger and larger and larger and the wood fairies and other nature sprites of Arkansas shuddered and gasped.

30) The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) — $54K
 Meanwhile the bad kids went to go see this movie, which mostly played in midnight showings and was only in 18 theaters across the country. And we all, not just the wood fairies, we all shuddered and shook our heads and thought What kind of sick monster goes to see this movie? I mean really, guys, what is wrong with people? "I'd love to go see that movie about people forcibly fed human feces at midnight tonight. Who can I find to go with me? Oh I know, let me call up my friends Garbage Marge and Stinky Bruce, they're great people who love seeing things like this. While I'm at it, let me smear myself with onion paste and go let ants eat it off me in the backyard, that always gets me aroused. Oh, I should invite Finger Pete to the movie, he loves going to the movies and stroking women's hair in the dark. That'd be fun. Oh I can't wait! A day out!" That is exactly what all of you who went to see this movie this weekend said, verbatim. Sorry, but it's true.