Brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have managed to snatch up their biggest opening to date with 'Burn After Reading', which took in an estimated $19.4 million over the weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. The first four spots were taken by new entries. On second place, there's Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys with $18 million, on third Righteous Kill with $16.5 million and on fourth that silly remake The Women with barely over $10 million. The Dark Knight, on seventh place, raked in another $4 million for a $518 million total in North America.

All serious Academy Award winning work and no play could make Joel and Ethan Coen dull boys. So they decided it was time for something else, not necessarily a movie, but a playground of their own where anything can happen, including Brad Pitt with really, really bad hair.

The basic idea of the film is that there is no basic idea, only a series of twists and coincidences, a string of separate events that leads to one big disaster. It’s not a parody, but it’s highly ironic. The directors took the espionage flick to the next level and made it a farce about money and sex, populated with secret agents, greedy fitness trainers, neurotic women trying to get a husband through the internet and a washed-up, retired (dismissed) former law enforcer.

“Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys” is a simple tale of two families that are separated by color and bank accounts, but somehow their connections are tighter than what beats the eye. Kathy Bates plays Charlotte, a ruthless business executive that kind of lost her soul on the way and comes to friend Alice (Alfre Woodard) for comfort and a glimpse of a simpler, but happier life, where God forgives our sins and money isn’t everything.

The only righteous element that could spare “Righteous Kill” of the formulaic characteristic is the cast. The two leading characters are played by two heavy names of the cinematographic industry, but that’s about all that make them interesting. Actually, the movie appears to be a reunion ten years after graduation, as it gathers interesting names, but each actor doesn’t seem very interested in the role. It’s the third time De Niro and Pacino star alongside and the second time they appear together in several scenes. We’ve seen the De Niro - Pacino pair in “The Godfather: Part II” and “Heat.” You might expect that “Righteous Kill” is Vito and Michael Corleone reloaded. Unfortunately, it’s not.

Remakes are usually disappointing, but if we were to make a top of the most disappointing ones, well, “The Women” would make it in the Top 5. Originally written as a play for Broadway by Clare Boothe Luce in 1936, “The Women” was three years later made into a film by George Cukor. Cukor kept the film’s plot, but changed a bit the atmosphere and the character’s lines, to make it a little less malicious. Actually, Luce was very much criticized in her times, for being a woman-hater and portraying women as beasts competing against one another. Writer director Diane English cut all the snappy lines from the film’s 2008 version, turning it into a cheesy and silly chick flick, full of clichés.