Arthouse Audit: 'Solitary Man' Alone on Top
After being knocked back a few spots last week, Solitary Man rose to the top of the art house heap again this weekend. Winter's Bone, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and Cyrus all expanded to find greater audiences, while a group of very limited new releases failed to make much noise.

Ranking 16th among all releases, Solitary Man increased 11 percent to $476,431 at 177 locations (up from 107 last weekend). Its per theater average took another big hit, though, down 33 percent to $2,692, indicating that its rate of expansion probably won't continue much longer. Through its sixth weekend, the Michael Douglas comedy/drama has made $2.07 million.

Second place went to Winter's Bone, which nearly doubled its theater count to 70 and was up 25 percent to $437,355, bringing its total to $1.06 million through its third weekend. It had a decent per theater average of $6,248, and will likely continue to add theaters in coming weeks. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work added 58 theaters for a total of 86, and was up 60 percent to $362,553. Through its third weekends, the documentary has made $954,232.

Cyrus trailed both of those movies, but was also in far fewer theaters. The John C. Reilly-Jonah Hill comedy was up 66 percent to $301,227 at 17 theaters for a ten-day total of $566,259. Rounding out the art house Top Five was Please Give which, after three weeks of expansions and gains, shed some theaters and retreated 42 percent to $276,398. Through its ninth weekend, the Nicole Holofcener movie has earned $3.13 million.

None of the new movies managed to make much of a dent, though that was in part due to playing at few locations. Foreign romantic drama Wild Grass debuted at five theaters, grossing $39,162 for a so-so per theater average of $7,832. Critically-acclaimed Afghanistan-set war documentary Restrepo made $35,581 at two theaters, while Oliver Stone documentary South of the Border had the best per theater average of any new release with $21,545, but the catch is that it was at just one theater. Finally, foreign drama Dogtooth bit in to a mere $6,686 from 2 locations.

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