Sideshow: 'Spartans' edges 'Rambo'

Americans rushed to movie theaters over the weekend to plunk down their hard-earned dollars on two movies scorned by critics,

Meet the Spartans

and

Rambo

.

Spartans

, a parody of

300

, last year's blockbuster epic about ancient warriors, took in an estimated $18.7 million for 20th Century Fox.

Rambo

, the blood-soaked fourth installment of Sylvester Stallone's series about a modern warrior, took in $18.2 million for Lionsgate.

"This was a very tight race for the No. 1 spot," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "I think we tend to underestimate films like

Meet the Spartans

. Fox has really locked onto something that's extremely popular."

27 Dresses

, starring Katherine Heigl as the perpetual bridesmaid, was third with $13.6 million.

Cloverfield

, which set a January opening record with $41 million last week, skidded to fourth place, with $12.7 million in box-office receipts, down nearly 70 percent from its debut.

The thriller

Untraceable

, came in fifth, with $11.2 million in revenues.

For the third year in a row, a movie about immigrants won the grand-jury prize for best U.S. drama at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Saturday.

Frozen River

, a film about a struggling single mother in Upstate New York who teams with a Mohawk woman to smuggle people across the Canadian border, is the first feature from director-writer

Courtney Hunt

. She adapted it from her own 2004 short story of the same name.

Juror

Quentin Tarantino

described the film, starring

Melissa Leo

and

Misty Upham

, as "a wonderful depiction of poverty in America."

Trouble the Water

, about the survival of a New Orleans couple through Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, earned the grand jury award in the U.S. documentary competition at the festival, the nation's top showcase for independent film.

William H. Macy

hosted the awards ceremony.

Family and friends of

Heath Ledger

paid their respects to the actor on Saturday at a mortuary in Los Angeles, according to a report in the New York Daily News. Former gf

Naomi Watts

was reported to be among the mourners.

Ledger's body was at the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary, where it was taken en route to his native Australia, the Daily News reported.

The 28-year-old costar of

Brokeback Mountain

died Tuesday in his New York apartment.

Two-time Oscar-winning actress

Emma Thompson

has nice things to say about virtuoso thesp

Dustin Hoffman

, her costar in a new romantic comedy,

Last Chance Harvey

, slated for release this year. She told the Associated Press on Saturday that she simply loves acting with Hoffman. "Sometimes you just have a proper chemistry with some actors and I had it with

Tony Hopkins

and I have it with Dustin," she said.