The weekend’s box office is in, and frankly it’s not great news for anyone. Two would-be powerhouses, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” and “The Tourist”, opened with underwhelming grosses of $24.5 million and $17 million, respectively — an indication that audiences aren’t quite as enamored of the “Narnia” franchise, or Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, as they were expected to be.

That’s good, I think, because both of those movies are pretty sorry excuses for entertainment, and it’s heartening to see people waiting on word of mouth (or reading reviews) before shelling out for a ticket. Or maybe the winter storm kept people trapped at home, where they watched “Prince Caspian” on Netflix and realized there’s just no reason to keep indulging this franchise. Either way it’s a win, right?

You can feel the transition in the air, can’t you? The studios are shaking off that post-Thanksgiving haze and gearing up for an end-of-year frenzy of big Christmas movies and blatant Oscar bait … and I get to gorge on all of it, because the TFCA votes this weekend and I’m seeing absolutely everything. Which is a little exhausting, I admit, but it also means I’ve got this week’s new movies in my back pocket:

“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader“: Or as Glenn Kenny‘s been calling it, “Jesus Kitty III”. And as with “Prince Caspian”, I’d be much quicker to forgive the preaching, the thin characterizations and the empty visual effects if something would actually happen. But no, Michael Apted’s direction is perhaps even more distant and uninvolved than it was in “The World is Not Enough” … and we all remember that one, don’t we?

“The King’s Speech“: Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush square off in Tom Hooper’s crackling historical drama, which is as perfectly calibrated a crowd-pleaser as anything Harvey Weinstein’s released since “Shakespeare in Love”. The difference is that this is also much smarter and sharper than that regrettably Oscar-anointed trifle. It’s also rated R in the U.S., because the MPAA is afraid people might not be able to handle a little cussing.

“The Tourist“: What happens when you put Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in the same movie? A whole lot of nothing, as it happens, if it’s this movie. Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck is not going to be going back to the Oscars any time soon, I can tell you that.

And that’s all there is this week. Enjoy the quiet; it’s about to get much, much noisier on the megaplex front …

Alternately described as the thinking woman’s crumpet and the universal lubricant — kids, ask your parents — Colin Firth really is as dashing in person as you may have heard, and his performance in “The King’s Speech” will very likely win him that Oscar he deserved last year for “A Single Man”.

We did a fine job of ignoring that sort of talk in our TIFF interview, which sees print in this week’s NOW (and also includes comments from the film’s director, Tom Hooper). The issue also includes a quick look at Toronto’s seasonal movie programming, since it’s our annual holiday special — and yes, someone’s screening “Die Hard”.

Online extras include a Q&A with Firth’s “King’s Speech” co-star, the very charming Geoffrey Rush, and my chat with visual effects god and gearhead supreme Douglas Trumbull, who’s going to be presenting a look behind the scenes of “Blade Runner” tonight at the Lightbox.

Fun fact: My sit-down with Colin Firth was actually our second meeting; we’d previously bumped into each other at the London film festival in 2007. Or rather, I bumped into him, very hard, opening a door into his face. You’ll be happy to know he accepted my (belated) apology most gracefully. He’s nice like that.

In a reversal of last weekend’s box-office fortunes, Disney’s “Tangled” and Warner’s “Harry Potter and the Moody Interlude” have traded places. “Tangled” took this weekend’s top spot with a modest $21.5 million gross, while “Harry Potter VII” dropped to second place with a still-respectable $16.7 million.

The weekend after the American Thanksgiving holiday is always a bit of a wasteland, with no major studio openings — well, Fox Searchlight eased “Black Swan” into Canada, but in a smallish, baby-step kind of way. Things ramp back up next week with “The Tourist” and “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”, so expect the box-office numbers to inflate accordingly.

You have been warned.

People keep telling me there aren’t enough musicals these days. Well, today sees the release of three movies that are chock full of singing and/or dancing — though not necessarily the sort that’ll conjure up fond memories of the grand days of MGM.

“Black Swan“: Darren Aronofsky’s dazzling psychological thriller features Natalie Portman in a career-best turn as a ballerina crumbling under the stress of starring in “Swan Lake”. You’ll either embrace it or reject it in the first 20 minutes; all I can say is I wish Aronofsky had been willing to go even crazier.

“Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench”: A pair of young Bostonians try to find harmony together in Darien Chazelle’s black-and-white mumblecore musical — which, Glenn argues, might have been better in color.

“Sell Out!“: The first English-language musical from Malaysia to make it to Toronto screens, Yeo Joon Han’s delightful corporate satire has enough mirth and invention for three features. Don’t feel self-conscious when the karaoke lyrics come on; they’re there for you!

And don’t forget “Kings of Pastry”, which is playing an exclusive run at the Lightbox this week. And the Toronto Underground Cinema has a pretty nice series on English Canadian cinema going through Sunday; “Hard Core Logo” and “Pontypool” are screening tonight, so if you’ve already seen “Black Swan” you might want to catch those.

And now you know why I went to Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago. My interview with “Black Swan” star (and likely Oscar nominee) Natalie Portman is the cover story for the new issue of NOW — and she and director Darren Aronofsky discuss the film in greater detail in the audio clips, so don’t miss those. There’s also this fun little thing about her body of work.

Also in this issue, I interview Yeo Joon Han, writer and director of the very, very entertaining new Malaysian musical “Sell Out!”, which opens tomorrow at the Royal.

Oh, and “Kings of Pastry”, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus’ documentary about cake bosses, opens at the Lightbox today. I thought it was a pretty fun little trifle when I caught it at Hot Docs earlier this year; Susan was slightly less enthused. You might want to check it out, is all I’m saying.