Movie Nation

European Jews who escaped the Holocaust had to be lucky, plucky and farsighted enough to see their fate in time to do something about it.

It didn’t hurt to be rural, far from cities where neighborhoods were turned into ghettos and ghettos into staging areas on the way to a death camp. In the country, knowing the lay of the land, places to hide, and having at least some neighbors who wouldn’t rat them out was a Godsend.

Some of their stories were told in the feature film “Defiance,” about a community of Jews that hid in the forests of Belarus and became partisans – fighting the Nazis and their local stooges.

“No Place on Earth” is about another corner of the Nazi occupied former Soviet Union where Jews escaped the death camps by taking to the woods. But these Jews went underground – literally. And it took an American cop and caving enthusiast to uncover their story.

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He’s not directing it, just producing.

Her star has dimmed considerably since her “Transformers” heydays. A Mickey Rourke credit or two will do that for a girl. She had small, shapely parts in “Friends with Kids” and “This is 40,” nothing to re-launch a career on.

So why not give the now-married Megan Fox another shot, in a throwaway franchise picture (a money maker that has no prayer of being any good at all)? Let bygones be bygones, even if she DID call you Hitler.

The description of “Song One,” which Hathaway is scheduled to produce as well as star in, has her playing an archeologist who falls for a Brit rocker, to be played by Johnny Flynn.

The Daily Mail says she’s having a song written for her for the film. There’s been talk of her reviving “My Fair Lady.” And she’s in “Rio 2,” which may call on her to sing as well.

“Identity Thief,” another rude comedy that rules the box office, week in and week out, is back on top Oscar weekend — a $13 million take, according to Deadline.com’s Friday estimates.

“Snitch” will just nudge past $10 million. “Dark Skies” won’t quite get there.

“Safe Haven” is holding far more audience that “A Good Day to Die Hard,” which has fallen off a cliff (down 61%, bad, not a Tyler Perry plummet, but bad).

The overall box office is 7% down from last year, which puts more pressure on the risky business of March — where “Jack the Giant Slayer,” “Oz, the Great and Powerful” and “The Croods” are the big releases — and none of them smells like a guaranteed hit.

We used to hear apocryphal stories like this up in Alaska — usually involving lap dogs.

An eagle, in town for the salmon runs (I lived in Kodiak, salmon runs and round the clock fish canneries were a draw), swooped down and grabbed this Yorkie or Dachshund or whatever.

So the story about a similar snatching in Canada, with video, got my attention. And millions of others.

It didn’t happen. It was faked. The Canadian film students who did it were told to come up with a video that could garner 100,000 Youtube hits. And they did. With a hoax. Funny.

Here’s how they did it. Digital tricker is just part of the story.

It’s Oscar weekend, and no, none of the Oscar contenders expects to be in the top five when the dust has settled on all the moviegoing this Feb. 22-24.

Will “Identity Thief” have enough oomph to clear the finish line in first? Box Office Mojo thinks so. They’re calling it the winner, in its third weekend of release, and with no new comedies to suck audience away from it, a $13 million weekend seems within reach.

The Mojo call on the rest of the field has “A Good Day to Die Hard” beating “Snitch” and “Safe Haven” and “Escape from Planet Earth” in a crowd packed into that $10-12 million range.

Dwayne Johnson’s been hard-pressed to open a movie of late. A $12 million weekend would be a win, in this case. “Safe Haven” may have drawn every Nicholas Sparks fan it could hope to, so anything over $10 likewise would be a win.

The laughless “Escape from Planet Earth” has no competition in the kids’ picture field, so another $10 million is entirely possible.

The Box Office Guru thinks that “A Good Day to Die Hard” will fall far enough for this to be a real race — with “Snitch,” “Die Hard,” “Safe Haven” and “Dark Skies” all clustered around that $10-12 million range.

“Dark Skies” is, as Variety puts it, “tracking lightly.” Low awareness, a PG-13 horror picture with kids. They’re hoping for “Insidious” or “Mama” numbers, but $10 million may be a stretch.

I’d also guess that “Identity Thief” has the measure of this field. Melissa McCarthy is BO gold at this point, and this has “Stick around like “Bridesmaids” possibilities.

But I hope the superior “Snitch” does well enough to encourage more thoughtful action dramas like it, and that it clobbers “Die Hard.” I still enjoy Bruce, but nobody was even trying this time around.

“Snitch” had the makings of another junky action hero shoot-em up/punch-em up. Most critics, myself included, were pleasantly surprised, or at least a little impressed by Dwayne Johnson holding his own with a pretty good supporting cast in a very straightforward guy-in-over-his-head with drug dealers tale.

“Bless Me, Ultima” is earnest, meticulous, deadly slow and borderline pointless. I mean, a “witch” comes to help her family and mentor a nephew, is accused of being a witch by the father of other witches, is shunned, hassled, but uses her witchcraftery to make a difference in her nephew’s life?

But it’s based  on a landmark piece of Chicano literature, and is winning a lot of grade-on-the-curve praise. Roger Ebert gave it four stars. Must have taken a long bathroom break and assumed he missed the good parts.

“Dark Skies” isn’t awful. Not by a long shot. But this film which has “Insidious” producers behind it does a poor job of creating empathy for the children most under threat by alien visitations and probes.The earliest reviews are reflecting this.