Mike Nichols' Closeropened in the top spot this week with nearly 500,000 admissions.

Japanese legend HayaoMiyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle spent its second week at number two witha now cumulative $4,668,259. The film fared well against the competition, asdid many others this week, only dropping off by 13% from the previous week.

Vanessa Paradis vehicle MonAnge debuted at number eight with a low per screen average of $2,936 on 307copies. New entries included Christian Bale vehicle The Machinist at number16 with 45,130 tickets sold on 64 screens and Andres Wood's Machuca inthe 20th spot for a take of $172,106. Impressively, French drama Neg Maronopened in 17th position with a strong $10,187 per screen in only 30 sites.