Rising and shining today after a long, lucrative season of hits and hits and hits — the second richest on record, we're told — what better way to welcome fall than with a hungover glimpse at the Labor Day weekend's multiplex triumphs? Another day off, you say? We're afraid we can't help you there, so for now, behold your Tuesday Morning Box Office: 1. Tropic Thunder — $14.2 million Against not-so-formidable competition, Ben Stiller's little $90 million-comedy-that-could persisted in first place for the third consecutive week. Fun fact: Thunder became only the sixth R-rated film in history to achieve such longevity, joining the seminal likes of The Whole Nine Yards, American Pie 2 and The Passion of the Christ. And a fourth win isn't out of the question this weekend if America stands up to the horror of Nicolas Cage's latest, Bangkok Dangerous. Why doesn't the Special Olympics lobby protest that degradation? Another discussion, another time.2. Babylon A.D. — $12 million While our generally impeccable box-office projections last Friday seem to have misapprehended Vin Diesel's lagging appeal, let's be honest: As butchered, disavowed and dumped-on-the-roadside B-pictures go, Babylon's $12 million take is in no way a reflection of the actor's animated-elephant-epic potential (or lack thereof). We're just saying. 3. The Dark Knight — $11.3 million Three words: Fuck you, Japan. Bonus: The film's cumulative gross tipped $500 million (along with Titanic, the only film to break the barrier domestically); Warners is reportedly using at least half of the money to launch Speed Racer back to its home country in return via the internally developed Batapult™. 4. The House Bunny — $10.7 million Discuss: Between the success of this film, its medium-budget sibling Step Brothers and its lowbrow, high-yield cousin Pineapple Express, Sony Pictures' comedy trifecta is the most underreported story of the summer. 5. Traitor — $10 million Our underdog, all grown up. We're so proud!

Welcome to a special Labor Day edition of Defamer Attractions, your regular guide to what's new, noteworthy and potentially nausea-inducing this week at the movies. We're as shocked as anyone to see another bottleneck for wide releases, with five films vying for scarce holiday dollars before studios roll out their fall collections. Alas, there they are — only one dumpee can finish on top, and our overeducated guess follows below. We've also got a hunch over who stands to lose big, our regular underdog pick for your consideration, and the best of the best new DVD releases for you three-day-weekend homebodies. As always, our choices are our own but positively elegant in their accuracy. You're welcome! WHAT'S NEW: For the second consecutive week, what isn't new? But more to the point, what's new that you actually want to see? The Summer of the R-rated Comedy tapers off with College, which will battle Disaster Movie in the lowest-common-denominator category. Hamlet 2 expands to 1,500 screens, hoping to find some traction in the mudslide that was its lackluster limited opening last Friday. Among smaller films, look for Brian Cox to avenge his murdered dog in the haunting Red, while Czech Oscar-winner Jiri Menzel returns after 20 years with I Served the King of England and the '90s art-scene aftermath gets a once-over in the doc Beautiful Losers. Finally — and somewhat amazingly — a franchise is born with Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild!.THE BIG LOSER: Babylon A.D. may yet outmaneuver Tropic Thunder for the week's top box-office spot; it should tip $15 million for the four-day frame, probably just sneaking by Ben Stiller's comedy by less than $1 million. That's the "good news" — if underperforming by about 20% is still considered good. The failures don't stop there, however; to the extent it's remembered at all, Babylon A.D. will always have the distinction of being the film that ended loose-lipped Matthieu Kassovitz's directing career in America, sucker-punched Vin Diesel back into franchise submission and jammed a red-ink exclamation point on Fox's underachieving (if not disastrous) summer. Still, they'll always have the silver lining of ambition — this kind of implosion requires a rare chemistry you shouldn't take for granted. Just wear sunglasses and stand way, waaayyyy back.

Find Me Guilty star Vin Diesel continued to show his support for the latest action opus Babylon A.D. despite the fact that the film's director recently disavowed it. Leaving the TRL studios, Diesel said, "Babylon A.D. isn't some red-headed stepchild that you throw out with the bath water. It's a rip roaring good time with explosions and me and some more explosions. I'm not going to disown it anytime soon. I'll be there on midnight Thursday night. " Diesel expressed a desire to record multiple commentary tracks for the DVD release and has began to brainstorm ideas for the sequel. Before hopping into his limo, Diesel confidentially stated, "I hope we can get Mathieu back for the sequel."

After the stirring creative success of his English-language debut Gothika — still hovering around a 15% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes — no one could really fault French filmmaker-actor Mathieu Kassovitz for expecting miles of auteurist latitude on his new film, the sci-fi Vin Diesel thriller Babylon A.D. Least of all Kassovitz himself, it appears, whose journey to the farthest-flung frontiers of studio hackery (or Eastern Europe, whichever came first) nevertheless found him face-to-face with micromanagers from 20th Century Fox — "lawyers who were only looking at all the commas and the dots," he recently told inquiring minds at AMC. Things quickly deteriorated from there, alas, but Kassovitz's loss is our gain today as he disowns Babylon A.D. in the most spectacular, career-immolating fashion imaginable: