The latest Potter movie led a lineup that helped reverse the Hollywood box-office slump, with the top 12 films raking in $171 million, up 19 percent from the same weekend last year when "National Treasure" was No. 1 with $35.1 million.

Does this seem stupid to anyone else? As in the only difference between the two weekends being compared is that one of them has a Harry Potter film and the other has a cheap Indiana Jones ripoff?

This weekend = 171 million - Harry's 101 million = 70 million from all the other movies out

Last year = 144 million - National Treasure's 35 million = 109 million from all the other movies out

You want to talk numbers? Last year's were better because they were balanced more evenly - meaning that whatever movies bombed that weekend didn't affect the industry's bottom line that badly. Yeah, Harry Potter's a given blockbuster, and there's no reason not to make those movies. But ... 1) don't claim that there's some kind of a "slump reversal" going on here, and 2) I'll just say "Van Helsing" and we'll leave it at that. The formula can fail as easily as it succeeds.

And who says there's a slump going on in the first place? Entertainment numbers are so skewed. Their books must be the numerical equivalent of Finnegan's Wake.