Like the weekend before, number three goes to Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin's underwater adventure, The Hunt for Red October, which beat Pretty Woman's week-to-week decline by only diving 17% to earn $3.6 million ($6.1 million adjusted). This is even more impressive considering the Cold War film had been in theaters for 52 days.

So, based upon the tease earlier, was it Sean Connery or Alec Baldwin that has the number four film also? As intriguing/disturbing as it may be to see a then 60-year old Connery star in Miami Blues as an ex-con opposite a 28-year-old Jennifer Jason Leigh as a prostitute, alas it is Baldwin who occupies both the number three and four slots. Miami Blues debuted with $3 million ($5.1 million adjusted) and sadly, earned less than the Gods Must be Crazy II, in the long run. Miami Blues ended up with a total of $9.9 million ($16.8 million adjusted).

The number five spot would go to our good friend Ernest for another week. Ernest Goes to Jail made another $2.95 million ($5 million adjusted) and despite undoubted proclamations that this was a sign that the world was coming to an end, it wasn't raining blood and people weren't called up to heaven in the Rapture.

The last weekend of this month tasted a lot like the first weekend with four new films released and not a sleeper in the bunch. Pretty Woman finally outlasted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to regain her top spot after a month in second place. The romantic comedy added another $7.2 million ($12.3 million adjusted) to its total with a decline of 14%. In contrast, the turtles more than doubled that drop with a 29% decline to $6.9 million ($11.7 million adjusted), which was still good enough to keep second place.

The highest debuting film this weekend was The Guardian with $5.6 million ($9.5 million adjusted). The Guardian comes across as The Hand that Rocks the Cradle mixed with Rosemary's Baby, with its newborn and supernatural/evil babysitter plot. With the talented William Friedkin at the helm, it makes you wonder, "What was he thinking? Is he just trying to prove that The French Connection and The Exorcist were flukes." Regardless of the lack of quality, the film still did decently in its opening round but for my tastes, this dreck is more offensive that Varney's Ernest.

Landing in the number four spot is Spaced Invaders with $4.5 million ($8.3 million adjusted). The sci-fi comedy starred a case of unknowns but one person would soon be part of the second biggest film of Steven Spielberg's career. Before she could traipse around Jurassic Park in three short years, Ariana Richards appeared in two films in the first four months of 1990. Following her appearance in Tremors, which was released in January, she had a more prominent role here. Apparently, running from giant worms and running around with little green men was the right practice to running away from big green dinosaurs. Disney must have had enough faith in the film to give it a screen count of 1,821, which was second only to TMNT for screen count in the top ten. With a tiny budget of only $3 million, Disney got 150% of that figure back in three days.

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