- I guess the economy isn’t bad for everyone, just for those who can least afford it. For Walt Disney Studios and Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks Studios, business is good. The two companies reached a distribution deal that will allow Disney to market at least six DreamWorks live-action movies each year produced through DreamWorks' agreement with India's Reliance BIG Entertainment. DreamWorks struck a similar agreement with Universal last year, but that deal fell apart and now the company can replace Universal with Disney and not miss a beat. Although no official announcement was made on why the Universal deal fell through, rumor has it that it was due to a late cash grab by DreamWorks. The studio reportedly asked for cash to help finance the movies to be made under the Reliance contract, with Reliance being the ones to handle distribution of the movies in India. Under the new deal, the first movie to be distributed is expected to reach theaters next year. "Disney is the birthplace of imagination and has always been as close to the worldwide audience as any company ever has," Spielberg said. Allow me to translate that from Hollywood-ese: They’re giving me a freaking huge pile of money, so I’m very excited to work with them. The deal has an ironic twist in that DreamWorks came to be back in 1994 after Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg was passed over for promotion to president of the company. He apparently felt the snub was too much to put up with and left to form DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. Industry observers also believe that the DreamWorks-Reliance-Disney deal will do a lot to bring India's "Bollywood" industry together to Hollywood studios. Like I said, the economy isn’t terrible for everyone, just for those who are worst equipped to handle it……
- I realize that the memory of the Columbine tragedy will always remain fresh in the memory of many in the state of Colorado, but that being said, I think it’s just a tad overreactive to consider expelling an honors student simply because she left three drill team "practice" rifles in plain view on the back seat of her car last week. Yes, passing students saw the faus rifles on the back seat of Marie Morrow’s car at Cherokee Trail High School in Denver and those students ratted her out to staff members. Initially, no one knew if the guns were real or not, so it’s understandable that students would be “anxious” and “frightened," as school district spokeswoman Tustin Amole said. All of that is fine, as is hauling the student in whose car the rifles reside into the principal’s office to explain the situation. However, once it became clear that they were mock rifles made of wood, with duct tape, the issue should have been settled. Yes, the guns resemble real rifles, but they’re not real. Morrow and her fellow members of the Douglas County Young Marines spin the practice rifles for the organization’s drill team. Yet there’s the prime example of a bureaucratic, idiotic organization at its best, demanding that the school district’s policy be applied to a situation where it doesn’t actually have bearing, all in the interest of being sticklers for the rules. Amole explained the policy calls for "mandatory expulsion" when possessing a dangerous weapon in any school building. He went on to explain that the student conduct handbook states a dangerous weapon includes "a firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, or a firearm facsimile that could reasonably be mistaken for an actual firearm.” Ummm….no. I think what you’re referring to is kids waving fake guns and pretending they’re real to create the same effect as a real gun. These guns aren’t real, they have no potential to harm anyone (unless you’re going to repeatedly bludgeon someone over the head with them, although the same could be said about textbooks) and they weren’t used to harass, intimidate or scare anyone. So while it’s admirable for Morrow to say that, "I take responsibility, it was my mistake," I’m going to go ahead and decline her apology. There’s no need for it and the tools that run this school district should be fired on the spot if they suspend her for more than a day. Joining me in my outrage is Chris Proctor, commanding officer of the Douglas County Young Marines. Proctor praised Morrow's commitment to the program and school. "For her to have to go through this is completely insane," Proctor said. I would concur, as I’m sure the U.S. Marine Corps would. The Young Marines club is the official youth program of the Marines Crops, and it focuses on drug reduction and leadership. I’m also glad to see that Morrow isn’t taking this lying down. She put on her drill team uniform and went to visit the capitol to speak with lawmakers about the possibility of changing the state statute relating to weapons in schools. Hopefully, state legislators like Sen. Scott Renfroe, (R-Weld County,) Reps. Cindy Acree, (R-Aurora,) and Frank McNulty, (R-Highlands Ranch,) will follow through on their promises to give Morrow their full support as she heads into her hearing with school district administrators. Try not to ruin a girl’s life just because you have a ginormous stick up your ass, Cherokee Trail School District officials……
- Tonight’s Lost was a two-parter….well, for me anyhow. I got home in time to watch the second half live and was going to watch the first half immediately afterward via tape, but the freaking wind knocked out the satellite and left me with a half-hour of recorded blank air. Thank God for ABC offering episodes on its website, otherwise I’d have been screwed. As is, I saw a second straight outstanding episode, so maybe this season is finally finding its rhythm. Those on the island were in an increasingly tight spot, with the burst of light and time travel episodes that follow those bursts getting closer and closer together. Everyone is beginning to suffer the consequences, with nose bleeds aplenty. Our man Jin, who was discovered alive and floating in the ocean last week by Danielle Rousseau and her crew circa 1988, found himself traipsing through the jungle with Rousseau and her team, heading for the radio tower that we know Rousseau eventually found and used to broadcast her distress message that was still playing 16 years later when Oceanic 815 crashed on the island. On the way there, the traveling party is attacked by the Black Smoke Monster, which only Jin knows about. One member of the group is attacked and captured by the monster, then dragged into its hole beneath a temple located in the middle of the jungle (wonder if that’s why Ben Linus told the Others last season that the temple was the only safe place left on the island, because the BSM is protecting it). The monster also kills a female member of the group and leaves the remaining three men to descened into the hole to help their captured comrade. Jin remains outside the hole with Rousseau, but a light flash and tiem travel episode soon move Jin to a new time and place. That time turns out to be not long into the future, where Jin finds his way to the beach and comes across two of the men who entered the BSM’s hole. The men are dead and lying on the beach, flies buzzing around their decomposing bodies. Jin hears shouting down the beach and runs to find Rousseau pointing a rifle at the third man who went into the BSM’s hole. The man is the father of her soon-to-be-born child, but Rousseau insists that he’s sick and changed by going into that hole. The man insists that he isn’t and the monster is nothing more than a security system, but when Rousseau lowers her gun, the man tries to raise his and shoot her, only to find his gun has jammed. Rousseau reloads and blasts him in the chest, then turns the gun on Jin when she sees him because he too disappeared at the temple, albeit for a different reason. Jin flees and is saved by another light flash/time travel event, this one putting him in the middle of the jungle for a chance encounter with…..Saywer, Locke and the rest of their posse. A jubilant Sawyer actually hugs Jin and calls him by his real name, a rarity for Sawyer. Jin is caught up on what is going on and explains that he survived the freighter explosion by jumping into the water. He’s also told of Locke’s plan to bring the Oceanic Six back to the island and is stunned to learn that his wife Sun a) isn’t on the island and b) that Locke intends to bring her back. That debate is interrupted so the group can continue on to the Orchid station, where Locke hopes to find a way to stop the time travel events from happening. Along the way, two more flashes - back-to-back flashes - further worsen the condition of Charlotte, by far in the worst shape of anyone already. She is disoriented now, talking nonsensically and bleeding profusely from the nose. Daniel volunteers to stay behind with her while the rest of the group goes to the orchid. While Daniel and Charlotte bide their time in the jungle, she reveals to him that she grew up on the island, left it as a child and became an anthropologist simply so she could find it again. That explains her condition, as she’s been exposed to the island for logner than anyone. She also tells Daniel that when she left as a child, a man told her that she would die if she ever returned to the island, and she believes that man was Daniel. As for the rest of the group, they find the Orchid and Locke is about to go down into the station when another time travel event occurs and the station is gone. Acting on a tip Charlotte gave them before they separated, Locke looks for a nearby well and prepares to shimmy down a rope into the well. As he does so, Jin makes him promise not to bring Sun back to the island, a promise Locke makes even though he has no intent of keeping it. He is nearly down the rope when another light flash hits, causing Locke to fall to the bottom of the well and suffer a compound fracture in his lower leg. The well is gone, leaving those above ground to shout and wonder what has become of Locke. Below ground, Lock hears foot steps and who approaches but freaking Christian Shepard, father of Jack (and Claire) who has been popping up mysteriously all over the island for a couple of seasons now even though he’s dead (I think). Christian actually talks as if he is Jacob, the mysterious and usually invisible leader of the Others who gave Locke the order to move the island last season. Christian chastises Locke for allowing Ben to be the one to actually move the island and when Locke counter that Ben knew how to move it and told Locke he needed to stay and lead the Others, Christian sarcastically remarks, “When did listening to him (Ben) get you anywhere worth a damn?” He then tells Locke that he must somehow get up off the ground, hobble on his broken leg around the corner of the rocky cave wall and push a wheel that looks eerily similar to the one that Ben pushed last year to move the island. Christian makes sure Locke feels he is ready to bring everyone who left the island back, tells him to see a woman named Eloise Hawking when he rounds up all those who left the island and then has him push the wheel, setting off another flash whose result we don’t know, although prior evidence would suggest it returned Locke to civilization. Speaking of civilization, how about the meeting on the pier between Ben, Jack, Kate and Sayid? At the beginning of this episode, Sun crashes the meeting, gun drawn, following a conversation on her cell phone with her daughter back in Japan while she sat in the car with Aaron. When Sun gets out, she’s all business, pointing the gun right at Ben’s head and fully intending to shoot him until Ben drops the bombshell that her husband is still awake. He promises to prove it to her once they drive half an hour across the city to see someone who will tell them how to return to the island. At this point, Sayid and Kate have heard enough and both leave, with Kate and Sayid both threatening Jack and Ben to leave them alone. Left with those two, Sun elects to hear Ben out and take the ride with he and Jack to meet this mystery woman. After a tense van ride in which Ben jerks the van to the side of the road like an angry parent lecturing two bickering kids in the back of the car because Sun and Jack are bad-mouthing him and Jack tells Sun that he agrees with her that killing Ben would be a smart move, given what he did to Kate in trying to take Aaron from her. Ben angrily tells them that if they knew all he had done to protect them and the rest of the Oceanic Six, likely from Charles Widmore, they would never stop thanking him. Once they reach their destination, Ben presents Sun with Jin’s wedding ring, which he gave to Locke before Locke left the island with instructions to tell Sun that he was dead so she wouldn’t go back to the island just for him. Of course, in the present, Locke is dead and so Ben tells Sun about Jin specifically for that reason, to get her to go back to the island. Outside of the church that is their destination, they meet up with Desmond, who we learned last week was heading to L.A. to find Daniel Faraday’s mother. Connecting the dots, it would seem that Eloise Hawking is Daniel’s mother. She is also the same woman Desmond met in a jewelry store in England last season, who told Des that his destiny was to end up on the island. She’s also the woman who told Ben earlier this season that he had 70 hours to gather the Oceanic Six to return to the island. She occupies the underground lair under the church sanctuary where there are Dharma Initiative/island-like computer and a giant pendulum which somehow ties into finding the island. When the group of Desmond, Jack, Ben and Sun walks into the church, she wonders where the rest of them are and when Ben says this was all he could get on short notice, Eloise surprisingly says that the four of them will do - for now. In the final line of the episode, she tells them it’s “time to get started.” On what, I don’t know exactly, have to wait until next week to find out…….
- Y’know, a while back I openly mocked FarmersOnly, a dating site for farmers with the hokiest, lamest commercials and a truly laughable premise. Now that there are tales of people actually finding love through the site, what do I do? Do I reconsider, double back and admit I may have been wrong? Of course not. You may be able to travel to places like Martinsville, Ind., and find people like Janelle Somerville, who grew up on a farm and continues to live the farming lifestyle. People like Somerville may have used the site, met a couple of men that have turned into good friends and may still be using the site to look for "the one." None of that makes me stop laughing when I think of flannel-clad farmers hopping off their John Deere tractors, moseying up to the farmhouse and hopping online to see how many hits they have on their FarmersOnly page before going back down to the kitchen for some country-fried steak, gravy, biscuits and peach pie. Kudos to Jerry Miller, founder of FarmersOnly, for coming up with a concept that both makes money for him and gives me something to mock, just don’t think this is anything other than really, really funny. Conceptually, the angle for the site is that people who live and work on farms are out in the field all day and tend to live in very rural areas where there aren’t many potential suitors and where they already know everyone anyhow. Miller claims to have gotten the idea for the site from a friend in just such a situation, and judging by the response to the site in the three years since it launched, there are indeed a lot of lonely farmers out there. In those three years, the site has gone from 2,000 members to more than 100,000. According to Miller, more than 75 couples have gotten married thanks to the site. He also insists that it’s not just for farmers, but is for anyone who enjoys a laid-back, country lifestyle and rural values. Should you want to see what this site is all about and get a good laugh, you can hit up a three-day trial membership for free. If you’re actually a lonely, desperate farmer in need of the site’s services, memberships cost $15 a month or $45 a year. Of course, the laughs about the site’s existence are always free……
- Memo to stoner athletes, er, student athletes who like to get baked: leave the weed at home when your team goes on a road trip. Learn from the example of New Mexico State freshman basketball player Terrance Joyner, who was arrested after authorities discovered marijuana inside his luggage as the team departed on a two-game road trip to Utah State and Nevada. Joyner was arrested after security agents at the airport in El Paso, Tex. found 1½ marijuana cigarettes inside a checked bag belonging to him. Look, I get that you like to roll a fattie, smoke it in your dorm room or apartment and take the edge off of a tough day. It’s illegal, but I understand the urge and honestly, I don’t have a problem with it. If you can get baked and get away with it, props to you. But why on Earth would you think that you can slam your joints into your travel bag on a road trip and get away with it? You know you’re going through airport security, you know they could have drug-sniffing dogs checking the luggage. Also, where on the trip are you going to go to smoke those joints? Can’t do it in your hotel room; coaches do rooms checks and someone would smell it. What, are you going to duck into the bathroom when the team is having a meal at Chili’s and take a few puffs? Don’t think someone would notice your red, glassy eyes afterward? Leave the joints at home and you won't be arrested and charged with marijuana possession. Besides, look at where you’re flying out of: El Paso. I know stoners aren’t renowned for their intelligence and geographic savvy, but allow me to help you potheads out. El Paso is literally right on the freaking U.S. border with Mexico, i.e. a place where the authorities tend to be a little more focused on finding drugs. Also funny about this situation is that school officials said Joyner had been suspended indefinitely after “violating undisclosed team rules.” Really, what rules? What rules could he have possibly broken? How can you have a problem with guys rolling with joints in their bags and getting arrested? The one silver lining for the team and coach Melvin Menzies is that Joyner is only a bit player, averaging 2.1 points and 11.7 minutes in 14 games since being cleared academically for the second semester. Yup, dude was academically ineligible to play in the first semester, how odd. A stoner who isn’t so great at school, amazing…….
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