- The beauty of the Paranormal Activity franchise was on full display this weekend, as beautiful as a terrifying horror movie can be anyhow. One staple of the series is a small film budget, which Paranormal Activity 3 came through on by costing just $5 million to make. The second part of the equation is a massive profit, which the series’ third installment is also well on its way to making that happen after a $54 million debut in domestic earnings alone. That was nearly five times the total of runner-up Real Steel (Let’s make some monnnnnnneeyyyyyyy!), which managed just $11.3 million in its third weekend of release to boost its cumulative domestic total to $67.2 million. The totally unnecessary and awful remake of Footloose landed in third place with $10.9 million and has somehow bilked tasteless moviegoers out of $30.8 million in two weekends in theaters. Fourth place went to newcomer The Three Musketeers, which made $8.8 million and in the process bolstered the case of star Mila Jovovich, who blasted Summit Entertainment earlier last week for not promoting the film enough and shifting its marketing muscle behind the upcoming Twilight sequel. The final spot in the top five went to The Ides of March, which continued to disappoint by raking in just $4.9 million and has scored a total of $29.1 million in domestic earnings through three weeks. That quintet at the top was followed by: Dolphin Tale (still awful, still cheesy and yet still hanging around at No. 6 with $4.2 million and with a five-week total of $64.4 million), Moneyball (No. 7 with $4.1 million and $63.7 million in domestic earnings after five weeks in theaters), gawd-awful newcomer Johnny English Reborn (No. 8 with a measly $3.8 million in its opening weekend), The Thing (in the No. 9 spot with $3.1 million and a paltry $14.1 million domestically after two weeks) and the Seth Rogen-led 50/50 (No. 10 with $2.8 million and $28.8 million overall). The two films dropping out of the top 10 from last weekend were Courageous (No. 11) and The Lion King (in 3D) (No. 12)…………
- All of a sudden, billboards are extremely offensive to a whole lot of people. Clearly, not everyone just blows right past them on the expressway or driving through the city because if that were the case then this next story would not be happening. Less than two weeks after an uproar in Pittsburgh over an image of a silhouette being hanged on a billboard advertising a haunted house, the good (and oversensitive) people of Bridgeport, Ct. are in a tizzy over a new billboard in the city’s Black Rock neighborhood. The billboard reads simple, “Got drunk?” in black and red lettering against a plain white backdrop, with the contact information for a local law firm below. What message is Ganim Law Firm trying to send? "The purpose of the board was to raise awareness of bad decisions being made by good people and the opportunities they have to be properly represented in a court of law. Again, in no way was the billboard intended to promote or encourage the misuse of alcohol. With that in mind, The Ganim law Firm, P.C. and Park Group Solutions, LLC have made a conscious decision to remove the billboard immediately in order to rectify any and all misunderstandings regarding the nature of the message on this billboard. We apologize to anyone that this may have offended," the firm explained in a written statement. Some quality legal speak from a law firm right there, no doubt. Unfortunately, a vocal minority amongst Bridgeport residents have neither a sense of humor nor an extra IQ point to spare and they have vociferously argued that the billboard is sending the wrong message to everybody, including kids. These kooks have argued that children are hearing the message that it is okay to drive drunk as long as you can hire a good lawyer. First off, any child dumb enough to believe that a lawyer you hire after finding your drunk ass finds their name on a billboard has bigger problems anyhow. Secondly, the real complaint to be levied against the billboard is that we’re about a decade past the “Got milk?” ad campaign and trying to parody it at this point is far more offensive than the message itself. So if you want to complain, at least direct your ire in the correction direction………….
- Unlimited music on your Android tablet? Umm, not exactly, but you can now have Music Unlimited on your tablet. After initially being available only on Android phones, Music Unlimited catalog of more than 10 million tracks will now be accessible for owners of Android tablets. With Spotify, MOG, Rdio, and Rhapsody battling it out for the top spot amongst on-demand music providers, Music Unlimited will have a major fight on its hands to grab market share. It is currently available in the U.S., France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand and debuted a new version this week. Version 1.2 of Music Unlimited features compatibility with Android tablets as well as the Sony Tablet S, along with an enhanced user interface. Among the improvements to the service in the new version are: faster playlist creation; easier discovery of related artists/songs; quicker navigation between album and catalog views and enhanced search results. Sony will have two types of monthly subscriptions for Music Unlimited, including $3.99 basic and $9.99 premium plans. "Sony Tablet users who are first-time subscribers to the Music Unlimited service can get a 180-day trial of the Basic subscription plan," according to an official statement. A free 30-day trial is also available for anyone who isn't sold on the service and wants to try it out before making the jump from Spotify or Rhapsody, or merely to find a new way to pirate music from a bigger pool of songs……….
- An international spy scandal with Cold War ties? Is it Christmas already? The news could not be better - at least outside of Germany and Russia - with the revelation that German police have arrested a pair of suspected foreign agents accused of operating as Russian spies since the days of the Cold War, according to prosecutors. The Federal Prosecutor's Office said the two were arrested in a police raid on their home in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Hesse state Tuesday. Prosecutors issued a statement Friday explaining that the pair "are suspected of having worked in Germany over a long period of time for a foreign intelligence agency." German media outlets then reported that the suspects are a Russian couple allegedly spying in Germany since 1988 and were arrested following a tip from the FBI, which had uncovered a ring of Russian spies in the U.S. last year. In a fairly obvious tip-off, the woman was reportedly caught listening to coded messages. It’s a hobby precious few people engage in simply for fun any more, so the FBI became suspicious and began investigating. The couple had German names and Austrian passports listing the man's birthplace as Argentina and the woman's as Peru even though neither of them looked all that South American. According to media reports, investigators believe the couple began spying in Germany for the former Soviet KGB (gotta love Cold War relics like the KGB) and more recently for Russian foreign intelligence (SVR). As is to be expected, no one is commenting on the situation and the suspects have denied the charges against them. The Russian government and SVR are also refusing comment. "We will leave these reports without comments," SVR spokesman Sergei Ivanov stated tersely. All right then…………
- Jamie Moyer is like the villain in a bad horror movie, except for the fact that he hasn’t killed anyone….and also that he doesn’t lurk outside people’s homes with various deadly weapons in the middle of the night. But just like those movie villains, you simply cannot kill Moyer when it comes to being a viable Major League Baseball starting pitcher. Moyer, the definition of a crafty left-hander who gets by on guts, guile and mental acuity, missed the entire 2011 season following Tommy John surgery on his left elbow. The surgery has ended the careers of much younger players, but after spending the year working as a studio analyst, Moyer remains focused on returning to the major leagues for the 2012 season and is reportedly on track to do so. Moyer is making e steady progress in his ongoing recovery and despite turning 49 years old next month, he plans to begin contacting big league clubs within the next couple of weeks to gauge interest. While no team is likely to give any sort of guaranteed contract to a 49-year-old pitcher coming off Tommy John surgery, Moyer should be able to find at least a few teams willing to give him an invitation to spring training. “There will be naysayers, but they’ve been there my whole career,” Moyer said last week. “I don’t let them affect me in a negative way. If anything, I turn it into a positive. If this were the middle of July, I’d be at the stage where one more good bullpen session and I’d be ready to go out on a [minor-league] rehab assignment. I’ve gone through this rehab knowing that my arm and body will stop me if they have to. So far they haven’t.” No, no one has stopped Moyer and he did post a 4.84 ERA and nine wins in 2010. He’ll be back and looking to add to his 267 career wins next spring…………
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