- Bad writing, terrible acting and ridiculous plot be
damned, “Fast & Furious 6” will ride on in the top spot at the box office
for another weekend. The ode to fast cars and hot women made $34.5 million in
its second weekend and has now brought in $170.4 million in domestic earnings. “Now You
See Me” ranked second in its debut with $28 million outduel fellow newcomer
and latest crappy post-apocalyptic Will Smith movie “After Earth,” which
claimed third place on the strength of a $27 million weekend. Animated flick
“Epic” came in fourth with $16.5 million, raising its disappointing two-week
haul to $65.1 million. “Star Trek Into Darkness” slipped two spots to fifth with
$16.4 million, but has brought in $181.1 million in domestic earnings in three
weeks. The second-week fall was a precipitous one for “The Hangover Part III,”
as it tumbled from second to sixth place and could manage just $15.9 million to
increase its total take to $88 million. Robert Downey Jr.’s strong run
continued as “Iron Man 3” added another $8 million to its bank roll to increase
its five-week total to $384.7 million. Big names abounded in the bottom half of
the top 10 as Leonardo DiCaprio’s “The Great Gatsby” landed in eighth place on
the earnings list with $6.3 million. In four weeks of work, the Baz Luhrmann drama has made $128.3 million and already made $23 million
in profits based on its domestic earnings alone. It was another solid weekend
for the Matthew McConaughey indie drama “Mud,” with $1.2 million in earnings
despite showing in just 581 theaters. Through six weeks of limited release, it
has now tallied $16.8 million. “The Croods” completed the top 10 with
$615,000 and has made $180.5 million through 11 weeks, while “42” (No. 12)
dropped out from last weekend’s top 10…….
- Have you ever wanted to attend an intimate and personal
seminar on how to get your ass kicked and embarrass your political party in a
presidential election? If so, then your golden opportunity has arrived. Failed Republican presidential candidate and
walking advertisement for what would happen if you took the people in the L.L.
Bean catalog and removed any actual coolness in their being Mitt Romney will
host a private retreat in Utah this week for three potential GOP presidential
candidates. The "Experts and Enthusiasts" event will launch its
nonstop kegger of a two-day run Thursday in Park City with New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in
attendance along with some 200 Romney supporters. No one is quite sure what
sort of political obstacle course Romney will put the three men through, but
how to alienate female voters and minorities is the only area Romney is truly
qualified to instruct. Potential 2016 GOP candidates who will not attend
include Sen. Mario Rubio of Florida, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania
and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. It’s unclear if they simply were not invited
or had the good sense to look back at the electoral college numbers from November
and wisely ask, “Why the hell would I spend two days in Utah with Mitt Romney
and what could I possibly learn from that ass hat?” Either way, Romney and his
crew have guarded the invitation list closely and the only details about the
invitations are that invitees received an email detailing the "variety of
unique industry, political and thought leaders" coming to the retreat. For
the privilege of attending, these fools will pay $5,000 and that will give them
to chance to hang out with corporate and academic leaders and political figures
such as including President Barack Obama's strategist, David Axelrod and
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper………
- Give David Beckham credit for stating the blatantly obvious. The newly
retired soccer star, who announced his retirement on May 16 and played in his
last professional game as Paris St. Germain beat Brest two days later at the
Parc des Princes, is now 38 years old and needs to figure out what to do with
the rest of his life – other than be rich, good-looking and married to an
former pop singer who never seems to smile in public. One of his options could
be a partial ownership stake in a new Major League Soccer team in Miami, an
opportunity the former England captain called"exciting"
after touring sports facilities in the area Saturday. Beckham met with
representatives of the Miami-Dade Sports Commission in between enjoying beach
and fine-dining opportunities in Miami and said the potential of plunking some
of his tens of millions of dollars into a sports franchise in south Florida was
intriguing. "I think bringing an MLS team here to South Florida would be
exciting," Beckham said. "I think Miami fans are very passionate
about the sport and about winning and of course, it would have to be success
but it’s definitely exciting." In other words, this would give me a
legitimate excuse to spend more time hanging out in Miami and that’s never a
bad thing. Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose Diaz is part of the push for a
Miami-based MLS team and insisted that "there is huge political
support" to put an MLS team in South Florida. Beckham and billionaire
Marcelo Claure visited Sun Life Stadium and the football stadium at Florida
International University on Saturday and it is Claure who has unsuccessfully
tried in the past to return the MLS to South Florida. Beckham also attended a
sporting event people do give a damn about, Game 5 of the NBA Eastern
Conference finals, and was given a key to Miami-Dade County on Saturday by
Mayor Carlos Gimenez. There is no agreement for Beckham to be a part of any
ownership group and the state of Florida does not currently have a team in MLS,
after both the Tampa Bay Mutiny and the Miami Fusion were cut from the league
in 2001 as part of a restructuring by the league. Aside from those trying to
organize an ownership group for a new franchise, there doesn’t seem to be a
huge push to change that arrangement…….
- HTC is doing its best to keep a clamp on plans for its
next big smartphone offering, but details are gradually leaking out. Numerous
reports have claimed the tech company is set to release a 5.9-inch smartphone in the
second half of the year as a sizeable upgrade on the HTC One. Details for a
project code-named T6 include that 5.9-inch s1080p HD display, a quad-core
2.3GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and a rear-facing camera that
uses the same "ultrapixel" image processing found in the HTC One. The
beefed-up processer and massive screen appear to be the chief selling points
and given the buzz around Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 chipset, it is the most
likely choice to power a device that could straddle the line between smartphone
and tablet more than anything before it. The screen size would put the T6 in
the same category as Samsung's much-anticipated Galaxy Note 3. The T6 is also
expected to be powered by Android Key Lime Pie and boast a large 3,300mAh
battery, a digital stylus, a refreshed version of Sense UI with a more customizable
Blinkfeed experience and the rare addition of a microSD expansion slot. To make
the device more appealing both aesthetically and power-wise, HTC is reportedly
working on a protective case with an additional 1,250mAh of battery life.
Previous reports have suggested that HTC plans to introduce an M4 smartphone in
June and should be prepared to unveil an updated take on the Butterfly handset
within a few months, both of which could further perpetuate the perception that
its recent downturn in sales and profitability is over. The HTC One has helped
shift that paradigm, selling 5 million units after slow sales following its
debut. A Google version of the HTC One is also on the horizon and a Verizon
version could follow……..
- It’s finally here, Russia. At long last, the communist
regime that rules the country with an iron fist has dropped a smoking ban on a
country with a long and leathery-faced history of choking down cancer sticks.
The law went into effect Saturday and bans smoking on public transport, at airports, in railway
stations, in schools, on university campuses, at hospitals and a number of other
social institutions. Oh, and cigarette ads will disappear from Russian streets.
Not surprisingly, banning smoking in virtually all public settings, including children’s
playgrounds, has ruffled some feathers in Russia. Thankfully, the government
has a storied history of not giving a damn what the people think and Health
Minister Veronika Skvortsova reinforced that point at a news conference announcing
the new law. “Children begin to smoke very early in our country, sometimes as
early as age 10,” Skvortsova said. “That concerns not just boys, but girls too
– they do not stop when they get pregnant later. And as a consequence, we
have orphanages with deeply sick and retarded children.” She claimed the ban is
expected to save 200,000 lives a year and whether that claim is true or not is
irrelevant because, well, smoking sucks. Enforcing the ban will be a challenge,
as 55 percent of men and 16 percent of women smoke daily in Russia, according
to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Compare those
figures to 17 percent and 13 in the United States and the scope of the problem
becomes clearer. Smoking is also much cheaper in Russia, where a pack of lung
darts retails for between $1.50 and $2.50. Smokers huddle outside theaters and
on the stairs of apartment and office buildings even in the throes of the
interminably long Russian winter. With the ban, smoking advertisements will
also be forbidden in all Russian-made movies and even cartoons, including
classics with pipe-smoking characters. Famous smokers both real and fake,
including Gena, a pipe-smoking animated crocodile who is beloved by millions of
Russians, Joseph Stalin and Sherlock-Homes all must face the difficult reality
of a smoke-free Russia. Here’s hoping the government is its typical oppressive
self in enforcing the law………
No comments:
Post a Comment