- The big dollars were at the top of the box office earnings
race this weekend, with the scraps all that remained for films outside the top
two spots on the list. “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” padded its impressive
domestic start with $74.5 million and through 10 days of release, it has banked
$296.5 million and counting. “Frozen” was red-hot in its second weekend, going
from über-limited release to wide release and making $66.7 million for an overall
tally of $94 million. “Thor: The Dark World” fell one spot to third, finishing
well off the pace at $11.1 million for a three-week total of $186.7 million. Fourth
place went to “The Best Man Holiday” with $8.5 million and the über-awful movie
has somehow managed to earn $63.4 million after three weeks of release. “Homefront”
snagged fifth place in its debut, managing just $7 million against a modest
budget of $22 million. The bomb-tastic Vince Vaughn comedy “Delivery Man” was
close behind in sixth place, scratching out $6.9 million for a two-week total
of $19.4 million. “The Book Thief” stole its way to seventh place as it went
from limited to wide release, with its earnings skyrocketing 700 percent to
$4.9 million. “Black Nativity” opened in eighth place with a scant $3.8
million, edging out ninth-place finisher “Philomena,” which was close behind in
ninth place at $3.7 million after adding 831 theaters to its opening weekend
stable of four. “The Geezer Hangover,” a.k.a. “Last Vegas,” claimed the last
spot in the top 10 with $2.7 million and has amassed $58.7 million in five
weeks in theaters. “Gravity” (No. 11), “Dallas Buyers Club” (No. 12), “12 Years
Slave” (No. 13), “Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa” (No. 14) and “Free Birds” (No.
15) all lost their spots in the top 10 this weekend………
- Where is Hollywood going to set its cheesy, syrupy
romantic dramas about forbidden love between hunky dance instructors and
privileged young women now? The Catskills Mountains, once the fictional setting
for such movies as “Dirty Dancing,” has long been the home of popular resorts
for the rich and famous. Its collection of iconic resorts was once the envy of
many, but no longer. The last of those resorts has been sold to a company that plans to
turn the property into a healthy living resort. Sullivan County economic
development officials confirmed that the sale of Kutscher's Country Club was
finalized last week, signaling the end of an era in some ways. Generations past
would flock to the area for summer and winter getaways and some famous performers
would also make a swing through the Catskills to do shows for the upper class.
The entire region became a tourist destination known for its lavish hotels and
getaways, but now it will be known for seaweed wraps and wheat grass juice
smoothies. The buyer of the resort, Veria Lifestyle, plans to transform the
1,300-acre property into a $90 million destination offering yoga, golf, tennis
and other healthy activities. Its proximity to New York City- just 75 miles –
made the resort one of the most famous of the "Borscht Belt" hotels
in the Catskills, attracting many Jewish families who escaped the city in the
summer to get away from the sweltering, overcrowded Manhattan scene. The Kutscher
family owned the century-old resort for decades and brought in such musical and
comedic luminaries as Milton Berle, Jerry Seinfeld and Tony Bennett………..
- On the surface, electronic cigarettes should be a relatively
positive development. They’re completely lame and ridiculous, but they’re an
upgrade over the alternative of actual lung darts that produce toxic smoke and
its many undesirable side effects. Still, not everyone is sold on them and that’s
why, as the federal government is taking its sweet time deciding on how to
regulate faux cancer sticks, colleges and universities across the country are
forging ahead with their own rules about e-cigs on campus. Schools such as Missouri
State University, Idaho State University and the University of Texas have all
enacted new policies on e-cigarettes and such products soon will be prohibited
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and all campuses in the
University of California system. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, in the epicenter of tobacco country, the university merely “discourages” their
use. The patchwork quilt of policies at schools across the country stems
largely from the lack of a consensus among scientists and public health experts
as to what exactly e-cigs are, what their long-term impact on health may be and
how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should regulate them. “The products
are relatively new, but the science about them has been developing,” said Karen
Williams, the assistant director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and
Education at the University of California, San Francisco. “I think it’s really
just a matter of time as everyone learns about the products before all
universities take the step to prohibit them on campus.” One can only hope that
Williams is correct because few things are more pathetic than would-be smokers
puffing on battery-powered cigarette substitutes that heat tobacco-derived
nicotine and other chemicals into a vapor that the user inhales. If the FDA
chooses to regulate e-cigarettes, they would become subject to the same age,
marketing and packaging restrictions that apply to traditional cigarettes,
hopefully with the same ugly social stigma as well………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! The uprising is on in Thailand,
where nearly 30,000
protesters launched a "people's coup" on the government over the
weekend, swarming state agencies in violent clashes, seizing control of a state
broadcaster and forcing the prime minister to flee a police compound. It was a
truly inspiring scene that featured skirmishes between protesters hurling
stones and Molotov cocktails against riot police firing back with tear gas. Any
time Molotov cocktails are involved, that day has to be considered a win for
all involved, even if the rioters failed to breach heavily barricaded
Government House, office of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. "They
haven't seized a single place," said National Security Council Chief
Paradorn Pattanathabutr. The chaos in Bangkok included the breaching of a
police line, the epic seizure of seven police trucks and the prime minister
fleeing to an undisclosed location. As the first day of riots wound down, small
fires burned from Molotov cocktails that landed by police trucks and rioters
used bottled water to wash tear gas from their eyes as they tried to tear down
barbed wire fences erected to restrain them. The day’s events underscored the
depth of the ongoing conflict between Bangkok's urban middle class and royalist
elite and the mostly rural poor supporters of Yingluck and her billionaire
brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister ousted in a 2006 military
coup. For those without a stake in the battle, the showdown is a delightful
cornucopia of rage with a soundtrack of stun grenades and the chants of angry
mobs echoing across Bangkok’s historic government quarter. Sunday’s protests
left four people dead and at least 57 wounded, with police spokesman Piya Utayo
saying troops would forcibly dislodge protesters who have occupied a government
complex since Thursday and the Finance Ministry since Monday. Shinawatra
reportedly fled her compound after protesters made it inside the outer wall.
Much of the day’s drama centered outside Wat Benjamabhopit, also known as the
Marble Temple, where rioters attempted to move concrete barriers as police
retaliated with tear gas. Another 3,000 demonstrators massed outside the
Metropolitan Police Bureau, accusing riot-clad police of being manipulated by
the government………..
- Rivalry Saturday in college football delivered the goods
on multiple fronts, from dramatic endings in important games to brawls between
players intent on securing a win over their most bitter enemies. There were
fights during the Ohio State-Michigan and Georgia-Georgia Tech games and
fantastic finishes across the country, but perhaps no one was angrier than TCU coach Gary Patterson after his team’s
41-38 loss to Baylor. Patterson took a verbal sledgehammer to Baylor coach Art
Briles on Saturday over events surrounding the ejection of Bears safety and
senior captain Ahmad Dixon in the third quarter of the contest. Dixon was
disqualified after a penalty for targeting Horned Frogs receiver Trevone Boykin
and the play triggered a heated exchange between Patterson and Briles on the
field. Patterson was still boiling mad afterward and unlike Briles, he had no
interest in avoiding the situation in his post-game news conference. "To
come across the field to me ... he's picking on the wrong guy," Patterson
said. "You're not going to come across to me. You can go correct your
player, not me. If that's what class is, then I don't want to be it."
Because the ejection occurred in the second half of the game, Dixon will also
have to sit out the first half of Baylor's regular-season finale against
visiting Texas. "Here's the bottom line," Patterson said. "No. 6
beats a guy up at the beginning of the season and he doesn't get suspended or
anything. He takes a shot. I want him kicked out." That wholly irrelevant
incident to which Patterson alluded is Dixon’s arrest in September for
misdemeanor assault after an apparent altercation at a Waco apartment. Charges
are pending in the case, which apparently makes Dixon’s troubles fair game for
Patterson. Specifically, the coach took issue with Dixon laughing on the
sidelines after his hit to Boykin. Should Dixon or his coach have an issue with
Patterson’s words, the coach at Texas CHRISTIAN University wants them to know
he’s ready for a fight. "So the bottom line is, we're not going to do
that. Here's where I live. Gary Patterson lives in Fort Worth, if he's got a
problem with me,” Patterson said, adding in an epic third-person
self-referential shot……..
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