- What were Americans doing over the holiday weekend? Not
seeing movies, that’s for sure. “Transformers: Age of Extinction” once
again boat-raced the field, but saw its earnings dip 63 percent to $36.4
million. That gives Michael Bay’s latest bloated blockbuster $174.7 million
domestically through two weeks. Newcomer “Tammy” overcame a pathetic plot and
terrible writing to earn $21.2 million in its debut, snagging second place
without much competition. “Deliver Us From Evil” demonized its way to third
place with a $9.5 million debut of its own, putting it close to earning back
its modest $15 million budget. Fourth place went to “22 Jump Street,” which
just missed beating out “Evil” and added $9.4 million to its coffers for a
four-week domestic bank roll of $158.8 million. “How to Train Your Dragon 2”
snagged fifth place with $8.8 million, putting the animated epic on the
precipice of profitability with $140 million in earnings in four weeks and a
$145 million budget to earn back. The third new film in the top 10 was “Earth
to Echo,” recipient of $8.3 million in its first weekend of release and the
sixth-place finisher for the frame. “Maleficent” ranked seventh with $6.1
million in its sixth weekend, upping its impressive domestic earnings total to
$213.8 million and continuing its run as Angelina Jolie’s biggest film yet. In
eighth place was “Jersey Boys,” which added a modest $5.2 million to its tally
for a three-week haul of $36.7 million. The free fall continued for “Think Like
a Man Too,” which plummeted another five spots and 52 percent to ninth place
with $4.9 million. Despite sucking exponentially, the Kevin Hart-led comedy has
banked $57.2 million in three weeks at the local multiplex. “Edge of Tomorrow”
hung on for the final spot in the top 10, earning another $3.7 million. In five
weeks, Tom Cruise’s latest has brought in $90.8 million and counting. “The
Fault in Our Stars” (No. 12), “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (No. 13) and “Chef”
(No. 14) all dropped out from last weekend’s top 10……….
- Hey Egypt…wanna get your drink on? Be prepared to pay big
time. President
Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a former military chief elected last month, is looking
to squash your buzz with a massive price hike on beer that could turn
frost-brewed goodness into a more valuable commodity than oil. With a sweeping
decree, the president raised the sales tax on beer by 200 percent and upped the
tax on cigarettes by a relatively paltry 50 percent. Increasing taxes on lung
darts is never a bad idea and a 250-percent hike would have been perfectly
acceptable, but one has to wonder if dealing with Egypt’s troubled economy by
making beer virtually un-affordable to the masses is worth it. The tax hikes
are the latest in a series of recent decrees that aim to address Egypt's
staggering budget deficit, which has hovered at around 12 percent over the past
three years of turmoil. Sure, el-Sissi was elected on the strength of promises
to make the tough decisions necessary to help the country's battered economy, but
being a wet blanket for the many keggers and ragers sure to be going on across
Egypt on any given weekend is a bad way to start one’s time in office. Perhaps
realizing that the move would not go over well, el-Sissi tried to
counterbalance his decision by partially lifting subsidies on fuel, a
politically sensitive issue that Egypt's previous leaders had avoided. Still,
in a country where 50 percent of the population lives in poverty, a nice, cold
beer every now and then is a welcome relief from the harsh realities of
everyday life……….
- Josh Gordon will not be playing NFL football any time
soon. The über-talented, über-troubled Cleveland
Browns wide receiver is already facing a possible one-season suspension for a
second failed drug test and with a hearing on that case set for later this
month, let’s just say Gordon isn't cleaning up his act and making a case for
himself as a responsible citizen. Instead, he was arrested and charged with
driving while impaired after speeding down a street in Raleigh, N.C. Police
spokesman Jim Sughrue confirmed that Gordon was taken into custody at Wake
County Detention Center after being pulled over for going 50 mph in a 35 mph
zone on U.S. 70 in northwest Raleigh around 3 a.m. Saturday. That standard for
DWI in North Carolina is for a person to be "appreciably impaired,”
although police did not confirm what substances were found to be in Gordon’s
system. He was (allegedly) drunk with a blood-alcohol level of .09, and he
admitted to having three drinks with vodka. Gordon's agent Drew Rosenhaus
said he had no comment about the arrest and Browns general manager Ray Farmer
said he found out about the arrest hours after it happened. "We are aware
of the matter and are disappointed to learn of this situation. We will comment
further at the appropriate time," Farmer said in a statement. Further
adding to the shadiness of Gordon’s arrest is the fact that the person who paid
his $500 bond was identified as Haydn "Fats" Thomas, a convicted
felon who pleaded guilty to gun and drug charges in November. Tack all of
this onto Gordon’s previous two-game suspension by the NFL last season for
using codeine and a player who led the league in receiving yards by a wide
margin last season seems destined to not catch a single pass this season……….
- This is not going to help white folks’ case that they
don’t ignorantly think all black people look the same. If a prison inmate can
simply switch identities with a fellow inmate and walk out the door of his
temporary home, then maybe it’s time to keep a closer eye on the guys in orange
jumpsuits. The escapee in question is Chris
Bowden, who prison officials say assumed the identity of another inmate and
walked out of the Hamilton County Justice Center. According to the
sheriff's office, Bowden and Darius Dabney pulled the identity switch and
Bowden walked out pretending to be Dabney, even wearing his clothes. Bowden was
already in jail for aggravated robbery and was supposed to be in court on a gun
charge, but he hatched his plot and to break free and when Dabney's bond was
posted, Bowden simply strolled out the front door as a free man. "At least
five individuals, including supervisors, touched that paperwork, scrutinized
the documents, scrutinized the individual that's being released. We have
procedures in place that help us identify each and every inmate. We release
hundreds of people from the jail; this is a very unique occurrence,” said Maj.
Charmaine McGuffey of the Hamilton County Sheriff's office. Finding Bowden is
something of a priority, as last week he was sentenced to 10 years in prison
for aggravated robbery. He was hanging around the justice center because he was
awaiting transfer because of the scheduled court appearance for the gun charge.
Now, authorities have added a felony charge of escape to his ledger. Police
aren’t sure if Dabney helped Bowden escape, but Dabney did try something
similar back in 2012 when he was arrested and misled a police officer by giving
police his brother's name. Go ahead and assume these two criminal masterminds
were both in on this caper………
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