- Deal with it, local South Korean theater owners. You may
not like 20th
Century Fox Korea’s announcement that “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” will open in South Korean
theaters on July 10 instead of on July 16, but you should know as well as
anyone that movies are big business and whatever will earn more money for the
major studios is what will happen. Sure, the change came at the last minute and
totally gives the shaft to smaller movies that would have shown on theaters and
screens across the country, but that is no reason for the whiners of the Korea
Film Producers Association to file an official complaint regarding the matter.
"This abrupt change in the release date for such a big-budget Hollywood
blockbuster goes against film business ethics. This gives way to not only chaos
in the basic order of the film market but also great damage for others,"
the association said in a statement. "We urge that the film's distributor
20th Century Fox Korea immediately cancels this unconventional release and help
lead the way for a healthy film distribution market.” Simply put, 20th Century Fox does not
give a damn about local distributors and filmmakers in a country that isn't
exactly a major movie market. Films like current Korean box office king “The
Divine Move,” which was strategically released two weeks ahead of “Planet of
the Apes” and a week after “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” will obviously
take a huge hit in light of this news, but that’s the way the film industry
works. According to 20th Century Fox Korea, the expedited release for “Apes”
came thanks to a sooner-than-expected approval from the Korea Media Rating
Board. It seems everyone involved can smell the money to be made and is acting
accordingly……….
- Police officers should aspire to never, ever go viral on
YouTube. When a person ends up on YouTube and becomes a sensation, it’s
typically because they did something extremely unusual and possibly asinine…or
that they are a meddlesome cat whose owner has nothing better to do than walk
around the house filming them doing inane sh*t. For a cop, anything done on the
job that earns 1 million YouTube views has a 0 percent chance of being
positive. An unidentified California Highway Patrol officer who became an Internet
sensation late last week is about to go through the public and professional
meat grinder for this reason….or because he was caught on video repeatedly
punching a pinned-down woman on the side of a Los Angeles freeway. The woman
did need to be dealt with, as she was walking on Interstate 10 west of downtown
Los Angeles, endangering herself and people in traffic, but dealing with her
and going MMA on her ass are two different things. CHP Assistant Chief Chris
O'Quinn explained that the officer was attempting to restrain the woman after
she started to walk off the roadway but returned when the confrontation began.
O’Quinn promised a thorough investigation of the matter and that investigation
will owe much to passing motorist David Diaz, who saw the incident unfolding
and wisely whipped out his smartphone to capture the action. In the video, the
woman is seen struggling and attempting to sit up while the officer punches her
in the face and head until an off-duty law enforcement officer appears and
helps him handcuff her. Witnesses reported that the CHP officer seem to
exacerbate the tension with his actions and local civil rights leaders quickly
pounced on the incident. "Speaking for the women of this community, we are
angry, we are upset," said Lita Herron of the Youth Advocacy Coalition.
The woman in the video refused to give her name and is undergoing psychiatric
evaluation, according to O’Quinn……….
- Get it, Bolivia. And by it, we mean child labor. Bolivia's Congress has done what it needed to do when it comes
to getting the tiny moochers who so often sit around doing pointless crap like
learning to read, do math and figure out what they might want to be when they
grow up. That free ride ends now for Bolivia’s children thanks to legislators
passing a bill that will allow children as young age 10 to work as long as it
does not interfere with their education and is done independently to help the
child's family make ends meet. Better still, this bold piece of legislation lowers
the legal working age to 12 — again, as long the job does not interfere with
the child's education. By giving its corrupt and inefficient thumbs-up to the
bill, Bolivia becomes the first country to make work by 10 year olds legal.
It’s the sort of forward-thinking move that should inspire other nations and
hopefully turn back the clock to an era when there simply were no laws in place
to prevent folks from exploiting the youngest among them to benefit the
workforce. The worrywarts with U.N. International Labor Organization are sadly
speaking out against the new law and doing meddlesome things like pointing out
that Bolivia is a signatory to a U.N. convention that sets 14 as the minimum
age for child labor. That may be, but times change and Bolivia deserves credit
for being willing to admit it. Despite the U.N. troublemaking, Bolivian President
Evo Morales is expected to sign the bill into law soon and clear the way for
children to finally be forced to pick up their share of the slack……….
- Her wellness and stability may be in question, but Serena
Williams’ willingness to get back on the court and compete is not. Last the
world saw Williams, she was looking completely disoriented and unstable during her Wimbledon doubles match with sister
Venus Williams on Tuesday. Serena Williams could not execute the simple bounce
and catch of a ball, double faulted four times in a row on serves and prompted
announcers broadcasting the match to wonder if she was suffering some sort of
breakdown. Less kind Internet trolls tossed out theories about the dreaded
whiskey flu and insinuated that Williams might be on some sort of illegal
substance and as unfounded as those notions likely were, watching the footage
from the match makes them seem at least semi-plausible. Yet according to Collector
Swedish Open tournament director Nina Wennerstrom, Williams is entered and
plans to play in the event, which begins July 14 in Bastad, Sweden. The
tournament normally wouldn’t be a major focal point for anyone outside the a
few dozen diehard Swedish tennis fans, but scrutiny on Williams have been
intensified after she lost in the third round of singles at Wimbledon last Saturday
and followed that up with her peculiar doubles effort three days later. That
will happen when a 17-time major champion has trouble collecting tennis balls
from the ball boys and girls and has to stop the match for 10 minutes so she
can have a seat and be examined by medical staff, including a check of her
blood pressure. "I am heartbroken I'm not able to continue in the
tournament," Serena said in a statement after the match, lamenting a “bug”
that got the best of her. Feel better/sober soon, S……….
No comments:
Post a Comment