- Two mighty blockbuster did battle and an oversized hero
won the fight against a talent-deficient Texan with a moronically simply catchphrase
at the box office this weekend. “Big Hero 6” triumphed in its debut, banking
$56.2 million to edge out Matthew McConaughey’s “Insterstellar” for the top
spot on the earnings list. “Interstellar” cranked out $50 million as both films
made the first dent in the $165 million budgets both were made under. “Gone
Girl” kept on chugging, moving up one spot in its sixth weekend to third place
and adding another $6.1 million to its growing domestic total, which now stands
at $145.4 million. “Ouija,” last weekend’s earnings champ in a low-dollar race,
fell to fourth place with $6 million and has accrued $43.4 million in its first
three weeks of release. “St. Vincent” also rose in the rankings, surging to fifth
place with $5.7 million to pad its domestic take to a respectable $27.3 million
in five weeks of largely limited release. Sixth place went to “Nightcrawler,”
which saw its domestic money dip by 47 percent in its second weekend and earned
$5.6 million for a two-week total of $19.7 million. The seventh-place slot
belonged to “Fury” with $5.5 million and $69.2 million overall through its
first month in theaters. Keanu Reeves’ limited acting skills weren't enough to
keep “John Wick” out of eighth place thanks to a $4 million weekend. “Wick” has
fought its way to $34.7 million in three weeks. “Alexander and the Terrible,
Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” had a good enough three days to bank $3.5
million and claim ninth place. Its $59.2 million domestic total in five weeks
is respectable, if not very impressive. The final top 10 spot went to “The Book
of Life” with $2.8 million and $45.2 million through four weeks. “The Judge”
(No. 12) and “Dracula Untold” (No. 15) both tumbled out from last weekend’s top
10……….
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Romanians are rising up across
Europe and they are unified in their ire against the establishment one week before
a presidential runoff back home. Thousands of people protested against the
government over the weekend, saying it was making it difficult for Romanians
abroad to vote. Never mind the fact that these fools fled their home country
and looked to make new lives elsewhere, dammit, they want to be able to freely
and easily vote. Romanians rising up in Paris, London, Vienna and elsewhere
have said they were unable to vote in the Nov. 2 first round of the
presidential race because of long lines, which probably means they should have
shown up sooner rather than assuming there would be a low turnout of the sort
commonly seen in virtually every U.S. election, thereby allowing them to waltz
in late in the day and get their “I voted!” sticker from the 97-year-old
retirees manning the polling station. The Romanian government announced plans
to open more polling booths and enact other measures to speed up the process,
but incensed protestors decried the changes as insufficient to address their
concerns. The protests also fired up back home in mother Romania, where about
5,000 people gathered in Cluj, and hundreds turned out in Bucharest, Constanta
and other cities shouting "Get out and vote!" All of this anger is
about the race in which Prime Minister Victor Ponta and Sibiu Mayor Klaus
Iohannis will do battle, with Ponta favored to win the Nov. 16 vote. With 2
million Romanians living abroad and largely annoying the hell out of people in
whose nations they’re squatting, figuring out how to get their votes registered
is a complicated issue and one that will keep cropping up until it’s addressed
for real………
- In the sphere of elite, world-class athletes, the best of
the best will do anything to get an edge on their cutthroat competition. That
includes the high-stakes world of professional badminton and that brings us to Badminton's
top-ranked player and his alleged failed doping test. Lee Chong Wei failed a
doping test, a senior Malaysian sports official said, and has been temporarily
suspended pending a hearing by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) doping
panel. It’s a scandal that threatens to rock the sport to its very foundations,
what with the No. 1-ranked player in the world facing a potential two-year ban
from competition. Lee is already reading from the handbook for athletes accused
of using performance-enhancing drugs, insisting he has "never
cheated." Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) deputy chairman Mohamad
Norza Zakaria, who has the privilege of fronting an organization with a
kick-ass acronym, confirmed that a test carried out on Nov. 5 in Oslo, Norway,
on the "B" sample of an unnamed player had backed up the positive
finding of the "A" sample from a doping control at this year's World
Championships in August. He didn’t identify the player, but the name leaked
anyhow. "This player is a very dedicated player and an exceptional
individual," Mohamad said. "We believe this player has never resorted
to shortcuts to achieve success." Maybe that’s what you believe, but the
lab says otherwise and Lee’s story that the drug was last injected into him on
July 18 for a thigh injury treatment, and that it was a "mystery" why
it was found in his system after more than a month isn't exactly doing wonders
for the two-time Olympic silver medalist’s image……….
- Now THAT is how you do Halloween. Stefan Sortland is a freshman at
Colorado State University and he officially became a Halloween legend with his
actions over the non-holiday weekend on and around the school’s Fort Collins
campus. There is no other way to describe someone (allegedly) stealing an
ambulance, going on an Ecstasy and cocaine bender at a concert and then
attacking sheriff’s deputies in his intoxicated state once he was apprehended. Police
reports detail Sortland’s path of destruction that began when emergency crews from
Poudre Valley Hospital were treating an intoxicated student for seizures on
campus in Fort Collins early Sunday morning. Seeing an opportunity placed in
front of him and seizing it like a true champion, Sortland (allegedly) spotted
the empty ambulance and leapt into action. When the emergency workers came
outside and looked for the ambulance that, you know, should probably be where
they left it, it was gone. The bad news for Sortland is that ambulances are
equipped with GPS systems and that makes them relatively easy to find. Police
from nearby Loveland found the abandoned vehicle in their jurisdiction, in the
middle of Highway 34 with several doors open, heavy front-end damage and fluid
leaking. A quick investigation unearthed evidence that the driver of the
ambulance had hit the raised median, jumped the curb, hit a sign, went the
wrong way and crossed back over the median before stopping. Sortland was
located standing about 30 yards from the stopped ambulance wearing an EMT vest
and when he refused to comply with officers’ commands, he got his ass Tasered. He
was toting a blanket, a cell phone and a box of Wheat Thins with him and after
refusing to answer officers’ questions, he instead asked, "Why are the
lights flashing on the cars?" At the Loveland Police Department, he
continued the party. According to the police report, he "stood on a bench,
kicked the wall, and masturbated.” Not exactly having too much to drink
and passing out drunk on the lawn in front of your dorm on Halloween, is it………
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