Weekend Box Office Report 6-2-2013: The Smith Family crashes and burns in After Earth, then repeats the feat at the Box Office. Wrapping up May, the month of the blockbusters.

I spent most of the weekend prior to this one at the movie theaters in Bakersfield.  Instead of writing about Box Office Receipts, I was contributing to them in a big way, doing my part to help the economy and all of that patriotic stuff. 

I saw three of the blockbusters:  Iron Man 3, Fast & Furious 6, and Star Trek Into Darkness.  I skipped The Hangover III, as I had  no real interest in that, not having met Mr. Hangovers I & II, and having  banished my last hangover some thirty years ago I could not relate.  I would have dearly loved to have gotten to know The Great Gatsby though, but the show times at the local multiplex didn’t jive with my scheduling. 

The week before that, Audrey and I  were at Pismo Beach out here in California.  I wasn’t able to do much in the way of motorvating, and didn’t even attempt to walk towards the end of the pier.  But we did find one great little place to eat and seeing how I haven’t done one of those Food essays in a while, I may have to just do one soon and start giving Guy Fieri a run for his money.


Why didn’t I just do the box office columns during the week?  As I keep saying, I have this real world job that keeps me run down because of real world health problems that happen in the real world outside of Hollywood world.  Some day (maybe in five or six years), if I manage to retire before the Grim Weeper comes a calling, I’ll be able to sit here and write crap that nobody reads or wants to read to my hearts content, and filling that stuff with even more Amazon and Google ads that nobody uses to buy shit.  Yeah, I know.  Life’s a bitch. 

I’m left to roll three weeks of statistics into one overly long article so that when somebody passes by they can at least say, “Boy, that’s a lot of words” before skedaddling over to Twitter where the requirement is to print what you have to say in 140 characters or less. 

Or maybe they’ll head over to Facebook where with a simple mouse click one can prove they have a strong belief in Jesus, support the separation of church and state, believe we should all be Christians, support of the Military/Veterans, their love of Barack Obama, gay marriage, support for finding a cure for cancer, fighting breast cancer, fighting child abuse,  their hatred for Obama, fighting spousal abuse, oppose gay marriage, fight animal cruelty, support of the Affordable Care Act, denouncing the ACA, trickle down economics, lower student loan rates, support executing Jodi Arias, in favor of not cutting Social Security, save Social Security, and do this all in fifteen minutes or less before going on to play Candy Crush Saga which seems to be the newest Facebook game craze of the moment since it’s the one I get asked to join more often than any others.

I have a Facebook page as well.  It has all of 33 followers, so where are you people?  I promise, I’ll never make you click on anything to prove you support whatever.  Share, don’t share, just read, leave a comment, or do absolutely nothing to your heart’s content.  

I did twitter for a while.  Still do on occasion.  But it can become very repetitious unless you have a lot of followers who are actually interested in what you have to say instead of just regurgitating what everybody else has already said.  There’s nothing worse than being on Twitter and feel like you’re talking to dead air. 

So unless you’re someone like Miley Cyrus or part of a very large clique, I’ve yet to see that it holds any great purpose for me but that may change.  I just can’t hang on there 24/7.  So, now that I’ve made it necessary to add the tag “A Day In The Life” to this post, and/or “Random Thoughts”, let’s move on to why we came here in the first place.

If you look at the chart for the week ending 5/19, you’ll see that Star Trek’s take for the three day weekend was $70 million.  And those newspaper and entertainment rags that tend to dwell on failures reported that this was a weak opening as compared to the original.

In order to arrive at this dreary headline, it was necessary for them to completely ignore the fact that on Thursday, Star Trek Into Darkness scored a whopping $13.5 million dollars in limited showings.  In a Washington Post article that I read, the Thursday evening gross wasn’t even mentioned as if it hadn’t taken place at all.  (Checking back a couple of weeks later though, that article has been removed and replaced with one that did mention it).

Worse was an idiotic article for Forbes written by some bozo named John Gaudiosi who did include the Thursday gross, in a half ass sorry attempt  to equate a poor Star Trek video game by connecting it directly to the gross of the movie and reporting that Into Darkness debut was a total failure.  Everybody on this planet knows that the quality of a film has very little to do with a related video game.  Just ask E.T.  He’ll tell you.

This guy may have super knowledge regarding the video game market.  I have no way of knowing that one way or the other.  But he  doesn’t know shit about the cinema.  I’ll give him some kind of a runner-up award for the absolute worst, most misleading headline of the year so far.

Star Trek’s debut weekend was $83.7 million, thus toppling the debut of its predecessor which also debuted on a Thursday by some $5 million dollars.  In essence, when you talk about box office take these days, you simply manipulate the numbers to whatever fits any asinine story you want to dream up. 

When you get right down to it, it’s all rather pathetic.  These days a film lives and dies by it’s opening weekend, and by whatever tale some young whippersnapper entertainment reporter out to make a name for himself wants to create.  Let’s not forget that Star Trek Into Darkness was released against some much stiffer competition then it’s original predecessor.


And while it remains to be seen as to whether or not Into Darkness will top the previous film in total gross, it’s overseas take is eclipsing Star Trek by a few light years and then some.

Another notable entry over the past three weeks is The Great Gatsby, which has proved its opening weekend was no fluke.  It took in another $23.9 million during it’s second  weekend, and so far has taken in over $128 million in the states.  Stir in another $120 million from overseas and the film that many predicted wouldn’t even take in half that is a genuine hit.

Whomever decided that it was a great idea to open The Hangover Part III on the same weekend as the juggernaut Fast & Furious 6 should just resign now before he’s forced out.  The final chapter in this trilogy will be lucky to make half the amount of Part II.  It is a popular franchise overseas which may or may not resuscitate it into profitability. 

Fast & Furious 6 originally looked ready to eclipse all the Fast Films that came before it. This is one of the few series that just gets stronger with each new entry. Despite having dropped 63 per cent from the opening weekend it still held onto the number one spot in week two. 

The previous Vin Diesel Hot Wheels commercial, Fast Five, also experienced a large drop off from an opening of 86.2 million down to 32.5 in it’s second week.  By comparison, number six dipped from 97.8 million simoleons down to 35.1 million which  means all things being equal, Fast 6 should still top its predecessor overall depending on how it does in week three.  And in week three, there doesn’t appear to be much out there.

Many of these films have something going for them that wasn’t available or should I say exploited until recently.  That’s the China Market, where Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and Duane the Rock should clean up handily.  The gang has already raked in $310 million across the Atlantic & Pacific in just two weeks while Fast Five managed $416 million total.

The biggest loser of all came this past weekend and it turned out to be The Will Smith Family Movie Making Nepotism Machine which also  had M. Night Shyamalan hitch his wagon to their cart and come along for the ride.  Of course, I’m talking about the Sci-fi epic, After Earth which only managed to come in at number three with a paltry $27.5 million dollar intake.  What this proves is that money can’t buy you love nor can it buy your kid instant stardom and acting ability to go along with it.




 
There’s one clown in the circus who simply had to try and make a name for himself and give this futuristic turkey a rave review to the point where he called After Earth the right film at the right time for M. Night Shamalama Ding Dong.  He may be right.  Maybe it will put Shyamalan’s now lackluster career in the shitter once and for all and he can go do TV commercials or something along the lines of M. Night brings you Flo, The Progressive Girl.  Never has such a promising director fallen so far so fast.

Just about every other critic blasted After Earth, and as word of mouth spread you could watch the audience ratings for the film plummet on both Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB like a futuristic space ship crashing into a futuristic planet.  Maybe if upon crash landing on earth they had found Charlton Heston, one fourth of the Statue of Liberty, and some talking apes everything would have worked out for Papa Will and his spawn called Jaden.

The film that benefitted the most from that disaster was the independent Now You See Me which came in at number two with 29.3 million dollars.  And it did this on 500 less screens, on a budget half the size of After Earth, which made for a per screen average of $10000 compared to Shamalamadingdong’s $8,000 per screen.  I just love a good underdog story, don’t you?  Add to that the fact that magician type movies don’t generally do well in theaters, and Lionsgate/Summit has to be pleased.

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But Columbia/Sony’s biggest mistake may have been to not open their After the Disaster Earth film wide overseas simultaneously with its domestic release.  They are counting on it to recover  in the International market, and considering Will Smith’s popularity it’s always a possibility.  It’s probably a good thing that they didn’t let the budget ($130 million) soar into John Carter territory though.  But now there is also time for word of mouth passed over the internet to help convince many to spend their Euros elsewhere.

Fast Five was always going to finish on top in it’s second week.  That was a no brainer.  But After Earth was supposed to  challenge it.   It wasn’t that long ago that the soothsayers were predicting a $40 to $50 million opening.

As for the rest of the films, Iron Man and Star Trek keep hovering around the top ten.  The Hangover is still in free fall mode, dropping 60 per cent from it’s poor opening weekend showing and coming in at number six in week two.  Wish it a quick goodbye as it sails out of site and into your nearest Redbox.  Gatsby is still plugging along in the top ten, more power to it.

Mud  is the little film that could.  It keeps hanging in the top ten week after week on just five hundred or so screens.  It’s been on the chart for six weeks now, and it’s another film I hope to catch soon if it isn’t too late.

Iron Man 3 is now the the 5th biggest money maker of all time.  Adjusted for inflation though, and it doesn’t make the top 100.  Robert Downey Jr. no longer just places his money in the bank, he owns the damn thing.

 
Looking ahead to next week, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson try to conjure up memories of Wedding Crashers with The Internship.  Wedding Crashers ended up scoring $209 million total at the box office, but finished second to Charlie & The Chocolate Factory for two weeks before taking over the number one spot in week three.  It’s been almost eight years since Wedding Crashers, so I’m not sure if that success will even bleed over to this one.  Let me put it this way.  The Internship had better be pretty darn funny.

Here are the numbers for the past three weekends for you to compare, decipher, and decide for yourself whether or not I know what I’m talking about.
 




   






 

Why Cable Monopolies and Internet Monopolies Continue to Suck the Life out of and Hold Their U.S. Customers Hostage.

Our designated cable company where I live is Brighthouse.  Brighthouse is in fact owned by Time Warner but operated by another company thanks to some fancy stock dealing.  In other words you can take it to the bank that when push comes to shove, in the end you’re still dealing with Time Warner. 

In my area where I live, the only way that Brighthouse keeps from losing customers is by bundling internet with TV and phone to make it look like you're getting a really good deal by combining the three.  That may be true if you can harangue them into a short trial installation such as those given by the Satellite companies, but after that expires they really put the screws to you and the deal is no deal at all.  But they figure you’ll put up with it because it’s cheaper then switching to Satellite for TV, and your phone service by another carrier, because they also know if you want any decent internet speed at all, you have no choice in the matter.

By the time I dumped Brighthouse, my bundled services were close to $200 a month.  The only pay channel I carried was Showtime because Audrey likes Dexter, Shameless, Californication, and some other Showtime stuff.  I also carried a smaller $6 package that included Encore and a few other lesser channels.   Well, it was supposed to be six dollars.

I had already made up my mind to try and get the bill down to a more reasonable figure.  We didn’t really need the phone service.  Everybody in this house has a cell phone so there was no real point to having it.  But when I told the Brighthouse representative I wanted to cut off just the phone service, the bill only went down about six bucks, even though the monthly statement always showed the phone service as being $30.  It’s called Monopoly math I guess.

When I said I wanted to get rid of the small encore package, the total price went up  because well, you see, I had been getting a deal and now I wasn’t.  It’s total bullshit nonsense designed entirely to discourage people from moving on.  But I’m smarter than that. I told them to shove the whole thing up their ass except for the internet.  I would have told them to choke on that service as well if we had one decent alternative.  But we don’t.

In most areas of this particular region, if you want good internet speed you really only have one choice.  That's Brighthouse.  They have a monopoly for the most part, although in some places in Bakersfield you can get Cox. 

So if you unbundle, Brighthouse jacks up the price for internet to $60  or more.  $70 if you want the mid range service which you practically have to have for streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu.  Well you do have a choice of the inconsistent slower speed if you don’t mind sitting and watching Netflix buffer the show you’re watching three or four times and hour.  The top tier will cost you even more.  Life is grand for big corporations with huge monopolies. 

The only internet alternative I have is AT&T who keeps sending us ads telling us that we can get fast internet service for the low “introductory” price of $14.99.  That "fast internet service" is in reality, "up to 3MBS".  In other words, forget streaming or doing much of anything besides browsing the internet.  Fine for a few, ridiculous for most.

This is after AT&T had promised the FCC that they would be providing better speeds in areas such as this.  That of course was total b.s.  It took them forever just to begin providing DSL service here at all.  I did use their service once, but that was before the days of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu etc.  As Google Fiber slowly works it’s way around the country, I’ll be cheering them up although it’s doubtful I’ll live long enough to see them finally give Brighthouse a run for their money.

But I still saved money.  I switched to Dish and for the first year,  even after paying Brighthouse their King’s Ransom for internet service, I saved quite a bit.  For the second year, I’m still saving about $30 a month over Brighthouse, and this is with a package that includes the same Showtime and Encore packages we had before.

Better yet, the new Dish Hopper beats anything Brighthouse has by leaps and bounds.  For instance, I no longer have to worry about setting up to record particular network shows from ABC, CBS, NBC, or FOX in prime time.  It records all of them automatically.  Every single one.  And if you wait until the next day to watch a recorded show, it’ll skip the commercials for you on those programs as well.  Add a two terabyte external hard drive as I did, and you have more than enough room to record whatever you want.  Not that the space already provided didn’t do the job.  I had well over 500 shows recorded before getting the external hard drive and still had room left over.  But I wanted to keep a season’s worth of episodes on a few series so this arrangement just made that easier. 

On the downside, Dish is really not much different from the cable company despite it’s lower price.  You have to buy “packages” and often the networks you want to watch  are upper tier packages as this is what happened in my case.  Who knows what would happen if people were actually able to pay for only those networks they watched.  I could do away with well over 90 per cent of what I’m paying for.

Most of the smarter people I know have given up Brighthouse for either Dish or Direct TV.  In this area you don’t have to worry about storms, snow, or clouds or any of that other stuff that can cause Satellite reception to go haywire but from what I read that’s not as much of a problem as it was in the early days of Satellite TV.

If I had my own personal choice though, I would put a decent antenna system up on the roof and say goodbye to Dish as well.  We live far enough from any local stations that rabbit ears just don’t work.  We are also hindered by the fact that the signal sent out by the Bakersfield stations are terribly weak.

Two things hold me back.  Girlfriend Audrey watches a lot of shows, and second for health reasons I can no longer go climbing around on roofs and install an antenna system on my own.  And I can’t find anyone around here who does that kind of work anymore.

But I’ll look into it again and will see if I can’t talk the girlfriend into giving pay television the big kiss off when our Dish contract is up next year.  This is the last season for Dexter coming up so she won’t miss that.  Most of her other shows and a couple I watch, would be readily available with an antenna, although we would probably have to invest in our own DVR initially.  No big deal.  We’ll  still end up saving money over the space of a year. 

And one more word of advice if you have Brighthouse.  Don’t ever never be late paying your bill even by a few days because you somehow missed it, or just over looked it.  Why? 

Because they’ll send a guy around to hang a threatening notice on your door to let the whole world know you slipped up as if somehow you’re a dead beat because you didn’t get them their internet ransom demand in a timely fashion.  And then, they’ll charge you an extra $10 for having experienced the privilege of being shamed. 

I had this happen once.  When I called the lady at the company, she said this was their “new policy.”  In other words, another way to squeeze $10  more out of you.  I told her that their policy was a bunch of crap (I used stronger language) and that I had never ever come home and found a notice like that hanging on my door and I didn’t give a damn what their pathetic reasoning was, especially when I had been a customer for years and had never missed a single payment.  And if you think the $10 dollars goes to pay the guy for putting that crap on your door, think again.  Most of them live in your neighborhood or are working there anyway.  As a matter of fact, there’s a Brighthouse employee that lives two blocks from me.  I know this because the company truck is always parked in his driveway.

One thing for certain, when it comes to internet service, cable, or cell phone service, U.S. customers are screwed thanks to their representatives in congress constantly lining their pockets with a mountain of cash from these media giants and their continuing flow of highly paid lobbyists.  Overseas, internet connections are faster and a whole lot cheaper.  People in Europe would not tolerate shit like this, so why do we?

How I Met Your Mother: “One Ticket to Farhampton, Please” Wrapping up Season 8 of How I Met Your Mother.

How do you feel about the Season 8 Finale of How I Met Your Mother. I wrote somewhere a few days back that if there wasn't at least a glimpse of Ted's future wife, I would be very disappointed.   I am not disappointed.  I am as far away from disappointment as one can be.

It had become obvious over the past week or so in the show previews and in the episodes leading up to the finale that Barney and Robin's wedding wasn't going to happen this season. It also meant that HIMYM was going to be deviating from their usual timeline.  This also meant that we would not witness Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor), meet the girl of his dreams this season. 

I have to admit that when I finally realized it wasn’t going to happen  I was disappointed.  If they delay the event out until the very end of Season 9, you’ll undoubtedly be on here reading about how pissed I am.  But I don’t think that’ going to happen.  Let’s hope not.  For now, all is well.

For the most part, much of Season 8 has been kind of just so-so cakes for me and didn’t really begin to find it’s way until The Time Travelers episode.  As I wrote several weeks ago, it was the first solid hint we just might meet the mysterious girl with the yellow umbrella.  Every story line since the end of that episode has been a set up for Something New.

As you’ll recall, in Romeward Bound, Lily was offered a job by The Captain to work for him in Rome for a year as an art advisor.  The Bro Mitzvah was Barney’s bachelor party which could be viewed as a throw away episode by some but not by me.   I’ll explain that momentarily.

In Something Old, Robin (Colby Smulders) was looking for a locket that she had buried in Central Park and Ted blew off an interview to help her search.  And by the end, it was obvious that Ted still hadn’t come to grips with the fact that his best friend was marrying a girl he still had strong feelings for. 

In the finale, all the plot points that happened in those episodes collided. 

When Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall (Jason Segal) had decided to move to Rome for a year, I surmised that before the season was over Marshall would be offered a judgeship.   He had interviewed it at the end of Episode 8, Twelve Horny Women.  Many times over the past 8 seasons, little incidents that happened at the end of certain episodes more often then not play a significant part in the season finale. Now the question is will Lily and Marshall go to Rome or will they stay in New York?  Or will Lily go to Rome while Marshall stays in New York and his mother comes to look after Marvin?  That’s a possibility, although I wouldn’t think that compromise is one that would last very long.

I have never felt that Barney and Robin could ever build a lasting relationship despite their impending marriage.  I’m not sure Barney can build a long term partnership with any woman.  But in the Bro Mitzvah, it became apparent that maybe Barney was right.  That Ted really doesn’t know Robin as well as he thinks he does.  I think Ted is so desirous of finding the right someone that he often sees Robin through rose colored glasses.   By that I mean, he see her the way he wants Robin to be, not the way she really is. 

It was Robin’s idea for the whole devious plan of making Barney’s bachelor party a complete disaster.   In Something New, the scenes between Barney and Robin trying to one up another couple, was the first time that I ever felt that this odd couple really might belong together. 


Consider this.  When Ted said that he would do anything to make Robin happy, that may be true.  Didn’t he blow off an important interview just to help her look for that locket? 

But let’s not confuse the willingness to always be there to do whatever you can to help someone you care about as being the same thing as knowing everything about that person or loving that person or even being compatible with that person.  Ted and Robin realized this years ago, in Season Three and although he now seems to regret it, it was probably the right choice for both of them.  But Robin was Ted’s first real love, and since each of his relationships since Robin have been disastrous, he’s trying desperately to recapture something that is undoubtedly gone forever.  But don’t blame Ted entirely.  Hasn’t Robin at times hinted that she was in love with Ted as well and when moments such as the one that took place in the park at the end of last week’s episode, Something Old, take place and she does little to discourage him?  The timing of these two has always been abysmal.

But I’ll go out on a limb and say that I don’t think Barney and Robin’s marriage will last if it does take place.  Despite their seeming compatibility they are also very much “me” type of people.   Everything is always more about themselves than what they can give each other.  Again we saw this last week when Barney continued to play laser tag and tuned himself out completely from Robin’s immediate needs.  And frankly, manipulation and practical jokes doe not exactly scream at me that either person will be there for the other during tough times.   And with marriage, there is always tough times ahead.  Barney is just too self-centered for a lasting relationship. 

So we didn’t get to the wedding, but how did I feel about the episode as a whole?  I loved it.  Each and every second of it.  Producers/Creators/Writers Carter Bays and Craig Thomas simply outdid themselves.  I can find absolutely not one thing wrong with the finale.  In fact, it ranks up there at the top as far as season finales I’ve seen of any series.

It is easily the best finale this show has ever had, even topping last year’s wedding surprise.   From the moment Ted said “I guess I’ll take the train” and we were instantly transported to the train station and “Farhampton” was spelled out on the departure/arrival board, I began to get chills down my spine.  As we saw the young girl’s boots traveling across the train station depot, you just knew this was going to be different.  And it was.

And in those brief seconds that she appeared on camera, you knew instantly that yes, this is the kind of girl Ted would want to live his life with.  And checking the internet and checking out other videos of actress Cristin Milioti, Carter/Bays may have pulled off one helluva casting coup for the 9th and final season.  Why don’t we just skip the summer and head right into September? 

Looking ahead, there are so many questions yet to be answered.  How will Lily/Marshall resolve the Rome/Judgeship dilemma.  It’s obvious Lily really wants to go to Rome.  But if Marshall doesn’t accept the judgeship, there’s a distinct possibility he may not get another chance.  And then again, maybe he will.   My prediction:  Look for Lily to find out at the last minute about Marshall’s job offer, but it won’t be from Marshall. 



We already know that Robin and Barney get cold feet on their wedding day.  Will they ever make it to the alter?  That’s a pretty big question still left unanswered.  It could go either way.  And will it be Ted playing the part of spoiler by giving the locket to Robin?   I’ll make my prediction with the caveat that I don’t feel very strongly about it but it’s what I came up with.. 

In order to get them down the altar, Ted will do what Ted always does and make a sacrifice.  He will either give the locket to Robin and tell her that it was Barney who helped locate it, or he will just give it to Barney to give to her.  So I guess they’ll tie the knot, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen.

And will just meeting this girl stop Ted’s trip to Chicago?  I don’t know.  It’s still possible he could leave and come back quickly. 

 

Another unanswered question is that in the episode “Farhampton” that started season eight, we see Ted at the train depot with an injured hand.  Some of the speculation is that he gives the locket to Robin and then gets in a fight with Ted.  The best foreshadowing of this event came in an episode when Ted tried to give advice to Barney regarding Robin, and Barney flat out told him that he might not know Robin as well as he thinks he does.  Maybe he grows tired of Ted’s inability to move on.  All this is a possibility but I’m not buying into it.



There’s a lot to look forward to in Season 9.  The only way it could be mucked up is if Carter/Bays uses the 56 hours before the wedding and stretches it into weeks and weeks till seasons end.  I hope they put that rumor to rest real quick.

I would hope that once Ted and the mother finally meet, that we get to be with them as their relationship grows and is resolved to its inevitable conclusion to end the series with perhaps a flash forward to the future to fill us quickly in on what happened in the ensuing years.  I mean, just because he meets the mother doesn’t mean the path to lifelong happiness with her will be an easy one.   Reading some prognostications elsewhere, has everybody already forgotten that The Mother already has a live in boyfriend?   See there.  With this show, small details are always important.

What I read on one site is that they may just go back and begin telling the story from the mother’s viewpoint.  I think that would be a huge mistake and at this stage very unnecessary.  But the foundation has been laid for what could turn out to be one of the greatest final seasons of any series.  The rest is up to Carter and Bays.  Is it September yet?   

  

Meet The Mother: Cristin Milioti

CBS has confirmed that the actress shown in tonight’s episode is indeed the mother of “How I Met Your Mother.”  I’ll be writing more about this later (much more).  Congratulations to all involved for doing a great job of keeping it a secret.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Identified only as "The Girl with the Yellow Umbrella," the actress playing the mother and set to figure prominently in the series' final season in Cristin Milioti. Speculation about who would be cast in the role has come up with nearly every female guest star to join the series -- though this is a first appearance for Milioti.

Red herrings have been par for the course since the series first started teasing the big mystery, but a CBS rep confirms to The Hollywood Reporter that Milioti is indeed the actress playing the future bride of Ted (Josh Radnor). No other details about her addition were available at the time.

Milioti is likely best known for her Tony-nominated performance in the stage production of Once, though her TV credits are many. She recurred as Johnny Sack's daughter Catherine on The Sopranos and became a top Google search in 2011 when she played a foil to Tina Fey's Liz Lemon in the 30 Rock episode, "TGS Hates Girls."

And while How I Met Your Mother may have introduced Milioti's character at the tail-end of the episode, at the conclusion of a montage showing the series' core five cast members en route to Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) and Robin's (Cobie Smulders) wedding, the show held of on introducing her to anyone more than the audience. Milioti and Radnor shared no scene in the episode.

Co-creators and executive producers Craig Thomas and Carter Bays have previously confirmed that official meeting of Ted and The Girl With the Yellow Umbrella will take place after the wedding, as the season eight premiere teased.

Box Office Report 5-12-2013: Gatsby Overcomes Prognosticators Predictions of Doom & Gloom. Ironman? Do you even have to ask?

From Rope of Silicon:

For some reason I think Mamma Mia is a more predictive film, it opened around $28 million back in 2008. The lowest possible number for The Great Gatsby is something like Romeo + Juliet's $16 million opening (adjusted for inflation). The highest number is in the upper $40s, mostly due to sheer marketing might. I enjoyed the film, but it's certainly long, and it's tough to think it will spark male ticket-buying interest, especially with Iron Man 3 and Pain & Gain still on the board.
My Gatsby prediction lands at $35 million against the $40 million tracking number. Care to dream higher?

From Forbes:

Iron Man 3 isn’t remotely terrible and The Great Gatsby isn’t traditional counter-programming.  Yes it’s a literary period piece drama in a summer of fantasy adventures, but it’s also a $120 million 3D spectacle.   Correlation isn’t causation,  but history is not on the side of Baz Luhrmann’s latest adaptation. Obviously the film may very well under-perform in the states only to flourish overseas. But purely from a domestic point of view, it seems beyond odd that Warner Bros. seems to keep tempting fate by attempting to open expensive summer movies during a period where audiences have rejected their pictures in favor of the summer kick-off film again and again. If the pattern holds, The Great Gatsby is doomed.

From Daniel’s Film Reviews:

The main appeal for the young’ns, I think, is Leo DiCaprio.  DiCaprio’s movies have an average opening of $22.28M, and the rest of the cast includes Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher and Joel Edgerton; and it is directed by a man of style, Baz Luhrmann. The 3D might also help the movie make a little extra money. Similar movies open to an average $23.14 million. This hardly stands a chance at beating Iron Man 3 this weekend, but I expect a healthy opening between Robin Hood‘s $36.06M opening and Shutter Island’s $41.06M, so I’ll go with $39,198,750.

From Yahoo Movies:

When Baz Luhrmann announced that he would helm "The Great Gatsby," with Leonardo DiCaprio playing the title character, it was a buckle-your-seat-belt moment in movie history. Could the Australian director of "Moulin Rouge" finally pull off the literary adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic about the American dream, a vision that has eluded so many before him?
Well, after much delay, fanfare, and cross-promotion, it appears that Luhrmann's $104.5 million 3-D adaptation is in serious trouble. Here are the 10 reasons why we think "The Great Gatsby" may be the summer's first great disappointment.

I just love it when all the soothsayers are so so wrong, and with these predictions they didn't really come close.  In case you haven’t heard, Gatsby did come in at number two as expected, but it did so with $50 million dollars thus astounding the experts and critics alike.  Take that Michael Bay!

I especially loved that last article by some yahoo from Yahoo which gave us not one but ten reasons why Gatsby was in world of hurt at the box office and destined to fail. So instead of just being wrong, that particular writer, Thelma Adams, was wrong in ten different ways.

And now you know why I stay away from Yahoo.  Until I did my google search, I was surprised to find out they still had writers, let alone internet traffic.

But those I presented to you are only a few of a whole boat load of wrongness out there for you to devour because both you and I knew better didn’t we?  Do a search for predictions regarding Gatsby that were made before this weekend, and they are all pretty much the same. I don't know why but I get the feeling there are a lot of people out there that just don't get Baz Luhrmann. Or don't like him. Or both.  

Not me. I love Baz Luhrmann films because you know you're going to get hit right between the eyes with some different, something imaginative, and usually something unexpected. The first Luhrmanm film I saw in a theater was Moulin Rouge. I went in expecting to hate it, and came out loving it.  It’s one of my favorite musicals. 

His last film, Australia, didn't do well financially. But I liked it. My girlfriend liked it. But it was a film meant to be viewed on the biggest screen possible. Watching at home on a small screen, I can imagine one would just shrug their shoulders and move on. In the theater, it was magnificent.

If you've recently upgraded to a 60 inch screen or larger, and have some stellar surround sound equipment, get the blu-ray of Australia and try again.

I actually came close to seeing Gatsby today. I had to go into town to get a part for our evaporator (more commonly referred to around here as a swamp cooler), and gave serious thought to going. But I dallied with my Annette article for too long this morning and got a late start so that pretty much put the kibosh on that.

Iron Man took in another $73 million here at home. Between that and it's international take of $664 million, it is only $50 million shy of a billion dollars. Like I said last week, Marvel and Disney better do what they can to keep Downey around for The Avengers with those kind of numbers.

The rest of the box office wasn't too rosy for the also rans. Michael Bay's Pain & Gain held onto the number three spot, but only with a paltry $5 million dollar take. I wonder what it's like for Bay to be at the bottom of the well looking up at Iron Man and Gatsby and being able to kiss Leonardo DiCaprio’s ass?  There’s a big difference between Michael Bay and Baz Luhrmann.  Luhrmann is the one that actually has talent.

Tyler Perry Presents Peeples managed to sneak into the number four spot, but only because  the rest of the top ten had already plundered the box office over the past month or so.  However, Perry didn’t star in nor did he direct Peeples.  And if he saw the same trailor for his film that I did, he was probably thanking his lucky stars.  I imagine having his name attached to that turkey makes him feel as bad as well, when Quentin Tarantino lent his name to awful The Man With The Iron Fists.

How bad did number’s three through eight really do?  Oz, the Great and Powerful hung around in the top ten for another week with less than a million dollars as it continues marching towards it’s DVD/Blu-ray release on June 11.  Order it from Amazon through here, and I might just make twenty or thirty cents for a big night out on the town.  Can’t beat that?

And Star Trek?  Like Ironman it made it’s debut overseas, and raked in $31.7 million dollars in markets where the previous Abrams spectacle played well.  So far, it’s doing better than the original which is a good sign for Paramount, Abrams, and the franchise before Abrams packs up his bags and head to Disney to begin working on the Star Wars films.  Buy your Disney stock now. 

Scary Movie 5 has left the building this week, dropping off the chart and probably headed for a quick buck or two on the DVD circuit.

Not from  my wallet though.  Not in this lifetime, nor the next one.

Mud is hanging on, but when you consider it’s only on 854 screens, that’s not too bad. 
Here are the numbers:

Remembering Annette: October 22, 1942 – April 8, 2013

When I made this post regarding the passing of Annette Funicello, I promised I would have more to write regarding her life and my own personal feelings about it.  It took me a lot longer than I thought to write this, because I decided to write up a review of one of her films to post with it, something I couldn’t do for Roger Ebert.  I’ll be posting that review later.

Some celebrity deaths sadden me more than others.  That was the case with Roger Ebert.  When Annette Funicello passed away just four days after Ebert, it was the second celebrity death within a week that deeply saddened me.

Annette hadn’t made a feature film since 1986, but yet I felt as if she had never left us.  She made many appearances as herself, on news shows and talk shows in the years that followed in an effort to bring awareness to the disease that inflicted her and was slowly disabling her.  That disease was Multiple Sclerosis. 

I kind of felt a kinship to her.  I was once diagnosed as possibly having that MS.  It’s a diagnoses that has never been actually confirmed, or refuted.  And that’s the problem with MS.  It’s not easily detected in its initial stages, and much of the time it is extremely difficult to pinpoint.  Those who have the disease often go years without realizing they have it because the severity of MS is inconsistent.  Annette’s bout with M.S. was one of a worst case scenario.

But that’s not the only reason her death affected me more than say Jonathan Winters who also passed away recently.  If you were a child in the fifties and sixties, and a teen in the mid sixties to the early seventies, you grew up with Annette.

The Mickey Mouse Club is one of my earliest and strongest television memories.  I can even remember my sisters trying to convince me to give it up on certain days so that they could watch the Gold Cup Matinee late afternoon movie on one of the other two channels we were blessed with.  Most of the time they would lie to me about who was in the movie they were wanting to watch by naming every one of the super hero and cartoon characters I worshipped.    A couple of times it worked, but I soon caught on to the game and then it didn’t.  I wasn’t a complete dunce, even at five and six years old.

The Mouse Club eventually disappeared, was rerun a couple of times then appeared for a while on the Disney Channel when it first made it’s debut on cable.  The show may have become dated, but I never have outgrown it.   When the Disney Channel became just another one of 500 commercial channels in the vast cable wasteland, that was the end of not only the original Mouse Club, but many of the other catalogue films from Disney’s vast TV Library sent to the vault to probably suffer a slow death from indifference.  No room for a classic Disney channel, but we do get Disney XD, Tune Disney, and Disney Jr.  Whooppee!   

There was a reason why Annette’s star shone brighter than those of the other Mousketeers who were all talented in their own way.  What attracted you to Annette was this aura of friendliness that made you just flat out like her.  She was the original Italian Santa Claus.  She was just brimming with wholesome goodness.

You may have never met her, but you just knew there wasn’t a mean bone in this girl’s body.  Annette was the gal you wanted to be your sister instead of the ones you got stuck with.  No offense to my siblings, but that’s just the way it was.

She was super photogenic, and could act, but she was  often better than the material she was given to work with.  She was good in Spin and Marty, but in her own serial Annette, she and the whole cast were hampered by a really crappy script.  I’m not talking about the storyline either.  That worked.  But those poor kids were saddled with some of the weeniest stilted dialogue ever forced upon anybody, let alone teenagers of any decade.  Uncle Walt should have known better. 


But when you’re a kid, you didn’t care about that stuff.  Probably not even the acting.  I mean, this was Annette, and she had her own serial, and that’s all that mattered.


When she guest starred on Make Room For Daddy (aka The Danny Thomas Show) as Gina Minelli and on Zorro as Anita Campillo, you made an extra effort to seek those shows out just because it was Annette.  In Make Room For Daddy, it was her first real attempt at straight comedy, and she did it beautifully.  Likewise, she was able to slightly extend her dramatic legs in her appearances on Zorro which she appeared in twice as two different characters.  When she did The Horsemasters for World  of Disney, you watched it and watched it again when they would rerun it.

I never was a big fan of the Beach Party Movies.   I guess I just expected more from my movies then what those offered.  But since they were a big part of Annette’s career, I revisited Beach Party and will offer up my take on that sooner rather than later.  Probably the worst thing about the Beach Party films, is that they put the nail in the coffin of the younger actors involved of ever being given a chance to do more theatrically.  Which is quite a shame.

I just recently caught up with  Fireball 500 and Thunder Alley.  Both were better films than the Beach Party movies, and given the chance, Annette was able to prove that she could handle a dramatic role.  But by that time, nobody was paying attention, wholesomeness was a thing of the past,  and after havin made bookoo bucks for American International Pictures, Annette was cast aside.   She was relegated from that point on to mostly guest star roles on TV series.  She deserved better.

I watched her do a rare dramatic story on The Love Boat recently, a show that was known more for it’s comedy then drama.  It reminded  me of the fact that she was a lot more talented actress than some were willing to give her credit for.  I don’t know if she minded that fact.  If Annette did, she never appeared to, but you would have to ask those who actually knew her.  Actress Shelley Fabares, who met Annette while doing a small part in her Mouse Club serial, remained her lifelong friend, and says Annette was the real deal.

I do know one thing, choosy mothers may have chosen Jif, but Annette used Skippy and that was good enough for most of us.

But her sense of humor about herself was always apparent.  She never shied away from poking fun at her image or herself.  She had fun with it when she did an episode of Growing Pains in which she played an overzealous Goody Two-shoes Uptight Repressed Teacher.  After that, both Frankie and Annette returned to the big screen to star in and co-produce the film Back to the Beach, a very under-appreciate, misunderstood satirical film that was much better than it was given credit for at the time and has now become a cult classic. 

Somebody uploaded it to YouTube, so it’s there now (as of 5-12-2013) but undoubtedly not for long which is why I don’t link to it.  I linked to the Zorro video up against my better judgment and you can find the rest of the episode on YouTube as well.  It would be well worth your time to hurry and seek out Back to the Beach along with the Zorro episode and any others you can find.  Other than that, it’s $9.99 to buy the instant viewing at Amazon (you own it unless or until the license is revoked), or you pay a fortune for the now out of print disc.  I chose the 9.99 option.

But the Annette/Frankie comeback was short lived.  It was during the filming of Back to the Beach and while doing a follow up tour with Frankie Avalon that she was diagnosed with M.S.  Three years later she would go public with the disease in an attempt to bring more awareness to MS and to help raise funds through the Annette Funicello Research Funds For Neurological Diseases.  So on top of all her other attributes, you can add bravery to the list.

Maybe I’m too old and cynical, but I doubt if today’s young audiences would ever understand the allure of someone like Annette Funicello.  I can think of no 21st Century equivalent that connects to their audience on a personal level or has a relationship with their fans in the same way. 

Many of the things Annette did early in her career are getting harder to find.  Much of the fault of that lies with the Disney Studios and current ownership, who are sticklers for copyright adherence while at the same time leaving many of their catalog titles in the vault they claim to be so fond of to waste away since there doesn’t seem to be enough profit in these films and shows for them to bother with any longer.   If you can’t mass market them to today’s kids, why market them at all is the new Disney philosophy.

I was hoping they would be part of their deal with Netflix, but that hasn’t happened either.   But that’s a topic for later discussion and I’ll leave it  for now except that it would be a crime if the early works of an icon such as Annette Funicello are left to wither on the vine.

I hope someday those who didn’t grow up with Mickey Mouse Club or saw her in the Beach Films, will take the time to understand who she was, and why she had such a lasting impact on so many of us who grew up in that era.   I only wish I could revisit her early work myself at some point, but I’m not getting any younger and when you get to be my age, you’re not in a demographic that really matters to corporate suits.

Disney placed an obituary for Annette up on this page in which they list her accomplishments.  Maybe now would be the time to do something more than just pay her lip service.  Release her World of Disney films from your library, donate the proceeds to the charity she left behind would be a start.  And yes, Merlin Jones, Shaggy Dog, and Monkey’s Uncle are all readily available, but all have also been given shabby DVD treatment as has become par for the course when it comes to Disney and their catalog titles.

The video below is a a look at Annette through the years in film and television, along with a few publicity shots and a few personal pictures.    About 95 per cent of the stills come from my own personal DVD collection, the rest come from the web.  It runs about nine minutes, but I hope you’ll watch and if perhaps get a small sampling of who she was and what she gave to so many.  The world was a better place with Annette Funicello, but it is a sadder place without her.
(Best viewed at full screen)

Remembrances of Annette by eazyguy1952

Sylvia Browne–Dead Wrong (video)

A couple of days ago I placed a meme on my Facebook page that had originated on Reddit.  Sometimes I’m lucky if I get 10 views of anything I put up on my Clyde’s Stuff Facebook page (although the numbers are increasing steadily since I’ve gotten back to my blog).  As of today, this meme on my page now has well over 1,000 views.

The meme (seen below) was of Sylvia Browne, the psychic who has made a career for herself by going on TV (mainly the Montel Williams show), flipping a coin and telling family members if their missing loved ones were alive or dead.  I say flipping a coin because she probably would be just as accurate using that method as any pertaining to any mind reading ability she has. 


Some people swear by her abilities.  To me, anybody who claims to be psychic is blowing smoke up your butt.  I just think it’s all hooey, just as I think the whole business of ghosts, goblins, reincarnations, and entities from the other side is as Scrooge said, “more about gravy than of grave.”  As it says towards the end of this video, “Psychic wins lottery again says no one ever.”

I read a review of one of her books on Amazon.  Seems the reviewer was a bit disappointed that after having paid Browne $700 for an 18 minute reading, none of her predictions came true. 

You don’t say!  My advice:  If you’re going to pay that kind of cash to a psychic, put it in a slot machine or buy lottery tickets with it.  You’ll probably get more for your money than stuffing it in Browne’s purse, or donating it to someone like Pat Robertson who boldly told all that God had assured him Mitt Romney would win the election

Not only did God inform Robertson that “Romney will win” but that he will be a two-term president who presides over a huge economic boom. Robertson even told Romney to save him a ticket for the inauguration: “I told Mitt a long time ago, I called him and said listen, I’ve been in prayer and number one you’re going to win the nomination and number two you’re going to win the general election, he said ‘well what can I do for you,’ I said give me a seat on the platform during your inauguration, give me a ticket to your inauguration.” “The Lord said he’s going to have a second term, I told him there will be to be trillions of dollars coming into the economy when you’re elected,” Robertson continued, “the stock market ought to boom, everything ought to boom.” This all deeply reassured Hinn who said that Robertson was conveying “God’s voice.”.

Pat Robertson also told his mindless flock to beware of false prophets.  Now that may be the best advice he has ever given.

As for Sylvia Browne, she now has  the biggest screw up of her long seemingly endless phony career and I’m sure you’ve probably heard about it by now.  Browne told Louwanna Miller, the mother of Amanda Berry, one of the three women who escaped from her kidnapper in Cleveland after being held for ten years, that she was dead.  A year after that, Amanda’s mother was dead of pancreatitis, still unaware that her daughter was alive.  (Here is the original news story)

It’s easy to say that Amanda’s mother shouldn’t have put her faith in some publicity seeking talk show phony, but when you have loved ones disappear off the face of the earth with no clues left behind, I’m sure that you’ll try anything and leave no stone unturned in an effort to find that person, no matter how many flimsy straws you may be grabbing at.

But whenever anybody  has invoked the abilities of Sylvia Browne around me over the years, I usually end up laughing about it. 

But I shouldn’t have.  Phony psychics like Sylvia Browne are no laughing matter.  They cause more pain and more grief to people who are already suffering tremendous agony, and there’s nothing funny about that at all.  And those gullible masses who promote and make stars out of these charlatans, are every bit as guilty as Miss Browne, and let’s not forget that.

Here’s the video from CNN and ABC: