Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Stomp The Yard – $12.2 million. 2. Night At The Museum – $12 million. 3. Dreamgirls – $8 million. 4. The Hitcher – $7.8 million. 5. Pursuit Of Happyness – $6.3 million. 6. Freedom Writer – $5.2 million. 7. Pan’s Labyrinth – $4.5 million. 8. Children Of Men – $3.7 million. 9. The Queen – $3.4 million. 10. Arthur And The Invisibles – $3 million.
This week’s movie review, The Break-Up. This movie stars Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. The story of the movie is all about the title. A couple breaks up but neither wants to move out of their condo. So, they remain living together but go on to try to annoy the other one. Both of them try different tactics to get control of the situation but each one keeps one upping the other’s idea. One idea is that Vaughn’s character ends up claiming the living room as his bedroom. Aniston’s character counters with having her musical friends come over and rehearse in her room which drives him nuts. It’s basically can you top this as I said. This is a romantic comedy and was an all right movie. I did enjoy it but I guess that I was wanting a little more out of it. Funny idea for a movie.
I really liked the episodes of American Idol this week. Tuesday’s episode was the Memphis auditions and was a one hour show. Wednesday’s episode was a two hour episode of the New York auditions. First, the ratings. Idol did not go head to head with The State Of The Union Address of course but did run from 7-8pm. 32.6 million watched Idol and Fox benefited from the lead-in with Fox leading the way in the State Of The Union ratings of the big four networks with 10.5 million viewers. Idol destroyed the Wednesday competition pretty heavily too. I liked that they showed more good singers this week than they did last week. There was a lot of good talent this week. Sundance was very good and has the family musical history that obviously carried on to him. I was glad to see Sarah Burgess get through. She was the one that was there auditioning while her parents didn’t want her to. Extremely likeable and a good voice. So, the two best friends that made it on to Hollywood. Unless I’m dreaming, I am certain that I heard Ryan Seacrest in an promotional interview say that friends will end up turning on each other this season. Are these the two friends that will end up having problems when they get to Hollywood? They sure did tease it when they got done showing them. Funny clips of the week was the montage of the name butchering by the judges. That was funny as was Simon getting fed up with the marching band and cheerleaders in the hallway supporting their guy auditioning and yelling at them to “please shut up”. Idol auditions go to Birmingham next week.
In other Idol news, Kelly Clarkson is partnering up with Nascar. She will be featured in TV spots, charitable events, and the Nascar Awards dinner along with performing at The Tribute To America pre-race show at the Daytona 500 next month. She will also be a spokeswoman for Nascar Day in May. She had this to say about the deal with Nascar, “Anyone who knows me knows I’m a race fan and love NASCAR. I look forward to hanging out with the fans, drivers and the entire NASCAR community.” Chris Daughtry is doing just fine post American Idol. His album hit number one this week for the first time after nine weeks of release. Nielsen Sound Scan numbers have the album as number one by only 150 copies. WOW. It is being reported that it is the smallest margin ever between the first and second albums. What album is second? The Dreamgirls soundtrack featuring Idol alum, Jennifer Hudson.
The CW met with reporters last week talking about their shows and the overall success of the network. Kristin from E Online was in attendance and provided a good report from the event. The CW is happy with the numbers and realized that they would start kind of slow but the numbers are coming up overall. CW president, Dawn Ostroff, took questions from reporters about the shows. The questions I was most interested in revolved around Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls. She had this to say about both shows, “Gilmore Girls is a show we’re really proud of. It consistently comes in second in 18-34. And we are definitely talking to them. As for Veronica Mars, it’s funny because I feel like I’ve answered that question every year. It’s still on the air and I’m still here. Veronica is a show we are proud of, and I have to say that all your support for that show has meant the world, and hopefully we’ll have good things to talk about. Veronica Mars has actually had its best numbers ever, and Tuesday night has definitely been a good move for the show.” She was asked about whether the show was in trouble due to the fact that the show is now going to more standalone episodes instead of season long storylines and said, “Absolutely not. We’ve been really happy with the show and the numbers are better than they ever were. [The reason for the format change] is to experiment and to make it close-ended, so people aren’t afraid to come in…that’s really what’s motivating it.” Dawn was asked about the talk of the creative end of Gilmore Girls this season not being as strong, “Gilmore Girls has been on the air seven years, and any show that’s on for that period of time creatively has its ups and downs. Clearly with the loss of Amy, we wanted to be able to maintain the quality of the show. David Rosenthal was one of Amy’s top lieutenants, and was actually handpicked by Amy. The first half of the season was rocky as David found his way, and he was painted into a corner by the end of last season, but I think the second half of the season is much stronger and the audience will be pleasantly surprised.” She shot down the rumors of The CW picking up the recently canceled O.C. saying that it didn’t make sense for them to pick it up. When asked whether 7th Heaven would end this year, she replied, “One thing I’ve learned is to never say never. Brenda has done a great job with the show. The cast has been reinvigorated, so I never say never.” The CW did announce one pick up for next season and it is Everybody Hates Chris but Dawn was asked why they were only announcing one pick up so far, “We are not announcing all of our pickups today, because we need to do that at the upfronts. But Everybody Hates Chris is a show we feel really strongly about, and we want to send that message. So, we picked it up today.” What was said about Supernatural? “Supernatural is holding up really well. That is the toughest timeslot on television. Last night it had very, very strong numbers and creatively, the show is absolutely at its best.” The network was very high on One Tree Hill and Smallville pointing out that One Tree Hill has had some its highest ratings of the season lately although it did have a big dent put into it last week by American Idol. They pointed out that Smallville had its highest rated episode of the season last week with the Justice episode.
The CW is also doing online streaming of their programming over at www.thecw.com. If you miss any episodes of your favorite CW shows, you’ll have four weeks after it airs to watch it. Go and check out Veronica Mars. What are you waiting for? Go. Actually, wait till the end of this post and then go. ha ha.
Speaking of Veronica Mars, good episode on Tuesday night. What happened to the dean? Was he murdered or was it suicide? Keith is on the case to figure it out including questioning the Professor. Interesting thing that the way that the Dean was found was right off of Veronica’s class paper on how to plan the perfect murder. Was it the Professor who did it or was it some wild coincidence? Mac has a guy that she is interested in and he is interested in her. That should be a fun storyline as it gives us more Mac. She’s a fun character that I’d like to see used more. We keep getting teased on a Veronica/Piz relationship but it keeps getting ripped away. The girls also participated in an around the world party. Each room in the dorm was a different country. Veronica, Mac, and Parker all played along too eventually caving in which was actually more of a plan to get Mac’s guy there. The room looked nothing like Canada. They were asked what about the room was Canada? Mac replies “our accents, eh”. Then, Veronica turns on the stereo playing Barenaked Ladies. Very funny!!
Gilmore Girls returned on Tuesday night and that episode felt like a Gilmore episode. The dialogue was great, the stories were interesting, comedy was there. It gets a big thumbs up from me. Rory returned home after missing Christmas to spend time with Logan. So, Lorelei and Rory put off Christmas celebrating it a few weeks late including decorating the whole house. Clever idea. Luke asked Lorelei to write a letter of recommendation for him to help in his custody case with April. April lied to her mom to spend the day with Luke cause Anna has cut off letting Luke get any time with April at all due to the custody battle. Christopher is getting extremely jealous of Luke while Lorelei was hiding that she was writing the letter. It looks like next week, he will find a draft of the letter and it will all come to a head. Funny storyline with Lane still dealing with her pregnancy as she wanted the band to have a rehearsal which they haven’t had in a very long time. Really entertaining episode.
Tim Minear who produced Angel is having many of the former Whedon show stars now on Minear’s new show, Drive, which will premiere in the spring on Fox. Amy Acker is set to have a role on the show and she will join Nathan Fillion from Firefly.
Wow, I actually care about the Super Bowl this year!! The Bears are in and I want them to win badly.
I saw the “It’s My Life” music video by Bon Jovi over the weekend. I haven’t seen it in forever but my point is that I didn’t realize that Will Estes from American Dreams was in it. I knew Shiri Appleby from Roswell was but at the time, Will was still becoming known and I hadn’t heard of him yet.
CMT aired a preview of the upcoming documentary movie on Dale Earnhardt over the weekend. CMT is involved in making the movie along with Nascar. It looks really good. The movie is simply called “Dale”. It looks back at his life and did get approval of the family as it shows lots of footage from over the years that has never been seen. They named most everyone interviewed for the documentary and it had everyone that I would have asked for including all of Dale’s kids, parents and siblings, Richard Childress, Steve Byrnes, and Darrell Waltrip. All those right there will be good insight into his life and career. It is narrated by Paul Newman. The movie will be seen in select theatres across the country. Here is a link to the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRu39-U0CzU
Check out the website for the movie at www.dalethemovie.com for more info on the movie including a better quality version of the trailer.
I’m glad that CNBC airs repeats of Deal Or No Deal. I’ve never watched it until lately as I’ve watched two or three episodes. I’m usually searching for something to watch later in the night so CNBC showing this is good for viewers like me already watching too much during primetime. I like it. Fun show.
Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni have signed new contracts to remain with Law & Order: SVU. The deals are for two years and each is supposed to be making more than 6 million a year.
TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, January 30th. The Benny Hill Show (Complete and Unadulterated: The Hill’s Angels Years – Set Six), The Big Valley (Season 2, Volume 1), Dallas (Season 6), I Dream Of Jeannie (Season 3), Law & Order: SVU (The 3rd Year), Legend Of The Dragon (Volume 2, Volume 3), Lucky Louie (Complete Series), Murder, She Wrote (Season 5), Three’s Company (Capturing The Laughter – Jack’s Favorites).
You Tube Video Of The Week: People seem to be really liking the Chad Vader clips that I have put in here previously so here is the newest one, Episode 5. Yeah, it’s a little late for me to send a holiday edition clip but here you go anyway.
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