Box office numbers for last weekend in the theatres. 1. Norbit – $34.1 million. 2. Hannibal Rising – $13 million. 3. Because I Said So – $9.2 million. 4. The Messengers – $7.2 million. 5. Night At The Museum – $5.7 million. 6. Epic Movie – $4.5 million. 7. Smokin’ Aces – $4.1 million. 8. Pan’s Labyrinth – $3.5 million. 9. Dreamgirls – $2.9 million. 10. The Queen – $2.3 million.
American Idol really began for me on Tuesday with Hollywood week. Auditions are over and Tuesday’s show was “let’s cut as many people as possible that were featured in the audition episodes”. First off, more girls had to be cut cause there were a ton more girls that made it to Hollywood than guys. First, the military girl, Rachel Jenkins, was cut immediately. Sarah Burgess was cut. Next was Ashlyn Carr, and the then the one girl who got praised for what kind of workout she had went through to get there and she got sent home right away. This year they allowed the singers to pick what groups they wanted to be in. I believe this is new as I think in year’s past that they were assigned to groups but I might be wrong. It definitely showed that you can be good but if you end up in a problematic group that it could cost you. Case and point goes to Baylie Brown. I thought she got a raw deal. She got grouped with the two best friends, Amanda and Antonella, who as I thought did turn on each other. There was drama between that group and it hurt their performance. Amanda decided that she was done rehearsing and went out flirting with the guys. Baylie ended up forgetting her lyrics and got sent home because of it. The shocker was that the friends got sent on through to the next round despite one of them also forgetting the lyrics but she didn’t mess it up as bad as Baylie did. If Baylie had gotten in another group, I think she would have went on but she definitely messed her lyrics up BAD. Then, Amanda says afterwards that “we don’t flirt with boys here. This is a job interview and we could have as many boys as we want at home”. Um, yeah. Amanda was out flirting with the guys instead of rehearsing. Antonella did make it to the Wednesday episode cuts but Amanda did not. Interesting to note that Antonella made the final 24 while also forgetting her lyrics at one point. Just odd how they punish some for forgetting lyrics and let others on through. Perla Meneses, who sounded like Shakira, just had that going for her. She started with a Shakira song but I just thought that eventually you’ll have to sing something different and it happened. She was sent home after group auditions. By the end of Tuesday’s episode, I just kind of thought who is really left that we actually have seen a lot of? By Wednesday’s episode, it definitely showed that many of these people that were left were new to us viewers so if you’re looking to jump in, you’re almost even par with the rest of us who have been watching all season. Chris Sligh appeared to have a strong Hollywood week especially in the group performance which saw that group get a standing ovation. He is my favorite so far. Good voice and personality. I was surprised to see Sundance Head struggle so much in Hollywood cause he was really strong in his audition. I was actually surprised that he made the final 24 after his Hollywood week. Here is your final 24 and their age: Alaina Alexander, 24, Amy Krebs, 22, Antonella Barba, Gina Glocksen, 22, Haley Scarnato, 24, Jordin Sparks, 17, Lakisha Jones, 27, Leslie Hunt, 24, Melinda Doolittle, 29, Nicole Tranquillo, 20, Sabrina Sloan, 27, Stephanie Edwards, 19, AJ Tabaldo, 22, Blake Lewis, 25, Brandon Rogers, 28, Chris Richardson, 22, Chris Sligh, 28, Jared Cotter, 25, Nicholas Pedro, 25, Paul Kim, 25, Phil Stacey, 29, Rudy Cardenas, 28, Sanjaya Malakar, 17, Sundance Head, 28,
I forgot to mention this last week but the segment with the cousins’ auditions was very funny. The one didn’t get through to Hollywood and his cousin was next so he decided to mess with him a bit. He told the judges what he was about to do and on the way out started yelling “don’t make me tell you all again”. The judges cracked up laughing at it. The cousin had this look of fear on his face thinking he was getting ready to go in and face some really mad judges. Poor guy.
In other Idol news. Carrie Underwood’s new music video has premiered for the song “Wasted”. I’m glad that this song got picked as a single cause it is arguably my favorite song on the album. The girl that got picked to sing with Justin Timberlake at The Grammy Awards was Robyn Troup and she was one of the cut Idol contestants from this week’s show.
There is this annoying trend that is beginning to happen on Tuesday nights with trying to watch CW programming. Our local CW affiliate here is airing a lot of college basketball. It is fine that they air college basketball. I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is that we are missing part of the CW programming because of it. Basketball has been running from 6-8pm. Gilmore has been getting bumped back to airing at 9:30pm which is great. No problem with that cause it airs in its entirety. My problem is Veronica Mars at 8pm. Two times in the last month has seen the game run over its scheduled time and our local station joins Veronica Mars IN PROGRESS. Why not bump the programming back a few minutes? There has to be a way around this deal to delay it or something. Veronica Mars did not come on till 8:11pm this week. The show comes on and there is this mysterious little girl that I’ve never seen with Logan. Who is she? I have no clue!! I just turned it off and decided to go internet viewing later on either on the CW site or You Tube. This is getting really annoying. I can’t comment on the episode cause it hadn’t been posted online as I type this.
I watched a little bit of the Grammy Awards on Sunday night and more people also watched it as the Grammy’s learned a tough lesson last year to not go head to head with American Idol. Ratings were up from last year. The big winners of the night were The Dixie Chicks who went five for five in nominations including a win for album of the year. Some of the other winners for the night were: Mary J. Blige who took home three awards including Best R&B album, Red Hot Chili Peppers winning four awards including Best Rock Song, and Carrie Underwood who took home two Grammy’s for Best New Artist and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Other multiple awards winners were John Mayer, Justin Timberlake, Tony Bennett, Ludacris, and Michael Becker.
The all star edition of The Amazing Race starts off this Sunday night on CBS at 7pm.
Here are the top 20 shows for the week of January 29th through February 4th and the amount of viewers for each. 1. Super Bowl XLI – 93.2 million. 2. American Idol (Tuesday) – 33.7 million. 3. American Idol (Wednesday) – 31.8 million. 4. House – 27.3 million. 5. Criminal Minds (post Super Bowl episode) – 26.3 million. 6. Grey’s Anatomy – 24.2 million. 7. CSI – 21.5 million. 8. Deal Or No Deal (Monday) – 16.9 million. 9. Shark – 14.1 million. 10. 24 (tie) – 10.0 million, Ugly Betty (tie) – 10.0 million. 12. Heroes – 13.6 million. 13. CSI: Miami (repeat)- 13.5 million. 14. Two and a Half Men (repeat) – 12.7 million. 15. Bones – 12.4 million. 16. NCIS (repeat) – 12.2 million. 17. CSI (repeat) – 11.9 million. 18. ER – 11.8 million. 19. Deal Or No Deal (Wednesday) – 11.4 million. 20. NUMB3RS – 10.9 million.
Top 10 Albums for the week on the Billboard chart.
- Fall Out Boy – Infinity On High – 260,000 copies
- Norah Jones – Not Too Late – 236,000 copies
- Daughtry – 76,000 copies
- Akon – Convicted – 65,000 copies
- Ashley Tisdale – Headstrong – 64,000 copies
- Robin Thicke – The Evolution Of Robin Thicke – 61,000 copies
- 2007 Grammy Nominees – Just under 61,000 copies
- Jason Michael Carroll – Waitin’ In The Country – 58,000 copies
- Corinne Bailey Rae – 52,000 copies
- Justin Timberlake – FutureSex/Love Sounds – 48,000 copies
Nielsen has made an agreement with DirecTV for them to work together in getting information on viewer ship of consumers. I’m glad to see that Nielsen is working lately on coming up with new ideas of polling viewer ship as I think the Nielsen ratings are way outdated. The adding of college students has helped several shows including day time soaps. Days’ ratings are up since the addition along with some other soaps. Gilmore Girls on the CW has shown an increase in viewers as well.
TBS has picked up eight episodes of the new “The Bill Engvall Show” which will begin airing in the summer.
Lynda Carter is reportedly going to guest star on Smallville this season.
What were the top 10 singles ten years ago this week? Well, here they are courtesy of the Billboard charts. 1. Toni Braxton – Un-break My Heart. 2. Spice Girls – Wannabe. 3. En Vogue – Don’t Let Go. 4. R Kelly – I Believe I Can Fly. 5. Puff Daddy featuring Mase – Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down. 6. Whitney Houston – I Believe In You and Me. 7. Keith Sweat – Nobody. 8. Jewel – Foolish Games/You Were Meant For Me. 9. Babyface – Everytime I Close My Eyes. 10. Blackstreet – No Diggity
Tom Cruise and Ben Stiller have been picked by Twentieth Century Fox to play sleuths in the new movie “The Hardy Men” which is going to be based off of the “Hardy Boys” series. It will be an action and comedy movie.
TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, February 20th. Alias Smith and Jones (Season 1), Family Ties (Season 1), Penn & Teller (Season 4), Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea (Season 2, Volume 2), What’s New Scooby Doo? (Season 1).
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