Movie box office numbers for this past weekend. 1. Disturbia – $13 million. 2. Fracture – $11 million. 3. Blades Of Glory – $7.7 million. 4. Vacancy – $7.6 million. 5. Meet The Robinsons – $7.0 million. 6. Hot Fuzz – $5.8 million. 7. Are We Done Yet? – $5.2 million. 8. In The Land Of Women – $4.7 million. 9. Perfect Stranger – $4.1 million. 10. Wild Hogs – $2.8 million.
Welcome back Regis!! Regis Philbin returned to Live With Regis and Kelly this morning six weeks and one day after his triple bypass heart surgery. Regis was in usual form this morning telling of his tales of his surgery and recovery. He looked great and it’s great to have him back. David Letterman was the first guest on the show today. If you remember, Letterman had his bypass surgery years ago and Regis was his first guest when Letterman returned. Letterman returned the favor to Regis. The two are very close friends and it was great to see Letterman help Regis through this. Letterman added that Regis has done so many things for him and that he was glad to be able to finally return the favor helping him out. Kelly and the whole Live crew did an amazing job while Regis was away. Welcome back Regis!! You’ve been greatly missed!!
It was almost time to hit the panic button on last night’s American Idol. I had the button standing by and it was about to be pushed. When the show opened last night, Ryan Seacrest said “we’ve got the most shocking result in our history”. My first thought immediately was Jordin is getting voted off which would have been disastrous from a show that is not having one of its better seasons. Throughout the two hour Idol Gives Back show (which was great by the way), Ryan would let a contestant know that they were safe. We got down to Jordin and Chris at the end. He told Chris that he was safe and then left Jordin standing. Ryan then said “I told you this was going to be shocking. Ladies and gentlemen, it is very shocking, believe me. Jordin, you are also safeî. They said that no one was going to be voted off on a charity show. The 70 million votes that were calculated on Tuesday night will carry over to next week’s votes. Both of the bottom two will go home next week. Last night’s Idol Gives Back show was easily the best show of the season. The show was all about raising money for people on the Gulf Coast and in Africa. With the 70 million votes, NewsCorp is donating $5 million. Idol announced today that the money raised so far is $60 million. They did several pieces of where they visited the areas in bad trouble. It’s just plain sad seeing the conditions that these people live in. Several stars performed on the show including previous Idol winner Kelly Clarkson. Carrie Underwood also had a segment where she went to Africa and sang for some of the kids down there as well as spent time with them helping out. She did a version of “I’ll Stand By You” that was AMAZING. The song is available for download on iTunes. Cheap plug!! Other performers were Josh Grobin, Annie Lennox, Il Divo, and more. Another performance that was really cool was that they had Elvis Presley and Celine Dion singing on the same stage thanks to the amazing world of today’s technology. Just cool to see how they did that and they were for sure showing off their technology with the view from every camera angle. There was a segment with The Simpsons as judges that was hilarious with them judging Simon Cowell. Stay tuned to this Wrap Up if you missed it. Loved the “Stayin’ Alive” music video with various stars lip synching to the song! Tons of stars seen in this one. I think they said 36? I’ll point out my favorites that I saw in it which were Sarah Michelle Gellar, a Friends reunion of David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow together on screen (loved that), and of course being a Monkees fan, I liked seeing Micky Dolenz in there as well. Jack Black appeared on the show and got up on the stage and shoved Ryan off singing his version of “Kiss From A Rose”. The judges rip him and Simon adds “it was better than Sanjaya”. Pretty funny and Sanjaya got a laugh out of it too as he was sitting in the crowd. They then move the camera over to Seal, who if you somehow didn’t know, did the original song. Seal says that Jack’s version was “the best version he’s ever heard”. Fun segment and that is coming from someone who usually tunes out when I see Jack Black. ha ha. Fun show overall and for a great cause.
The star of Tuesday’s performance show was Jordin Sparks. I thought she left them all behind with her performance and I officially want her to win the whole thing. I actually voted for the first time on Tuesday night especially with the incentive that the votes would help out with the Idol Gives Back campaign as more money would be donated with the more votes that they got. So, I put some votes in for Jordin and helped out with the vote total. Her performance on Tuesday night had this feel of a “finale winning song performance”. Apparently, LaKisha didn’t read last week’s Wrap Up. When I heard her song choice for this week, I thought immediately that she has got to quit picking previous Idol winners’ songs. Two weeks in a row that she performed a song of an Idol winner. I said last week how all I was hearing during her version of Jesus Take The Wheel was Carrie Underwood’s version. This week she picked “I Believe” which was Fantasia’s winning song in season three. LaKisha put herself in a spot of trying to follow that amazing version that Fantasia did on the season three finale after she had won the Idol crown. All I was hearing was Fantasia’s version and it made me want to pull out that DVD and hear her version again. The judges all had the same problem of hearing a different version of that song. My advise to LaKisha for next week is DON’T pick a Kelly Clarkson song. Pick something that you’re not going to be compared to.
Veronica Mars returns on Tuesday night with the first of five new episodes!!
The official Buffy and Angel magazines will end next month with a 100 page issue. I’m surprised and not surprised at the same time. I’m not surprised cause it has to be hard to fill a magazine when there is nothing new to report on with new shows for the past couple of years. I am surprised cause there is finally new stuff going on in the Buffy/Angel world and the fans are back with the new comics. The issue will have a farewell message from Joss Whedon and will also feature interviews from Nicholas Brendon, Mercedes McNabb, Juliet Landau, and Mark Lutz. The issue will also have a commemorative wraparound cover. The magazine premiered with its first issue in 1999. I’m bummed to see the magazine ending cause they do an amazing job with it and I’ve enjoyed reading them.
I really enjoyed the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly which was the summer movie preview issue. Wow, there are a lot of good movies coming out this summer that I’m looking forward to checking out!! Maybe I can become more of a frequent visitor to the theatre this summer. I absolutely plan on going to see Spiderman 3 and Transformers. If I don’t make it to the theatre to see some of these other movies, I absolutely plan on watching them on DVD when they are released. Big movies coming out are the new Harry Potter movie, Shrek 3, Fantastic Four, Rush Hour 3, Die Hard 4, Ocean’s Thirteen, and oh yeah, some movie called Pirates Of The Caribbean. ha ha. Looking forward to The Simpsons movie as I think that will be a lot of fun. I’m a Mandy Moore fan so I’ll end up seeing License To Wed likely on DVD which looks pretty funny as Mandy’s character forces her soon to be husband to take marriage prep classes. One thing for sure is that this is going to be a blockbuster movie summer and should get the box office numbers up.
Why do I get the feeling that I’m going to be really mad when May gets here and the networks do their upfronts for their fall schedules? I’m feeling nervous about several of my shows on whether they will be back. So, I can always vent about it in the Wrap Up so you can look forward to that possibly next month. ha ha.
Trademark Properties returned to TV this past weekend with The Real Deal on TLC. I loved it!! It had all the fun of the old show and I do like the addition of the interview footage in there. It took some getting used to at first but it grew on me really quick cause Richard and Ginger were able to add some details of what was going on. Lots of fun and they did amazing work as always. There has to be some laughs in there too and there were several moments in the show such as Richard goofing off and throwing the chlorine tablets into the pool. The pool was in really bad shape before they bought the house and they were later told that putting too many in the pool could ruin the pool. How funny was it when Richard finally got that window open and the air conditioner fell out before he realized it? It cracked me up every time I saw as we kept seeing it in the previews leading up to when it happened. How did the show perform on Saturday night? It looks like it did really well. Trademark sent out this email and here is what they had to say about the viewership: Thank you so much for all of your support and wonderful emails – because of you, we have once again surpassed every show TLC has ever featured on Saturday night in our timeslot! According to TLC, “Saturday night posted a 13% gain over the quarter to-date ratings average for household, and was in line with the average for P25-54. The increase in HH ratings was primarily driven by the premiere of The Real Deal at 9pm, which posted gains from the timeslot quarter to-date averages for both HH (32%) and P25-54 (8%).”
Gilmore Girls returned last week and we are two episodes in after the show returned with new episodes. Good shows so far. We still continue the tease of Luke and Lorelei getting back together. This week saw Lorelei’s jeep finally break down and the bill was going to be a lot leaving her to look for a new vehicle. She got Luke to go with her who she drove crazy as she didn’t like anything cause she wasn’t ready to part with her other vehicle. How did Lorelei get around town? She decided to ride a bike that she hadn’t ridden in over 10 years since her and Rory got into a biking kick for about 2 weeks and quit. Seeing Lorelei riding a bicycle was pretty funny cause the girls admit tingly aren’t athletic at all. The drama continued over what will Rory and Paris be doing when they graduate. Paris had Rory and Doyle help her with opening mail back from graduate schools that she had applied to. She got into one school but the problem was that she got into EVERY school. Now, she was in panic mode with having too many options and not knowing what to do. She eventually broke up with Doyle for no reason which resulted in Rory running in on their farewell to each other that involved a lot of name calling. Funny stuff!! Paris got afraid that she was going to consider Doyle in what her decision was going to be on where to go to school. She wasn’t ready to find the right guy before her career was set and he was set to follow her wherever she decided to go. They were back together by episode’s end. Rory? Well, Rory got bad news when the episode ended with her opening her letter from the New York Times and she did not get the job. The tease for next week looks like Logan may be asking Lorelei for approval on something which, if I’m guessing, looks like a marriage proposal.
AOL did a poll on shows that you would like to see brought back from the dead. Fans got to vote and here are the shows that fans picked. I’m not sure if these are the rank of how the voting results were or not cause it is odd on how they worded it. Anyway, just in case, this is how they had them numbered along with my comments on them.
- ALF (Absolutely. Loved that show as a kid and how about a syndication pick up somewhere!!)
- Joan Of Arcadia (Did CBS ever stir a hornets nest with that cancellation?)
- The X-Files (Never got into that show. Huge hit though)
- Freaks and Geeks (Here was a show with a huge cult following. I never saw it but heard great things about it)
- Dark Angel (I saw only two episodes of it but liked it. Just had too many other things that I was watching at the time)
- Arrested Development (Fans are still mad over that one)
- Third Watch (Remember the show but never watched it)
- Twin Peaks (Yeah, what I just said)
- American Dreams (DUH, yeah. That would be my number one pick besides another certain show below. One of the best shows EVER and I’m still really mad at NBC over that dumb decision for cancellation)
- Roswell (Another one of my favorite shows. Show lost steam in season three when it became the Isabel show)
- Magnum P.I. (Watched this show as a kid and really liked it)
- Christy (Know it but never watched it)
- Reunion (Ah, one of my early rant topics of the early days of the Wrap Up when this show got cancelled. This cancellation is the reason why I haven’t even bothered watching a new show on Fox again cause I don’t want to get into a show and have it canceled before the story plays out. The fans really got ripped off on this one)
- Angel (Yep, this is the other number one show that I was talking about earlier. LOVED this show and it should have gotten at least one more year. So many more stories to tell)
- Boomtown (Never saw it. Heard good things.)
- Lost In Space (Hey, you got a movie remake at least)
- Dawson’s Creek (One of my all time favorites here. Sad to see this show end but looking back on it, I think it was probably the right time)
- Surface (Know the show but that is all)
- Beauty and the Beast (Wow, I forgot all about that show. Yeah, never watched it)
- Now and Again (I remember the network taking a TON of heat over this cancellation)
- Charmed (Didn’t get to see too many episodes of it but liked what I saw of it)
- St. Elsewhere (There is a classic show out of the past. Never watched it either.)
- Xena: Warrior Princess (This show had a cult following as well)
- Ed (This was an all right show. I think I watched a couple of episodes when Kelly Ripa guest starred on it)
- Sports Night (Remember it. Did I watch the first episode of this show or at least some of the first episode? I can’t remember.)
- Ryan’s Hope (Again, remember it. Never watched it)
- Ally McBeal (I watched a couple of episodes of it in the first season. Dancing baby episode was funny)
- Wonderfalls (I heard this was a very underrated show)
Fox has already pulled their new show Drive from their schedule after four episodes. This proves my point that I made above. Go up to that “bring back shows” paragraph a few paragraphs up and read what I said about Reunion and why I’m not interested in watching new shows on Fox anymore. Thanks Fox for proving my point. What is funny is that I had the above typed up days ago before I even found out this news. I read several comments from viewers that said they’d like to have checked it out but didn’t cause they have already figured out what Fox’s pattern is with canceling shows early. So, I’m not the only that has figured Fox out. ha ha. Want some irony? The show was executive produced by Tim Minear and starred Nathan Fillion. Minear worked with Joss Whedon on Firefly and Fillion was the lead actor on Firefly. What network canceled Firefly? Yep, Fox. Minear also executive produced Wonderfalls and The Inside. All four shows were critically loved and had lots of fans behind them but were all canceled by Fox early on. Firefly survived the longest of the four by going about half a season. If I was Minear, I’d be tempted to stay away from Fox in the future if he is going to keep working on these shows only to have the network end it before it gets rolling.
I haven’t been watching Heroes but that NBC promo for its return is awesome!! I’m talking about the one that has the Nickelback song playing in the background. It got me pumped up and I don’t even watch it.
The Chicago Bulls are up 2-0 on the Miami Heat in the Playoffs. Bulls have looked strong especially in game 2. Hopefully, they can keep this up but we’ll see how things go when they get to Miami for game 3. Ah, the Bulls fans treatment of Posey brings back such fond memories of John Starks. ha ha. Love it!!
After the speculation of it continuing after the news of cancellation, it looks like Passions will continue on after all. If you’re a DirecTV subscriber, you’re in luck. DirecTV has teamed up with NBC Uni TV to continue the series on DirecTV. The show will begin airing on the DirecTV channel 101 on September 17th and will be the first scripted series offered by DirecTV. The president of NBC Universal had this to say about the change, While continuing to produce “Passions” for NBC didn’t make sense because of the show’s low ratings, it works great for DirecTV. They have found a way to cut the budget on the show for it to work including that the show will only have four episodes a week instead of five. This is the first type of deal for a show like this and it will interesting to see if it is successful cause more shows might try this in the future.
TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, May 1st. Adventures Of Ozzie and Harret (Best Of), Around The World In 80 Days, Beverly Hills 90210 (Season 2), Def Poetry Jam (Season 5), Dinosaurs (Season 3 and 4), The Girls Next Door (Season 2), King Of Queens (Season 8), Melrose Place (Season 2), Three’s Company (Janet’s Favorites), What I Like About You (Season 1), Will and Grace (Season 6).
Have a great weekend.
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