Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix – $77.1 million. 2. Transformers – $37 million. 3. Ratatouille – $18 million. 4. Live Free Or Die Hard – $11.3 million. 5. License To Wed – $7.3 million. 6. 1408 – $5 million. 7. Evan Almighty – $4.9 million. 8. Knocked Up – $3.7 million. 9. Sicko – $2.6 million. 10. Ocean’s Thirteen – $2.0 million.
As we have with the last few weeks, let’s track the number one movie of the week and see what it did record wise. Harry Potter opened on a Wednesday setting the record for the best Wednesday opening ever with $44.2 million on that day. As the weekend approached, the movie had already made $62.6 million. As of Sunday, it was said to be on pace to have the best opening week ever for any of the Harry Potter movies.
Now, into Transformers. Transformers has a grand total of $229 million made here in the States. Worldwide, it has made $375 million. I’ll go ahead and share my thoughts on the movie going into the story with what I liked and didn’t like. So, if you haven’t seen it yet, you may want to skip this. SPOILER ALERT. Honestly though, I don’t really have much of anything to say negative about the movie. I went in with a mentality of “let’s just see what happens” and stayed open minded while being very excited. As far as the story goes, I liked it. I liked that they introduced Bumblebee first putting him with Sam. That was always the bond of friendship in the original series and the series really focused on the two of them a lot. I did find it interesting that they kept the Witwicky last name for the family but instead of Spike, they called him Sam. It was odd when they kept the Sparkplug nickname for the dad but changed Spike. Having the Witwicky name though was important for me. With Spike, maybe they thought that name had been overused with other characters on TV and movies. I liked the little things such as when Bumblebee was found at the car lot, he was parked next to a yellow bug. Another name change saw that the matrix is now called the spark. The first hour of the movie was really just setting up the movie which I thought was perfectly fine. We didn’t see a lot of the Transformers pop up in the movie till halfway. I liked that it built the excitement of when we’re going to see them and how. I couldn’t have been the only one that just LOVED seeing Optimus pull up in vehicle mode that first time and waiting to see him transform. They did an amazing job with him. I thought everyone’s personalities were pretty close such as Ironhide, Ratchet, and Jazz. One thing that I did notice different in this movie as compared to the original story. It appeared that they could change transformation mode when they wanted at any time. Bumblebee was kind of ridiculed for his look and then he got an image of a new car driving by changing into that. In the original series, they arrived on Earth and the computer scanned for nearby machinery and that was how they formed their transformation mode. From there it was all either being upgraded such as with Unicron or if they were physically changed by repairing them. They weren’t able to use such power to do that as they wish. I just took a mental note of it when it happened. Didn’t bother me so much though. Megatron obviously didn’t transform into a gun like in the original which is COMPLETELY understandable in this day and age. Times have changed since the 80’s and you have to have him as something that you can market. Starscream was right on but I’m hoping that there is a deleted scene somewhere with him trying to take over. I did pop for the line of Megatron telling Starscream “you’ve failed me yet again, Starscream”. I loved that!! If you’re not familiar with Starscream, he was a decepticon but was always looking for that way to get rid of Megatron so he could be the leader. It ended up being his demise. I thought Starscream looked awesome in the movie especially when he was flying around battling the military planes. The unveiling of Megatron was very cool seeing him deactivated inside. You just really had a feeling of “oh you people are going to pay when he activates”. How about us getting a Optimus/Megatron battle at the end of the movie instead of 30 minutes into it like the 1986 movie? I loved the “one shall stand, one shall fall” line that was put in this movie which also was said during their 1986 battle. I did walk into the theater saying I’d be furious if they kill off Optimus in this movie. They left things wide open at the end where the humans apparently don’t know that just dumping decepticons in the water isn’t going to finish them. Also, one decepticon escaped. I expect whoever it was to power back up and form an army to come back to get the others. The fans’ opinions that I have read think it was Starscream but I didn’t get a good look. That would be great cause then he could go and form his own army and be the leader. There was a lot of good comedy in the movie. I wasn’t crazy about a lot of the potty humor that they went for at times. I think you can be funny without going that route but that is just me. The scene with the autobots hiding in the back yard was very funny. The Sam and Bumblebee scenes were very funny as well. I really liked the soundtrack. The 1986 movie had a very strong soundtrack and the new movie had a good one as well mixing in some current music. I’d actually like to get the new Transformers soundtrack. Now, I’m probably going to get the question of which movie did I like best? The 2007 movie or the original 1986 movie? You really can’t compare the two. They’re just two different animals from two different eras. I loved the 1986 animated movie. I loved the 2007 movie. It’s also two different eras of movie making. The 1986 movie was the version of Transformers that I grew up with and am obviously going to cherish deeper. The 2007 movie did so much live action that looked amazing. It had a good mix of action, comedy, and the story made sense. I’m not going to pick a favorite between them as it is just unfair cause each one has an advantage. They’re just two different animals as I said.
On to the week in the Big Brother 8 house. Last week, we saw Jen crowned as HOH. Wow, the reaction of Jen winning HOH from the houseguests was…..well…..mostly like how did that happen? Jen ends up nominating Dick and Daniele for eviction. Father and daughter against each other. The veto competition players are picked and the competition is set to take place. Then, Jen basically threatens Amber and others that if they don’t stick with her nominations that she may have to take out one of their friends as a replacement. This sets off a big problem among the houseguests with her threats and Amber ends up crying as Jen was basically talking right to her. Several tell Jen what they think of what she had said. The veto competition takes place and Daniele ends up winning. She takes herself off the block. Jen had several people trying to make suggestions on who to put up in her place. I thought she was going to put up Nick at first cause of Jen being mad about Nick paying attention to Daniele instead of her. She ends up however putting up Joe. Joe against Dick in tonight’s eviction. I had seen the video of Kail and Daniele’s conversation that was shown on tonight’s show and it happened not long at all after the veto ceremony. Kail was working an agenda to try and get Dick out of the house. The diary room stuff tonight showed that Daniele saw through Kail’s tactics. Daniele told Dick about it and he ended up calling out Kail in front of everyone. One thing that I’ll say about Dick is that he isn’t afraid to call people out. That leads up to tonight’s vote and I’ve got to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Joe ends up going home on a 9-1 vote. Joe’s only vote to stay came from Kail. Then, Kail’s own alliance ended up voting to evict Joe as well instead of Dick. Next up is the HOH ceremony. Wow, did we get the punctuation mark on this week with Dick winning HOH. From the nomination chair to the head of household in one night. Anyone not see Kail and Jen being put up for eviction? Thoughts on the week overall. I think Kail got a good reality check tonight. She has been playing a lot of tactics over the last few days. On the live feeds tonight, she is clearly not happy about her alliance not voting with her. We had Nick tell Daniele about his alliance with Kail, Mike, and Zach. WOW. He also told her that he has developed feelings for her but she has a boyfriend outside of the house. I think Joe’s fate for an early exit out of the game was sealed the moment he went on the tirade about Dustin to the other houseguests before Dustin was even revealed as one of the surprise rivals entered the house. How about this for the twist? Two thirds of it is eliminated now. Carol went home last week eliminating the Carol/Jessica one. Tonight, Joe goes home eliminating the Joe/Dustin one. We’re now left with Dick and Daniele. Regardless of the vote tonight, there was only going to be one left anyway. Several funny moments on Saturday’s episode including the drinking game that the guys have come up with where they take a drink every time that Jen says “I”. Hilarious. The other guys picking fun at Nick and Mike with the weight lifting was fun too. Even Nick and Mike were having trouble not laughing at their commentary. Then, we have the unitard that Jen had to wear. Yeah, she enjoyed that way too much. I will say that Jen is interesting TV so far early in this season. I think Amber may be the biggest crier that I ever remember. That girl cries a ton on this show so far. We have seen very little of Jameka or Eric on the show. The only time we see Eric is when it is an America’s Choice segment. Erika, from BB4 and BB7, was on House Calls this week and had a theory on it. The producers like when the houseguests talk a lot of trash and she thought that maybe those two just are just talking nice in the diary room. I could see that. I would like to see more of the two of them on the show. Speaking of Eric, the sleepwalking thing was pretty funny. If you missed it, America’s Choice had a topic of Eric is suddenly going to develop a problem with sleepwalking so whose bed do you want him to end up crawling into while he is sleepwalking? Joe got the vote and he ended up crawling in there. Joe could not figure out who it was and Eric later denied it. Looks like the producers didn’t award him the task as he didn’t do it well enough. I was thinking, hey, he got in the bed and stayed. What else do you want? LOL. His other things to do for the week included America voting for who he should try to get to persuade the HOH to put up for eviction. America voted Jessica and Eric wasn’t even sure about that one. He ended up doing it anyway but Jen shot it down immediately not even weighing it as an option. His other one was on who to vote out of the house. America voted Joe so he voted for Joe to leave which Eric was all for. Pretty funny with Joe finding out about America’s Player when talking to Julie Chen.
The Big Brother ratings are doing well this season so far. Last week’s evicted houseguest, Carol, did a lot of good interviews last week. She just seems like a really nice girl from everything I’ve seen and she has said that she was relieved to get out of the house. She pointed out saying that she just wasn’t into this cutthroat style game. She was recruited into the game as Jessica had applied. She hadn’t actually ever seen the show until the auditioning process. She did add that she didn’t think Jessica had changed at all. She doesn’t know what the $5 that Carol owes is about and is curious if Jessica made that up. She doesn’t even remember what they were mad at each other about cause it was in 8th grade. This is one quote from her on The Early Show when she was asked about what the bad history was with Jessica. “It was honestly 8th grade and I can’t remember what the fight was about. I just know that for four years of my life, we ignored each other, and then graduated and never spoke to each other and the last time I saw her was our High School graduation. And you guys threw me in the house with her. Thanks.” Carol did joke saying that after all that Jessica has said and done in the house that there is no way that she is getting the $5. LOL. Carol made some interesting comments about various houseguests from what she saw early on. She really thinks that Jen is going to be a player in this game. She said that she grew to like Jen and pointed out that Jen gives off extremely bad first impressions. When talking about Dick and Daniele, she talked about how she thought Daniele was going to end up being a player that viewers wouldn’t like calling her two-faced. She enjoyed talking to Dick but said that he would say some very crude things at times that would turn her off. When asked about Eric, she said that learning the America’s Choice twist made her understand him more. She said that he was the one houseguest that she could not get any kind of reading on with what he was up to and now it makes sense.
Curious as to what previous seasons’ Big Brother houseguests are up to? Go here:
http://television.aol.com/feature/big-brother-tv/photos-quizzes/where-are-they-now
Jerry Seinfeld is set to guest star on the season premiere of NBC’s 30 Rock on October 4th.
Ace Ventura 3 is going to happen and the story will focus on the teenage son of Ace. Jim Carrey will not be in the movie. The role of the son is being played by Josh Flitter who has appeared in a couple of movies this summer including Nancy Drew and License To Wed.
The primetime Emmy nominations were released this morning. The Sopranos had 15 nominations while Ugly Betty had 11. Here are the big categories and who got nominated.
Best Drama: Boston Legal, Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes, House, The Sopranos
Best Comedy: 30 Rock, Entourage, The Office, Two and a Half Men, Ugly Betty
Best Actress, Drama: Patricia Arquette (Medium), Minnie Driver (The Riches), Edie Falco (The Sopranos), Sally Field (Brothers & Sisters), Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU), Kyra†Sedgwick (The Closer)
Best Actor, Drama: James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), Hugh Laurie (House), Denis Leary (Rescue Me), James Spader (Boston Legal), Kiefer Sutherland †(24)
Best Reality Show: The Amazing Race, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Project Runway, Top Chef
Best Actor, Comedy: Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), Steve Carell (The Office), Ricky Gervais (Extras), Tony Shalhoub (Monk), Charlie Sheen (Two and a Half Men)
Best Actress, Comedy: America Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Tina Fey (30 Rock), Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (The New Adventures of Old Christine), Mary Louise Parker (Weeds)
There are a lot of people upset over Friday Night Lights getting shut out on nominations. The one thing that I really tire of with these nominations every year is that it is most of the same people every year and the same shows. It seems like there are some shows that can’t get any nominations year after year such as Gilmore Girls. There has also been some frustration over Kristen Bell still not being able to be nominated yet again. She is a great actress and deserves the recognition for it.
I had some interest last week in wanting to know the rest of the voting results in The Simpsons Movie contest involving which Springfield would get to host the premiere. I aim to please so here are the full results.
- Vermont – 15,367
- Illinois – 14,634
- Oregon – 13,894
- Massachusetts – 11,442
- Kentucky – 9,985
- Missouri – 9,535
- Ohio – 7,442
- Tennessee – 7,098
- New Jersey – 7,063
- Colorado – 3,632
- Nebraska – 3,201
- Michigan – 2,516
- Louisiana – 2,387
- Florida – 1,386
New episodes of the TBS hit sitcom, My Boys, premieres on Monday, July 30th. I recommend checking this show out. I gave the first season a very good review earlier in the year. Really enjoy this show and am looking forward to season two.
DirecTV has this video game competition airing exclusively on their system. I watched a little bit of one. You actually watch people playing video games and competing against each other. It seems fun from what I’ve seen of it and how much you enjoy it probably depends on what game that they are playing at the time.
There is an annoying little trend in TV on DVD collecting. After the full series of shows are released, a full box set is released where you can buy the whole series in one big box set. It’s kind of frustrating cause Warner Brothers is doing this with a lot of their sets and the full box sets look really cool where they are putting all the seasons in them. I say frustrating cause it is bad for the fans that have already been collecting them and would like to have this special edition thing to have their box sets in as well. I’ve seen three different Warner Brothers shows doing this including Gilmore Girls, Full House, and The West Wing. The Gilmore and Full House ones look cool. It’s kind of a bummer for those of us that have been collecting box sets as they are released and then, for example, see this nice collector’s box for people buying the full series. I did like that Warner Brothers offered the Friends box to fans who had been purchasing them separately. Only problem was that they way underestimated on how many people were going to order them and sold out very quickly. That was a nice gesture by Warner Brothers on the Friends box and hopefully they’ll do the same with these other shows. I’ve seen the Gilmore box and it looks cool as does the Full House box. The last season of Gilmore Girls (Season 7) and also the full box set featuring seasons one through seven (42 discs and 153 episodes) will be released on November 13th. The last season of Full House (Season 8) and also the full series box set of seasons one through eight (32 discs and 192 episodes) will be released on November 6th. I also checked out The West Wing box set just to see what it looked like which appears to have already been released in stores last year and it looks cool as well.
TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, July 24th. Beer Nutz (Season 1), Benson (Season 1), A Bit Of Fry and Laurie (Seasons 3 & 4), The Crow: Stairway To Heaven (Complete Series), The Pink Panther Show (Volume 6 – Inspector), The Real McCoys (Season 1), Spawn (10th Anniversary Signature Edition), Spenser: For Hire (A Savage Place, Judas Goat), Star Trek (The Captain’s Log Fan Collection), Stargate SG-1 (Season 10), Suspense (The Lost Episodes – Collection 1), Tales From The Crypt (Season 6), Underdog (Volumes 1-3), Weeds (Season 2), The Woody Woodpecker Show (Classic Cartoon Collection).
You Tube Video Of The Week: Who’s On Stage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39xNlnmNLf4
Wishing all of you a great weekend!!
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