Movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry – $34.8 million. 2. Harry Potter – $32.2 million. 3. Hairspray – $27.8 million. 4. Transformers – $20.5 million. 5. Ratatouille – $11.0 million. 6. Live Free Or Die Hard – $7.3 million. 7. License To Wed – $3.8 million. 8. 1408 – $2.6 million. 9. Evan Allmighty – $2.5 million. 10. Knocked Up – $2.3 million.
There has been no shortage of fireworks in the Big Brother house this week. Dick won HOH last week and there was no doubt on who the nominations would be, Kail and Jen. Kail was reeling after her alliance went against her after she campaigned huge to get Dick out of the house. Mike appeared to be staying loyal to her but Kail’s too hard of game play definitely played against her. The veto ceremony saw a competition involving the chosen houseguests having to balance a drink on their head while having the houseguests not playing trying to make them laugh. Kail was out first thing and it came down to Jen and Dick on who would win. Most of the house was trying to distract Jen. Dick had worked his intimidation on Kail which worked. He kept telling Jen that she wasn’t going home and to drop out saying that Kail was the target which was true. Mike decided to stay loyal to Kail and helped with distracting Dick. Dick finally got so furious over it wondering why Mike was purposely trying to distract Dick. Dick pulled the drink off his head and said that he would nominate Mike for “being stupid”. Dick said that the move was dumber than Marcellas’ veto thing years ago. Dick pointed out that he wasn’t even going to nominate Mike until things went like they did in the veto ceremony. The veto ceremony happened and Dick put up Mike against Kail for eviction. That led to last night’s show which saw the tables turn. Once Mike was up there, the house decided to vote out Mike as they decided to get him out while they can as Kail has been so mentally rattled anyway and her alliance has been broken up. Mike was voted out on a 7-2 vote. The only people that voted for Kail was Zach and Eric. Eric was a vote of America’s vote so America voted for Kail. This is a deal where America’s Player could really hurt him as I would have voted Kail too until hearing the new plan by the house. If he is found out to be the other vote for Kail, that could really come back and hurt him. The HOH competition happened and the remaining alliance members were taken out immediately in a contest where the winner of each question got to eliminate another player from the HOH game. Eric was knocking them out left and right and then he threw the HOH. LOL. He has said on the feeds that his plan is to stay in long enough to knock out people that they don’t want to win and then throw the HOH letting someone else win it. He clearly did that last night. Winning HOH was Dustin. Other happenings of the week saw Dick get mad over Nick, Zach, and Jen hanging out in his HOH room with Dick saying that they weren’t going to talk game strategy in his HOH room. Nick asked Jen and Zach to leave and Dick found out that they had been up there. He kicked out Nick and they had a discussion over the game and also Nick and Daniele. If you haven’t been following it, there is a definite attraction going on between Daniele and Nick but Daniele has a boyfriend outside of the house. Dick is definitely wondering what Nick’s intentions are and I have seen him question this to Daniele. Daniele was crying really hard one night talking to Dick where the feelings for Nick have thrown her off and she doesn’t know what to do. Dick is very concerned about her becoming the Erika of this season. Daniele did come in and yell at Dick as she said the whole house was furious with him for how he was treating everyone this week. They had a conversation about the game, their relationship, and Nick. Eric, America’s Player, had his task of having to vandalize another houseguest’s stuff. America voted for him to do it to Jen. So, he snuck and poured mustard on her shirt while it was laying in her room. Jen saw it but couldn’t figure out who did it but Eric wasn’t on her radar as he played it off greatly. I didn’t particularly like that task as that could mess his game up if he was found out to have done it.
What You Missed On The Live Feeds: Wow, Kail was pushing hard last week trying to get people to vote out Dick. I think she was pushing so hard that it turned the house off and it left her to be the only vote for him to leave. One thing about Kail was that she kept saying that she wanted to vote him out but that she wasn’t going to vote for him to leave unless she had more votes. She talked to Jessica who had not made up her mind and tried to swing her to vote out Dick. She then threw this little comment at the end saying that she could come after her friends or something along those lines toward the end of the conversation. Basically a threat which a lot of the house didn’t appreciate and didn’t help Kail’s cause. Speaking of Jessica, I find it her to be pretty likable on the feeds. She doesn’t say too much and is part of the fun “late night” group. Her and Eric’s talks are fun to listen to. Dick is doing a deal for the live feed viewers. He stays up later than pretty much everyone so he’ll talk to the live feed viewers about his day and explaining the happenings in the house. He said that he used to watch the feeds and would wonder what the houseguests were really thinking at times so that is what he is doing now. This is called “Dick at Nite”. There was one night where he and Daniele talked outside for over an hour and they are clearly working together. Interesting conversation last week as well where Nick basically told Amber everything about his alliance and how he got hooked into this alliance early on that he didn’t really want a part of. I like Eric pretty well from what I see of him on the feeds. He’s a smart guy and very funny too with how he tells stories of the happenings in the house. He pointed out that Kail had come to him about why it would have been good to vote Dick out. He then pointed out that she never did point out how it was good for the house but instead how it was good for HER. Not crazy about Zach. He had a conversation with Dick one on one where they talked game. Zach told Dick that he had a deal with Nick that he would split the money with Nick if he won. Dick pointed out immediately that it is against the rules which is very true. The rules state that you can’t do that. Zach had no clue of it. Zach did not do well at all in talking to Dick and was reeling.
The final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, broke all sorts of records. The book went on sale this past week and did huge numbers. 8.3 million copies of the book were sold in the first 24 hours of release. No other book has done those kind of numbers. It averaged 300,000 copies sold per hour on that first day. TONS of bookstores all over the country did a midnight release of the book. It was fun watching all these parties as I always like to see such passionate fans getting to enjoy something that they love.
Drew Carey is set to take over The Price Is Right as he announced it on David Letterman’s show this past week. Good choice there. I think he’ll do well hosting that show.
There has been a lot of talk in the last couple of weeks about NBC’s dilemma with Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. If you didn’t know, it was announced a couple of years ago that Jay would step aside for Conan to take over The Tonight Show in 2009. Conan has been sitting in the late night slot for a while and has stayed loyal to NBC but finally got to the point where he wanted to move up whether it was on NBC or on another network. Leno still enjoys doing The Tonight Show and being in late night TV. He didn’t really want to step aside but understood the position that Conan and NBC were in so he did it out of respect. NBC committed to Conan for taking over The Tonight Show. Talk now has turned to what NBC is going to do with Leno. NBC has the worry of Leno going to another network and becoming a hit for them. NBC is said to be working very hard in coming up with different ideas to keep Leno at NBC doing something (for example a primetime show). Another interesting thing that came out this last week according to reports is that should NBC decide to back out and keep Leno, Conan will make $40 million in a penalty payment. So, he’s going to get paid regardless. NBC is getting prepared for the transition and spending money to get ready for Conan’s move. NBC is also looking into replacements for Conan in his old time slot. This is a tough situation and one that I’ve thought about lately when watching NBC late night. The Tonight Show is a ratings winner with Leno and has showed no signs of faltering. With The Tonight Show doing so well, I find it hard to move Leno out. Conan though has been stuck in that late night slot for a long time and has been very successful at it. He’s shown patience in waiting for his time. I’m a Leno fan and also a Conan fan. Tough deal. So, what are your thoughts on this? What do you do with Jay Leno? Conan?
The creators of Gilmore Girls, Amy and Daniel Palladino, were at the Fox press tour last week about Amy’s new show premiering on Fox at midseason, The Return Of Jezebel James. However, the Gilmore question came up and Amy was asked what she thought of the series finale. She said, “Here’s the deal. I didn’t watch it because I thought — I think I just got very drunk that night and sat in the corner, and [Daniel] read in a corner, and it was very quiet. Then we went to bed. You know, I couldn’t watch it because it wasn’t going to be my ending. It wasn’t going to be what I have had in my head forever, and I was going to do something crazy, homicidal, suicidal, something with an ‘idal’ in it. And I just figured, you know, ‘Go with God.’ I love all those people. I love that cast. You know, Lauren [Graham]’s my pal. We’ve talked about maybe sometime, you know, in the future doing a little song and dance together again, wrapping it up. I rule nothing out.” Amy was asked about the famous line that was what she wanted to close the series with and she said, “It was, ‘You’re adopted,’. Just sell the entire series out like it’s coming out of the shower — by the way, she’s in the shower, and she says, ‘By the way, Rory, you’re adopted.’ No, that’s not the last line. Save it, just in case.” Daniel then spoke up making sure to point out “That’s not it. Let’s be clear”. I’ll add that too, they were joking. I do wonder what the last line was going to be and am always going to wonder. Interesting comments though and I tend to think we’ll see a reunion of the show in the distant future.
CBS has canceled their reality show, Pirate Master. The last five episodes will air on CBS.com with a new episode each week. Is the CBS summer schedule of mostly reruns so tight that they can’t fit the rest of the new episodes of this show somewhere on their lineup? I could go on a rant of how (no matter how big or small) viewers getting hooked on to a show and then getting left with no finish is a bad trend but I’ve hammered that thought out a ton over the last year or so. At least you can watch it online though.
I know I have several Lost fans reading this so I thought I’d pass along the info that ABC announced at the TCA press tour last week. Harold Perrineau, who plays Michael Dawsons, will be returning to the show this coming season. They would not reveal how or when the character will be back so they’re not going to expose that storyline other than the news itself.
Veronica Mars creator, Rob Thomas, has parted ways with the new ABC sitcom, Miss/Guided. He was set to be executive producer of the show but did not like the direction of where the sitcom was going so they parted ways due to “creative differences”.
Disney has made a move to not have smoking seen in their name branded movies anymore. They become the first movie studio to take this step. The MPAA announced back in May that smoking in movies will help determine the ratings in the future. Disney is going to put anti-smoking ads on DVD releases of movies that do feature smoking past movies of theirs. Touchstone and Miramax movies are going to be “discouraged” from having smoking in them as well.
I am almost through season two of The Hills. Lauren needs to kick some friends to the curb. Heidi and Jen need to be kicked to the side. Lauren makes the big to do over Jen’s big 21st birthday only to have Jen hook up with Brody who Lauren had been seeing. Then, Heidi is egging it on for Jen to hook up with him because according to Heidi, you should be able to do whatever you want cause it’s your birthday. Unreal. I was glad when Lauren finally just went off on everyone at the end of the episode. Lauren needs to hang out with Whitney more. She’s nice and there is not any drama with that girl from what I’ve seen.
Nielsen has begun studying video game systems and recently released their findings for video game play for June. The older consoles still continue to stand on top. Nielsen said that the Playstation 2 made up for 42% of video game play for the month followed by the original Xbox at 17% and the Xbox 360 at 8%. The Nintendo Gamecube was 4th at 5.8%. The new consoles saw the Nintendo Wii with 4% and the Playstation 3 with 1.5%. Nielsen is doing these ratings in similar fashion to their TV ratings system. Nielsen also pegged the amount of video game usage comparing the summer month of June to April. April saw video game usage of the Wii with the peak hour of usage being 5pm. June saw the peak hour move up to 8pm. Nielsen found that over 68 million people played video games in June. In following with the video game news, the Wii continues to sell very well and Nintendo has upped their projected profits for the year. PS3 has continued to struggle and this has recently seen the announcement of a price drop for the cost of it.
TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, July 31st. The Archie Show (Complete Series), Babylon 5 (The Lost Tales), Dallas (Season 7), Hawaii Five-O (Season 2), The Kids Of Degrassi Street (Complete Series), Popeye (Volume 1, 1933-1938), Sabrina The Teenage Witch (Season 2), Sons Of Hollywood (Season 1), Space: 1999 (30th Anniversary Edition), Thunderbirds (40th Anniversary Collector’s Edition Set).
You Tube Video Of The Week: A real life version of the old Nintendo game, Mike Tyson’s Punchout set in modern day. This is really well done.
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