Sunday, May 31, 2009

And the Box Office Champion this week is...


LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – U.S. box-office leader "Up" dipped its animated toes in international waters during the weekend, but it was "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" that claimed the top spot overseas.
The family comedy from 20th Century fox, a sequel to 2006's "Night at the Museum," reaped $37.2 million from 9,000 screens in 100 markets.
The Ben Stiller-starring movie opened at No. 1 in China, grossing $7.4 million from 818 screens, and finished first in at least 11 other territories, propelling its overseas gross past the $100 million mark to $106 million.
Its worldwide gross to date is $211.3 million.
After two weekends atop the international circuit, Sony's "Angels & Demons" finished a close No. 2 this round, grossing $32.9 million from 10,145 screens in 101 territories.
The follow-up to "The Da Vinci Code" ranked first in at least 14 markets, including Germany, where it tallied $4.8 for the weekend, and Japan ($3.2 million). Its overseas total stands at $251.7 million.
Like DreamWorks Animation's "Monsters vs. Aliens" before it, "Up," the 10th title from Pixar/Disney, opened in Russia before its domestic bow largely because of piracy concerns. It drew an animated $4.2 million from 560 screens, taking the No. 1 spot and marking the biggest weekend opening of a Pixar/Disney title in the territory.
The 3-D animation saga, centering on a septuagenarian (voiced by Ed Asner) whose house is lifted by multiple balloons to the wilds of South America, premiered May 13 at the Cannes Film Festival, where it became the first animation title to kick off that event.
Opening overseas simultaneously with its domestic release was Mandate Pictures' "Drag Me to Hell." It screamed all the way to $4.4 million from a combined 700 screens in the U.K., Israel and France, said Mandate International, which is sharing overseas distribution with Universal. The tongue-in-cheek horror title from Sam Raimi finished at No. 2 in the U.K. and was No. 1 in the Paris area.
No. 3 for the weekend was "Terminator Salvation," which drew an action-packed $13 million from mostly Middle East and Asian markets. Sony, which is sharing overseas distribution with local distributors, said "Salvation" drew $8.6 million from 673 screens, finishing at No. 1 in the seven markets it handled. The international total so far for the fourth "Terminator" title stands at $23.1 million; its worldwide gross is $113.8 million.
Fourth overall was Fox's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," which finished a month on the foreign circuit with an international cume of $170.1 million after an $8.1 million weekend from 5,000 screens in 104 markets. A delayed Mexico opening produced a decisive No. 1 market ranking with $4.4 million from 1,336 screens.
At No. 5 was Paramount's rejuvenated "Star Trek," which rocketed past the $100 million overseas mark ($101.5 million) thanks to an $8 million weekend from 4,869 situations in 59 markets. Its worldwide tally is $311 million.
(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)

Friday, May 29, 2009

Hey...It's Friday! have you received your pink slip yet?


For people who follow this blog in Puerto Rico, they know what I'm talking about. For those who don't, a little recap is in order.

In the 2008 campaign for Colonial overseer...I mean, Governor of PR., Luis Fortuño promised that if elected, only one man would have lost his job in PR's horrible economic climate, that of former Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila. After winning the elections and becoming Governor, Fortuño, following the advice of the real power here, the rich, decided that the most easy place to balance the over-bloated budget was to fire up to 30,000 public employees. The first 10,000 will get their walking papers today, begining what probabaly will be a further unstabilizing of the unraveling fabric of our society, already frayed by drug violence, apathy and high unemployment.

Meanwhile, the contracts for lobbyists, advisors, lawyers and representatives, not only do they continue but got even higher and fatter. Some goverment executives even got higher bonuses and salaries, while those fired have to invent something, in this bleak future our "leaders" have dreamed for us, a future in which the privileged ride on the back of the poor and downtrodden, feeding them scraps while we work for them as slaves.

And what are the people planinning to do? What are you planning to do? And me? I will continue to spread the word and spreak out against these and other abuses. I will protest and I will shout from the top of my lungs until my voice is hoarse. I hope the tolerance level of the people here in PR is reaching it's limit. Silence, in this and other matters is tartamount to complicity. Speak out, or else, it will be too late!

Protest now! If you wait until later, you probably won't have the liberty to do so.

Little heavy and serious tone for a Friday. Yes, I know. But this is serious. Levity will have to wait for a while.

Max out!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Russian Police finds Dog girl in Siberia!


Yup! The weirdness doesn't stop! 


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police have taken into care a 5-year-old girl who has been shut up in a flat in the company of cats and dogs for her entire life, police said on Wednesday.

The girl, who lived in the Eastern Siberian city of Chita, could not speak Russian and acted like an dog when police took her into care.

"For five years, the girl was 'brought up' by several dogs and cats and had never been outside," a police statement said.

"The unwashed girl was dressed in filthy clothes, had the clear attributes of an animal and jumped at people," it said.

The flat had no heat, water or sewage system.

A police spokeswoman said the girl, known as Natasha, is being monitored by psychologists in an orphanage. Her mother was being questioned but her father has not been found yet.

She appears to be about 2-years-old, though her real age is five, refuses to eat with a spoon and has taken on many of the gestures of the animals with which she lived, police said.

"When carers leave the room, the girl jumps at the door and barks," the police said.

Feral children, the stuff of folklore all over the world, usually exhibit the behavior of the animals with whom they have had closest contact, a condition known as the Mowgli Syndrome after the fictional child from Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book" who was raised by wolves in the jungle.

Such children have usually built strong ties with the animals with whom they lived and find the transition to normal human contact extremely traumatic.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Farah Master)





Is it me or the Russians have a high percentage of these feral children in the last 15 years, after the Soviet Union collapsed? It looks that after the communists left, the weirdness magnet was turned way up!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Of Jimmy Arteaga, Puertorrican culture and insulting people in foreign country.


I tried my best to steer away from the issue of Jimmy Arteaga, vice president of Programing for Channel 4 here in San Juan. This personage that is native to Peru, has come here to "straighten out" the programming problems of Channel 4 against the invasions of Channel 2 by NBC-Universal and Channel 11 by Univision.

The funny thing that instead of bolstering local programing with foreign products, he has continue to cancel local TV shows, that have solid ratings, leaving dozens of tecnicians and actors without work. But this doesn't end here. In a severe case of nepotisim, Mr. Arteaga has put a lame TV show called "Monica en confianza" on a prime slot. Monica is Arteaga's Wife!

To make matters worse, during an interview with MariCarmen Aviles, in which she was pitching an idea for a morning kids tv show, he was qouted as saying that "...don't bring me a show made by Puertorricans! They are lazy people and don't know how to produce tv!"

Really Mr. Arteaga?

Fast facts:

TV in Peru was inagurated officially in 1958.

We have been doing TV in Puerto Rico since 1954. A full 4 years before Peru!

I've been in the business for almost 30 years, and I'm still surprised that people that are not from these parts do this kind of crap!

If I go to Peru and insult the TV professionals there, the least of my troubles will be my drive to the airport after being deported! It will be getting out of there alive!

But here, because we have no say on our affairs in communications (after all it's run by the FCC in Washington), we have to get slapped in the face and we have to grin and bear it!

Or do we have to?

It's all up to you! Write, protest! Shout "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" Boycott WAPA TV. Don't watch "La Comay" or "Noticentro 4"
Watch WIPR TV (6) or WPRV TV (13). They are the last bastions of Puertorrican programming left.

Be proud of being who you are! Never give up!

Kick Jimmy Arteaga to HELL!

Max Out!

P.S. - Here's an article written by comedian Silverio Pérez on the situation.

Also an article here when he left Peru in 2005, in disgrace!

A Jimmy Arteaga article in 2003, when he was accused of criminal fraud by the authorities!

Here's my friend Junior Alvarez when he made the accusations against Mr. Arteaga, and his response to allegations of Xenophobia.


First Hispanic apointee to the Supreme Court is a Puertorrican from the Bronx!


President Barack Obama has made his choice. To substitute retiring Justice David Suiter, the President has chosen 54 year old Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court.

Here's a snippet of the news item...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama chose federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the nation's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice on Tuesday, praising her as "an inspiring woman" with both the intellect and compassion to interpret the Constitution wisely.

Obama said Sotomayor has more experience as a judge than any current member of the high court had when nominated, adding she has earned the "respect of colleagues on the bench, the admiration of many lawyers who argue cases in her court and the adoration of her clerks, who look to her as a mentor."

Standing next to Obama at the White House, Sotomayor recalled a childhood spent in a housing project in the Bronx as well as her upper-echelon legal career: "I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government."

Barring the unexpected, Senate confirmation seems likely, given the large Democratic majority. If approved, she would join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the current court, the third in history. She would succeed retiring Justice David Souter.



More on this historic event HERE!

A Puertorrican, from the Bronx, in the Supreme Court! This gives meaning to the word "E Pluribus Unum" (From Many, One)

Welcome to the Real United States of America!

Sunday, May 24, 2009

And the Box Office champion this week is...


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Ben Stiller beat Christian Bale in the North American weekend box office duel between their respective "Night at the Museum" and "Terminator" sequels, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.

The 20th Century Fox comedy "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" sold $53.5 million worth of tickets during the three days beginning Friday, far exceeding the $30.4 million debut of its 2006 predecessor.

"Terminator Salvation" earned $43.0 million. The film fell short of the $44 million start for the previous entry in the cyborg series, 2003's "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," the swan song of franchise star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But the race between the two new sequels was closer than it appeared because Warner Bros. got a head start on the U.S. Memorial Day holiday weekend by opening "Terminator" on Thursday, when it earned about $13.4 million. That takes the film's four-day total to $56.4 million.

The studios generally try to avoid each other when they roll out their big movies. In this case, "Night at the Museum" played to a broad audience, while "Terminator" was more targeted at male moviegoers.

Time Warner Inc-owned Warner Bros. said "Terminator" was likely more affected by competition for older men from the National Basketball Association playoffs, which hurt business in cities like Los Angeles.

Fox, a unit of News Corp, said the "Night at the Museum" opening set a new live-action record for Stiller. The film also opened in most international markets, earning $50.5 million.

Last weekend' North American champion, "Angels & Demons," fell to No. 4 with $21.4 million, taking the 10-day total for Columbia Pictures' Tom Hanks religious thriller to $81.5 million. By contrast, its 2006 predecessor "The Da Vinci Code" had earned $136.5 million after the same period.

But the Sony Corp unit has said it never expected the second film to be as big, and noted it that it was the top choice internationally with sales of $60.4 million. Its foreign total now stands at $198.3 million.

Paramount Pictures' "Star Trek" slipped one place to No. 3 with $22 million, taking its total to $183.5 million after three weekends. The studio is a unit of Viacom Inc.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)

Friday, May 22, 2009

Use the Force Luke! Float that little ball!

Very soon, probably before Christmas, you'll be able to begin you Jedi training as a Padawan. Behold the Jedi Mind Control Training Machine.

Watch this as the machine is tested by the people at the Washington Post.



Hey, I'm impressed. I'm getting one! Still Star Trek is cooler now than Star Wars. Can I get an Amen to that!

María Amelia López 1911-2009, Spain's Blogging Granny.


All around the world, people are mourning the passing of this original character.


MADRID (Reuters) -

A Spanish great-grandmother whose blog attracted tens of thousands of readers from around the world has died aged 97 in the northern Spanish province of La Coruña.

María Amelia López charmed readers with a homely mix of memories and chat at http://amis95.blogspot.com/, including stories of a long life that witnessed Spain's Civil War and years of dictatorship under General Francisco Franco.

López, who dictated her entries to her grandson Daniel because she suffered from cataracts, became a nationally loved figure in Spain and met Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

"My grandson gave me this blog when I was 95 on December 23 2006 and my life changed," reads one of her entries. "Since that day I've had 1,570,784 visits from bloggers from 5 continents who have cheered up my old age."

A banner on her site read "Rest in Peace," with nearly 500 messages mourning her death.


A link was posted on her address. Even thou it's sad to see her go, it's interesting to see her life experiences documented for posterity. Go and read it, it's fascinating.
May she rest in Peace.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Mein Gott!!! Expensive asparagus gets a woman beaten!


Seriously, the Germans are beginning to frighten me. Take a gander at this.


BERLIN (Reuters) – German police are searching for a motorist who beat a 24-year-old woman selling white asparagus because he was upset about her asking price for the coveted springtime vegetable, police said on Monday.

The prices for white asparagus, sometimes called "edible ivory" in Germany, fluctuate wildly during the short springtime season, peaking early in the season at 10 euros ($13.62) per kilo.

The man screamed at the woman that her asparagus was overpriced. He then punched her in the face and threatened to unleash his attack dog at her. She fled and called police.

"The motorist said her prices were totally over the top," said Dietmar Keck, police spokesman in the Havelland district west of Berlin, without saying how much she was asking.

Prices for asparagus now range from 1 to 5 euros ($1.36 to $6.81) per kilo, he said. Some 55,000 tons valued at 175 million euros ($238 Million) are harvested annually.

(Writing by Jacob Comenetz; Editing by Louise Ireland)

(1 Kilo = 2.2 Lbs.)



I understand that things are tough all over, but hitting somebody? And over asparagus? Jeez!

Monday, May 18, 2009

And the box office champion this week is...




LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – "Angels & Demons," the new movie based on Dan Brown's popular novel about conspiracy in the Catholic church, racked up $152 million in global ticket sales over the weekend, but failed to match the start of its predecessor "The Da Vinci Code."

Distributor Columbia Pictures said on Sunday the $150 million sequel earned about $48 million during its first three days of release in the United States and Canada, reaching No. 1 on box office charts and eclipsing last week's champ, "Star Trek," which slipped to No. 2 with $43 million.

Guided by the studio, box office pundits had expected "Angels" to open in the $40 million to $50 million range, and Columbia said it was thrilled with the result.

The sequel should pass $150 million in domestic ticket sales, said Rory Bruer, president of worldwide distribution at the Sony Corp unit.

Still, the popular "Da Vinci Code" opened to $77 million in 2006 on its way to a domestic haul of $217.5 million.

"Angels" also earned $104.3 million from No. 1 starts in 96 countries, down from the $147 million start for "Da Vinci."

Inevitably, the new film failed to replicate the buzz of the first movie. "The Da Vinci Code," based on another best-selling book by Brown, generated a firestorm of criticism with its premise that Jesus impregnated Mary Magdalene and that church officials tried to keep their bloodline secret.

The Vatican -- along with most critics -- ripped the film, but took a more measured tone against its sequel. Columbia said the first book sold twice as many copies as the second one, a clear indication that the second movie would come up short.

"On the other hand, 'Angels' absolutely was a far more cinematic book than 'Da Vinci Code' was," said Bruer.

POOR REVIEWS AGAIN

In "Angels & Demons," Tom Hanks returned to the series as a Harvard professor on a mission to save the papacy, and Ron Howard is also back directing the film. And much as they were with "Da Vinci Code," critics were scathing.

On website rottentomatoes.com that collects criticism and scores movies said the film earned only 38 percent positive reviews.

The Washington Post's John Anderson said: "What the movie is supposed to accomplish -- laying out a fairly complex mystery in a way that creates suspense -- is precisely what it doesn't do."

Still, Bruer expected the film to hold up well in coming weeks, as a rare adult thriller in a summer marketplace dominated by youth-skewing pictures like "Star Trek" and Thursday's upcoming release of "Terminator Salvation."

Columbia was also bullish about overseas prospects, noting it was the biggest international opening for a film since "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" in 2008.

Germany was the top market, contributing $12.7 million -- about the same as the opening for "The Da Vinci Code." Italy was also steady with $11.4 million. But Britain accounted for $9.7 million, down from $15.7 million for "Da Vinci." Spain ($7.1 million) and Japan ($6.9 million) also saw sizable drops.

"Da Vinci" finished with $540.7 million internationally.

Meanwhile, "Star Trek" lost just 43 percent of the audience from its opening round at box offices last week. Total sales rose to $147.6 million. The sci-fi reboot was distributed by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc.

"X Men Origins: Wolverine," which kicked off the lucrative summer movie season two weekends ago, was down one to No. 3 with $14.8 million. The total for the superhero picture rose to $151.1 million, with foreign fans kicking in an additional $144.5 million. The film was released by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Philip Barbara)

Friday, May 15, 2009

Hugh Van Es 1941-2009 Photojournalist





Anybody who knows me, knows that I'm a photographer. My minor in college was photojournalism. I was inspired by the photography of Gary Williams, Robert Capa, Eddie Adams and Hugh Van Es, among others. Hugh Van Es was a Dutch photographer that took the famous helicopter in the roof shot during the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese army on April 30, 1975. He also took the photo of a wounded soldier in 1969 during the battle for Hamburger Hill.

Van Es passed away today in Hong Kong. He was 67 years old.

Hugh Van Es was born in the Netherlands on July 6, 1941. He decided on his career after seeing an exhibition by the legendary combat photographer Robert Capa and made his way to Hong Kong in 1967 to work as a freelancer.

He joined the South China Morning Post as chief photographer, and the following year went to Vietnam. He worked first as a soundman for NBC News then as a photographer for Associated Press then United Press International.

His powerful shots sent a stark message back to America about the realities of the conflict. His photograph of a wounded soldier with a tiny cross shining against his silhouette, was the best-known picture from the May 1969 battle of Hamburger Hill.

His most famous photograph, of the roof-top escape, was not, as widely believed, taken from the rooftop of the US Embassy but from a building that housed CIA staff a few blocks away.

He wrote in the The New York Times in 2005: "One of the best-known images of the Vietnam war shows something other than what almost everyone thinks it does."

As North Vietnamese forces neared Saigon, hundreds of Vietnamese joined US civilians in the grounds of the US Embassy hoping to be rescued by the helicopters carrying US military and embassy staff away.

A few blocks away, another helicopter hovered over the roof of the CIA building and a group of people scaled a ladder to safety.

It was this helicopter that Van Es photographed from the balcony of the UPI bureau, and using a 300mm lens, the longest he had.

After the Vietnam War he returned to Hong Kong — a perch from which he covered events across Asia, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.

He remained modest about his career, and younger journalists who passed through the halls of Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents' Club knew him not from his tale-telling but only by his trademark photographer's vest.

So long Mr. Van Es. You will be remembered.

A sexy "Venus" figurine is the oldest sculpted figure on record!


This little figure states the obvious!

LONDON (Reuters) - A sexually suggestive Venus figurine with oversized breasts and thighs dates back at least 35,000 years and shows ancient humans had sex on their minds, researchers said Wednesday.

The 60-millimetre-long figurine may be the oldest piece of its kind yet discovered and suggests Palaeolithic art was far more complex than many had thought, Nicholas Conard of Tubingen University in Germany wrote in the journal Nature.

Radiocarbon dating indicates the figure excavated from an archaeological dig in southern Germany, near the Danube valley, was at least 35,000 years old, the researchers said.

"The discovery predates the well-known Venuses from the Gravettian culture by at least 5,000 years and radically changes our views of the context and meaning of the earliest Palaeolithic art," Conard wrote.

"Before this discovery ... female imagery was entirely unknown."

The figurine's enlarged breasts, bloated belly and thighs also make clear that sexual symbolism was alive and well tens of thousand of years ago, Paul Mellars of the University of Cambridge, wrote in a commentary.

"The feature of the newly discovered figure that will undoubtedly command most attention is its explicitly, almost aggressively, sexual nature, focused on the sexual characteristics of the female form," he wrote.

"Whichever way one views these representations, it is clear that the sexually symbolic dimension in European (and indeed worldwide) art has a long ancestry in the evolution of our species."

(Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen)


Of course Humans have "Sex" on their minds! What do you think it takes to make 6 billion of us! Jeez!
I can imagine some cave dweller seeing the figure and saying..."Look at the rack on this thing! She looks like Oogla!"
Yup! Humanity have always been this crass.
And that's the way I like it!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Death Star over San Francisco!

For those who don't believe...here! Believe now!!!



This goes to show you how anybody can fake a UFO sighting!

It would have been better to see the Enterprise there. After all, this is SF, home to Starfleet Academy!

Face it, Star Trek is now way cooler that Star Wars!

Look! It's Hitler...without it's head!


Almost 70 years after the beginning of WWII, Adolf Hitler still courts hate and controversy.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court fined an unemployed man 900 euros ($1,227) Tuesday for knocking the head off a waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler in a Berlin museum.

Minutes after the Madame Tussauds museum opened in the German capital in July, the 42-year-old pushed past security staff ripped off its head. The man, an ex-policeman, said he found it inappropriate to display an exhibit showing the Nazi leader only some 500 meters from Berlin's Holocaust memorial.

The waxwork of a glum-looking Hitler in a mock bunker stirred debate in Germany even before it went on display. Critics argued it was tasteless to display a replica of the man who unleashed World War Two and ordered the extermination of Europe's Jews.

Madame Tussauds said the museum avoided politics, arguing Hitler stood for a significant part of German history and his waxwork therefore had a legitimate part in the exhibition.

The restored figure was returned to the museum in September and is now displayed behind a glass wall.

About 25 workers spent about four months on the original waxwork, using more than 2,000 pictures and pieces of archive material and also guided by a model of the "Fuehrer" in the London branch of Madame Tussauds.

The wax figure has been cited as the latest in a gradual breaking down of taboos about Hitler in Germany more than 60 years after the end of the war and the Holocaust in which some six million Jews were killed.

The 2004 film "Downfall" provoked controversy as it portrayed the leader in a human light during the last days of his life. In 2007, a satire about Hitler by Swiss-born Jewish director Dani Levy was released in Germany.

It is illegal in Germany to show Nazi symbols and art glorifying Hitler.

(Reporting by Kerstin Rebien; Writing by Kerstin Gehmlich; editing by Ralph Boulton)


I empathize with the protestor. But we also need to acknowledge that this monster existed. We have to remember, so it doesn't
happen again!
More than 50 million victims of World War II demand so!

Monday, May 11, 2009

What is that snake doing in my toilet?


Sometimes real life calls upon the limitations of imagination...in other words, truth is still stranger than fiction!
Here is the case of the toilet snake!

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A Taiwanese man became a sitting target for a snake, which bit his penis as sat on the toilet at his rural home, local media reported on Monday.

"As soon as he sat down, he suddenly felt a knife-like pain and reacted instinctively by standing up," the China Times said. "When he looked down, he saw the big snake."

The 51-year-old man, from Nantou County, was under medical care with minor injuries, a director at Puli Christian Hospital said.

"As soon as he has passed the risk of infection, he can go," the director, who declined to be named, said. "A snake's mouth isn't always clean."

Local television images showed the black and yellow reptile, reportedly a species of rat snake, being uncoiled and plucked slowly from the toilet bowl.

Snakes regularly enter rural homes in Taiwan and other sub-tropical regions of Asia.

(Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by Nick Macfie and Miral Fahmy)


Could be that the snake tried to mate with the other "snake"!

Uhhh...I know...that was bad!!!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

And the Box Office Champion this week is...


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The new "Star Trek" movie beamed up an estimated $72.5 million in North American ticket sales its first weekend in theaters, dominating the box office and re-energizing a 40-year-old science-fiction franchise.
That figure far surpassed the opening grosses posted by any of the previous 10 "Star Trek" films, even when adjusted for inflation, and kept up a robust pace for the second week of Hollywood's summer moviegoing season.
Combined with $4 million grossed from Thursday evening's preview screenings, "Star Trek" tallied $76.5 million in U.S. and Canadian receipts through Sunday, according to its distributor, Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures studio.
Last weekend's top box office entry, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," still ranks as the biggest film opening so far this year, with $85 million in its first Friday-through-Sunday tally.
But the launch of "Star Trek" slashed deeply into "Wolverine's" second weekend of business, sending the superhero adventure from News Corp's NWSA.0 20th Century Fox to a second-ranked $27 million.
By comparison, "Star Trek" seems poised to hold fairly steady next weekend given that its ticket sales rose from Friday to Saturday, a sign of strong word-of-mouth buzz, said Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com.
The $130 million film ranks among the best reviewed movies of the year, and one of the most well-received by critics of all the "Star Trek" pictures.

"PLAY LONG AND PROSPER"

Directed by J.J. Abrams, the latest film is intended as a "reboot" of the original 1960s television series, with updated special effects and a story line that explains how the crew of the galaxy-hopping Starship Enterprise, including Captain James T. Kirk and his half-Vulcan first officer, Spock, first met.
Leonard Nimoy, who originated the Spock character on TV, dons pointy ears again and even recites the Vulcan salutation, "Live long and prosper," for a featured appearance in the new movie as an elder Spock.
Despite early pre-release tracking data showing weak anticipation levels, the film seems to have won over both older "Trekkie" fans of the franchise and younger moviegoers on whom financial success depends, Paramount executive Don Harris said.
"The way this film is being received ... it looks like the movie will play long and prosper," he said.
"Wolverine," which stars Hugh Jackman reprising his role as the ferocious but conflicted superhero with steel claws, has received far-less glowing reviews than "Star Trek." Marking the fourth title in the "X-Men" series, its 10-day tally stands at $130 million.
Although ticket sales for its second weekend dropped 68 percent from its opening three-day stretch, Fox executive Chris Aronson said the studio was pleased. "It's what franchise movies do, and given the competition in the marketplace, it's right in line with expectations," he said.
The 12 highest-grossing movies this weekend collectively amassed nearly $141 million in North America, up almost 20 percent from the same weekend a year ago, while year-to-date revenues and attendance are also up by double-digits.
Rounding out this weekend's top five films were the romantic comedy "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," with $10.5 million, the thriller "Obsessed," at $6.6 million, and the comedy "17 Again," with $4.4 million. The only other new wide release, the comic crime yarn "Next Day Air," opened at No. 6 with $4 million.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Friday, May 8, 2009

Woman hunter demonstrate she's as stupid as her male counterpart!


Who said male poachers can have all the fun, This female demonstrates that stupid behavior crosses all boundaries.

Female hunter Teressa Groenewald-Hagerman has become the first woman in the world to shoot an elephant dead with a bow and arrow.

Groenewald-Hagerman, 39, she sneaked into the animals herd and killed the creature with one shot from just 12 yards.
The woman, from Kansas, was inspired to go on the safari after being challenged by a male friend who said women could never draw such a heavy bow.

She worked out for four hours a day for eight months to be able to draw the huge PSE XF Bow big enough to kill the majestic creature.
The huntswoman wrote her own blog about her trip to Zimbabwe where she found the elephant in 2007.
She describes leaving the animal overnight lying on its side before returning to check it was actually dead the next day.
On the hunting website 'Hunts of a Lifetime' Hagerman wrote: "A man by the name of Larry, who is a videographer for Orion Multi Media, bet me I couldn't shoot a buffalo or elephant with a bow.


More on this complete moron here!

This woman is proud of killing a creature that never harmed her, just for a bet!

Make your own conclusions. This make me sick!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Texas is the most STUPID state in the Union!

Texans have always been very independent people. After their war of independence against Mexico in 1839, the Texans have always been proud of being Texans first, Americans second. Well this also applies to their brains, it looks like.

Barbara Cargill, a born again Christian and a staunch Creationist, who by the way is a member of the Board of Education in Texas, proposed an ammendment on the study of astronomy in schools, saying that the universe is not expanding and that is only 6,000 years old!

WHAT!!!

ARE THIS PEOPLE STUPID?...Oh I forgot...they are Texans! This is the place that gave us George W. Bush, the worst president in US History!

Of course, this born again christians don't care that solid scientific proof shows that the Universe is not only expanding from the Big Bang but is expanding at an alarming rate and it's older than 6,000 years old!


Damn those American Born-Again Christian Jerks! They are giving Christians everywhere a bad name and reputation!

To prove my point, here's the video of the meeting where this piece of crap ammendment was introduced.

BTW it was approved 11 to 3!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

And the Box Office Champion this week is...


LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Comic book movie "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" slashed its rivals at box offices over the weekend with a $160 million worldwide debut, leaping to No. 1 on ticket charts in a solid start to Hollywood's summer.
The action adventure, starring Hugh Jackman as the heroic Wolverine who wields long claws as his weapons, raked in $87 million in the United States and Canada and helped push total ticket sales just slightly ahead of the same weekend last year, according to tracking service Hollywood.com Box Office.
Landing at No. 2 on domestic box office charts with $15.3 million was romantic comedy "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," starring Matthew McConaughey. Last week's No. 1, thriller "Obsessed," dropped to third place with a weekend haul of $12.2 million for a cumulative total of $47 million in two weeks.
But it was "Wolverine" that lured the vast majority of fans to theaters. It was widely watched as the first major film of the studio's summer movie season that runs through August and can account for 35 to 40 percent of the annual ticket sales.
The $87 million domestic box office for "Wolverine" was lower than the $98.6 million debut of last year's No. 1 film, "Iron Man,' and box office trackers had estimated an opening in a range of $85 million to $100 million.
But Chris Aronson, senior vice president of domestic distribution at "Wolverine" backer Twentieth Century Fox, said the studio was guiding industry watchers lower for reasons that included the movie being the fourth in the "X-Men" series.
"I'd been telling people that at anything over $70 million, we were going to be very happy," he said.
Moreover, Aronson said "Wolverine" enjoyed the second biggest domestic opening for an "X-Men" movie behind "X-Men: The Last Stand," which posted a $102 million debut in May 2006 and eventually earned $459 million globally.
The four movies in the "X-Men" series have combined for more than $1.1 billion in ticket sales around the world.
SALES TOPPED PRODUCTION COSTS
The Fox executive said ticket sales of $73 million in 101 markets outside the United States and Canada brought the global haul to $160 million. He called that figure "fantastic," and noted it topped the movie's production cost of around $130 million.
Aronson said "Wolverine" may have been affected by other issues including the flu outbreak that shut theaters in Mexico, where "Last Stand" took in $6 million at its debut.
In the United States, Aronson said, a Saturday night professional basketball game between the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls likely reduced moviegoing in those cities. In Boston, ticket sales were off around 21 percent and in Chicago, they were down about 30 percent.
Finally, an early and unfinished copy of "Wolverine" had leaked on the Internet and may have kept some fans away. But the true impact of Web watching is hard to calculate. "I don't know that we'll ever know" the effect, Aronson said.
Rounding out the top five movies were comedy "17 Again" with $6.4 million ($48.5 million cumulative) at No. 4, and animated "Monsters vs. Aliens" with $5.8 million ($182.4 million cumulative) at No. 5.
Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of News Corp. Warner Bros. is part of Time Warner Inc. "Obsessed" was distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment unit Screen Gems. "17 Again" was distributed by Warner Bros., and "Monsters vs. Aliens" by DreamWorks Animation.

Friday, May 1, 2009

The Virgin has appeared...in the grill of of a Mexican resturant!


First the so called "Swine Flu", now this...

The Associated Press
updated 8:45 a.m. ET, Fri., May 1, 2009

CALEXICO, Calif. - The hottest thing on the griddle at the Las Palmas restaurant these days isn't the food — it's the image of
Our Lady of Guadalupe that a cook says she saw on the griddle.

Restaurant manager Brenda Martinez says more than 100 people have flocked to the small town of Calexico on the California-Mexico border to gaze at the likeness of the Virgin Mary since it was discovered as the griddle was being cleaned.

Among the awe-struck was a group of masked Mexican wrestlers who arrived Thursday for an exhibition at a nearby swap meet.

One, known as Mr. Tempest, says: "This is amazing. It's a true miracle."

Since the discovery, the griddle has been taken out of service and placed in a shrine in a storage room.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30508304/


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The Virgin exists and she's between the Fajitas!
And masked Luchadores are their apostles!!!

Repent!!! and get free Carnitas!!!!

Via Petite Maoiste