May11 |
Dottie Rambo, one of the more prolific songwriters of her generation, died in the early hours of Sunday morning as her tour bus hit an embankment after running off the highway. She was on her way to a Mother's Day performance in North Richland Hills, Texas. Rambo, who was 74, has over 2,500 published songs, many of them extraordinarily popular in Christian and country music circles. "She was a giant in the gospel music industry," said Beckie Simmons, Rambo's agent. "Dolly Parton recorded some of her songs." The accident occurred in southern Missouri, about two miles east of Mount Vernon. It was reported by the Highway Patrol that seven other people in the bus were injured, some severely. Dottie Rambo Singing - In The Valley (He Restoreth My Soul)
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The two new releases this weekend didn't make a dent in the new Iron Man franchise, as combined they weren't able to knock last weeks box office champ off the pedestal. Iron Man took the No. 1 spot again this weekend, with a hefty $50.5 million take; a decent 48.8 percent drop, which brings the total since release to $177.1 million. Their closest two closest competitors combined were only able to reach $40.2 million. As of estimates today, "Speed Racer" is the weekends second place finisher, as it so far is ahead of "What Happens in Vegas" by $200,000. We won't know if that will hold until the actual numbers come out. This can only be called a disaster for Warner Bros. Hopefully filmmakers will start to learn they can't put together these glitzy productions without a good story to go with it. You'd think this would be obvious, but they keep making this mistake over and over again. I didn't have a lot of hope for the film, as even when the announcement was made that the Wachowski's were going to pursue it as a project, much of the response was disappointment from fans. Most of the critics and commentators were also brutal in their critiques of the film, giving it another hurdle to climb over. Another problem is even with kids getting out of school soon it will be shadowed by "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," which will be released next weekend, and is sure to perform strongly while competing in a similar demographic as Speed Racer. Finishing third this weekend was "What Happens in Vegas," which surprised with its strong showing, bringing in $20 million. As mentioned earlier, it could end up in the No. 2 spot once official numbers come out. This was definitely the counter-programming for the weekend, and people were evidently willing to take a chance on it. I don't expect this film to do very well next weekend, and it'll probably experience a sharp drop. Weekend box office top ten: | 1 | Iron Man | $50,500,000 | | 2 | Speed Racer | $20,210,000 | | 3 | What Happens in Vegas | $20,000,000 | | 4 | Made of Honor | $7,600,000 | | 5 | Baby Mama | $5,766,000 | | 6 | Forgetting Sarah Marshall | $3,778,000 | | 7 | Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay | $3,155,000 | | 8 | The Forbidden Kingdom | $1,900,000 | | 9 | Nim's Island | $1,325,000 | | 10 | Redbelt | $1,140,000 |
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May10 |
Michael Conner Humphreys was the actor who played the role of young Forrest Gump in the movie, and now that his enlistment in the army is ending on June 4, Hollywood has already beckoned him back to the industry, as he already has landed an independent film role, in which he'll play another soldier. Humphreys spent a year in the Anbar Province in Iraq, and now has been transferred to fort Riley. He said concerning his tour of duty over there, "It was a good experience and you saw a lot of bad things, a lot of people got hurt over there," he said. "There was definitely a lot of violence. I just hope that we did some good. In the end, I learned a lot and I hope it made me a better person." (AP Photo/Chuck France)
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May 9 |
The "Duggars," who are featured on the Discovery Health, are now expecting their 18th child, as Michelle Duggar announced she's 6 weeks along with their latest addition. According to the Duggars, Michelle Duggar, 41, is due to deliver the baby on New Year's Day. The new baby will join 17 siblings; 10 brothers and seven sisters. Included in the mix are two sets of twins. How does the family remain successful? Dad, Jim Bob Duggar says, "The success in a family is first off, a love for God, and secondly, treating each other like you want to be treated. Our goal is for each one of our children to be best friends, and everybody working together to serve each other makes that happen."
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Brea Grant will play the part of "Speedster" on Heroes during the next season, as the series just got started back into production last week. Grant played the role of a love interest of Landry in Friday Night Lights named Jean. Although I've heard more than one name for the character Grant will play, it seems it will be Daphne. Her character will have supersonic speed, and will operate at three different speed levels. She will evidently leave a wake behind her as she travels in the show. Speedster will be the enemy of the Heroes, but especially Hiro, who is a time traveler, as well as his sidekick Ando.
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May 8 |
In a plea bargain, former San Francisco radio talk show host Bernie Ward has offered a guilty plea to a single count of using the Internet to send child pornography. Even so, the defense lawyer for Ward, Doron weinberg, asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to defer the acceptance of the plea until the issue of whether Ward will be required to be imprisoned immediately is answered. That question won't be answered until the sentencing hearing on August 28. The penalty concerning the charge is a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 years. Weinberg believes Ward will serve at least 4 years of the sentence.
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Three officials who claim to be close to the situation, say Harvey Weinstein threatened to cut off campaign donations to Democrats (in a conversation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi), if she didn't consider a revote in the Democratic presidential primaries in Michigan and Florida. Weinstein, who is a fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton, seems to have wanted to provide Clinton with some additional time in her battle with Barack Obama. While Weinstein admits to talking with Pelosi, he strongly denied threatening the speaker with cutting off campaign contributions to the Democratic party.
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Eddy Arnold, who by virtue of the number of charting singles was the most popular country music performer in the 20th century, died early today at the age of 89. While many people label Eddy Arnold as a country music performer, and that's not inaccurate, he actually had a large number of crossover hits on the pop charts as well. In the middle of his music career he changed his style in a way that appealed across music genres. One of Arnold's amazing achievements was to chart with his songs in five different decades; one of the few in history to accomplish that. He also had 28 No. 1 singles, along with more charted singles than any other artist.
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May 7 |
News Corp. (NYSE:NWS-A) continued the big media success of the last quarter, as the company reported quarterly profits that were three times what they were in their third fiscal quarter ending in December 2007. All the major media companies exceeded expectations in the last quarter, surprising analysts and shareholders. A large part of News Corp.'s success was due to the swapping of the shares the company held in DirecTV for the shares Liberty Media (Nasdaq:LCAPA) held in News Corp. It brought an increase of $1.7 billion to the company for the quarter. Revenue came in at $8.75 billion - a rise of 16 percent - which was more than the $8.66 billion looked for by analysts. Earnings for the quarter ended at $2.7 billion, or 91 cents a share. That was in comparison to the $871 million, or 27 cetns a share generated in the third quarter. Even taking away the one-off share swap with Liberty Media, you still had significant growth.
Film
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An arbitrator in the sexual-harassment claim made by former Weather Channel anchorwoman Hillary Andrews against colleague Bob Stokes, found that Stokes had subjected Andrews to "severe and pervasive" sexual harrassment. The reason an abitrator was used is the terms of Andrews' contract required she go the route of arbitration rather than court. Even so, she has filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Atlanta, for the purpose of making the findings in the case public. The Weather Channel is fighting to keep that from happening. Stokes evidently was very aggressive in his wrongful remarks, as he would attempt to get Andrews to talk about her former husband and her sexual relationships. Andrews claimed that soon after being hired, Stokes started his remarks toward her.
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