Lots of stuff going on, from the Minnesota
State Fair to the I-35W bridge collapse to
country music CDs, but I'm going to talk about an
old favorite that I'm watching on DVD.
Watching childhood favorites for the first
time as an adult is an iffy proposition, as not
everything I enjoyed as a kid stands up. But
Mary Poppins not only holds up
marvelously, it's better when seen from
the other side of adulthood. Set in pre-WWI
England and shown to pre-Vietnam kids who would
soon be eligible for the draft, the movie tackles
hard, adult questions but doesn't pretend to know
any answers. Work ethic, discipline and
tradition are important, but take a back seat to
being part of your children's lives. The film is
so well written that the Disneyeque ending
doesn't seem tacked on or false. The music is as
good as ever. I haven't even tackled the bonus
disk yet, or plumbed the features on the main
disk.
Theme and Exegesis
When it comes to Movies That Are Better Than
The Book, Mary
Poppins is #1, #2 and #3.
I haven't seen the movie in over forty years,
though I've heard the soundtrack a zillion times.
I forgot just how magical it is, and how well the
themes are developed and explored without a
wasted motion. No villains! The protagonist is
the father, who is a good man trying to do well
by his family and largely succeeding... but needs
Mary Poppins to show him where his true path
lies. Extraordinary.
Where the PL
Travers books are about a "mysterious, vain
and acerbic magical English nanny", the movie is
about What It Means To Be A Father. The books
were written and take place in the 1930s but the
film goes back to an earlier period. Disney had
been negotiating for a film since 1938, and only
when book sales declined in the 1050s did she
agree, under certain conditions. Travers is
listed as "Consultant" to the film, which has
lots of scenes right from the books and more
inspired by them. She had script approval, and
insisted that Mary Poppins would be live
action. Disney had to assure her his studios
could handle a live-action film, and Mary
Poppins is his first, though the animated
underpinings still show. (It's been a long time
since I read the books as well, inspired to so so
by the film.) (Hmm... now that I think of it,
Mary Poppins could teach at Hogwarts or be a
Hufflepuff painting...)
Just how much the movie hangs together is a
revelation. Indeed, the movie's theme, about
fatherhood and responsibility vs. childhood and
having fun, is summed up by a little verse in "A
Spoonful of Sugar", featuring a duet between Mary
Poppins and a bird (whistling by Andrews) and
lyric repeated as a duet between Mary Poppins and
Mary Poppins (in a mirror):
A robin feathering his nest
has very little time to rest
while gathering his bits of twine and twig.
While so intent in his pursuit
he has a merry tune to toot.
He knows (he knows)
A song (a song)
Will move the day along.
This is a the lesson taught to Jane and
Michael but foreshadowed early in the movie and
learned the hard way by George Banks (and Mr.
Dawes, Jr.). All the themes collapse on an
emotional climax. Ingmar Bergman, eat your heart
out.
Dick van Dyke's dancing and comic mugging are
great. (Some Brits complain about his accent,
which is well taken, though even at nine I knew
it was an exaggeration. Did the over-the-top
accents in Fargo add or subtract from the
experience?) Riding high with The Dick
van Dyke Show, he could claim (as does the
commentary) to be "the funniest man on Earth" at
the time. Certainly, one of them.
The 1964 special effects, audio animatronics
and animation creak a bit, but just let the lush
photography and constant movement wash over you.
The long shots of London are amazing. The
costumes and many of the sets were done by Tony
Walton (Julie Andrew's husband at the time) and
take you back to pre-WWI England. The music is
marvelous, the best Disney ever, which is
saying a lot.
Subversive Messages
Some of the themes are a bit subversive.
Mary Poppins is set in 1910 England, not
far after the Victorian era, though made in the
early days of the feminist revolution. In the
books, the mother doesn't do much, but in the
movie she prepares to throw rotten tomatoes at
the Prime Minister to help women get the vote.
My one Wiscon in 1989
kept reminding me of the lyric to "Sister
Suffragettes": "Though we adore men
individually, we agree that as a group they're
rather stupid." Since Wiscon didn't follow that
up with a great moral lesson about self-discovery
through kite flying, I never went back. I
daresay Mary Poppins raised the
consciousness of more women (and more men) than
more strident tracts.
Bert, Mary and the kids enter the world of a
sidewalk chalk drawing, and encounter a foxhunt,
where the aristocrats go after a small
lower-class fox (you can tell by the accents).
Guess which side Bert is on?
The father wants the son to invest his
tuppence in a bank, but the kid wants to feed the
birds. Guess which side Mary Poppins is on?
Composer Richard Sherman (in the commentary)
says, "This song is Mary Poppins' magnum opus of
mind control. By planting the seeds of social
responsibility in Jane and Michael's heads, she
knows that havoc will reign... her magic doesn't
even look like magic. She's just singing another
lullaby."
The psycho-social dynamic of a changing language is tackled head on:
Reporter to Mary: "There probably aren't
words to describe your emotions."
Mary: "Now, now, now, now gentlemen, please.
On the contrary, there's a very good word. Am I
right Bert?"
Bert: Tell 'em what it is."
No points for a correct guess. I bet you can
sing it now. Go ahead, you know you want to.
How much of a paradigm shift was "I Love To
Laugh", detailing differences in autonomic
reactions (and promoting a desire for nitrous
oxide)? I suspect this one song changed people
watching forever. And helped some along their
career path: After seeing Uncle Albert, wouldn't
you want to float in space and express
pure joy?
Nothing can truly said to be in the popular
consciousness unless parodied by The Simpsons,
And Mary
Poppins gets a whole Simpsons episode.
Lovingly cruel, the cartoon rips the movie to
shreds (among other swipes). The episode can
probably be enjoyed without seeing the movie
first, but why?
Messages For
Parents In The 1960s
Most Disney films are about the children, and
Mary Poppins is no exception. But where
most are about the children growing up, this film
is about the father growing into his role.
After the Leave It To Beaver 1950s (which weren't
nearly as purely white-bread as sound-bite
nostalgia says), by the 1960s the Baby Boom
Generation was in full swing. The earliest
Boomers would have been 18 when Mary
Poppins came out; the biggest Boomer year was
1960. Kids of roughly Jane and Michael's age
were a huge portion of the population, magnifying
parenting problems creating new child rearing
strategies. The
Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, the
1946 best seller by Dr. Benjamin Spock, was the
new bible, and his subsequent books were on
almost every parents' bookshelves.
Spock's books are full of practical medical
advice, but they also give confidence to the
parent: You can do it. The movie advocates
everything from getting kids to do their chores
by making a game out of it to putting them to
sleep by telling them to "Stay Awake", but always
with love. If you care enough, and listen to
your children and chimney sweeps and don't get
too wrapped up in your job, your kids will be
okay.
At the end, it's not just about being a
father, it's about being a son: Both Michael and
"the younger Dawes" do right by their sire.
Soundtrack CD
and Two-disk DVD
According to the Sherman Brothers interview on
the Mary
Poppins soundtrack CD, Walt Disney's favorite
Disney song is also my favorite Disney song:
"Feed The Birds". It's a simple, haunting song
of charity and empathy. For a hard-won tuppence,
Michael Banks can feed the birds (who are trying
to feed their "young ones", just like his father
is taking care of him) and help out the Bird
Woman on the steps of St. Paul's. The DVD
comments on this song are illuminating (see above
for one).
While the allowances of an fictional upper
class child don't necessarily map to today's
purchasing power, I decided to try to find out
what that might mean. According to
measuringworth.com, two
pence in 1910 = 派3.00 of average earnings in
2005 and with 派1=
$1.82, Michael is donating $5.46 to feed the
birds (and help out a homeless lady) rather than
start an investment account. Probably a large
amount to a kid, but hardly anything to a family
that can afford a huge house and three live-in
servants, emphasizing the father's rigidity.
The DVD comes with commentaries recorded
separately by numerous people, including audio
clips from Walt Disney and Music Supervisor Irwin
Kostal, and others who weren't around at the time
of the DVD. Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke
reminisce, Richard Sherman (one of the song
writers) and Karen Dotrice (Jane) fill in
tidbits, and the whole thing is edited together
especially well. You get history, behind the
scenes gossip and they point out little details
which get lost (like the guy sitting on the bench
blowing smoke rings that even Dick van Dyke never
noticed and Julie Andrews just spotted).
The text options include two with special
features: I don't know what one does, but the
second one has boxes with Fun Facts. The Bonus
Disc promises deleted scenes and featurettes and
more. A lovely package.
Mary Poppins is my favorite musical, beating
out The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which probably
tells you altogether too much about me) and one
of my favorite movies of alltime. It's not
perfect, but I'd be hard pressed to point out
where it's less than sublime. I'll give the
practically perfect nanny a practically
perfect score, and round up to perfect for the
DVD extras. On the Shockwave Radio Theater
rating of 9 to 23, Mary Poppins steps in time to
a 23. What a great movie.
Steve Miller: JOHNNY RAMONE (officialramones.com)
What the public didn't know about Johnny Ramone is that he cared. Johnny cared about the people he may have not paid enough attention to during his life and he cared about anybody he might have inadvertently hurt along the way to creating music history. ''I didn't ever want to do anything to hurt anyone,'' he told me as we gathered notes for his upcoming memoirs, which we began working on in April. ''I was always doing the best with what I had.''
Jed Davis: "Guitar God: Johnny Ramone"
The whole story of Johnny Ramone is right there in the guitar. In the cracked and mottled paint, the dented neck, the slashed body, the beat-up pickguard held on by a half-dozen mismatched screws. Johnny played this guitar from 1977 to 1996. Here, slip it on. When you sling the strap over your shoulder, the guitar freefalls right to your knees - stopping with a jerk just when you think it's gonna crash to the floor.
I saw Mary's post about no more Kisses being made in PA and wondered if Reading PA and Hershey PA are the same place. I read that the Hershey company is closing some of their US plants, including one in Reading PA, but not all of them.
As for what kind of chocolate I buy, it's all about taste and availability and cost. If I could afford it, I'd buy See's candies because I grew up with them, I worked at one of the plants and I know how high the quality is. But it is pricey and Hershey's has always been a good economical substitute for me.
What I AM irritated about are the ten or so "associations" (including the Cattlemens Association - huh?) who want to change the definition of chocolate.
"The broadly written petition skimps on the details but includes an appendix that lists examples of proposed changes. Tucked between requests to allow antifungals on bulk cheese and powdered milk in yogurt is what has people riled up the most: a proposal that would let manufacturers "use a vegetable fat in place of another vegetable fat named in the standard (e.g. cacao fat)."
Manufacturers already can use vegetable fats instead of cocoa butter - they just can't call it "chocolate." Hundreds of people have filed comments with the FDA, with the overwhelming majority seeking to keep it that way."Source
ya know, pretty soon, what a food is called won't bear any resemblance to what it really is.
soylent green anyone?
as always, thanks for all you do
ducks
Thanks, ducks!
Reading (which is pronounced 'redding') and Hershey, PA, are 2 different places, unlike, for example, University Park, State College and Penn State, which are all the same place.
Reading hosts the Flaming Foliage Festival, and Hershey hosts Pennsylvania Dutch Days.
When I was in grade school we went on a family vacation to Hershey, and I remember fixating on the street lights. They're shaped like Hershey kisses.
OTOH, that was about the last time that Hershey chocolate tasted like chocolate, not brown wax, at least to me.
And now, with corporate America trying to cheap-out, again, we're gonna get even waxier, more tasteless brown gunk that passes as chocolate.
Like Winston Smith in '1984' - a childhood memory of what chocolate is supposed to taste like.
As I tuned into Pittsburgh's NBC channel WPXI at 7:00PM to watch the much looked forward to 'Countdown With Keith Olbermann' it wasn't on.
The preseason football game was between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles, WPXI shut out Countdown with local programming.
I thought that it might be on later. No such luck. It was on WPXI digital! But that is not something that I have. Bummer. I know why it was shutout, but I don't have to like it.
Thanks, Marianne!
That sucks!
Have fond memories of when they were WIIC. Thanks to them, I hold the always fabulous Bill Cardille responsible for my love of cheesy sci-fi movies.
OTOH, it's just another example of how consolidation and the Communications Act of 1996 really fucked up broadcasting.
Thank you congressional whores and your pimp, Rupert.
Mostly overcast and a bit of very unseasonal rain.
Tonight, Monday:
CBS opens the night with a RERUN'How I Met Your Mother', followed by a RERUN'Old Christine', then a RERUN'2½ Men', followed by a RERUN'Rules Of Engagement', then a RERUN'CSI: The 2nd one'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Susan Sarandon and Feist.
On a RERUNCraig (from 7/31/07) are Jon Voight, Alicia Coppola, and Will Marfori.
NBC begins the night with a RERUN'Thank God You're Here', followed by a RERUN'Heroes', then 'Dateline'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Drew Carey, Richard Roeper, and Colbie Caillat.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Bob Saget, Maggie Q, and Shane Mauss.
On a RERUNCarson Daly (from 8/1/07) are Derek Fisher and Mindless Self Indulgence.
ABC starts the night with a RERUN'Wife Swap', followed by a FRESH'Fat March', then a RERUN'Supernanny'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 8/8/07) are Kobe Bryant, Catherine Bell, and Tay Zonday.
The CW offers a RERUN'Everybody Hates Chris', followed by a RERUN'All Of Us', then a RERUN'Girlfriends', followed by a RERUN'The Game'.
Faux has a RERUN'Prison Break', followed by another RERUN'Prison Break'.
MY has a FRESH'IFL Battleground'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', another 'CSI: The 2nd One', 'The Sopraons', and another 'The Sopranos'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Chamber', followed by the movie 'Scent Of A Woman', then the movie 'Ladder 49'.
BBC -
[12:00 PM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 1;
[1:00 PM] Everything Must Go - Episode 24;
[1:30 PM] Everything Must Go - Episode 25;
[2:00 PM] The Weakest Link - Episode 3;
[3:00 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 6;
[3:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 7;
[4:00 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 9;
[4:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 1;
[5:00 PM] Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Ep 3 Moore Place;
[6:00 PM] My Family - Ep. 9 Auto Erotica;
[6:30 PM] My Family - Ep. 10 Handful of Dust;
[7:00 PM] BBC World News;
[7:30 PM] How Clean Is Your House? - Episode 11;
[8:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 2;
[9:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 3;
[10:00 PM] Coupling - Ep. 6 The Girl With One Heart;
[10:40 PM] The World Stands Up - Episode 1;
[11:00 PM] Top Gear - Episode 2;
[12:00 AM] Top Gear - Episode 3;
[1:00 AM] Coupling - Ep. 6 The Girl With One Heart;
[1:40 AM] The World Stands Up - Episode 1;
[2:00 AM] The Weakest Link - Episode 4;
[3:00 AM] Hollyoaks - Episode 61;
[3:30 AM] Changing Rooms - Ep. 2 Heybridge;
[4:00 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 6 Malvern;
[4:30 AM] Bargain Hunt - Ep. 7 Detling;
[5:00 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 30 Stewart;
[5:30 AM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 31 Burdett;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Inside The Actors Studio', followed by the movie 'Addams Family Values', and 'Last Comic Standing'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Mind Of Mencia', 'South Park', 'Scrubs', and another 'Scrubs'.
On a RERUNJon Stewart (from 8/16/07) is Sen. John McCain.
On a RERUNColbert Report (from 8/14/07) are Jerry Miller and Spencer Wells.
FX has the movie 'Independence Day', followed by the movie 'Behind Enemy Lines', and 'That 70s Show'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', another 'Modern Marvels', 'Maneaters', and 'Cities Of The Underworld'.
IFC -
[06:45 AM] The Barbarian Invasions;
[08:30 AM] The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years;
[10:10 AM] Garage Days;
[12:00 PM] The Barbarian Invasions;
[01:45 PM] The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years;
[03:25 PM] Garage Days;
[05:15 PM] IFC News Special;
[05:30 PM] The Barbarian Invasions;
[07:15 PM] Mona Lisa;
[09:00 PM] 11:14;
[10:30 PM] The Bridge;
[12:15 AM] Media Lab Results;
[12:30 AM] The Henry Rollins Show #319: Guest TBD;
[01:00 AM] 11:14;
[02:30 AM] The Bridge;
[04:10 AM] The Barbarian Invasions;
[05:55 AM] Garage Days. (ALL TIMES EDT)
SciFi has 'Star Trek: Enterprise', another 'Star Trek: Enterprise', and 'WWE Monday Night Steroids RAW'.
Sundance -
[05:00 AM] Brazil;
[08:00 AM] Milo 55160;
[08:00 AM] Tony Takitani;
[10:00 AM] Ushpizin;
[11:00 AM] Godless in America;
[12:00 PM] Chuck D's Musicians Studio;
[01:00 PM] Djangomania!;
[02:00 PM] An Ordinary Family;
[03:00 PM] Robyn Hitchcock: Sex, Food, Death ...& Insects;
[04:00 PM] Molly and Mobarak;
[06:00 PM] We Have Arrived Bonnaroo 2004;
[08:00 PM] Godless in America;
[09:00 PM] Guerrilla Girl;
[10:00 PM] Writer of O;
[12:00 AM] Yom Yom;
[01:00 AM] Clean;
[03:00 AM] Marebito;
[05:00 AM] Guerrilla Girl. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Actress Shirley MacLaine speaks after being honored at the Angel Awards 2007, put on by the Project Angel Food Program, in Los Angeles, August 25, 2007.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
Film critic Roger Ebert said he never gave a "thumbs down" to the use of thumbs in reviews for "At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper" during contract negotiations.
In a statement released Friday to The Associated Press, the TV show's distributor, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, said Ebert had "exercised his right to withhold use of the 'thumbs' until a new contract is signed." Ebert is a copyright holder on the signature "thumbs up-thumbs down" judgment that's part of each film review.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic responded in a statement Saturday on his web site, saying he "had made it clear the Thumbs could remain during good-faith negotiations," contrary to Disney's press release.
"They made a first offer on Friday which I considered offensively low," he wrote. "I responded with a counteroffer. They did not reply to this, and on Monday ordered the Thumbs removed from the show. This is not something I expected after an association of over 22 years."
U.S. movie director Michael Moore (L) and actor director Steve Buscemi stand in the red carpet area at the 13th Sarajevo Film Festival August 25, 2007. Moore was invited as special guest of this years edition of the festival where he presented his newest movie 'Sicko' and Buscemi was awarded a special 'Heart of Sarajevo' award as a long time friend of the festival.
Photo by Danilo Krstanovic
A new park that features fly-fishing, scenic trails and a huge bronze eagle was dedicated Saturday to the late "Gunsmoke" actor Dennis Weaver on 60 acres of land his wife donated to the town.
Weaver moved to Ridgway in 1988, building a home made of recycled tires and cans on 175 acres along the Uncompahgre River.
The centerpiece of park opened in his name is a 2,800-pound bronze eagle with a 21-foot wingspan.
"His favorite word was passion. If you don't have passion, what do you got?" said Gerry Weaver, widow of the actor-environmentalist.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton returned to her favorite family vacation spot Saturday to raise money for her presidential campaign at a celebrity-studded event where she took some pointed swipes at President Bush.
Clinton - accompanied by her husband and their daughter Chelsea - smiled broadly and swayed to the music as singer Carly Simon and her two children, Ben and Sally Taylor, sang "Devoted to You" for a Martha's Vineyard crowd of more than 2,000.
Simon, along with actors Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, showered the Clintons with praise and predicted the senator from New York will be elected as the nation's first woman president.
"Is it Mrs. President or Madam President?" Simon asked a smiling Clinton.
A German orchestra will play Beethoven and Brahms in Tehran in a rare visit by a European ensemble amid tension between Iran and the West.
The 60-member Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra led by conductor Hermann Baeumer will perform Wednesday and Thursday as part of an exchange that saw the Tehran Symphony Orchestra perform to a packed hall last year in Osnabrück.
"It's a very small step in improving relations between the people in the two countries," said Michael Dreyer, head of Osnabrück's Morgenland Festival, which hosted the Iranians last year.
A Burmese man shouts slogans near a portrait of Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi outside the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok August 26, 2007. About 80 Burmese demonstrators held a peaceful protest to condemn a crackdown on a series of small but defiant protests against soaring fuel prices in Yangon.
Photo by Chaiwat Subprasom
"Red Elvis," a new documentary about a rugged maverick who quit the American West for communist East Germany, has hit the screens, shedding light on Dean Reed's unlikely stardom and mysterious demise.
Reed was a US country singer and actor who emigrated to East Germany for love in 1972. In 1986 he was found face down in the knee-deep water of an East Berlin lake. In those 14 years, Reed became a Cold War icon.
With a mop of wavy brown hair under his black Stetson and celestial blue-grey eyes, the Colorado native was a dashing political idealist active in the pacifist movement, fighting military regimes and social injustice.
A man who authorities say used his computer to make fake $100 bills to buy lap dances at a strip club has pleaded guilty to counterfeiting charges, federal prosecutors said.
Strippers at Deja Vu in Nashville were suspicious of the bills and called police after Damon Armagost spent $600 of the fake money April 16, authorities said.
When officers arrived, Armagost first told them he got the money when he sold gold coins for $1,400 to an unidentified person.
U.S. Secret Service agents later determined that counterfeit bills with the same serial number had been passed in other parts of the country. When they went to Armagost's Smyrna home, about 20 miles southeast of Nashville, a family member told agents that an image of a $100 bill had been on a computer there.
Picture a beautiful beach spanning miles of coastline, gently lapped by aqua-colored water - and sprinkled with glass.
Faced with the constant erosion of Florida's beaches, Broward County officials are exploring using recycled glass - crushed into tiny grains and mixed with regular sand - to help fill gaps.
It's only natural, backers of the idea say, since sand is the main ingredient in glass.
A fossilized penis bone from an extinct walrus went for a whopping $8,000 at a Beverly Hills auction Sunday.
The 4.5-foot-long bone was sold to the company that runs the Ripley's Believe It or Not museums. The price will top out at $9,600 when auction fees are included.
The final price was well below the $12,000 to $16,000 the item had been expected to bring.
Discovered in Siberia, the fossilized penis bone is from a species of walrus that went extinct 12,000 years ago. The piece curves to a point and is covered with weathered skin and dry muscle tissue.
It doesn't seem to matter to one puffin waddling over to join another of the birds that his chosen companion is a one-legged, wooden decoy. Puffins love company.
The deception is one of the techniques that Stephen Kress has used to lure the colorful birds back to this rocky island.
Puffins, which resemble half-pint penguins except that they can fly, were heavily hunted along the Maine coast for their meat and feathers, and by 1901 only one pair remained, researchers said.
They remained plentiful elsewhere, however, and Kress set out three decades ago to bring them back to Maine's islands, on the southern end of their range around the North Atlantic.
The legend lives on, 60 years after romantic bullfighter Manolete died in the ring he had resolved to quit for a love match which did not find favour among his entourage.
The matador had fallen for controversial actress Lupe Sino but met an untimely end aged just 30, gored in the thigh in the ring at Linares, deep in southern Andalusia on August 28, 1947.
Sino herself has been the subject of recent cinema gossip, but ahead of the 60th anniversary of Manolete's death a swathe of tomes have been hitting the bookshelves looking at the life of the man who was identified as the Franquist dictatorship's torero-in-chief.
Many of the books shed a positive light on the relationship between Manolete, born Manuel Rodriguez Sanchez, and Sino, whose love tryst shocked the conservative Spain of the era.
Alphorn players enter the stadium during a ceremony at the Federal Alpine Wrestling Festival (Eidgenoessisches Schwing- und Aelplerfest) in Aarau, August 26, 2007. Swiss Alpine wrestling, called 'Schwingen', is the oldest sport in Switzerland.
Photo by Sebastian Derungs
Hollywood notched its first $4 billion summer as teen geeks helped Hollywood end the season in record fashion.
Sony's "Superbad," the comedy about three dorky high-schoolers trying to score booze for a party, was the No. 1 movie for a second straight weekend with $18 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. The movie raised its 10-day total to $68.6 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
The idea is to have fun.
Do you have something to say?
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better,
amused or entertained?
Do you have a great album no one's heard?
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off?
A box set the whole world should own?
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican musicians?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors?
This is your place.
