MaxFly

I'm not sure what McCain was thinking. Govenor Palin offers a series of challenges for him on a variety of issues. the first being his judgement. Here is someone he's met and spoken to twice and he chooses her to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency of the United States? This seems more like a desperation act than a judgement call. It's more than obvious this was a play for the women's vote. It is impossible to make the case that she is the most prepared an the best qualified person for the job, or even the best female politician for the job. She has stated that she hasn't followed the Iraq issue closely, she's stated that she doesn't even know what the vice president does... this is a mess. Moreover, there are policy issues that she will hurt McCain with, chief among them being her stance on energy. Now there are some people who will say that she is great for McCain... she's for oil drilling, etc... What a lot of people don't know is that she is in full support of Barack Obama's proposal to levy windfall profits taxes on oil companies, a proposal he has been ridiculed for by the Republicans and especially McCain and company. Now let me clarify... Govenor Palin isn't just for the proposal... she's actually implemented it in her state... she levied a windfall profits tax that increased her state budget by 6 billion dollars. She turned around and used that money to give Alaskans a $ 1000+ tax cut... I'm looking forward to seeing how Republicans are going to argue the success of a plan they've been deriding for months. And I don't know what to say about the baby issue... I just hope it's not true. That would effectively end this election.

Michelle Obama's speech was amazing. Hillary Clinton's speech was also very good as was Ted Kennedy's. I'm looking forward to hearing Biden speak tonight, and of course, Bill. Should be.... um... fun.

Out of everyone that Will has ever worked with, it seems that she's the only one who doesn't like him. I don't hear James Avery, Alphonso Ribero, or Karen Parsons criticizing Will's behavior at that time.

Link

You know, there's a song about that... lol.

Lol @ the scientologist question.

I hear it dies at the end, Julie... :shakehead:

I don't know if it's old; there are people out there who actually believe that Bryant's comments to the police in 2003 lead to Shaq's pending divorce in 2007... whether directly, indirectly, or by whatever means. It's a pretty new accusation and it doesn't seem to matter whether it's true or not, or whether it even makes sense... People have jumped on the bandwagon.

Thanks for the warning Tim. Any idea how long the site will be down for if it does go down?

Happy Birthday man!!!!! Have a great time!!

It should be interesting to see how Will's performance in Seven Pounds is received. 2 time Oscar nominee, possibly three... His prestige in the industry is increasing.

Happy Birthday Julie!!! Have lots of fun...

I still can't believe there are some people who liked WWW more than I Am Legend or Hancock, but I guess we can chalk it up to eclectic taste... In terms of Will making too much money... I think we should start with asking the production and big name companies to scale back on their incomes. While someone like Will seems to be making a lot of money, he's only making a small percentage of what he brings in for Sony or Columbia. But really, why stop there? These movie companies spend 150 million, 185 million dollars to make movies... Why not send that money to a developing nation instead of creating Hancock or TDK? See, it's a slippery slope... Here's what we can ask... we can urge these celebrities to support causes that we believe in, and do so not only in finance, but in deed.

Good point.

TDK will be out this weekend. I don't think people will be checking for Hancock.

I've thought about this a few times, and I'd definitely prefer to see a film with a really good script. Joint partnership between Overbrook and NBC... it would be a very popular reunion. Here's the thing... we need a really good "where are they now, what are they doing with their lives" script. With a popular series like FPOBA, a reunion special will color the whole series, painting it in an even better light, or a bad light... and the series would lose some of it's luster if it's a bad script.

And that's just rap... Raggae and Soca have been on fire latey for Obama. It's just the start...

Lol, sux for Hellboy...

Not at all... TDK.

It is what it is... I think that it's so easy now for word of mouth to spread that reviews don't have the authority they once had. Hancock recieved horrible reviews, but most people who saw it liked it. At the end of the day, if your friend tells you that it's a good movie and worth seeing in theaters, that probably holds more credibility than most reviews. I think that's what has helped the movie do so well.

Yeah... it certainly does. Hancock has had good word of mouth buzz, so people are still going to see it... Plus, not everyone goes to the movies during the 4th of July week/weekend. Some people want to avoid the crowds, so people who may have wanted to see it are seeing it now.

I totally missed this thread, but I have to reply to this... I think Kobe gets a bad rap beyond what he deserves for what went down in Colorado and what he said about Shaq subsequently. What was done and said was obviously inexuseable, and I think he's paid dearly for that in public opinion and in the media, deservingly. But when Shaq and others start accusing him of being the reason Shaq is getting a divorce, I can't co-sign that. Shaq's wife knew about his philandering before Kobe made his comments and she's known about some of the new ones that occured long after Kobe made his comments. Kobe made his comments in the summer of 2003, Shaq and Shaunie filed for divorce in the summer of 2007. From what I understand, she became fed up that he continuously cheated on her with other women. She in turn, cheated on him with her personal trainer and also diverted some money from their joint accounts. Shaq said that she was hiding money and so Shaq filed for divorce. Their divorce really has nothing to do with Kobe, and from what I understand, given the amount she knew about Shaq's other encounters with women before Kobe even made his comments, she wasn't surprised when stuff came out. Again, it doesn't excuse what Kobe said. He apologized to Shaq personally for that. But I don't think that it's fair or right to draw the connection, as Shaq did, that Kobe is responsible for Shaq and Shaunie's break up. In terms of the bigger issue at play here... I think people are willing to give Shaq a lot of leeway on some of the things he does and says, and as a result, Kobe's gotten the brunt of the blame for the fued with Shaq and their subsequent break up. It's somewhat understandable because Shaq is by far the more fun loving, likeable jokester of the two. He's the extrovert and Kobe's the introvert. If someone is going to be made the villain, it's Kobe, and the hero/victim, it's Shaq. But that's not the way things went down in LA... I'm not sure how much people know, so I'm just going to put a few things out there and then leave it up for discussion. I see people saying, "Kobe deserved it" and some other stuff, but I don't hear Kobe talking about Shaq, or dissing Shaq. He hasn't really said anything critical of Shaq since 2003 before the season started. I don't hear Kobe making fun of Shaq for getting kicked out of the playoffs in the first round, losing to a team that Kobe ended up beating on their road to the finals this year...(where they lost to my Celts :wickedwisdom: ). No one is criticizing Shaq for forcing his way out of Miami because he didn't want to play for a losing team. In this particular instance, I think Shaq was just playing around, but it seems that certain people have taken it more seriously and have used it as a stepping stone to go at Kobe or revoice their dislike for him. Let's keep one thing in mind though... Shaq's the one talking here, and he's been the one talking for the last few years. He's been the one to take shots at Kobe through the media... and surprisingly, Kobe's the one who has remained relatively quiet. So on the real, who's being the more mature of the two. Lets put dislikes for either player aside and let's be real. Here's an excert from Roland Lazenby's book, "Mindgames." Simply put, things were a lot more complicated than the "Well, Kobe is selfish" argument. Kobe has a share of the blame, no doubt... but I don't think Shaq is getting his fair share of blame... and it allows him to get away with a lot of things.

The term classic is being used now, and it's probably fitting.

Yeah, I think we can all agree that these are pretty horrible numbers. It's his what, second highest weekend opening? It clearly should have been his first. What's worse, it's only about 10 million more than his third highest weekend opening. He just barely beat that. 62 million in three days is pretty pathetic. Moreover, it didn't even get over 100 million in 5 days. Granted, they had a few showings on Tuesday night, and many of those who saw it that Tuesday would have likely seen it on Wednesday or one of the following days, but we should ignore those numbers, because, technically, it's not 5 days... This movie is officially a flop, I'm calling it. Apples and oranges. Underneath the sarcasm there are some extravagantly incorrect criticism IMO. Who said it was a flop ? Who said the box-office numbers are horrible ? Handcock is by far a flop, it's just a slight disappointment based on all the hype (critically as well as box-office tracking). 100 M is still a great achievement when you don't factor the tracking (from 110 up to 150), a movie with no origin opening with 100 M is fantastic. But we all know it wasn't the strength of the movie that brought the bucks, without Will this would've been a flop, you can bank on that. Wills power in hollywood keeps rising, he's getting better and better as an actor, people love him so much they go to his movies disregarding the movie itself. I feel obligated to watch Will in anything, because no matter how much the movie disappoints, Will rarely does. My sister was watching a commercial of Handcock today, she just saw Will and said ''cool'' and plans to watch it this weekend, she doesn't know what the movie is about or if it's good, she doesn't care, as long as Will is in it. That just shows how great and how powerful Will truly is as an actor. The biggest enjoyment I got from Handcock was watching Will portray the character flawlessly. Handcock just proves that Will Smith would make a great superhero. IMO the best superhero performance. I was a bit disappointed by the movie, that's all. If you loved it, more power to you. But all in all this movie is by far a flop, and I never said it was. Wait, you weren't doing the anti-jinx? I wasn't even being sarcastic... I was just trying to out anti-jinx you.

Co-sign... :paperbag: