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...Recession, they didn't stop going to the movies. For the first time ever, the annual box-office total exceeded $10 billion ($10.5851, to get into pi calculations), outpacing the previous record, in 2008, by nearly 10%. The number of tickets sold, 1.474 billion, was the highest of the past five years - though lower than sales in any year from 2001 to 2004, when the big franchises (Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man, Shrek, Harry Potter) were really cooking. Inflation explains the variance between dollars earned and tickets sold. Ticket prices keep rising; and with Avatar charging...
...down the movie money chain, that rule applies. In medium-budget films, stars and directors with hits in their past can take disastrous oversteps. In 2009, reliable comedy stars such as Adam Sandler and Jack Black headlined fairly pricey pictures (Funny People, Year One) that went doggo; Sacha Baron Cohen tried to parlay his Borat success with the more acerbic Brüno, and what did the audience do? Pranked him. Ferrell's Land of the Lost cost $100 million to produce, and took in less than half that domestically...
...spent $35 million on Taking Woodstock, which grossed just $7.5 million. Meanwhile, The Hangover - another no-star comedy about drugs and larceny, also costing about $35 million - was the year's top-grossing comedy. The Hangover was out of nowhere; Sandra Bullock was out of the past. After nearly a decade without a solid hit, she starred in The Proposal and The Blind Side. Combined budgets of the two films: $69 million. Combined domestic gross: $375 million. At 45, she's Miss Congeniality again...
...alums, Angela Ruggiero ’02-’04 and Julie Chu ’06-’07, connected to put the US on the board just 21 seconds into the contest. Chu fed the puck to her longtime teammate and Ruggiero sent a slapshot past RPI goaltender Sonja van der Bliek for the early lead...
...year means a chance to leave some of the tired words and phrases of 2009 in the past. At least that's the theory of the wordsmiths at Lake Superior State University, who released their 35th annual (deep breath) List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness...