BuzzSugar

Nicolas Cage Tops a Slow Weekend Box Office

BuzzSugar — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:45:46 -0700

Well, the Fall movie season came in with a whimper. According to Variety, "The first weekend after Labor Day is always sluggish, but this year the frame was affected by the start of the NFL football season and was particularly dreary." Bangkok Dangerous came in at No. 1, but it only earned an estimated $7.8 million and narrowly beat Tropic Thunder, which earned an estimated $7.5 million.

The House Bunny came in third place, followed by The Dark Knight in fourth and Don Cheadle's thriller Traitor in fifth place. Interestingly, Hamlet 2, which received major buzz at this year's Sundance Film Festival, is not doing too well in theaters and has only grossed an estimated $4.3 million over the two weekends it's been out.

Kind of a bummer of a weekend, but don't worry-next week The Women and Burn After Reading hit theaters! Who's excited?

Photo courtesy of Lionsgate

Do You Worry About Being Tracked Via Your Gadgets?

GeekSugar — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:00:23 -0700

Current releases Traitor and Pineapple Express both feature main characters convinced that they are being tracked and monitored by the police or some government agency. In some cases it's true and in others it's just drug-induced paranoia, but the fear certainly isn't limited to fiction.

I have a friend that is certain that Fastrak, a company that created an electronic toll collection system for Bay Area bridges, is in cahoots with the police and monitors drivers' activity and whereabouts. It's a notion that seems laughable to me, but cell phone carriers are required to provide the ability to trace cell phone calls to a location within 100 meters or less.

For the most part e-tracking is reserved for emergency situations, but the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice can locate a cellular customer and track their whereabouts. Is this something you consider or worry about?

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Box Office: Tropic Thunder Wins Again

BuzzSugar — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:00:50 -0700

Labor Day weekend officially signals the close of the Summer box office season, and this year's ended on, as Variety described it, "a whimper" as opposed to a bang. Tropic Thunder landed in the top spot for the third weekend in a row, pulling in an estimated $14.3 million over four days. The second spot went to Babylon A.D. which earned an estimated $12 million. The Dark Knight came in at No. 3, surpassing the $500 million mark on Sunday.

Traitor starring Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce opened this weekend and came in fifth place with $10 million, just behind The House Bunny, which came in No. 4 with $10.2 million.

Photos courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Movie Preview: Traitor

BuzzSugar — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:33:55 -0700

If the always-amazing Don Cheadle weren't in this new movie Traitor, I probably would have greeted its trailer with a big old "meh." But while the preview makes it look like another one of those run-of-the-mill espionage thrillers Hollywood churns out regularly, the talent involved suggests that I shouldn't necessarily be so quick to judge.

In addition to Cheadle, the movie co-stars the terrific (and handsome) Guy Pearce (of Memento and an odd movie that no one's promoting with Catherine Zeta-Jones), as well as Jeff Daniels. Another fun fact about this project: Steve Martin (yes, the funny one) co-wrote the movie and is an executive producer.

Basically the trailer shows official-looking CIA types acting stressed out, and there is a lot of secret-keeping and secret-sharing. The movie opens August 27 so to take a look for yourself and tell me what you think, read more.

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Are Republicans Who Don't Vote For McCain Traitors?

CitizenSugar — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:00:46 -0700

We (pronoun applied royally if you wish) have been wrestling with the concept of Republicans and known Conservatives turning away from McCain all week. Buckley, one of the more famous cases of the phenomenon, appeared on Hardball talking about his decision to go Obama and then quit the National Review. He told Matthews he was surprised by the ouster of sorts saying, "Be careful who you offer your resignation to, they may just accept it."

Then New York magazine posted this list entitled, "Et Tu, GOP? The Conservative Betrayal Spectrum." Using Julius Caesar imagery this top 10 list of Republican "Brutuses," the countdown includes [my] David Brooks, Peggy Noonan (the whole reason I went to grad school) and winds up at #1: Andrew Sullivan. Of his "betrayal," they say:

OK, OK, everybody knows Andrew Sullivan basically wants to be reincarnated as a beagle in the sinewy lap of Barack Obama, nestled comfortably under the Resolute Desk for the next eight years. But still, there was a time this dude had carved out his own steady brand of Republicanism - a maverick version, if you will. Remember when those were the people who were supposed to like McCain?

Wow.

So is all the "traitor" and "betrayal" talk accurate?

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The Doctor Is In: Love and Sex With Dr. Drew, Part II

DearSugar — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:00:00 -0800

I hope you all enjoyed part I of my exclusive interview with Dr. Drew yesterday, because I'm back to share part II with you today! There's a lot to cover so I'll get straight to the point - enjoy!

How has dating changed since you started Loveline 25 years ago?

Well the whole hookup culture has now become institutionalized. Before it was not so mainstream. One-night stands were considered relatively disdainful and problematic. Now it's considered the cornerstone of your social life.

What are some of the commonalities and differences between dealing with sex and addiction?

Prepare yourself because I'm going to talk for a couple of minutes about this! One is that sexuality and drugs and alcohol are reinforced in precisely the same part of the brain. So sexual addiction, sexual compulsion, and drug and alcohol addiction really biologically, are really very closely related. And they are also very much about trying to find solutions to emotional disregulation. We have such destroyed family systems in our culture today that people don't get what they need to develop a flexible capacity for emotional regulation. They look to the culture for solutions to that, and the kinds of solutions our culture offers them are drugs, alcohol, and sex; so sex becomes a drug in our culture, when in reality, it's not that, it's a very deeply embedded component of our interpersonal and our emotional life. And we've taken it away from that - we've just expunged it from all that. Not only that, the hookup culture is always an intoxicating experience - always. So it's fueling not only addiction, but substance abuse, and my constant question to college age kids is, well if that's such a cool thing that it needs to be the cornerstone of your social life, why the hell do you always have to be intoxicated? Why is it always an intoxicating experience? And what you find is, they're intoxicated because they are trying to, again, regulate their emotions, trying to suppress feelings, or medicate away feelings in order to tolerate the hookup culture, so it's deeply interconnected on many, many levels.

To hear more from Dr. Drew, read more.

What advice do you have for someone that is in a relationship with an addict?

Go to Al-Anon. Either get out or go to Al-Anon - those are your two choices. If you do neither of those, you are part of the disease and part of the problem.

So do you think a relationship can make it through an addiction?

Yeah, but I tell this to families all the time. If you do not go to a therapist and/or a 12-step program yourself, you are participating in the demise of the person you love. If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. So to not do anything and expect the addict to get better, the addict will either A) not get better or B) the relationship will not survive.

What's your secret to having a successful relationship after 18 years of marriage?

Oh man, this is complicated, but I do have an opinion about it! I do believe that passionate connection - passionate attraction is important, but it's traitorous. And you have to be prepared, because often times what creates passion is the sickest part of one person connecting with the sickest part of another - so you have to be prepared to do something called process. You have to be prepared to go to therapy, get mental health services when you need to, and work things through - always make sure that you avail yourself of support. Commitment is the other thing - commit to stay in with the relationship, but don't expect things to change if you don't reach out for help. The best thing in the world is a passionate relationship with what we call process.

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Is a GOP Loss the Only Way to Bring Back Small Government?

CitizenSugar — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:00:17 -0700

The editor of Reason magazine, the libertarian leaning mag devoted to "free minds and free markets," has an Op-Ed with a somewhat counterintuitive premise: in order to save the GOP, we must destroy the GOP. After voting for Dole and then Bush, editor Radley Balko’s disappointment grew to treasonous proportions in 2004 after watching the Republican Party create the invasive and historically expansive Homeland Security Department. Following that the prescription drug benefit - the largest entitlement program since the Great Society. The last straw for Balko, however, came as he witnessed one of the largest takeovers of a private sector in this nation’s history: the recent bailout.

Balko makes his case, as he's nervous about the Bush Administration’s ever increasing executive power, which the writer believes goes against the very core of his conservative ideology. Saying “. . . the only consistent principle we’ve seen from the White House over the last eight years is that of elevating the American president to that of an elected dictator.” While admittedly using hyperbole in that statement, his real concern is that of an Obama presidency which then uses those same expansive powers.

To find out his voting strategy, read more.

The writer’s strategy? Vote Democrat or a third party. “This isn’t to say Barack Obama would be any better. Government would undoubtedly grow under his watch.” Lest he be labeled a traitor, he does believe a loss will be better for the Republicans in the long run. “A humiliated, decimated GOP that rejuvenates and rebuilds around the principles of limited government, free markets, and rugged individualism is really the only chance for voters to possibly get a real choice in federal elections down the road.”

What do you make of his argument? When he says the "Republican Party in its current form has forfeited its right to govern," is that the perfect chance for a makeover - or is the notion small-minded rather than small government?

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Pop Watch – Spooks: Code 9, Episode 2

PopSugarUK — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:00:00 -0700

Last night saw the opening double bill of Spooks: Code 9 on BBC3. I recapped the first episode for you earlier today, but now's time to look back over episode 2's events. I can't wait to read your comments on the episode, but for now here's my thoughts:

We focus in on Jez in the opening moments as he heads over to a woman's house for a booty call. It's intercut with a guy in a temporary morgue at a detention centre at Camp Windesmere, filming the dead bodies within it and their gruesome injuries.
Slightly distracted side-note: Jez's bum is rather nice – more of that please. His "friend" says she's an informer, and asks him if he's breaking rules by sleeping with her. Hmm, I have bad feelings about this.
We see a short video clip of the evacuation technique that's come in post-Code 9. This really reiterates the changing world in 2013, the system reaches peoples phones and warns / updates them on things occurring near them.

To check out more of my thoughts, just read more

The investigation into Hannah's death is out of their hands. But Charlie's trying to work out the password to access the media file that Hannah left for him. It later transpires that his name is the password.
The video footage of Camp Windesmere is put up on screens at a university following someone hacking into their alert system. Obviously this causes panic and a bit of a backlash.
The person who hacked into screens is Jez's informer friend with benefits, Kate. Jez tells Vik, and he says as far as he's concerned he knows nothing. It turns out "Kate" has stolen this identity after Code 9 caused so much identity confusion. Jez doesn't tell the rest of the gang he was sleeping with her straight away, and asks Vik for a chance to sort it before he admits it.
Elsewhere one of Rob's colleagues at med school took an overdose on morning of attack, they've only just got round to doing a post-mortem on the body. Was it suicide or something sinister? He lies to Kylie about why the police were talking to him. Mysterious.
"Kate" hacks into alert system again causing a panicked evacuation at Chapel St station. The results of this include many injuries and people being crushed.

Charlie and Jez have a heart-to-heart at a MI5 shooting gallery, Jez confesses what happened. I thought this was a nice moment between them.
Rachel talks to an inside military man unofficially, he tells her there was a riot and three people in the Camp Windesmere detention centre died. Rachel asks for the names of them so they can look into any family members who might want revenge. He says no. She blackmails him, oozing that "calm authority" taught to her in the first ep by Hannah.
Back at the house Rachel talks to Hannah about whether she fancies Charlie. Rachel goes all coy, and then they discuss that Rob wouldn't be happy about Rachel getting with Charlie. Hmm...
Rob goes undercover at relocation centre to try and get a fake ID which should lead them back to someone who sold one to "Kate". Eventually Rob gets beaten up – he's no good at being undercover. Eventually (with help) he gets info about a nurse named David who asked the ID-seller to contact him if anyone asked about "Kate". David then gives them the info about a possible attack she's planning at the university.
So "Kate" or Laura (her real name) was sleeping with Jez so she could clone his PDA to override the evacuation systems so she could get revenge for her brother's death. It ends with Charlie killing her as she's about to detonate the bomb.
Finally, Charlie and Rachel watch the message left by Hannah - she thinks there's a traitor within MI5, and believes they're directly responsible for attack on London.

Exciting, huh?! So, have you settled into the series yet? What did you think of this latest episode? Let me know...

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Should Lieberman Speak at the Republican Convention?

CitizenSugar — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 06:00:12 -0700

Sen. Joe Lieberman (Democratic-caucusing, I-CT) hasn't made any secret of his support for John McCain, and now he's toying with the idea of being the political equivalent of his best man, standing up and giving a speech for McCain at the Republican Convention in September. On Fox News Sunday, Lieberman said:

I want to help him. I’m not going to attack Obama. I am going to explain why I, as an independent democrat, support McCain, hoping that I can convince other independents and Democrats to join me in choosing the man who is clearly more ready to be the president America needs today.

It's not the first time that someone left the gate open and a donkey has wandered into the elephant pen. In 2004 Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA) crossed the party line to deliver a fiery keynote speech at the Republican Convention (he was introduced on the floor as "the conscience of the Democratic Party.) It was a dramatic performance, the likes of which I can't conceive Lieberman coming close to repeating (seriously. Go watch it. Wow.) but the symbolism remains as interesting.

If Lieberman speaks in Minneapolis, will the Democrats kick Joe out of their caucus? Should they? Is Lieberman a traitor, or just making a solid independent decision?

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Sugar Bits – The Breeders Are Back! (And So's Indy!)

PopSugarUK — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:00:00 -0700

There's a new song online by The Breeders, check it out and let me know what you think! I'm so excited! – BuzzSugar
Madonna has been inducted into the US Hall Of Fame. – PopSugar
More acts have been announced for this year's T In The Park festival, including Kate Nash – BBC
Oasis are getting in touch with the 21st Century by introducing their own Facebook page. – NME
Prince Harry and girlfriend Chelsy Davy are on holiday in Botswana together. – Daily Mail
China has apparently blacklisted Lust, Caution star Tang Wei for "glorifying traitors" along with the sexual explicitness of the movie.– Times
Amy Winehouse's father Mitch has spoken out about Amy's recent partying, saying "Staying out till 5am is what they do.
If she's with Kelly Osbourne there's no relapse. Kelly's a drug counsellor, so Amy's completely safe with her." – Mirror
Courtney Love has advice for Britney... – The Sun
Joan As Policewoman is teaming up with Rufus Wainwright on his latest album. I can't wait to hear that! – NME
There's a new Indiana Jones poster. Hurrah! – Empire