Transformers tops $201 million

The only question of the weekend (other than who else can die now) was just how much would "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" make.

And the answer is: $201.2 million. The sequel got off to a $60 million start on Wednesday and its total makes it second to "The Dark Knight," which pulled in $203.8 million in five days last summer.

Here's how the weekend stacks up in North America, according to Hollywood.com (via the AP). Final numbers, which could change slightly, are due Monday.

1. "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," $112 million.

2. "The Proposal," $18.5 million.

3. "The Hangover," $17.2 million.

4. "Up," $13 million.

5. "My Sister's Keeper," $12 million.

6. "Year One," $5.8 million.

7. "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," $5.4 million.

8. "Star Trek," $3.6 million.

9. "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," $3.5 million.

10. "Away We Go," $1.7 million.

BET Awards to honor Jackson tonight

Expect tonight's extended BET Awards show,  at 8 p.m., to turn into a memorial for Michael Jackson. Even those who won't be performing will remember Jackson on the red carpet. From the AP:

By SANDY COHEN

AP Entertainment Writer

 LOS ANGELES (AP) - After three days to process the shock and grief, attendees at the BET Awards - a show thrown into "total overhaul" by the death of Michael Jackson - were preparing for what was sure to be a spectacular celebration of the King of Pop, put on by an dazzling collection of the artists he influenced most.

 Already an affair of major star wattage, Sunday night's show was thrown under a white-hot spotlight in the wake of Jackson's death, adding attendees and guests, doubling the number of media requests and even lengthening the red carpet to accommodate all who want to take part.

 It was not immediately clear whether any members of the Jackson family, who had been gathering at their Encino compound over the weekend, planned to attend or take part.

 Producers of the annual awards show - which recognizes the best in music, acting and sports - say they scrapped their plans and revamped the show to meet the moment.

 "It's a total overhaul," network chairman and chief executive Debra L. Lee said. "Luckily we have enough time to do that."

 Previously announced performers, such as Beyonce and Ne-Yo, who worked on their performances for weeks, hoped to change them to honor Jackson, producer Stephen Hill said. Other artists who hadn't planned to attend the ceremony, including Usher and Justin Timberlake, tried to catch last-minute flights to Los Angeles to participate, Hill said.

 Lee said the network would still present awards, but the show would be "more geared toward Michael Jackson."

 Beyonce and T.I. were top contenders for trophies, with a leading five nominations each. She was up for best R&B female, best actress and video of the year. He was in the running for best male hip-hop, best collaboration and video of the year. Lil Wayne, T-Pain and Keri Hilson were tied with four nominations each.

 Hosted by Jamie Foxx at the Shrine Auditorium, the BET Awards telecast was extended by 30 minutes to accommodate various Jackson tributes.

More Oscars changes in store

The news that the Best Picture nominees would be doubled to 10 isn't the only change in store for the Academy Awards. Here's the latest change, which arrived in an email press release. This could help to shorten or further alter the show:

 Academy Board of Governors Votes to Honor Testimonial Award Recipients at New Event
Beverly Hills, CA - The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has voted to establish a new annual event at which it will present its testimonial awards - the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Honorary Award. Honorees will be selected and announced in September and presented their awards at a celebratory dinner event in November. They will also be acknowledged at the year's Academy Awards ceremony.

"For some years now, the Board has struggled to balance the desire to truly honor worthy individuals with the time limitations that the Oscar® telecast imposes on these honors," said Academy President Sid Ganis. "By creating a separate event for recognizing these outstanding people in the movie industry, we're insuring that each honoree will be given his or her full due, without compromise."

The Academy's Board will hold a special meeting in September for the sole purpose of selecting the year's honorees. There will not be more than one Hersholt nor more than one Thalberg Award voted in any given year. No more than four testimonial awards will be given in a single year.

"We wanted to achieve more flexibility with these awards," explained Ganis. "But we also need to maintain the integrity of them. By setting the limits that we have, the members of the Board feel they have achieved the appropriate balance."

A black-tie dinner event for about 500 invitees will include film clips as well as remarks from the honorees' colleagues and admirers.

Previously, these awards were voted at the Board's December meeting.

The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Honorary Award are Oscar statuettes; the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award is a bust of its namesake. The most recent recipients of each were Jerry Lewis (Hersholt Award) at the 81st Academy Awards® ceremony in February of this year, Robert Boyle (Honorary Award) at the 80th Academy Awards ceremony in February 2008, and Dino De Laurentiis (Thalberg Award) at the 73rd Academy Awards ceremony in March 2001.

Memorable Michael in 1988

 He opened with "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' " and then moved into "Heartbreak Hotel" and declared, "It's great to be back in America."

That was how Michael Jackson launched the first of his three nights at the Civic Arena in late September 1988. I had written an advance feature and went the initial night for a color story (interviewing fans and listening to just a few songs before hustling back to the office) and returned to watch the entire show another evening.

I remember the music but, more than that, the astonishing dancing. He seemed to defy human gravity and anatomy as he glided across the stage in a way that had drawn a call from Fred Astaire to compliment his dancing on the "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever" special.

Jackson later visited Astaire and showed him and choreographer Hermes Pan how to moonwalk. He also dedicated his autobiography to the celebrated actor.

In these days of Internet sales, it may not seem as impressive but Jackson set a record in 1988 by moving 50,000 tickets - roughly $1.2 million worth - in seven hours. When tickets went on sale, followers camped out on the sizzling concrete for a day and a half and then arrived at the show with roses - red and white - for Jackson.

Fans arranged their lives around the shows in Pittsburgh. A woman from Madras, India, had timed her visit to America to see her daughters to coincide with Jackson's concert. She was there with them and her 12-year-old granddaughter from McCandless.

Rob Sherman, a nightclub singer from Garfield, told me he hired a Downtown seamstress who specialized in theatrical costumes to make three outfits he wore to the three shows. On the day I met him, he was resplendent in red jacket, with rows of buttons looped with gold braid, black pants with red pleated sides, white tuxedo shirt and red bow tie and cap.

In a Time cover story in March 1984, Steven Spielberg said of the singer, "He's like a fawn in a burning forest." Watching the gloved one chat with E.T., he said, "I wish we could all spend some time in his world."

Back when he was still Peter Pan, a boy who never was granted the luxury of a childhood and tried to recapture it in an innocent way.

A bigger Oscar tent ... it's all good

The Oscar tent just got a lot bigger and so has interest in the March 7, 2010, show. For the first time in six decades, the Academy Awards will have 10 Best Picture nominees, twice the normal number.

Expanding the field should allow for more commercial hits; if the change had come last year, for instance, "The Dark Knight" surely would have made the cut. So might have "WALL-E," "Doubt," "The Wrestler," "Revolutionary Road" or "Iron Man."

In recent years, the nominees have tilted toward arthouse or smaller releases that weren't always seen by wide audiences. Consider the contenders for the 81st Academy Awards: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "The Reader" and winner "Slumdog Millionaire."

When it comes to the ratings, the Oscars typically do the best when a Best Picture nominee is a commercial and critical favorite, as with "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," which swept the show in early 2004.

Add to that a dandy, perhaps unpredictable Best Picture race and suddenly East Coast audiences have another reason to stay up past midnight.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has found a way to (further) trump the Golden Globes, which splits its top award into two motion picture awards -- for drama and for musical or comedy. That allows room for a "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" or "Mamma Mia!"

Change is good when it comes to the Academy Awards and this one could open some slots for "The Road" and Rob Marshall's "Nine," assuming they live up to their promise. And I somehow think they will.

No matter how many nominees, someone will complain that his or her favorite was omitted. If given the choice, I might have voted for six acting nominees rather than 10 Best Picture contenders, but the Academy has precedent for expanding the field for the crown jewel.

At a press conference announcing the change, Sid Ganis (president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) was flanked by posters with the names of all 10 nominees for Best Picture of 1939. On one placard: "Dark Victory," "Gone With the Wind," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "Love Affair" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." On the other: "Ninotchka," "Of Mice and Men," "Stagecoach," "The Wizard of Oz" and "Wuthering Heights."

Now, it's up to 2009 to match those 10 terrific titles.

(Pictured is Sid Ganis at a Beverly Hills press conference today making the announcement. Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S)

SJP and Broderick twins arrive

From the Associated Press about Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick's expanding family:

By MEGHAN BARR

The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick are the proud parents of twin girls delivered by a surrogate mother, a publicist said Tuesday.

The girls were born Monday afternoon at an Ohio hospital, publicist Simon Halls said. Marion Loretta Elwell Broderick weighed 5 pounds and 11 ounces, and Tabitha Hodge Broderick weighed 6 pounds.

Hodge and Elwell are family names on Parker's side, Halls said.

"The babies are doing beautifully and the entire family is over the moon," Halls said in a statement.

The 44-year-old star of the TV show and film "Sex and the City" had complained last month to "Access Hollywood" that the surrogate's telephone and computer had been hacked into, and that the woman had received threats.

Authorities are also investigating whether two Ohio police chiefs burglarized the surrogate's home in the eastern Ohio town of Martins Ferry so they could sell photos and other information to a tabloid.

The burglars were allegedly after "pictures, phone message, all those things" at the home of the surrogate, Michelle Ross, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press last week, speaking on condition of anonymity because no charges had been filed.

A spokeswoman for East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry would not comment on reports that the twins were born there.

Parker and Broderick, her 47-year-old husband and fellow actor, had confirmed they were expecting twin daughters by a surrogate. They had been unable to conceive since Parker gave birth to a son, who is now 6.

Transformers by the numbers

Our review of "Transformers:  Revenge of the Fallen" will appear Wednesday but in the meantime, here are some facts courtesy of Paramount Pictures:

COOL FACTS

• 14 robots last time, 46 robots this time (ILM only)
• If you had all the gold ever mined in the history of man, you could build a little more than half of Devastator.
• Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.
• Devastator's hand is traveling 390 miles per hour when he punches a pyramid.
• The pyramid destruction simulation was 8 times bigger than the old rigid simulation all-time record holder at ILM.
• All robot parts laid out end to end would stretch from one side of California to the other, about 180 miles
• Devastator's parts stacked tip to tip would be as tall as 58 empire state buildings.
• If all the texture maps on the show were printed on 1 square yard sheets, they would cover 13 football fields.

DISK SPACE

• Trans1 took 20 Terabytes of disk space.  Trans2 took 145 Terabytes. 
• 145 terabytes would fill 35,000 DVDs.  Stacked one on top of the other without storage cases, they would be 145 feet tall.

RENDERING TIMES

• If you rendered the entire movie on a modern home PC, you would have had to start the renders 16,000 years ago to finish for this year's premiere.
• A single IMAX shot in the movie (df250) would have taken almost 3 years to render on a top of the line home PC running nonstop.
• IMAX frame render times:  As high as 72 hours per frame!

IMAX

• Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.
• Imax frames take about 6 times longer than anamorphic to render.
• IMAX frame render times:  As high as 72 hours per frame!

ILM SCREEN TIME

• ILM Screen Time is about 51 minutes.

DEVASTATOR

• Devastator is as tall as a 10 story building.
• Devastator has more than 10 times the number of individual parts found in an average car.
• Laid out end to end, Devastator's parts would be almost 14 miles long.

DEVASTATOR TOTALS

• Number of geom pieces: 52632
• The total number of polygons: 11,716,127
• The total length of all pieces: 73090 feet
• The total length of all pieces: 13.84 miles

First photos from Clash of Titans

Warner Bros. has released two photos from "Clash of the Titans," starring Sam Worthington, who pretty much stole "Terminator Salvation." It's set for release in 2010 and is based on the 1981 film of the same name. Louis Leterrier directs.

Here is how Warner Bros. describes it: In "Clash of the Titans," the ultimate struggle for power pits men against kings and kings against gods. But the war between the gods themselves could destroy the world. Born of a god but raised as a man, Perseus (Sam Worthington) is helpless to save his family from Hades (Ralph Fiennes), vengeful god of the underworld.

With nothing left to lose, Perseus volunteers to lead a dangerous mission to defeat Hades before he can seize power from Zeus (Liam Neeson) and unleash hell on earth. Leading a daring band of warriors, Perseus sets off on a perilous journey deep into forbidden worlds. Battling unholy demons and fearsome beasts, he will only survive if he can accept his power as a god, defy his fate and create his own destiny.

 Another photo by Jay Maidment, courtesy of Warner Bros:

Proposal, Apatow, Grey's verdict

Catching up with some news:

Audiences say yes to Proposal: The opening day gross for "The Proposal" marks the best ever for a Sandra Bullock film, Variety reports. It brought in $12.3 million on Friday, compared to the $8.5 million of "Year One" and "$8.5 million of "The Hangover."

If you're a romcom or screwball comedy fan, "The Proposal" is a far better movie than "Ghosts of Girlfriends" past. And "Hangover" is vastly superior to "Year One," although it's rated R while the Jack Black-Michael Cera comedy is PG-13.

Apatow on Apatow: Judd Apatow answers questions in the July/August issue of Playboy about a range of subjects, including actors Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler and his ease of crying.

On his love for Rogen, he says: "I don't know if we should be married or if I should become his adoptive grandfather. Seth has said he thinks of me as his creepy uncle. [laughs] I like that."

On living with Sandler: "We had a good time together. It was a $900-a-month apartment. I paid $425, and he paid $475 because he had a bathroom in his bedroom. I had to use the guest bathroom. Most days we would sleep till noon, get up, eat, spend way too much time in a mall, do stand-up comedy sets at the Improv and then eat again at 1:30 in the morning."

On men crying in his movies: "I'm a big crier. Sometimes when my wife [actress Leslie Mann] and I are watching a movie we'll both start to cry at the same time, and then we'll slowly turn toward each other to acknowledge that it got both of us. That's great and funny when we're both crying, but it's not so wonderful when I'm the only one in tears."

Apatow's "Funny People" arrives in theaters July 31. It's about a famous comedian who has a near-death experience and stars Rogen, Mann, Sandler, Jonah Hill, Eric Bana and Jason Schwartzman.

Grey's Anatomy verdict: Izzie stays, George goes.

That's the word from the Los Angeles Times, quoting an ABC email from Shonda Rhimes confirming T.R. Knight won't be back on "Grey's Anatomy" next season. "He is an incredibly talented actor and a person whose strength of character is admired by all of us," she wrote.

Katherine Heigl, who next will be seen in the movie "The Ugly Truth" opposite Gerard Butler in late July, will return for a sixth season. She never stepped off that elevator, unlike George who was waiting at the top.

Free outdoor films at Denis

 This news was in our PG South edition but in case you missed it, here is the press release.

DENIS THEATRE FOUNDATION LAUNCHES
FREE OUTDOOR SUMMER FILM SERIES
WITH "BRINGING UP BABY" JUNE 27

With support from local merchants, the Denis Theatre Foundation will launch a free outdoor film series on Washington Road beginning June 27.  

The theater, closed since 2004, is the focus of a community fundraising effort. The Denis Theatre Foundation is a volunteer project to revive Mt. Lebanon's classic movie theater for films, performance and community events as part of a vibrant business district.

 "With the Last Saturday Cinema series, we're demonstrating that movies and merchants go together," said executive director Anne Kemerer. "We're planning special events before and after each screening and invite the community to show their support."       

The movies will be screened at Parse Pavilion, the covered portion of Parse Way behind the movie theater, with technical support from Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

The line-up includes:    

 BRINGING UP BABY  (June 27): Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and a truly wild baby team up in this energetic screwball comedy from 1938, the year the Denis opened. The snappy dialogue and rapport between Grant and Hepburn make this movie a winner. Empire Music will provide live music before the movie, and Bistro 19 will keep its bar open late to host a film discussion led by Mt. Lebanon film critic Elaine Wertheim.  

THE BREAD MY SWEET  (July 25): Pittsburghers will delight in this homegrown tale of love, whimsy and biscotti, filmed in the Strip District in 2001. Filmmakers Melissa Martin and Adrienne Wehr will join the audience for a post-film discussion. 

 MAD HOT BALLROOM  (Aug, 29): This award winning 2004 documentary follows three groups of public school children as they learn to dance in preparation for a ballroom competition. The photo above shows students practicing the merengue.

 Series sponsors include Rollier's Hardware at the gold level and Molly Brannigan's at the silver level. Individual event sponsors include Integrated Environmental Systems of Carnegie (Bringing Up Baby), Bistro 19 (The Bread My Sweet), and Steel City Ballroom (Mad Hot Ballroom). 

All movies begin at 9:00 p.m. The covered venue allows shows to go on rain or shine. The space provides comfortable seating for 300. Chairs, concessions and restrooms are provided.

You can learn more at www.denistheatre.org.