Jordan Peele surprises Hollywood again: ‘Us’ brings in $70 million, well more than expected
Jordan Peele’s new horror film terrified audiences and shattered expectations at the box office this weekend.
“Us,” the director’s second film, made an estimated $70.3 million in North America — more than tripling its production budget of $20 million.
It exceeded industry expectations in a big way. The film was initially projected by industry experts to bring in closer to $45 million this weekend.
The R-rated film stars Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke as parents trying to fend off an attack from evil Doppelgängers. The film has made $87 million worldwide.
“There’s nothing scary about horror for Hollywood,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
“Us” is another hit for Peele and Universal.
Peele’s “Get Out” was a critically acclaimed blockbuster in theaters two years ago. It hauled in $255 million at the box office globally — $33 million on its opening weekend. That was 56 times its budget. “Get Out” was also nominated for four Oscars, and Peele won for Best Original Screenplay. As for Universal, the studio now has the second, third and fourth biggest openings of the year — with “Us,” “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” and “Glass.”
The No. 1 opening in 2019 was by “Captain Marvel,” from Disney and Marvel Studios.
“Us” represents another horror hit for Hollywood. Scary films such as “It,” “Halloween” and “A Quiet Place” have made big money on low budgets in recent years.
Strong reviews and word of mouth helped propel “Us.”
The film has a 94% score on review site Rotten Tomatoes and has been building buzz since its premiere at Austin’s SXSW conference earlier this month. Audiences gave it a CinemaScore of B.
1-Year-Old Fresno Boy Fatally Mauled by 2 Roaming Rottweilers in Grandparents’ Front Yard
A 1-year-old boy who wandered out of his grandparents’ house in Fresno was fatally mauled in their front yard by two roaming dogs.
Lt. Mark Hudson said other children in the house alerted the boy’s grandmother to the attack on Friday. He said she ran outside and tried to get the Rottweilers off the child and was also attacked.
Hudson said the boy’s grandfather used a hose to fend them off.
Officers who responded to the attack performed CPR on the boy. He was then taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Hudson said animal control officers found the dogs several blocks away. Investigators were trying to determine whether they were strays or had an owner.
He had no immediate information on the extent of the grandmother’s injuries.
Driving Instructor Accused in Sexual Assault of 17-Year-Old Student; Additional Victims Sought
A driving instructor accused of sexually assaulting a teen student this month is a sex offender who was previously arrested for allegedly molesting another student, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said Thursday.
Tom Lam, 56, of Montclair, was taken into custody last week following an investigation into the most recent claim but has since been released on bail, and investigators believe he could have additional victims, the Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
A 17-year-old girl approached authorities on March 12 to report that Lam had sexually assaulted her during two driving lessons.
The teen’s parents had hired Lam as her personal driving instructor last summer and paid for six lessons so their daughter could complete the requirements to get her license.
The girl completed the first four lessons without incident but was sexually assaulted by Lam during the last two, officials said.
Upon further investigation, detectives discovered Lam was required to register as a sex offender following a 2014 arrest in Monterey Park in which he was accused of annoying or molesting a minor student, the Sheriff’s Department said.
To be licensed by the state Department of Motor Vehicles, driving instructors must complete a Live Scan fingerprinting, among other requirements.
Lam was arrested last Friday, March 15, at his home in Montclair and booked on suspicion of sexually assaulting a minor. He was released two days later, on Sunday, after posting $140,000 bond, deputies said.
The suspect is scheduled to appear in court April 8.
Anyone with information on potential additional victims can contact the sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau tip line at 877-710-5273 or by emailing [email protected]. Anonymous tips may be submitted via 800-222-8477 or www.LACrimeStoppers.org.
3 teens charged after allegedly beating autistic teen, lighting his hair on fire
(WMUR/CNN/Meredith) – Three 19-year-olds in New Hampshire have been indicted by a grand jury for allegedly assaulting another teenager with autism, including lighting his hair on fire and threatening his life.
Police said the incident was caught on video by witnesses.
Paul Dustin, Brandon Lemieux and Israel Rivera are facing a variety of charges in connection with the October 2018 assault in Seabrook, New Hampshire, including felony criminal restraint.
Lead Asst. Rockingham County Attorney Ray Ollis explained to WMUR that the felony criminal restraint charges stem from the victim allegedly being held in a room for two hours while the suspects allegedly kicked and punched him and lit his hair on fire.
The incident allegedly happened inside a home.
Court documents show police describing the 18-year-old victim as having a low-level autism disorder and having noticeable bruises when the incident was reported the following day.
In a victim statement, the victim said Rivera “hit me in the face three times, twice on each side and once on the chin. After that I was completely humiliated, most of the people at the house were spitting on me, physically abusing me, flicking ash in my hair, kicking me and making me admit crimes I did not commit.”
Dustin and Lemieux are charged with simple assault, and in the victim statement, the victim said his iPhone was taken and “I was told that at if at any point I left, I would be put in the hospital and then a body bag.”
Documents also indicate video evidence, with a detective stating “Izzy [Rivera] can be seen punching him in the face with a closed fist while several other people are filming and laughing,” and that the video “shows the victim pleading with him to stop and is defenseless.”
All three suspects are free on bail. At this point, their cases will be tried separately.
Man arrested for keeping an 86 inch flat-screen TV that was mailed to his home by mistake
FREETOWN, MASS. —
A Massachusetts man was arrested for keeping a flat screen TV that was sent to his house by mistake.
Nick Memmo, 35, described what happened at his Freetown home Monday night when he was arrested on charges of larceny and misleading a police officer.
During a search inside the house, officers found an 86-inch flat screen TV mounted to the living room wall.
“They surrounded the house and knocked on the door with flashlights coming through all the windows. They told me to come outside then handcuffed me,” said Memmo.
Memmo admits the TV was delivered to his home by mistake and he admits police tried to question him about it several days before his arrest.
“I answered what questions I could without putting myself in jeopardy,” he said.
“I said ‘Do I need to hire an attorney?’ and they said I wasn’t under investigation at that point. They were just asking questions. I answered a lot of questions with ‘I don’t know’ just so I didn’t jeopardize myself,” he said.
Memmo says he bought and paid for a 74-inch flat screen on Amazon.
When a third party shipping company delivered it, they also gave him a larger model TV by mistake.
When asked if he ever thought they made a mistake, and whether he should return it, Memmo said: “I did and I looked into all the laws and said, ‘You know, it’s a scratch ticket. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.'”
“Amazon said I had nothing to worry about. I made no wrong no decisions at that point,” he said.
The shipping company said it made numerous attempts to contact Memmo before contacting the police. The company also says Memmo signed for the delivery, something that he disputes.
“I have my phone ringing all day. I get calls from Google, website people, I have no reasons to answer all these calls. If it’s not important I just hang up,” he said.
When asked whether he told them he was someone he isn’t, Memmo replied, “No.”
Memmo says if he thought he was going to be arrested, he would have just paid for the extra TV or given it back.
He’s now looking at the possibility of jail time.
East Pittsburgh police officer acquitted in shooting death of 17-year-old Antwon Rose
The jury took fewer than four hours to deliberate.
A white former police officer in Pennsylvania was acquitted on Friday for fatally shooting Antwon Rose II, an unarmed black teenager. Rose, 17, was shot in the back by then-East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld while fleeing from a traffic stop last June.
Rosewas sitting in the passenger seat of an unlicensed taxicab when Rosfeld pulled him and another teen, Zaijuan Hester, over. The car matched the description of a vehicle involved in a drive-by shooting that had occurred just minutes earlier. Once stopped, Rose and Hesterquickly bolted from the car. Rosfeld then opened fire and shot Rose three times in his back, arm, and face.
Rosfeld, who had been sworn in as a rookie officer with the East Pittsburgh Police Department only hours before the shooting, was charged with criminal homicide in Rose’s death. A police affidavit used to charge Rosfeld showed that the officer had givenconflicting statements to investigators over the course of interviews with detectives. In an initial interview, Rosfeld suggested Rose may have been carrying something resembling a gun when he shot the teenager, but when detectives followed up, Rosfeld clarified that he did not see whether or not Rose was armed.
On Friday, however, a jury acquitted Rosfeld of all counts in a deliberation that took fewer than four hours. District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr., who tried the case in Allegheny County, said in a statement that he disagreed with the verdict but respected the jury’s decision.
“In the interest of justice, we must continue to do our job of bringing charges in situations where charges are appropriate, regardless of the role an individual holds in the community,” Zappala said.
Rose’s family on Friday condemned the verdict. “I hope that man never sleeps at night,” the teen’s mother, mother, Michelle Kenney, said according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I hope he gets as much sleep as I do, which is none.”
Read more on Vox
CVS to sell CBD products
Article via Fox8
CVS Pharmacy announced Wednesday that it will begin selling hemp-derived CBD products in eight states.
The pharmacy chain says the products include topicals such as creams, sprays and lotions.
They will be available in CVS stores in eight states including Alabama, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee.
CVS specified it is not selling any cbd-containing supplements or food additives.
Officials with the chain says the products comply with applicable laws.
Cbd is becoming one of the hottest ingredients in consumer products.
Companies are adding the non-psychoactive cannabis compound to food, beverages and skin care products.
Unicorn Store | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix
A woman named Kit receives a mysterious invitation that would fulfill her childhood dreams. Watch Unicorn Store April 5 on Netflix!
Thriller: documentary about the first moon landing
Article via Quartzy
Only a few seconds into Apollo 11, you realize that this is unlike any documentary you’ve ever seen. In crystal-clear, breathtaking detail, NASA’s crawler-transporter—a veritable city on wheels—lumbers across the screen, herding the mighty Saturn V rocket to its launch site. A few weeks later, that rocket sends three American astronauts barreling toward the moon.
You know the story, but you’ve never seen it like this.
Comprised entirely of archival footage that’s never before been released to the public, Apollo 11, now in theaters, tells the story of the first moon landing as if it were a Hollywood thriller. There are no interviews with the subjects, no heavy-handed narration. There are only the sounds and images of the occasion—stunning and immediate, despite being a half-century old. A mostly electronic score pulses in the background, as the determined faces of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins fill the screen.
That its ending is preordained (they reach the moon, plant the flag, no one dies) doesn’t make Apollo 11 any less thrilling. The unearthed footage is too mesmerizing, and the feat too incredible, for you to look away. It is a depiction of a wondrous human experience, told with startling clarity. It’s as close as any of us will ever get to that big gray rock floating far above our heads.
Director Todd Douglas Miller and archivist Stephen Slater worked with NASA and the US National Archives to unearth hundreds of hours of video (paywall) and thousands of hours of audio that they then had to match to the footage. (They also had to convert all of the film into a digital format.) Perhaps the only feat of mankind as painstaking and precise as launching three people to the moon is the act of turning all that footage into a coherent, exhilarating narrative.
It helps that the footage they found really is that remarkable. The accompanying audio, too, is a total treat, especially the radio communication between the astronauts and mission control back in Houston, Texas. (One particular gem is a radio communicator recording the three astronauts’ heart rates during the launch sequence. Collins and Armstrong’s were both well over 100, as you’d expect. Aldrin’s was 86—pretty much a normal resting rate.)
Apollo 11 comes shortly after another documentary that makes great use of archival footage—Peter Jackson’s World War I doc They Shall Not Grow Old. Jackson and his team sifted through 600 hours of video from the Imperial War Museums in England and audio from the BBC archives, before restoring, colorizing, and converting it to digital. Jackson also hired lip readers to decipher what the soldiers in the footage were saying, and voice actors to act their words out.
Neither the 1969 moon landing nor World War I are mysteries to the general public, but these two documentaries both fill in gaps in the emotional stories, using faces, voices, and personal accounts to add to our understanding of these historic moments. History is not finished when you learn what happened. We should also unravel, as best we can, what it was like to be there. In under two hours, Apollo 11 takes us to the moon and back.
Impact of the college admissions scandal on disabled students
The recent college admissions scandal came to light when Lori Loughlin (Aunt Becky of full House) and Felicity Huffman (from Desperate Housewives) bribed a number of college officials.
Aunt Becky caught in college admission scandal~paid $500k to get her daughter into USC
Now, let’s look at how this scandal affects disabled students: