Yo, Rocky!!!!

'Museum' wins pre-Christmas box office

LOS ANGELES - Ben Stiller's "Night at the Museum" was the main exhibit at theaters, debuting with $30.8 million to lead a rush of new movies over the holiday weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Starring Stiller as a guard at a museum where exhibits come alive at night, the comedy exceeded expectations for 20th Century Fox, which had been counting on a bit more than $20 million, said head of distribution Bruce Snyder.

The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, Sony's "The Pursuit of Happyness," slipped to second with $15 million, raising its 10-day total to $53.3 million.

Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky Balboa" lived up to its underdog theme, overcoming geriatric-boxer jokes to debut at No. 3 with a solid $12.5 million over the weekend and a total of $22.1 million since opening Wednesday.

Released by MGM, "Rocky Balboa" is Stallone's sixth movie about the Philadelphia street bruiser who becomes a champion fighter, this one following the nearly 60-year-old Rocky in the ring against the reigning heavyweight king.

MGM anticipated the jeers of fans about Rocky stepping back in the ring, tailoring its earliest movie trailers to that idea, with "characters saying, `Why are you doing this? You gotta be kidding,'" said Clark Woods, the studio's head of distribution. "It made the audience comfortable with this concept right away. They were going to say it themselves, so we gave it to them."

Universal's "The Good Shepherd," a saga about the early days of the CIA directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, opened in fourth place with $10 million.

The weekend's other new wide release, the Warner Bros. football drama "We Are Marshall," opened weakly with $6.6 million to come in at No. 6. The movie stars Matthew McConaughey as a coach who rebuilds West Virginia's Marshall University team after the 1970 plane crash that killed 75 players, coaches and fans.

Christmas weekend always is crowded as studios cram in family flicks and films angling for awards attention. This holiday weekend seemed even more packed than usual, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.

"I think the movies are beating up on each other a little bit because there's so many jockeying for position," Dergarabedian said. "I don't know how people find time to see all these films. I think it's probably overwhelming for a lot of movie-goers."

A flurry of movies opened well in limited release to qualify for Academy Awards consideration, including Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima," which took in $76,000 in five theaters. Released by Warner Bros., the film is Eastwood's companion piece to his earlier World War II epic "Flags of Our Fathers," the new movie telling the story of Iwo Jima from the perspective of Japanese soldiers.

Sony Pictures Classics' "Curse of the Golden Flower," director Zhang Yimou's action tale starring Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li in a story of bloody palace intrigue in ancient China, took in $489,000 in 60 theaters.

Warner Independent's "The Painted Veil," with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton in an adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's romantic tragedy in 1920s China, premiered with $44,000 in four theaters.

"Venus," Miramax's comic drama starring Peter O'Toole as an elderly actor whose rusty libido is aroused by a saucy young woman, opened with $36,000 in three theaters.

Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Wednesday.

1. "Night at the Museum," $30.8 million.
2. "The Pursuit of Happyness," $15 million.
3. "Rocky Balboa," $12.5 million.
4. "The Good Shepherd," $10 million.
5. "Charlotte's Web," $8 million.
6. "Eragon," $7.15 million.
7. "We Are Marshall," $6.6 million.
8. "Happy Feet," $5.1 million.
9. "The Holiday," $5 million.
10. "The Nativity Story," $4.65 million.

"I want them all!!!"

The Couch Potato Report - December 24th 2006

This edition of The Couch Potato Report shines the spotlight on some box sets that are available for your holiday giving, or receiving.

More and more people are ignoring shows when they first play on television and instead they are picking them up once they are released on DVD instead.

This way - for episodic shows - they don't have to wait week after week to see what happens.

For the shows that people still watch on TV, since they are fans, they want to own what they enjoy.

There is now also the option to purchase a big huge box set that contains every episode of a series, once it has finished it's run.

If you have someone that you still need to get something for who falls into one of those categories, I have at least one show from each one to suggest.

And I will start with LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT.

There are now three seasons of CRIMINAL INTENT available on DVD.

The show centers on the New York Police Department's Major Case Squad and the very brilliant, offbeat Detective Robert Goren, as portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio.

Of all the LAW & ORDER shows that have been on the air over the years, CRIMINAL INTENT is my favourite as it shows you the crimes as they are planned and committed, and then we also get to see the detectives solving them and putting a case together for the District Attorney.

Of the three Box Sets for LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT that are available, my favourite is the 2002-2003 set for THE SECOND YEAR. The writing is at it's best that season, and the cast is working really well together.

And even Detective Goren's partner - played by Kathryn Erbe - starts to have more to say and do.

LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT is still on the air, but the next box set I will mention is from a show that isn't.

ALIAS - THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON was the final season of that show.

In the show Jennifer Garner is Sydney Bristow, an international spy recruited out of college and trained for espionage and self-defense.

The fifth season of the show obviously started off where Season Four ended, and the cliffhanger from that year was one of the best ones ever on television.

I was a huge fan of ALIAS during it's run, but I began to not have time to watch it every week, so this was one show I stopped watching when it aired, and just waited for the DVDs.

And I am glad I did as in real life Jennifer Garner got pregnant and the series went off air for a few months so she could have her baby, before coming back and wrapping up the show's many loose ends.

They also made Sydney Bristow pregnant on the show and brought in some new people to fill the needs of the still-in-business spy agency.

The new cast wasn't and isn't bad, but it is the return of Sydney and Sark, and Irina, and Anna Espinosa, and maybe even the murdered Michael Vaughan, or whatever his name is, that will allow you to ride the fifth season of ALIAS to a very satisfying series conclusion.

Of course, now that the series is over, I want to go back again and watch it from the beginning.

Luckily I have the box sets for the five seasons, so I can do that.

If you don't have them, you can get them individually or pick up the 29 DVD set ALIAS - THE COMPLETE COLLECTION - which has Seasons one to five and is packaged in a Rambaldi artifact box.

Fans of the show SIX FEET UNDER who don't have the individual sets for the five seasons that that show was on, can also pick up one all-inclusive box set - the 25 disc set that is shaped like a grave for SIX FEET UNDER - THE COMPLETE SERIES GIFT SET.

SIX FEET UNDER is the superbly written and acted drama series that takes a very comical look at The Fisher Family and their associates.

All of the people we meet are quite dysfunctional, and most of them either work in or live at a funeral home.

In addition to every episode THE COMPLETE SERIES GIFT SET for SIX FEET UNDER also has a wide array of bonus features, two-bonus soundtrack CDs, and an exclusive illustrated booklet with character obituaries and memories from the show's creators.

I watched SIX FEET UNDER when it was on, but I never saw the first ten episodes, so this box set gave me the chance to go back, catch up on what I missed, and then keep watching.

And I will keep watching, as it is a superb show!

I will also keep watching THAT GIRL.

Before there was Mary Richards, Murphy Brown, or Ally McBeal there
was THAT GIRL.

The always-engaging Marlo Thomas starred in THAT GIRL as Ann Marie, a struggling actress living in New York City. In between trying to find jobs acting and modeling she spends time with her boyfriend, Don, and her parents.

THAT GIRL ran from 1966 to 1971 and history shows us that the title character was groundbreaking as an independent female forging her own way and forever changed the manner in which women were portrayed on TV.

Now you can relive history because the first two seasons of THAT GIRL are available on DVD.

And the thing I enjoyed about the show was the fact that it harkens back to a simpler time.

Seriously, when was the last time you saw gum used as a plot point on a TV show that wasn't called McGyver?

If you have someone on your list who loves old TV shows, or is a fan of THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, MURPHY BROWN or ALLY McBEAL, THAT GIRL would make a great gift for them!

SEASONS ONE AND TWO of the show are now available on DVD, and so is SIX FEET UNDER - THE COMPLETE SERIES GIFT SET, SEASONS 1 through 5 of ALIAS and the first THREE SEASONS of LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT.

They would also make great gifts!

Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report

Almost every Canadian is aware of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and Russia, but did you know we also played an eight game series against them in 1974?

Well, we did, and TEAM CANADA 1974: THE LOST SERIES is now available on DVD.

Also next week there are four new releases in the WALT DISNEY TREASURES collection, and a part time bartender gets a chance to play in the NFL in INVINCIBLE.

I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that's THE COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!

Happy Holidays!!

Actress still thinks 'It's a Wonderful Life'

SENECA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) - Zuzu has a cold again. She sniffles and sucks on a cold pill as she signs autographs for fans lined up to the door in a coffee shop.

Karolyn Grimes jokes that she left her coat open, like her character Zuzu Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life." But a more likely culprit is the holiday crunch of appearances by the former child actress - from a Victorian festival in Puyallup, Wash., to the Colorado Country Christmas Show and now to Seneca Falls, which claims to be the inspiration for director Frank Capra's mythical Bedford Falls.

Around Christmas, this Finger Lakes village is gussied up like the snowy movie town with white lights and wreaths strung across the main street. And the 66-year-old Grimes has come for a weekend celebration.

Everyone who saw the movie remembers Zuzu. She gets to say, "Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings." And the petals from Zuzu's rose - stuffed into a pants pocket by Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey as he comforts his sickly daughter - become a symbol of life.

Grimes laughs about the petals getting more screentime than she did. But she has parlayed her six minutes in the beloved 1946 film into a late-life career. After enduring heartaches that make George Bailey's troubles look small, she has become a feel-good ambassador for the film and one of its last living links.

"I'm that little girl and I stand for something those people love," she says. ". . . For some reason or other, that little girl embodies the image, or maybe the power to make them happy."

People tell her as much all afternoon at the Zuzu Cafe, where she sits with a Sharpie at a table laid out with "It's a Wonderful Life" stuff: DVDs, ceramic ornaments, memory books, her own "Zuzu Bailey's It's a Wonderful Life Cookbook" and scattered rose petals.

"Do you know what a thrill this is? "

"This is my favourite movie!"

"Thank you for giving us so much joy!"

For each person, Grimes neatly signs her name with "Zuzu" in quotes and a little doodle of a bell. She usually adds a message like, "Enjoy life, it's wonderful."

Grimes holds her smile for hours and laughs as she pops up for snapshots. She has a gold "Z" pinned to her blue velveteen jacket.

She lost her nest egg in the 2001 economic downturn and relies on these appearances. As she signs, her husband sits beside her and asks, "Cash or credit card?" It's a job, but she clearly loves being Zuzu. After signing autographs all afternoon, she bumps into a fan at a diner who talks on her cellphone to her father.

Grimes happily accepts the phone.

"Do you know who you're talking to?" she says to woman's father. "You're talking to Zuzu!"

Grimes had already worked with Bing Crosby and Fred MacMurray when she appeared in "It's a Wonderful Life." She grew up in Hollywood and was nudged into the business by her mother. Capra picked her to play Zuzu.

Grimes retains kid-centric memories of the movie: Capra kindly squatted to give her directions. "Mr. Stewart" held her in his arms, take after take, for the end scene and always put her down gently. She loved the Baileys' big Christmas tree.

At the time though, even to a five-year-old, "it was just another job."

Grimes' movie career waned as her mother became ill. She lost her at age 14. Her father died in a car accident a year later. A court shipped the teenage orphan to Osceola, Mo., to live in a "bad home" with an aunt and uncle.

Still, she liked meeting people outside hyper-competitive Hollywood. She went to college, married, raised kids, became a medical technologist. Zuzu was the past. Her box of clips and pics stayed in the basement until 1980, when a reporter came to her door in Stilwell, Kan., and asked her a question:

"Did you play that little girl in the movie, 'It's a Wonderful Life?' "

Now Grimes stands watching herself on a big-screen TV as a curly-haired pixie from 60 years ago. The little girl asks her dad to fix her flower, and he sneaks the wilted petals into his pocket.

"What do you think? Did I see it?" she asks the audience. Grimes is giving a crowd at the community centre a tour of the movie with bits of trivia.

Zuzu's name was inspired by an old brand of ginger snaps, she says. The snow coating Bedford Falls was made of soap flakes and chemicals; that's why it looks sudsy sometimes. Reviewing the flower scene, she suggests Zuzu saw through her father's heartfelt ruse and loves him all the more for it.

"I think what Frank Capra is trying to say is she knows her father isn't perfect," she said.

The film about a suicidal, small-town money lender was a bit of a dud after its December 1946 release. "Wonderful Life" got a second life in the mid-'70s when a lapsed copyright allowed television stations to show the movie for free. The movie gathered iconic status through constant showings.

After the reporter's story, Grimes did local Zuzu events in the '80s and branched out by the '90s.

This was a difficult stretch personally; she knows angels don't always save people. Her 18-year-old son killed himself in 1989 and her second husband died of cancer in 1994 (her first husband was killed in a hunting accident). She kept on.

"You have a choice," she says. "You can drown in your sorrows, be the grumpy old Mr. Potter and be hurt and be in pain . . . but I think you need to put that behind you because, my gosh, life is a wonderful gift."

Grimes, one of about seven surviving actors from the movie, says she's had troubled souls approach her sobbing at her appearances. She inspires smiles when she passes out a rose petal.

"I really feel like Zuzu is kind of a mission maybe, I don't know," Grimes says. "I think that there is a higher power at work and that I had to go through a lot of adverse situations in my life to understand other people's pain."

If it sounds like a corny sentiment out of a Capra movie, consider that after a day of "It's a Wonderful Life" autographs and interviews she becomes excited - really excited - by a small cutout of a bell stuck to a linoleum floor by her chair.

It has meaning, she explains as she walks out to the snowy sidewalks of Seneca Falls, past the decorated windows, the old-fashioned street lights and the wreaths hanging overhead.

"I really feel at home here," she says.

People here argue about the Bedford Falls connection, though it's a circumstantial case. Both places have a "Falls" suffix, and characters in the film mention nearby cities like Rochester and Elmira. Both places have classic American main streets, and the bridge here resembles the one where George Bailey pondered his mortality.

Capra, whose movie village was a set built near Los Angeles, left no evidence to rule out other candidates, like Bedford, N.Y.

And yet the director could have passed through Seneca Falls while visiting an aunt in nearby Auburn. Retired local barber Tommy Bellissima even claims he cut Capra's hair before the movie came out. Bellissima recalls a friendly guy whose name stuck in his head: capra means goat in Italian.

"Sometimes Christmas is what you believe," says county tourism director Maureen Koch at the Zuzu Cafe, "and don't make me prove it."

May he rest in peace!

Canadian blues pioneer Dutch Mason dies

Dutch Mason, the musician from Nova Scotia who was known as "prime minister of the blues," has died.

The singer and guitarist — one of the country's best-known blues artists and a pioneer for many of today's musicians — died Saturday in Truro, N.S.

In the past few years, Mason has battled poor health due to chronic arthritis, which forced him to stop a busy performance schedule he had maintained for decades.

Born Norman Mason in Lunenberg in 1938, Mason became interested in music early in his youth, learning to play several different instruments.

In the 1950s, he started forming a number of bands and musical groups, which largely played in the rockabilly style. However, his focus changed after he was introduced to the blues through the recordings of B. B. King, who soon became a major influence for Mason.

Through the 1970s and 1980s, Mason built up his reputation and gained renown for his music, his colourful performances and relentless touring from coast to coast in order to build up a Canadian audience for the blues. Despite constant gigs in clubs from the West Coast to Toronto and Montreal, he always remained based in Nova Scotia.

It was King who eventually dubbed Mason "prime minister of the blues" to acknowledge his influence on the Canadian music scene.

Mason "puts out a certain vibe or energy or something. He just gives you that good feeling, the way he sings," his son, Juno Award-winning blues guitarist Garrett Mason said in an interview with CBC News.

Over the years, Mason released a host of albums, including Dutch Mason Trio at the Candlelight, Janitor of the Blues and Special Brew.

In 1998, the CBC recorded a live tribute album entitled Dutchie's 60th Birthday to honour the blues legend, who also had a eponymous summertime blues festival each year in Dartmouth, N.S.

Mason was also inducted into the Canadian Jazz and Blues Hall of Fame and, in 2005, inducted into the Order of Canada.