Winner crowned on CBS TV show 'Big Brother 11'
LOS ANGELES – Jordan Lloyd was served the $500,000 grand prize on "Big Brother 11."
The goofy 22-year-old waitress from Matthews, N.C., bested Natalie Martinez, the scheming 24-year-old recent college graduate from Gilbert, Ariz., on the season finale of the voyeuristic CBS reality show. Lloyd received five votes from the show's seven-member jury, which included viewer votes as the possibly tie-breaking seventh pick for the first time.
Lloyd, who spent most of the season aligned with and romantically linked to charming 31-year-old advertising salesman Jeff Schroeder, defeated Kevin Campbell, the cunning 29-year-old graphic designer from Chula Vista, Calif., in the last round of a three-part Head of Household competition, which allowed her to choose Martinez to battle against for votes.
"It was my fault," Campbell lamented. "I should have won the last competition."
Martinez, who earned a $50,000 second-place prize, had been aligned with several jury members, but her lies in the game apparently caught up to her in the jury house and cost her votes. Her biggest fib? Fooling most of the contestants — or houseguests, as they're referred to on the show — into believing she was an 18-year-old recent high school graduate.
"She acted like she was 12," said Schroeder, who was voted "favorite houseguest" by viewers and won a $25,000 prize.
Lloyd outplayed her 12 competitors, who were all isolated from the outside world and monitored by dozens of cameras and microphones, for 73 days inside the "Big Brother" house.
She cited her unbreakable bond with Schroeder and ability to win competitions after he was eliminated as the main reasons why she should win.
So what is she going to do with the moolah?
"Put a down payment on a house for me, my mom and my brother," she said.
The live two-hour finale also featured the jury's interrogation of the final two and a reunion of the "Big Brother" cast — except for Chima Simone, the 33-year-old freelance journalist who was expelled after tossing a microphone into a whirlpool spa. Because Simone wasn't part of the jury, viewers cast the possibly tie-breaking seventh vote for Lloyd.
Bruno Visits Blu-ray in November
Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno will strut his way onto Blu-ray Disc and DVD on November 17 courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
Bruno will be served up in 1.85:1 1080p video and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio on video with an accompanying digital copy of the standard definition version.
Bonus features have been revealed and include a few Blu-ray exclusives as outlined below.
- Video Commentary with Sacha Baron Cohen and Director Larry Charles (BD exclusive)
- Digital copy (BD exclusive)
- App for iPhone (BD exclusive)
- An hour of Alternative, Deleted and Extended Scenes not shown in theaters
Enhanced Commentary -- Hear in depth stories for selected scenes from Sacha Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles.
- An Interview with Hollywood Agent Lloyd Robinson -- Get the story behind Bruno's real Hollywood agent.
Bruno on Blu-ray will retail for $39.98 and come with an outer o-sleeve. High-res cover art and Amazon pre-order information should be available shortly.
Blockbuster planning to close stores
SAN FRANCISCO - Blockbuster Inc. may close as many as 960 stores by the end of next year, shedding more dead weight as the struggling video rental chain tries to reverse its losses and fend off rapidly growing rivals Netflix Inc. and Redbox.
The cuts outlined in documents filed Tuesday would leave Blockbuster with about 20 per cent fewer U.S. stores. The previously confidential documents didn't identify the locations of the endangered stores.
Blockbuster hasn't made any final decisions on the possible store closures, Chief Executive James Keyes said in an interview Tuesday.
Keyes described the closures as something that Blockbuster is considering as it sets up more DVD-rental kiosks in the stores of other merchants. It's a concept that has been popularized by Coinstar Inc.'s Redbox.
By the middle of next year, Blockbuster hopes to have 10,000 kiosks scattered around the country. It had just 500 kiosks at the end of August.
"We could have fewer physical stores and still have more rental points for our customers," Keyes said.
Blockbuster's shift serves as another reminder of video stores' waning appeal as consumers buy and rent movies through the mail, on the Internet and through cable connections and standalone kiosks.
The shift has threatened to turn once-mighty Blockbuster into a dinosaur. The Dallas-based company has been trying to evolve by embracing kiosks and expanding into rentals delivered through the mail and the Internet.
But it hasn't been enough to justify keeping so many stores open, prompting management to consider cutting much deeper than it anticipated to save money and keep its lenders happy. About 18 per cent of Blockbuster's stores aren't making money, according to the documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Blockbuster is thinking about closing between 810 and 960 of its U.S. stores before 2011, up from the 380 to 425 stores that normally would be closed during that time span, according to Tuesday's filing.
As of mid-August, Blockbuster had closed 276 stores so far this year.
Besides closing stores, Blockbuster indicated that it will convert at least 250 stores into smaller outlets.
If Blockbuster hits the high end of the new target for store closures, it will represent 22 per cent of its 4,356 stores in the United States.
Netflix's DVD-by-mail service, launched a decade ago, has hit Blockbuster particularly hard as more households have embraced the concept of picking out their rental choices online before the DVDs are delivered through the mail for a monthly subscription fee that usually runs from $9 to $17. In the last two years, Netflix lured even more customers by building up its library of movies available for instant viewing over high-speed Internet connections.
Netflix now has 10.6 million subscribers and, unlike Blockbuster, is becoming more profitable. The Los Gatos-based company earned $55 million through the first half of this year while Blockbuster lost $15 million.
Redbox also has been hurting Blockbuster with its red kiosks that rent DVDs for just a $1 per night. That low price has proven particularly compelling during the recession as more people pinched pennies.
In a Tuesday research note, Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuth said Blockbuster's accelerated store closures should bolster Netflix. Investors seemed to agree as Netflix shares surged $1.69, or 3.9 per cent, to close Tuesday at $44.97.
Blockbuster's cost-cutting plans also pleased Wall Street as its shares gained 7 cents, or 5.2 per cent, to $1.40.
Letterman appearance latest for Obama media blitz
NEW YORK – President Barack Obama is visiting David Letterman on Monday, part of a media blitz to sell his health care plan.
CBS says it would make the first visit ever by a sitting president to Letterman's "Late Show." Obama has appeared on Letterman's show five times before, the last during the campaign in September 2008.
The president is scheduled to visit Sunday morning talk shows this weekend on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN. That's a highly unusual schedule, even for a president eager to get his message across throughout the media.
Obama will be the sole guest on Monday's "Late Show."
Jays open 2010 season in Texas
It will all start in Arlington for the 2010 Blue Jays.
Major League Baseball announced next season's schedule on Tuesday, and Toronto is slated to begin its 34th campaign against Texas at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. The two clubs will get it going Monday, April 5, then have an off-day and wrap up the first series of the season over the following couple of days.
It will mark the first time the Blue Jays and Rangers open up together since '01 -- when Toronto beat Texas, 8-1, in Puerto Rico -- and the first time the Blue Jays start a season in Texas since 1990, when Nolan Ryan was the winning pitcher in a 4-2 Toronto loss.
The Blue Jays, 25-8 all-time on Opening Day, will be starting a season on the road for the third time in the past four years.
After that three-game set, Toronto will play three in Baltimore against the Orioles, then come to Canada for its first home series at Rogers Centre. That will begin Monday, April 12, when the Blue Jays play four against the White Sox, three against the Angels and three against the Royals.
Interleague Play will kick off at Rogers Centre in mid-June, when the Blue Jays host the Giants (June 18-20), Cardinals (June 22-24) and Phillies (June 25-27). Toronto will also go on the road to face National League West teams in the D-backs (May 21-23), Rockies (June 11-13) and Padres (June 14-16).
The Blue Jays most famously beat the Phillies in the 1993 World Series, and over the past two years, they're 6-3 against them during the regular season.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, will be making a stop in Toronto for the first time since the Blue Jays took two of three in '05.
As usual, the Blue Jays will play 18 games each -- nine home and nine away -- against the division-rival Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles and Rays. They'll also play at least one home and one road series against each of the remaining AL teams. In addition, the Jays will host two series against the Twins while going on the road for two series against the Indians and Angels.
The Red Sox will first come to town April 26-28, and the Yankees will follow June 4-6.
On the road, the Blue Jays will make their first stop at Fenway Park May 10-12, and they'll be at Yankee Stadium for the first time for a three-game series starting July 2.
The final four series will see the Blue Jays host the Mariners (Sept. 21-23), Orioles (Sept. 24-26) and Yankees (Sept. 27-29) before wrapping up the regular season with a four-game road series against the Twins Sept. 30-Oct. 3.
Spielberg And Company Have Figured Out Indy's Fifth Adventure
I realize that Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are constantly being asked about the status of Indiana Jones 5, and therefore must tell us exactly what's happening. But really, I wish they'd just shut up about it already.
Talking to France's Le Figaro magazine, via Fox News, Ford said that he and his co-conspirators are close to having the script in shape and ready to go.
"The story for the new Indiana Jones is in the process of taking form. Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern, and George is actively at work. If the script is good, I'll be very happy to put the costume on again."
So there you have it, once again, that this film is actively being developed, and will probably be showing up in theaters well before you're actually ready to see another one. It's the same news we've been reporting for a year now, but we just thought we'd depress you by reminding you that it's all still happening.
Taylor Swift: Kanye hasn't 'personally reached out'
Kanye West may have told Jay Leno last night he wants to apologize in person to Taylor Swift, but she told The View today that "sure," she'd meet up with him, but, "I mean, he has not personally reached out or anything."
Taylor recalled the night and what she was thinking the moment Kanye came onstage, saying, " I think my overall thought process went something like, 'Wow, I can't believe I won. This is awesome. Don't trip and fall. I'm going to get to thank the fans. This is so cool. Oh, Kanye West is here!'" She paused, then added, "'Cool haircut. What are you doing?' And And then 'Ouch.' And then, 'I guess I'm not gonna get to thank the fans."
It might have been worse, she said, but she was surrounded by well-wishers backstage. "All the artists came and showed me love and all the people tweeting about it. and all the fans, I never imagined there were that many people out there looking out for me, defending me so I didn't have to."
Critics slam `Leno Show,' call it `Tonight' rehash
NEW YORK – Jay Leno snagged mostly negative reviews with his entry into prime time as he stuck to familiar ground — just 90 minutes earlier.
Monday's premiere of "The Jay Leno Show," which transports the longtime "Tonight Show" host to 10 p.m. EDT weekdays on NBC, was slammed as a "cut-rate, snooze-inducing, rehashed bore" by Robert Bianco of USA Today. And that was even with the presence of Leno's much-buzzed-about guest Kanye West.
The Associated Press' Frazier Moore identified "the biggest difference between Leno's new show and his old one: With his fade-out at 11 p.m., the local news began."
Of course, Leno has never been the critics' darling. The first response from viewers wouldn't be known until Nielsen ratings are released later Tuesday.
But audience numbers aren't likely to sway The Los Angeles Times' Mary McNamara, who called the show "a strange, shallow puddle of comedy."
"This is the future of television?" she wrote. "This wasn't even a good rendition of television past."
"The future of `The Jay Leno Show' is likely to look almost exactly like `The Tonight Show' past," complained Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times. "So much ink has been devoted to describing how Mr. Leno's new show would depart from his old one that it was startling to see how little difference there was."
Indeed, much ink has been devoted to "The Jay Leno Show" since NBC's announcement last December.
And many questions have swirled: Will a cost-cutting comedy show stripped across weeknights imperil more expensive weekly scripted drama shows? Will the audience embrace this NBC alternative to fictional docs, cops and lawyers? Has fourth-rated NBC found a strategy that not only will improve its fortunes, but also alter the programming landscape on rival networks?
Or will this prove to be NBC's biggest flop yet?
These are questions likely to remain unresolved for months.
The premiere was relentlessly hyped by NBC all summer, even prompting Leno to crack when he arrived on stage, "This isn't another annoying promo. This is the actual show!"
For his debut, he had booked a relatively big name, Jerry Seinfeld, besides lucking into TV's biggest get, Kanye West, who was not only able to perform a song ("Run This Town," along with Jay-Z and Rihanna), but also apologize lugubriously for his bad behavior on an MTV awards show Sunday night.
Giving curious viewers yet more reason to sample Jay's first night was the fact that ABC and CBS were airing retreads during his time slot: the final hour of the 2006 film "Dreamgirls" and a rerun of "CSI: Miami," respectively.