Universal’s Little Fockers  grossed $7.1 million from 3,536 theaters on Thursday at the domestic box office, according to preliminary estimates. That brings the film’s two-day cume to $14.3 million. A version of this review appeared Wednesday. Before most of America gets together with their families for the Christmas holiday, a good portion of them took to the theaters Thursday to enjoy the comedic stylings of “Little Fockers.”  The third Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller tête-à-tête found another $7.2 million on Thursday for a two-day total of $14.4 million.  While solid business, that’s far behind the franchise’s previous installment, Meet the Fockers,” which grossed $24.2 million over its first two days in 2006.   Nipping at “Fockers’” heels was Disney’s “Tron Legacy” with another $6.1 million and a seven day cume of $68.2 million.  “Legacy” will easily pass $100 million domestic, but whether it can truly become a franchise hit remains to be seen. From brilliance to banality.  ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ is the latest from Jack Black and it seems to rest entirely on his shoulders.  If you’re a fan of Black, you’ll probably enjoy the film.  If you’re not then you’ll want to stay away. Disney’s 3D holiday offering  Tron: Legacy  came in No. 2 on Thursday, grossing an estimated $6.1 million from 3,531 locations for a cume of $68.2 million in its first seven days. Hitting the trail in third was “True Grit.”  The Coen Bros.

Some of these references, too, hail from Portis’ book, but after tackling the trials of Job in A Serious Man , the moviemaking siblings appear to have taken an especially keen interest in the venerable Christian and Hebrew texts. Paramount’s True Grit  placed No. 3, grossing roughly $5.7 million from 3,047 theaters for a pleasing two-day total of at least $11.2 million. “Yogi Bear” drummed up some more family business for fourth place with $3.8 million and $28 million so far. Playing in 3,515 theaters, Yogi’s  cume is $28 million in its first seven days. It will battle “Fockers” and “Gulliver’s Travels” for major family coin during the holiday break beginning tomorrow. After the cash-strapped dad takes a job moonlighting for a drug company, however, Jack’s suspicions about his favorite male nurse come roaring back.   Jeff Bridges – whose previous collaboration with the Coens produced cinema’s iconic stoner, Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski – plays Cogburn with eye patch and baggy long johns, and with a gruff, grizzled conviction.

Among specialty offerings, Fox Searchlight’s Black Swan  remained a favorite, coming in No. 7 with a gross of $1.8 million from 1,462 theaters for a cume of $22.4 million. Theater traffic is expected to drop off dramatically today, and then begin picking up tomorrow afternoon.

Starring Jack Black, Amanda Peet and Jason Segel. (PG. 85 minutes. Opens Saturday at Bay Area theaters.) Like a rare and delicate flower, “Gulliver’s Travels”… Jack Black’s latest effort to wring laughter from the cineplex plays to a few of his strengths his physicality, his musicality, his eyebrows. ‘Forever Tango’ review: Key steps missing Allan Ulrich, Chronicle Dance Correspondent Of all commercial dance entertainments, “Forever Tango,” which opened here in 1994 and returned Tuesday evening to the Marines’ Memorial Theatre for a sixth visit, may be the most durable. No doubt he’d have been keen on poking fun at this new world — Swift had a fascination with human failings of the most base sort — but I don’t think a three-story Coke can that’s washed up on the shores of Lilliput with all the other debris in the latest film adaptation is what he’d have in mind. Yet, the package, created and… Black plays Lemuel Gulliver, a lonely, “Star Wars”-obsessed loser who’s stuck in the mail room at a publishing house. With director Rob Letterman (“Shark Tale” and “Monsters vs. Yeah, sure, he’s a writer. Drag takes off on N.Y. stages – grab your boa Mark Kennedy, Associated Press Will Swenson went from very hairy to virtually hairless in a matter of weeks. Jack Black’s persona has always been larger than life, so in a way, he’s the perfect choice for an adaptation of ” Gulliver’s Travels .” But while Black ably carries the movie on his super-size shoulders, Rob Letterman’s slacker take on the Jonathan Swift classic is easier to like than respect. Since this a modern-day telling, the modern world intrudes from beginning to end, and in 3-D. Unless you consider transforming Lilliput’s elegant 18th-century grand plaza into a tacky Times Square commercial strip, or having Gulliver battle a towering Transformer-like robot, doing something.

Letterman seems perfectly happy to stand back and let the lead do his thing, which makes the movie feel like — well, most of Black’s other films. Before landing on Lilliput, Gulliver was at the bottom of a Manhattan publishing giant’s ladder, the mailroom guy with a hopeless crush on Amanda Peet ‘s smart, successful beauty with a corner office and travel assignments to dole out. Gulliver himself is no longer an experienced explorer, but a lowly mailroom guy at a major New York newspaper who talks himself into a travel-writing assignment in order to impress the pretty editor (Amanda Peet) he’s been crushing on for years. Aliens ) sands the edges off of Jonathan Swift’s tale and replaces them with robots, wedgie jokes, and a neatly wrapped all-you-need-is-confidence personal message, which also plays out through Jason Segel’s attempts as a lower-caste Lilliputian to woo his kingdom’s princess (Emily Blunt). Alas, poor Horatio (Jason Segel) is but a commoner, lacking the pedigree or act of valor to make him worthy to pursue that princess. Back home, he tells the little Lilliputians, people call him President the Awesome. Deemed a “beast,” Gulliver is thrown in prison, where he befriends Horatio (Jason Segel), a kindly soul Edward locked up for daring to make eyes at his bride-to-be, Princess Mary (Emily Blunt, whose primary character trait is a taste for plunging necklines). Never mind that he plagiarized them (he’s bumbling, he’s jive, and he’s ethically challenged!). He’s even able to throw a Lillipalooza concert featuring Lilliputian versions of his favorite bands.

Before Darcy finds out, she has sent him on assignment to the Bermuda Triangle, which is how he ends up in the land of Lilliput. My suggestion would be to put it away for a day, and then, during one of those… And on Masonic Street, there’s reason for the Newsoms to…

What do the Windows Phone 7 sales numbers mean?

Microsoft reported, finally, that 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 phones had been sold in six weeks Updated from original “months.”. But those sales, as the online interview made clear, are by handset manufacturers to carriers. So, is that figure evidence that Windows Phone 7 is a success or, as Business Insider’s Dan Frommer just opined,  “toast?”

The number was revealed in an online Microsoft interview, with Achim Berg, Microsoft’s vice president of business and marketing for Windows Phones. (Nearly everything else in that interview is being ignored by pundits and bloggers; more on this below.) Plenty of opinionators point out that the business-to-business sales likely don’t correspond directly to Windows Phone 7 activations on AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S., and at other carriers globally.

Neither Microsoft nor its carrier partners have so far released numbers for activations, or for retail WP7 sales. The general attitude of many pundits is “what are they hiding?” It’s pretty clear that WP7 has not achieved the iPhone’s spectacular, and deserved, success. And it probably hasn’t yet achieved the uncompromising standard set by Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer, when he told the Wall Street Journal in a revealing interview earlier this year: “Job one here will be selling a lot of phones, and if we sell a lot of phones, good things are going to happen.”

Microsoft has a long way to go, as executives there from Balmer on downward apparently know well. In the last quarter, for example, Apple and RIM each sold over 14 million handsets globally; and sales of smartphones running the Android OS are growing fast.

Dan Frommer, for one, flat out doesn’t think Balmer will sell many WP7 handsets. “Why not? Because there simply aren’t many reasons for anyone to buy a Windows Phone instead of an iPhone or an Android device.”

To me, it seems like you can turn that “analysis” inside out and come up with “There simply aren’t many reasons for anyone NOT to buy a Windows Phone instead of an iPhone or Android device.” Lack of copy-and-paste? Zillions of iPhone users didn’t get that until mid-2010 and seemed to have thrived without it. And for many of the common run-of-the-mill tasks for which you’d want to use copy-and-paste, WP7 takes care of that for you, intuitively.

What about the fact WP7 doesn’t yet enable multi-tasking? I think the question almost answers itself. My impression is there are relatively few first-time smartphone buyers who have “multi-tasking” – or any of the technical features beloved by those that love technical features – at the top of their “must have” list.

Microsoft has fewer apps? The company just announced there are 4,000 WP7 apps in the Zune Marketplace, more than triple the number available on October 30.  But plenty of pundits are dismissive even of that.

What IS different about WP7 is not, as Frommer mistakenly says, that it’s UI is pretty, or prettier than Android. What’s different is…that it’s different: it’s a different experience of working with an Internet device that’s always on. A good example of how Windows Phone is different is this detailed description  by Paul Dawson, with EMC Consulting, of his first two weeks living with a Windows Phone (he’s used iPhone, BlackBerry, and most recently, an Android phone):

“With other phones I have to think about which calendar my itinerary is stored in. I have to think about which phonebook my mum’s phone number is in. None of this with Windows Phone….Windows Phone feels flowing and linear. What I mean by this is that I’m not constantly thinking about menu structures. Any combination of operating system and applications has a means of navigation, to which each of us applies their own cognitive model – “go up to the top level” is an indicator of the type of mental map someone has made of a particular system for example. With Windows Phone, I don’t have a mental model of its hierarchies. Instead, it feels like I have an anchor – the windows button that takes me to the live tiles, but after that, I have no concept of what ‘apps are open’ and it doesn’t matter.”

As an example of how Windows Phone flows functionally, Dawson recounts his first-ever attempt to sync music on his smartphone. He entered a store, heard a song being played, and tapped the Shazam app on his Windows Phone (Shazam http://www.shazam.com/ “listens” to a song or score and then calls up information about the track, the album, and artist).

“Shazam listened to the song, then (much more quickly than my Android used to) told me what it was. Whilst I was thinking to myself “I must remember to go find that later” I saw a little Zune icon at the bottom of the app. I touched it. I was then in the phone’s music player, looking at the album art, a track listing and the first track on the album playing. I could have listened to the whole album for free (courtesy of my Zune pass) right there and then. Being a savvy geek though, I wanted it downloaded in my local collection rather than streaming, and one tap of the screen later it was all downloading….There were no walls in this process. There was no visibility of the fact that Shazam is an app built by a third party, no wait whilst the music player app opened, or even any acknowledgment that I had moved into the music player, or that it had to log in to Zune, or that the music was streaming, no retrying of downloads because the 3G connection dropped… none of that.”

This is what Microsoft is focused on: creating a user experience that flows out of what people want to do with an always-on mobile Internet voice-and-data device. You can see this focus in Berg’s interview, where he repeatedly emphasizes how consumers are responding to the phone. Here’s what he says: “…Early customer survey data on the overall software experience is very positive and the willingness to recommend our phone is very high.”

“With a new platform you have to look at a couple of things, first of all customer satisfaction. As I mentioned before, we’ve seen great response on the complete mobile phone experience.”

“We introduced a new platform with Windows Phone 7, and when you do that it takes time to educate partners and consumers on what you’re delivering, and drive awareness and interest in your new offering.  We’re comfortable with where we are….Our opportunity is to make sure people get to play with a Windows Phone. Once they do, they love it.”

“We have a different point of view than just delivering apps, and we have received great customer feedback on our approach. We are working on updates that will take us to the next level.”

Berg’s comments are only suggestive rather than definitive because, typically for Microsoft, he doesn’t provide either specific details or aggregations of this “customer feedback.” And I’ve been a critic from the start of Microsoft’s advertising/marketing campaign for Windows Phone precisely because, in my opinion, it doesn’t actually show the uniqueness of the Windows Phone experience.

I’ve seen very little written about how and why people buy smartphones; about the difference in buying a smartphone for the first time, compared to buying a replacement for a first smartphone purchase; about how people evaluate phones and value them, or what they consider important in terms of feature; or how those factors vary with demography and geography.

But recently, Asymco’s Horace Dediu analyzed the adoption of Android by handset makers and mobile operators, and smartphone pricing trends. One of his conclusions is that iPhone single-handledly reversed the chronic price erosion in mobile phones: his data shows the average selling price for smartphones, with any OS, is actually trending upwards. He makes two points: one, that iPhone has triggered “the shift to software as the component that drives price power;” and two, that “the competition is not between smartphone platforms but between smart and non-smart phones.”

He notes also that “iPhone’s traction was always in markets which had been seeded by some smartphones: the US with RIM and Europe with Symbian. Such a smartphone-soaked world will have better mobile broadband infrastructure, users with more demanding tastes and awareness of the value that a smart device can bring.”

It seems to me, if I understand him correctly, that those same dynamics could work in Microsoft’s favor, and more quickly than one might otherwise expect. If so, Steve Balmer will end up selling a lot of phones and some very good things will happen.

(For the record, Didiu elsewhere predicts http://www.asymco.com/2010/12/13/verizon-strikes-out/ that if iPhone comes to Verizon, the carrier could sell 8-12 million of the handsets in the first 12 months).

Davidson says Holland – who alleged that Lohan was “out of control” earlier this week, causing a sprain in her right arm and hand – sympathizes with Lohan. The two share a similar struggle: They’re both recovering addicts. Lindsay Lohan’s mum Dina is backing her daughter ’100 per cent’ over her bust-up with a Betty Ford worker. That top has to be a violation of some kind, however . She said: ‘I stand behind my daughter 100 % … the whole thing with the woman is a little sketchy.’ Dina added: ‘With all the fabulous employees they have, it’s unfortunate that someone with this kind of background gets through.

After days of meetings about safety problems, the $65 million musical flew and danced and sang the way it was supposed to, considering that it is still a work in progress. Also, Natalie Mendoza, who suffered a concussion at the troubled-musical’s first preview Nov. 28, was out again Thursday reportedly on what a spokesman for the company called “vocal rest.” Mendoza was replaced by T.V. “It was like nothing you’ve ever seen in a Broadway show before,” said Rick Mars, who watched the show Thursday. Director Julie Taymor ‘s production, which has been plagued with accidents  over the past few months of rehearsals and previews, resumed only after producers confirmed to the State Department of Labor that specific safety measures had been enacted, reports Reuters.

On Thursday at 11:06 p.m., Reed (also a star of the Broadway rock musical) gave birth to daughter Malena James, who weighed 6 pounds, 11 ounces, and measured 19 inches long. PHOTOS: Love lives of Idol’s stars “Sometimes Christmas comes early and we’re so lucky to get the greatest gift a few days early,” Maroulis, 35, tells Us . “Sometimes Christmas comes early and we’re so lucky to get the greatest gift a few days early,” Maroulis tells the magazine. “Sometimes Christmas comes early and we’re so lucky to get the greatest gift a few days early,” Maroulis tells PEOPLE . The American Idol alum, 35, and Angel Reed welcomed their first child, Malena James, on Thursday at 11:06 p.m. Play our celebrity hair game now!

Microsoft’s WP7 seems to have had a good start … let’s review

‘Windows Mobile for the next generation’ touted Microsoft on the launch of Windows Phone 7. It must have been hard for Microsoft to discard Windows Mobile completely and start from scratch for WP7. Marketed by Microsoft as smart, sleek and stunning, the WP7 is definitely a refreshing break from the sluggish Windows Mobile. Although no one actually missed Microsoft in the smartphone battle, the entry of WP7 is perfectly timed. So, is this the time to give a Windows smartphone a go?

It wasn’t difficult for Apple and Google to kick Windows Mobile out of the smartphone OS market and it will be hard for Microsoft to get a leg in now. The iOS and Android are now two mature operating systems with a huge number of loyal followers; they have taken their own time to evolve and refine their interface and features. Unlike the iPhone, there were no long queues for WP7 powered phones outside retail outlets.

There are a few reasons why I might think about making the big switch and top among them is its lively user interface. The Live Tiles are so clean and dynamic; they give you instant access to your content, whether it’s an unread email, text message, missed call, status update, etc. But if users are allowed to make tiles for everything ranging from Facebook friends, to websites, won’t it end up making the home screen really crowded? Yes it would and in fact you can’t have more than 15 applications on the home screen or an error will pop up.

Android and iOS have multiple home screens and folders for organizing application shortcuts, files and widgets. WP7 has Hubs instead which are really nothing but a substitute for extra screens and folders. There are Hubs for Market, Pictures, Office, People, Xbox Live and Zune and these are completely integrated with the apps. Integration is the key element of WP7 and it does have better integration than Android or iOS. There’s Bing for search (a universal search feature is missing though), Xbox for gaming, Zune for music, videos, podcasts and Zune store, and Microsoft Office for creating and editing files.

The applications list is another highlight of the home screen and as it is in alphabetical order and non-customizable, be ready to scroll down a lot before finding your desired application. But WP7 excels in touch responsiveness; it’s really fast and intuitive. Social media integration is one of the highlights of WP7, though it has plainly ignored other popular networking platforms like Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn.

The People Hub is fantastic; it can fetch all updates from Facebook contacts, messages and websites. In addition to that, users can respond directly from the people’s Hub, like replying to messages or updating status messages in Windows Live and Facebook. The People Hub displays all contacts which can be a little annoying when it mixes your phone contacts with unknown Facebook friends. Similarly, the Pictures Hub displays not only your phone snaps, but also every single picture uploaded by friends on Facebook.

Talking about photos, a superb feature of WP7 is that when you hold down the camera button it becomes instantly ready to take a photo, even if the phone was locked or asleep. In addition there are many handy options to adjust contrast, color saturation and settings.

Let’s talk about the missing features of WP7. Some really basic features like copy and paste, unified inbox, HTML 5, video calling and third party apps multitasking are absent from WP7. Then there is no Silverlight or Flash support either. But to our relief, there are rumors of some major upgrades for WP7 early next year, which should bring support for copy/paste, HTML 5, and Silverlight.

There are some other major issues with WP7 though. WP7 lacks true multitasking. Just like the iPhone’s iTunes, the integrated Zune or browser can run in the background, but not the third party apps.

There is no support for expandable memory in WP7 and that means that there will not be any slot for SD cards on a WP7 handset. Although some OEMs have added SD cards beneath the battery cover, SD card swapping is not supported. If swapping is done deliberately, all data on the phone will be lost.

App downloads are limited to Windows Marketplace and music is restricted to Zune; although, Zune is actually pretty cool, supporting streaming music from a PC, and USD 15 will get you a Zune pass to listen to as much music as you want.

Although its predecessor was rated as one of the most secure mobile OS, WP7 is the least secure mobile OS available currently. This is due to the lack of on-device encryption which means you are not allowed to connect to any secured corporate network. Ultimately you are barred from checking office email and accessing VPNs, plus there’s no support for complex-password policies. The lack of these features proves that Microsoft is targeting socially active consumers with WP7, not enterprise users.

It’s been a wonderful first generation release, but there are a lot of glitches. It will be really tough for Microsoft to convince consumers to ditch their hot favorites—Android and iOS. I do invite all WP7 enthusiasts who have had a chance to test a WP7 phone to share their experiences with us. What features do you like the most and what is WP7 lacking?.

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Articles –

Op-Ed

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – In the U.S., 20th Century Fox is selling the feature film “Gulliver’s Travels” as a Jack Black comedy. Overseas, where Jonathan Swift’s classic tome is far more familiar, the film is being sold on the story. Like that other recent adaptation of a classic, proportion-obsessed fantasy novel, Alice in Wonderland , this high-energy, lowbrow comedy take on Gulliver’s Travels strips the source material down to its recognizable parts and then builds something completely new out of them. No doubt he’d have been keen on poking fun at this new world — Swift had a fascination with human failings of the most base sort — but I don’t think a three-story Coke can that’s washed up on the shores of Lilliput with all the other debris in the latest film adaptation is what he’d have in mind. But even at 83 minutes, “Gulliver’s Travels” is a drag, another 3D movie for kids in which the 3D adds nothing while subtracting from their parents’ wallets. Fox will find out as Gulliver’s, rated PG, opens December 25 in 2,546 theaters in the U.S. The 3D family adventure is also making a major push overseas. If only the Lilliputians could have figured out how to keep the one-note comic actor in restraints, and maybe jab him now and again with pointy sticks. With director Rob Letterman (“Shark Tale” and “Monsters vs. One sloppy and not at all credible misunderstanding later, and Gulliver is suddenly traveling alone on assignment to the Bermuda Triangle, where a spurting cyclone sends him to Liliput, a magically miniaturized realm populated by tiny people. Yeah, sure, he’s a writer.

Jack Black’s persona has always been larger than life, so in a way, he’s the perfect choice for an adaptation of ” Gulliver’s Travels .” But while Black ably carries the movie on his super-size shoulders, Rob Letterman’s slacker take on the Jonathan Swift classic is easier to like than respect. Since this a modern-day telling, the modern world intrudes from beginning to end, and in 3-D. There, he becomes a benevolently bodacious god, using the diminutive denizens for his own amusement ? the film’s best bit comes when he has them re-enact films like Star Wars and Titanic on a stage mocked up to look like a television ? while simultaneously teaching them not to be so uptight, dude. Darcy decides he’s the right guy to send on a Bermuda Triangle travel story.

Letterman seems perfectly happy to stand back and let the lead do his thing, which makes the movie feel like — well, most of Black’s other films. Black, alack, is Lemuel Gulliver, a mail-room employee for a New York newspaper. Aliens ) sands the edges off of Jonathan Swift’s tale and replaces them with robots, wedgie jokes, and a neatly wrapped all-you-need-is-confidence personal message, which also plays out through Jason Segal’s attempts as a lower-caste Lilliputian to woo his kingdom’s princess (Emily Blunt). Gulliver copes with Lilliput the way he coped with his real life with exaggeration. “Gulliver’s” has several distinct challenges. Soon he’s sucked into the famed Triangle, which hides a tiny country called Lilliput.

So he’s got some emotional growing up to do. But then, in a panicky moment of characteristic callowness, he presents a couple of sample articles to impress her. He’s even able to throw a Lillipalooza concert featuring Lilliputian versions of his favorite bands. Black has the kind of cheeky comic sensibility that should have perfectly suited Gulliver — a straight man if there ever was one with an eye for the absurd. “Gulliver’s” production budget was $100 million. Fox didn’t carry the cost alone. Dune Entertainment and Ingenious were the studio’s co-financing partners on “Gulliver’s.” Dune and Ingenious were Fox’s partners on “Avatar.” “Gulliver’s” was initially scheduled to open in summer of this year.

Broadway’s much-troubled ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’ musical resumed performances on Thursday night with new safety protocols in place following Monday night’s accident when a stunt performer plunged 30 feet when a cable snapped during an aerial stunt the musical’s fourth accident since October.

No accidents or major delays in the show. The cast and crew was ecstatic.

“It was like nothing you’ve ever seen in a Broadway show before,” said Rick Mars, who watched the show Thursday.

“It’s a safer show now, show star Reeve Carney (right) said as he signed autographs after the performance. “The stunts were the highlight of the show, I mean the audience would go nuts every time they’d start flying over the audience.” During Monday night’s performance, 31-year-old actor Christopher Tierney fell at least 20 feet while performing a stunt. Then again, the show had been scheduled to go on last night and was canceled late in the day.

“It was always safe, but now it’s safer. “You know, anything is possible,” Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) said after a midday news conference at the Foxwoods Theater. “We gave our blessing,” department spokesman Leo Rosales said. “If you weren’t nervous tonight, you’d have to be an idiot,” he said. “I think he was meant to sort of swoop over there, but he just fell off…. Tierney remains hospitalized with cracked ribs. The show’s director and co-writer, Julie Taymor, credited the show’s injured actor, Christopher Tierney, with inspiring the cast to rise above recent troubles. That second person will then be in contact with the stage manager to verify the measures have been completed. “We all got together before the show tonight and talked about Chris,” she told The Associated Press after the show. I felt even safer today considering all the measures they put in place following Monday.” Lancman said he doesn’t know whether the understudy filling Tierney’s costume was up to the job, but it’s an important question for producers to answer.

The show canceled its matinee performance on Wednesday in order to rehearse the new protocols. The show’s director and co-writer, Julie Taymor, says that Christopher Tierney, the actor recovering from his injuries after his scary fall this week, gets the credit with inspiring the cast to rise above recent troubles.

If ye want to know why I enjoy the Christmas season so much more during the past decade, then glance upwards at my image on this page and you will agree, I think, that at least to the rounded eyes of a child, I do nowadays bear a certain similarity to Santa Claus his own self. That photo is some years old now and I am somewhat more silvery and a little plumper of cheek nowadays. Sometimes Santa Claus is around and you don’t even know it. Staff answer almost 100,000 phone calls and receive more than 140,000 emails from families around the world.

So the small ones dangling at the end of their mothers’ shopping arms do tend to stop in their tracks when they see me on the town streets or in the shopping centers. I don’t think so. I’m getting with the program,” the Jolly Old Gent told reporters, with a wink. The Believe-O-Meter, of course, is the one-of-a-kind device that gauges the strength and frequency of belief in Santa Claus and gives his sleigh enough thrust to travel around the world in a single night. This year, the unworthies are to receive small aerosol canisters that spray uncontrolled puffs of greenhouse gas. After 600 youngsters, your ability to communicate in cogent sentences suddenly gets tied up. They radiate the unspoken message, “Omigod, there IS a Santa Claus and I’m looking at him!!” That is pleasantly serene. Unlike any other pilot, Santa has special permission from the FAA to fly thousands of domestic and international short-haul and long-range flights in one night. “Sure, everyone thinks Prentice is a great guy and, from the Conservatives’ standpoint, he did a bang-up job in Environment. But the youngsters just accept it.

Spidey actor Christopher Tierney ‘s dad tells TMZ, the family was set to have Christmas at home before the tragic accident earlier this week but now they’re making arrangements to be with him at the hospital in NYC. But all’s not lost Tierney’s dad tells us, “Chris cannot wait to get back into the Spidey costume … It wont be as soon as he would like but … his spirits are high and he cannot wait to get back.” We’re told Christopher will remain in the ICU until Monday and then move on to rehab. “The stunts were the highlight of the show, I mean the audience would go nuts every time they’d start flying over the audience.” During Monday night’s performance, 31-year-old actor Christopher Tierney fell at least 20 feet while performing a stunt. Spider-Man returned to the stage without any apparent hitches Thursday, a day after two performances were canceled due to a scary fall that left a stuntman seriously injured. “The show is going on as planned,” a spokesman for the musical, Rick Miramontez, said. “Spider-Man was on a bridge, and Mary Jane was dangling from it,” Dealwis said. Spider-Man producer Michael Cohl addressed Tierney’s recovery before the start of the Dec. 23 show, telling the audience the stuntman, who was hospitalized to undergo back surgery, “came through with flying colors.” The show made a smooth return, with the aerial stunts reportedly inciting enthusiastic applause from the packed house. It was beautiful to see everyone come together tonight.” Also all smiles was producer Michael Cohl. The harness, you could see it just flick off his back and fly backward.” Afterward, Dealwis said, “it just went black, and the producer came on and said we’re going to pause for a moment. “I feel great.” Before the $65 million show could resume Thursday with its nearly 40 aerial stunts intact, producers had to give final confirmation to the state Department of Labor that they had enacted certain safety measures.

The show’s director and co-writer, Julie Taymor , credited the show’s injured actor, Christopher Tierney , with inspiring the cast to rise above recent troubles. I felt even safer today considering all the measures they put in place following Monday.” “Chris gave us the spirit tonight.” Tierney, doing a stunt as Spider-Man on Monday night, plunged from a ledge about 30 feet into a stage pit despite a safety harness that should have prevented the spill. The accident occurred during one of the show’s safer stunts. He underwent back surgery and was “walking today,” Taymor said happily. “He says he wants to come back to the show, soon-ish.” Tierney was to be released from a hospital Friday or Saturday and complete his recovery at home in New Hampshire , said his brother Patrick Tierney, of Plaistow, N.H. State officials on Thursday held a press conference outside the Foxwoods Theatre to keep the focus on the show’s safety issues, saying that though it had made strides in fixing some problems it still needed to increase training for understudies and possibly hire more stagehands. “They could have made the story more clear and compelling,” he said. Ticketholder Victoria Shaw-Locknar, who was attending Thursday’s show with her daughters Ruby, 11, and Ava, 9, said she was nervous because she didn’t want to see anyone get hurt. His father, Troy Oechsner, was a little more mixed, admiring the stunts but echoing complaints that some had about a confusing plot, especially in the second act.

But she figured that producers must have worked out the kinks.

After days of meetings about safety problems, the $65 million musical flew and danced and sang the way it was supposed to, considering that it is still a work in progress. Also, Natalie Mendoza, who suffered a concussion at the troubled-musical’s first preview Nov. 28, was out again Thursday reportedly on what a spokesman for the company called “vocal rest.” Mendoza was replaced by T.V. Rory Lancman, chairman of the subcommittee on workplace safety, at a news conference outside the theater at noon. After undergoing back surgery, the 31-year-old lead stunt double for Spider-Man remained in the hospital Thursday in serious condition with injuries that included broken ribs and internal bleeding. Eric Adams (D-Prospect Heights), also at the news conference, announced he is proposing a bill that would call for the formation of a task force to analyze the safety of workers and audience members at the Foxwoods Theatre, where the show is appearing, and presumably other Broadway theaters, though the details have not been fully hashed out, he said. Rate this: (Click to rate)

Jonathan Swift probably never dreamed of the consumer excess that would elbow its way into the great satire of “Gulliver’s Travels” all these centuries later. No doubt he’d have been keen on poking fun at this new world — Swift had a fascination with human failings of the most base sort — but I don’t think a three-story Coke can that’s washed up on the shores of Lilliput with all the other debris in the latest film adaptation is what he’d have in mind. With director Rob Letterman (“Shark Tale” and “Monsters vs. Since this a modern-day telling, the modern world intrudes from beginning to end, and in 3-D. And that won’t exactly be pretty. Well it is and it isn’t. The 3-D is pretty much wasted – for long stretches it hardly seems in 3-D at all – but everything to do with Gulliver’s being a giant among the tiny Lilliputians is handled consistently (no size ratio changes) and seamlessly. But Black’s brio is off — too much here, too little there, only occasionally right. But this story is not just about Gulliver.

Imagine Amanda Peet in “The Godfather,” or in “Some Like It Hot,” or in “Citizen Kane.” They all get a little bit better. This Lilliput is modeled even more lightly than Swift’s was on a not-jolly-old-England with its royalty and rubes, rigid rules and warring kingdoms. It’s just “a little story,” she tells him. Who said the newspaper business is hurting? And so he hits a storm and wakes up in Lilliput, where everyone is about 3 or 4 inches high and where the architecture, clothing and government are stuck in the mid-19th century. Not with a hose, exactly. Mild amusement is probably about right. Swift was the wizard behind that one.

Two years ago, Coldplay’s Chris Martin stood at his piano and played for CBS News’ 60 Minutes the beginnings of a song he’d written the night before. It was a nascent glimpse of what would become the newly released “Christmas Lights.” It was initially published on 60 Minutes Overtime, a webshow that…

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“PG” is not the rating I’d slap on Enrique Iglesias’ spicy new video for “Tonight (I’m F**kin’ You).” I wonder if Iglesias’ longtime girlfriend Anna Kournikova is digging this clip that’s almost too sexy! Be forewarned, though! There’s a lot of skin shown and what looks like a girl-on-girl orgy. But…

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Who knew a little item like a Post-it could cause so many problems? Turns out, the answer they gave was correct, and they shouldn’t have lost all that dough! It’s Down to the Final Four! The couple had $880,000 dollars when they were asked the fifth question in the seven-question game. I thought it was going to be great, but it really isn’t. If they put any money on a wrong answer, the cash goes down a chute and is out of play. Contestants get multiple-choice options and can spread their cash over the answers, as long as one is left blank. ( See the top 10 game-show moments. ) So far so good, right? Teams can put money on multiple answers, but one trap door must be left free of cash. However, Richard Lawson of Gawker.com claims that Post-Its were released as early as 1977, which would make Okoye and May right. He is an awful game show host. The first couple to take part lost $800,000 of their remaining $880,000 on the following question: was the Macintosh computer, Sony Walkman or Post-it Notes sold in stores first. In this case, our research team spoke directly with 3M, and they confirmed that although they had given out free samples in test markets in 1977 and 1978, it wasn’t until 1980 that Post-Its were sold in stores.

Million Dollar Money Drop stands behind the answer that was revealed on the show.” However, Post-Its were actually sold in select cities starting in 1977. Okoye was convinced that the Post-it note was the correct answer. Perhaps so but the show has been in touch to try and set the record straight. The two argued for their choices, all while piling heaps of cash on the blocks representing the answers. In an emailed statement, Jeff Apploff, the Executive Producer wrote, “The integrity of the questions and answers on our show are our No. 1 priority. “I really went with Gabe’s instinct because he’s so passionate,” she said. Million Dollar Money Drop stands behind the answer that was revealed on the show.”

I say give them their money. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the viewers who brought this to our attention, and we’re thrilled to give Gabe and Brittany the opportunity to return to play the game.” Put that on your post-it and stick it! Good luck on your second chance, you two!

On Broadway, bad press doesn’t necessarily spell failure, and the struggling “Spider-Man” musical is still luring tourists and theater goers into seats as it deals with persistent technical problems. The ambitious, high-tech $65 million musical the most expensive Broadway show ever has endured four delays in its opening and four injuries to its cast. And Broadway, perhaps more than any other entertainment genre, has a history of overcoming bad reviews and turning profits for tourist-friendly, big-budget shows. The production’s opening night, (previously set for January 11, 2011) is still set to Monday, February 7. Seth Gelblum, an entertainment lawyer who represents the show’s director and co-creator Julie Taymor, as well as three major financiers, said investors were not jittery and predicted the key audience, tourists, would not be turned off. Several shows have been canceled as a result. Among the new rules enacted are a requirement to have a second stagehand and stage manager to back up all of the show’s 38 stunts involving harnesses and ropes. Still, some industry watchers predict the demise of “Spider-Man,” including New York Post columnist Michael Riedel, who said that even when the acrobatics work, the show suffers from a lack of leadership, a confusing story and bad music.

This bullied science-geek suddenly endowed with incredible powers soon learns, however, that with great power comes great responsibility as villains put both his physical strength and strength of character to the test. “And it seems that … all of the different employees, all of the regulatory agencies are, and the theater itself, seem to be confident that all the necessary conditions have been met to make sure that today’s show goes forward safely.” State officials and producers agreed to a long list of safety improvements Wednesday in the wake of Monday night’s accident. Before the show could resume Thursday, producers had to give final confirmation to the state Department of Labor that they had enacted certain safety measures aimed at avoiding any further mishaps. In front of a horrified audience, lead aerialist Chris Tierney, 31, plummeted 30 feet during the show’s climax. “We’re sold out until Jan. 2,” a ticket seller told a steady stream of buyers.

Some folks had tickets already but wanted to check that the evening’s show would go on as planned, since both Wednesday’s matinee and evening performance had been canceled. “If they are not comfortable and haven’t got everything in place, we have agreed that they wouldn’t go, and so apparently that is the position that they are in right now.” As of now, “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” preview performances will proceed as planned on Thursday (December 23), and the official Broadway opening date has been pushed back from January 11 to February 7. “They gave us a number to call later, just to make sure,” said Mike Foux, of Allentown, Pa. An avid Spider-Man fan since childhood, he had come to New York to see the show with his wife, Patti, and 20-year-old daughter, Jessie, for his birthday. “I was thinking, with four accidents happening, there must be some truly amazing stunts,” Foux said. That’s what worried another ticketholder, Victoria Shaw-Locknar, who was attending Thursday’s show with her daughters Ruby, 11, and Ava, 9. I think the world press has focused on ‘Spider-Man’ because the show is on the brink of absolute catastrophe every night.” Riedel believes the show will be closed and even if not, he sees a hard road ahead to make money given its huge cost. While many Broadway shows expect to recoup their initial investment within the first 12 months, “Spider-Man” would take several years, making it a riskier proposition than most.

The actor, 34, filed for divorce from Johansson, 26, Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court. A source told PEOPLE recently that the couple grew apart under the strain of managing two thriving careers. Ryan Reynolds didn’t feel like such a superhero when the cameras weren’t rolling on the set of Green Lantern , which was shot last spring. After Ryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson announced their separation last week, it was only a matter of time before the rumours began to circulate. Sandra Bullock’s representative has dismissed reports the actress has been enjoying “date nights” with Ryan Reynolds following his split from Scarlett Johansson, insisting The Proposal co-stars are “nothing except friends.” Reynolds and Johansson called time on their two-year union earlier this month and a report published in America’s Star magazine suggested the actor turned to Bullock in the wake of his marriage breakdown, after they became close on the set of the 2009 romantic comedy. Describing him as “beyond sad and depressed,” a source tells Us Weekly that he “thought they could work it out, but Scarlett made it clear it was done. “It never seemed like she made him a priority.” PHOTOS: The year’s most shocking splits After UsMagazine.com broke the news Dec. 14, the couple confirmed their split in a public statement and Reynolds is now “beyond sad and depressed,” another pal says. But just a week after Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds announced the end of their two-year marriage, new reports have emerged about what allegedly happened behind the scenes.

Ryan lists the date of separation as December 14, 2010.  Scarlett agrees on the date. Initially it was suggested that Scarlett, 26, was the one to initiate the split, after the stress of being apart from Ryan, 34, all the time got too much for her to take. The rep told Gossip Cop : “They’re literally nothing but friends.” How can you not love Sandy?! Since everything they earned is community property, presumably it will be divided 50/50, though the petitions say property rights are yet to be determined. “They went from speaking once every two days to once every two weeks,” said the source. A source that was on the set of Reynolds’ film “Green Lantern” said that Reynolds was open about the problems. “He would say she treated him badly. ‘They’re both strong-willed and stubborn people. She was very focused on her own career, and it never seemed like she made him a priority,” said that source. There was a lack of warmth between them, that was troubling,’ a source told InTouch. Play our celebrity hair game now! But it certainly wasn’t all Scarlett’s fault – it has been alleged that like Ryan’s behaviour was very controlling and selfish at times. He’s more traditional and she’s more independent.’ But although Ryan initially enjoyed Scarlett’s independent streak, even taking advantage of it to go motorbiking around Europe alone this summer, it led to friction.

They were married in a private ceremony in Canada in 2008.