An Ignoble Experiment: 'Last Exorcism' takes No. 1 spot

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Entertainment News
For Indiana
Monday August 30, 2010

'Last Exorcism' takes No. 1 spot
Miami park empties when tiger escapes
Lewis telethon seeks recession rebound
Rowdy Toby Keith fan subdued by Ohio cops
The Hollywood Exclusive: Thom Beers Adding Coal Miners to His Amazing Reality Shows/Woody Harrelson-Ice Cube 'Rampart' Gets Late Oct. Start
Five New Comics from ArcaMax

'Last Exorcism' takes No. 1 spot

LOS ANGELES (UPI) -- The spooky "The Last Exorcism" took the No. 1 spot at the U.S. box office with $21.3 million in gross receipts during the weekend.

But "Takers," starring Matt Dillon and others, was a close No. 2 with $21 million.

All estimated studio receipts are via Box Office Mojo.

Sylvester Stallone's "The Expendables" was a distant No. 3 with $9.5 million.

Julia Roberts "Eat Pray Love" was fourth with $7 million, "The Other Guys" fifth with $6.6 million, "Vampires Suck" sixth with $5.3 million, "Inception" seventh with more than $5 million, "Nanny McPhee Returns" eighth with more than $4.74 million and "The Switch" ninth with more than $4.65 million.

"Piranha 3D" was 10th with more than $4.3 million.

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Miami park empties when tiger escapes

MIAMI (UPI) -- Officials at Miami's Jungle Island say about 20 visitors asked for their money back as they hustled out after a tiger escaped from its enclosure.

The popular tourist attraction was open for business Sunday after a scare the previous day when Mahesh, a 3-year-old Bengal tiger, jumped 14 feet over a fence and did some impromptu mingling among the suddenly frantic crowd.

"People were running for their lives," Larry Rhodes of Pompano Beach told the Miami Herald.

A park spokesman said nearly two dozen of the approximately 700 guests stopped at the ticket booth on their way out for a refund.

As for Mahesh, the 500-600 pound cat didn't attack anyone and was seen in television images calmly lounging around a walkway during part of its 90-minute breakout.

The Herald said the trouble started when a gibbon being moved in a wheeled cage got loose in front of the tiger enclosure and apparently got Mahesh excited enough to make its epic leap.

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Lewis telethon seeks recession rebound

LAS VEGAS (UPI) -- Jerry Lewis says he isn't overly worried about the effect the U.S. economy might have on donations to his upcoming muscular dystrophy telethon.

The recession bit into the proceeds from the 2009 event by some $5 million and marked one of the few times the Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon did not see donations increase.

But the 84-year-old entertainer told the Las Vegas Sun the fundraiser still took in $60.5 million and has raised nearly $6.5 billion in the 60 years he has been the host.

"It was bad last year and look what we did," he told the newspaper.

The Sun said that while Lewis doesn't doubt the generosity of his donors, he has concerns about flagging interest on the part of the entertainers who have been the hallmark of the telethon.

This year's guest list is light on A-list personalities, the newspaper noted.

"People don't want to do a telethon anymore because they have to get off their butt, get on a plane, come here (Las Vegas) and do it," Lewis said. "But I don't want them when they don't want to, because they don't come with the right attitude."

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Rowdy Toby Keith fan subdued by Ohio cops

CINCINNATI (UPI) -- A concertgoer calling himself Forrest V. Frankenstein Jr. gave Ohio police a monstrous time Saturday night, authorities said.

Hamilton County Sheriff's deputies told the Cincinnati Enquirer that Frankenstein, attending Toby Keith's concert at Riverbend, approached them drunk and threatened repeatedly to kill them, declaring, "If I had a knife I would stab you."

Deputies took him into custody and put him in a cruiser. Frankenstein then kicked out a rear side window of the vehicle, court documents said.

Deputies moved Frankenstein to another vehicle where, police reported, he banged his face into the partition again and again, hurting himself, the Enquirer reported.

Taken to a hospital, Frankenstein continued to threaten deputies and then medical staff, deputies said.

Frankenstein is to be arraigned Monday in Hamilton County Court on charges of vandalism, menacing and disorderly conduct while intoxicated.

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The Hollywood Exclusive: Thom Beers Adding Coal Miners to His Amazing Reality Shows/Woody Harrelson-Ice Cube 'Rampart' Gets Late Oct. Start

Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith

Real-guy reality-show king Thom Beers has a packed agenda this week -- he's heading north for a meeting with all the sea captains on his wildly popular "Deadliest Catch" show, then onward to confab with the team getting ready for the next season of "Ice Road Truckers." And then he'll be heading south, where, he reports, preparation is under way for what sounds like could be the next big-ticket Beers show, in West Virginia and Kentucky.

"It's a pilot. I can't talk much about it yet," he says.

Hot environment or cold?

"Cold," he laughs. "We're actually going into a hole in the ground. We're going to be down there with the coal miners. It's a whole different world."

Which is how the preternaturally peppy Beers likes it.

"I love getting out there. Every show is so different -- in the surroundings, the characters, the gear you use and the way you shoot. They're a lot more complicated than people think," reveals the man who has been hailed as reality TV's only auteur -- the man responsible for an array of shows that ranges from "Monster Garage" to "Pitchmen."

"'The Colony' is completely different," he goes on, referring to the show in which he has 10 people trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. "It's all shot over the shoulder because we want everyone to discover, as an audience, as the characters are discovering." He considers that program, now in its second season, "a real swing for the fences." It worked.

"The age, the demographic of that show -- 13 percent is a brand-new audience for Discovery Channel. My 18-to-49-year-olds are bigger than my 25-to-54s," crows Beers.

Right now, the Season 3 launch of truTV's "Black Gold" show about oil rig roughnecks in Texas is at the forefront of his mind. The boys will be back Sept. 8, and more trouble is ahead. Beers seems to get a kick out of the antics of his rowdy crew.

"The biggest challenge in this show is keeping these guys out of jail," he reports. "This is a much more rough-and-tumble world."

And unlike the seamen and truckers on his other shows, "These guys go home at night. They work, work, work their butts off, go home, get cleaned up and put on their best clothes and then go out to the bars for a few drinks, then a few more drinks. They're young. There's a lot of camaraderie. They make two or three times more than anyone else out there. If you'll pardon the expression, it's fightin' and (expletive)."

Beers has had to adjust his filming plans due to unexpected circumstances more than once. "The two guys I thought were going to be stars at the start of the show got arrested and thrown in jail right at the start of the first season," he reports. "You have to be ready to make changes on the fly."

This year, a woman's been added to the mix -- one who happens to be pretty, blond and in charge. "She owns the property where they're drilling. She's awesome. She carries a gun. She doesn't take any (expletive). ... I've got to admit, we found her, and then we decided this would be a good place to drill."

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THE BIG-SCREEN SCENE: "Rampart," the feature drama based on Los Angeles police scandals of the 1990s, was initially expected to start filming in late summer. Now the Woody Harrelson-Ice Cube starrer has been set for a late October production start. This is the picture with which Ice Cube hopes to remind the audience he's got dramatic chops -- and isn't that cuddly stepdad from "Are We There Yet?" At least, not all the time. In "Rampart," the rapper plays "a homicide detective on the trail of a dirty cop," he says. That cop is Harrelson's character.

Interesting premise for the soon-to-shoot "October Baby" movie with Jasmine Guy and John Schneider. It's about a young woman (still to be cast) whose world gets turned upside down when she learns the truth about her beginnings prior to being adopted -- she's the survivor of a failed abortion.

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CASTING CORNER: They're adding a Russian military officer to the cast of "X-Men: First Class" and looking for an actor who conveys power, strength and authority. The age spread is 20-60, but he must actually be able to speak Russian.

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To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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