LA Confidential

A Big Summer Hit Movie... Finally!

Well, Hollywood finally has the biggest hit movie of the summer - and may end up as the biggest hit of the year. With a yo ho ho and a bottle of rum (though I am sure the studio is celebrating with only the very finest champagne) Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest opened huge this weekend, taking in a box office of $152 million and beating Spider-Man as the biggest opening weekend box office of all time. For comparison, the #2 move was Superman Returns, which made $21 million - clearly, everyone loves their dose of some seafarin' pirate antics.

Reviews for the movie have been mixed - complaints about the 2- hour running time and the fact that it's full of special effects that leave little room for any depth or solid story - but the public knows what it wants, and it wants Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightley et al. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie - especially Bill Nighy as Davy Jones - but I'm also curious to take the new and improved ride (complete now with appearances from an animated Captain Jack) - at Disneyland, now that it has re-opened after an extensive re-fit (just in time for the movie, of course). The ride - some 15 minutes or so long - has always been one of my favorites.

On an interesting side note, Anti-Records announced details of an album due in August called Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys. The album is the brainchild of Depp and Pirates.. director Gore Verbinksi and is a serious attempt to put some of the sea faring songs onto CD.

There's actually a rich folk heritage in sea songs, and big names such as Bono, Sting, Lou Reed and even actor John C Reilly are stepping up to the mic. Should be interesting, especially when you know that there's a second album planned - though this one isn't linked to the movie - that will feature Tom Waits and Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards, who is apparently appearing in next year's Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End as Captain Jack's father. No questions, this weeks' BOOTY AWARD goes to this motley crew - they'll all be counting the gold for quite a while.

The world of movie theaters is also looking for big money this week as three of the country's biggest chains announced that they are looking to raise about a billion dollars to convert about a third of their theaters from film to electronic/digital projection. About 13,000 screens are due to be switched over, so despite the movie industry's well-known resistance to change, it looks like the digital revolution is unstoppable.

Also in the world of big bucks, the BARELY COLD AWARD this week is on hold, having almost been awarded to the family of TV uber-mogul Aaron Spelling, who passed away last week. As mentioned in this column he was worth many hundreds of millions of dollars, but this week there was rumor - hotly denied - that his wife Candy had already fired the staff at the house, and was looking to invite people "pocket listing" - having a an early look around the huge mansion. The asking price was allegedly $150,000,0000, which would make it the most expensive house ever sold in America by a long way.

It was also a big week for the television and cable companies, as nominations for the Emmy's were announced. The list is long to wade through, but reaction in town was rather muted: it seems that the Academy for Television Arts and Sciences played it too safe, and opted to nominate either finished or cancelled shows for the more prestigious awards - shows like The West Wing, Commander In Chief, Will & Grace, The West and Six Feet Under - or inexplicably failed to acknowledge some firm favorites. I guess that's C'est la vie of awards I suppose. Personally, I am astounded how American Idol got 8 nominations.

There are many divas in Hollywood - from movie sets to walking around the mall - but rumblings are afoot at the LA Opera, with talk of big problems with their new production of La Traviata. It's supposed to be the big opener for the new season, but with two weeks left to go there's apparently not enough money in the pot to pay soprano Renée Fleming for a DVD recording of Verdi's opera. $600,000 has been mentioned and she apparently doesn't like the script - sorry, this interpretation - either. All rumors about problems behind the scenes have been denied, so I guess we won't know for sure that it's over until the lady sings - or not.

There was also a tragic Royal story in California this week, something along the lines of Princess Diana: Prince Tu'ipelehake and his wife Princess Kaimama of Tonga (a group of small islands about 3000 miles southwest of Hawaii) were killed in a car accident as they were driving to a community forum as part of their visit to San Francisco. The city has a small but vibrant Tongan community of about 5,000, and a vigil soon formed. The arrested driver - an 18-year-old girl who was drag racing at speeds of up to 100mph - was uninjured, and is now held on bail of $3,000,000.

Finally, we hear a lot today about "outsourcing" - companies setting up businesses in far away countries in order to take advantage of cheap labor there. The most common example is how India has often ended up being the home to lots of call centers, and workers there deal with US customer queries about banking and so on.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Irish accents are found to be especially welcoming on the phone, and Northern Ireland especially has had a boom of call centers in recent years. Now, according to a report on the BBC's website, the trend has come full circle: an Indian company specializing in call centers is opening an office in Derry and Belfast, creating around 600 jobs! They are the winners of the HOW MAY I HELP YOU? AWARD.

WEBSITES OF THE WEEK: I'm not usually a sucker for websites - there are just too many, and I spent too much time at my desk anyway - but these two kept me glued online this week; www.kubrick2001.com explains the famous film, and www.awfulplasticsurgery.com was good for a laugh. Continuing the theme for the call centers, check out http://speaknorniron.8m.net/ too - undurstawnd?