Oh Boy It Never Ends: Weekend Box Office

Above is Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Declare Your Ignorance" went up today. Crazy and his bright yellow pee-pee.

Let's look at the weekend box office:

1) GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE -- WEEKEND $80M006,561 CUM: $80,006,561

2) GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE -- WEEKEND: $15,577,744 CUM: $73,278,877

3) DUNE: PART TWO -- WEEKEND: $11,352,680 CUM: $252,642,707

4) KUNG FU PANDA 4 -- WEEKEND $10,347,210 CUM: $151,799,265

5) IMMACULATE -- WEEKEND $,252,792 CUM: $11,115,983

6) ARTHUR THE KING -- WEEKEND $2,484,604 CUM: $19,151,001

7) LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL -- WEEKEND: $2,162,103 CUM: $6,250,860

8) TILLU SQUARE -- WEEKEND: $1,870,000 CUM: $1,870,000

9) CREW -- WEEKEND $1,500,00 CUM: $1,500,000

10) IMAGINARY -- WEEKEND $1,391,371 CUM: $26,226,425

If that looks different than usual, THENUMBERS.COM is down and has been down for at least five hours.

So thoughts? GODZILLA's huge. In one weekend, it's made more than GHOSTBUSTERS has in two. (And it's total gross -- North American and international is $195,106,561.) DUNE: PART TWO might make a profit yet. It's high budget requires it to make $750,000,000 to break even and it's only $123,000,000 shy of that right now. Then again, this weekend will be week five and it's fallen to number three as of this past weekend and only made $11 million so it may not be able to reach $750,000,000.

Domestically, DUNE: PART TWO isn't likely to reach $300,000,000 domestically. It's worth pointing out that Timothee's other film, WONKA, crashed to number 29 over the weekend and will close out it's North American ticket sales with around $218,000,000. These are not big enough numbers to declare Timothee a star. Godzilla and King Kong are box office stars. Timothee not so much.

Outside the top three, there's not much happening. BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE came in at number 17 and has sold $96.270,607 worth of tickets in North America. At number 33? MADAME WEB and it's at $99,312,851 worldwide.

And I'll use that as the reason to repost -- from THIRD -- the piece Ava, C.I. and I wrote about MADAME WEB:

MADAME WEB -- The Autopsy (Stan, Ava and C.I.)

When a studio has a lot to answer for, what do they do? Rush to blame everyone else. Which is why SONY has been on a whisper-campaign to the press about Dakota Johnson and how she supposedly tanked MADAME WEB.

The reality is that were it not for Dakota -- and her Valentine's Day fan base -- MADAME WEB would have truly bombed. As it is, the film managed to sell more tickets ($97.6 million) than it cost to shoot the film ($80 million). (Ticket income is split with the theaters on a sliding scale -- we are not saying the studio is getting $97.3 million from the ticket sales.)

As we dissect the corpse, blood and spoilers will be spilled -- you have been warned.

Dakota Johnson stars in the film and she has three co-stars Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced and Celeste O'Connor. The three co-stars play teenagers. Dakota plays an adult. There are no quibbles with the acting.

But let's start with the writing. Why can't SONY write adult female characters?

In 2016, SONY launched a GHOSTBUSTERS which was embarrassing. Men had led the cast of two GHOSTBUSTERS in the 80s. And Bill Murray got to get hot and heavy with Sigorney Weaver and Dan Ackroyd got a blow job from a ghost. Nearly four decades later, it was professional virgin time for the four female leads who were in their 30s and 40s. Chaste little, stunted girls posing as women -- that's what SONY offered.

Dakota Johnson's character is in her thirties. There's no boyfriend, there's no girlfriend, there's no spouse. No reference to one ever existing. No hook ups at all. How is this realistic? It's Dakota Johnson.

It's not realistic at all.

And when it's a man -- or even just a teenage boy -- the superhero films clobber you over the head with love interests and attractions (Peter Parker's girlfriend, SHAZAM's 16-year-old Captain Marvel's perverse attraction to Wonder Woman).

Let's move to three teenage girls.

They are going to become Spider-Women. The film's villain (Tahar Rahim) can see into the future and he sees that they will destroy him in the future so -- shades of the 'moral' dilemma of do-you-kill-Baby-Hitler -- he decides to kill them while they're still children.

They go through the whole movie as teenage girls with no super powers. At the end, they still aren't Spider-Women.

Exactly what is there for an audience to applaud?

Dakota Johnson's character?

Madame Web in the comic books is blind and paraplegic. Her power is visions. It's a passive power. Remember how they had to have Phoebe train to fight on CHARMED -- because visions alone were too damn passive for an action heroine.

Dakota's character starts out with the ability to see and walk. Her character is a paramedic as the film starts. She begins to develop her 'powers.' Passive visions. At the film's climax, to save the three young girls, she harnesses a power she was told she had but has yet to use -- the ability to splinter into other selves. She does this with three additional bodies -- one to save each of the girls.

And the villain attacks her.

After she's out of the hospital, we see her paralyzed and blind -- about to eat Chinese.

Hey, we love Dim sum as much as the next person but it's no reason to stand up and cheer as the final scene in a movie.

This isn't a feature film, it's a pilot for a TV show. In fact, it's BIRDS OF PREY without Huntress and Black Canary. And here's the thing there, SONY, fans were outraged when Barbara Gordon (the original Batgirl) was raped by Joker. But they were also outraged that Batgirl was left paralyzed from the assault. Many comic fans have noted that this never happens to a male superhero.

Dakota's playing Oracle (Barbara Gordon's post-Batgirl superhero). And, like Oracle guides Huntress and Black Canary, the future indicated at the end of MADAME WEB is that Madame Web will now guide the Spider-Women.

This was never going to be a blockbuster.

It's not a movie. It's a pilot for a TV show, it's the first 30 or so minutes of a real film but, despite a running time of 116 minutes, it's not a movie -- certainly not a superhero movie where audiences expect a lot of action, a lot of fighting and a lot onscreen that they can cheer.

Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Monday, April 1, 2024. The Israeli military ends its assault on one hospital to focus on attacking another, War Criminal Netanyahu goes after ALJAZEERA, an active duty US service member starts a hunger strike, and much more.

Australia's ABC reports:

The Israeli military has withdrawn from Gaza's largest hospital after a two-week raid, leaving behind Palestinian bodies scattered in the dirt and a vast swath of destruction.

Hundreds of residents rushed to the area around Al-Shifa Hospital to check on damage to the surrounding residential districts.

Mohammed Mahdi, who was among hundreds of Palestinians who returned to the area, described a scene of "total destruction".

He said several buildings had been burned down and that he had counted six bodies in the area, including two in the hospital courtyard.

Footage circulated on social media and not yet verified showed the bodies of dead Palestinians, some covered in dirty blankets, scattered on the ground around the charred hulk of the hospital building, which had many outer walls missing.

Last night, Fareha Naaz (THE MINT) reported:

World Health Organization (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was at ‘loss for words’ following an Israeli strike on Gaza hospital that killed four and injured numerous others.

The Director-General of WHO highlighted the dreadful situation at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza amid ongoing hostilities between Israeli forces and the Hamas militant group. These hostilities took the shape of a war following Hamas's attack on Israel six months ago, on October 7, following which Israel declared war.

Gaza's Al-Shifa hospital came under siege on March 18, since then 21 patients have lost their lives and the situation remains critical, the UN health agency reported.

ALJAZEERA noted:

Antony Loewenstein, the author of The Palestine Laboratory, who has been reporting on Israel and the Palestinian territories for 20 years, has been speaking to Al Jazeera following Israel’s latest withdrawal from Al-Shifa.

He said the dozens of bodies the Health Ministry has discovered there are an indication of just how many people had been sheltering in the complex.

“Even though hospitals have been targeted extensively by the Israelis, many civilians have nowhere else to go,” he told Al Jazeera. “Many Palestinians need intense medical care and hospitals are – well there’s nowhere safe in Gaza – but it’s somewhere to go and after Israel [first] pulled out of Al-Shifa, the hope was that it would remain a safe place and clearly, it was not.

“Not just bombing but air striking areas around these hospitals is not just a breach of international law, these are the actions of a rogue state, not a so-called democracy.”

Despite international outcry, the Israeli government attacked the hospital for two weeks. And they had previously attacked it in November. Of the November attack, Niha Masih (WASHINGTON POST) reminds, "A Washington Post analysis in December into whether the civilian harm caused by the IDF’s campaign at the hospital complex was proportionate to the assessed threat found that the evidence presented by the Israeli government fell short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center." Of the more recent attack, Yolande Knell and Sean Seddon (BBC NEWS) note, "Photos showed that al-Shifa's main surgery building, which housed the intensive care unit, and the neighbouring building where the emergency, general surgery and orthopaedics departments were located had been destroyed." Henry Austin (NBC NEWS) adds, "Kidney and maternity buildings, morgues, cancer and burns refrigeration facilities, and the outpatient clinics building, were also left ruined at the facility in northern Gaza, which was the Strip's main medical facility before the war began, the ministry said."

As the Israeli military backed off one hospital, they continued to attack another. THE HINDUSTAN TIMES reported yesterday on the assault of al-Aqsa Hospital, "The strike at Al-Aqsa hospital was witnessed by a World Health Organization team sent there to assess needs and to collect incubators for the north of Gaza." On this attack, Rushdi Abualouf and George Wright (BBC News) report, "Seven journalists, including a freelancer working for the BBC, have been injured in an Israeli air strike in the courtyard of a hospital in Gaza." ALJAZEERA adds:

Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says its team working at the Al Aqsa Hospital had to stop work and “seek cover” when the compound came under Israeli air attack on Sunday.

Writing on X, MSF said the area just outside the emergency unit was hit. The group provides medical and surgical wound care at the hospital, the only place in central Gaza to offer trauma care.

“When our team heard a loud explosion nearby, they stopped what they were doing right away to seek cover inside the hospital, until confirmed that the attack was over,” it quoted one of its coordinators as saying.

MSF reiterated its call for an “immediate and sustained” ceasefire.

War Crimes. Over the weekend, it was learned that lawyers for the United Kingdom's government have found that the government of Israel is breaking international law. Toby Helm (THE OBSERVER) explained:

The British government has received advice from its own lawyers stating that Israel has breached international humanitarian law in Gaza but has failed to make it public, according to a leaked recording obtained by the Observer.

The comments, made by the Conservative chair of the House of Commons select committee on foreign affairs, Alicia Kearns, at a Tory fundraising event on 13 March are at odds with repeated ministerial denials and evasion on the issue.

On Saturday night, Kearns, a former Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence official, who has repeatedly pressed ministers, including foreign secretary David Cameron, on the legal advice they have received, stood by her comments and called for the government to come clean.

“I remain convinced the government has completed its updated assessment on whether Israel is demonstrating a commitment to international humanitarian law, and that it has concluded that Israel is not demonstrating this commitment, which is the legal determination it has to make,” she said. “Transparency at this point is paramount, not least to uphold the international rules-based order.”

The revelation will place Lord Cameron and prime minister Rishi Sunak under intense pressure because any such legal advice would mean the UK had to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay.

While this finding should prevent the UK from furnishing more weapons to Israel, the US government will, no doubt, continue to supply the death machine. Yolande Knell (BBC News) explains:

Despite a week of tensions with Israel over its conduct of the Gaza War, Washington is reported to have authorised arms transfers to its ally worth billions of dollars.

These include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000lb (900kg) bombs and 500 MK82 500lb bombs, as well as 25 F35A fighter jets, The Washington Post and Reuters news agency have said.

The larger bombs have previously been linked to air strikes in Gaza causing mass casualties.

Washington gives $3.8bn (£3bn) in annual military assistance to Israel.

But the latest package comes as the Biden administration has been raising concerns about rising civilian deaths in Gaza and humanitarian access to the territory, which the UN says is on the verge of famine.

War Criminal Netanyahu is attempting to dismantle and replace UNRWA the Palestinian aid agency. In addition, THE NATIONAL reports, "Al Jazeera may be shut down in Israel on Monday evening as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed lawmakers to pass a bill outlawing the network in a Monday evening hearing."

Gaza remains under assault. Day 178 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE GUARDIAN notes, "At least 32,845 Palestinians have been killed and 75,392 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

And the area itself? Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells." Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."

The assault on Gaza continues to impact US President Joe Biden's chances of re-election. Alice Herman (GUARDIAN) notes:

In Wisconsin, a campaign by anti-war voters to abandon Joe Biden during the Democratic primary has found an ally in the labor movement – but not from its traditional leaders.

Instead, the Listen to Wisconsin campaign, an effort inspired by the Michigan campaign to reject Biden during the primary over his military support for Israel, has earned the support of rank-and-file trade unionists and a statewide coalition of low-wage workers and immigrants angry about the president’s handling of the war.

“Individuals in labor have been very active,” said Janan Najeeb, a Wisconsin organizer spearheading the Listen to Wisconsin campaign.

Israel’s war on Gaza has laid bare a divide within the labor movement – which has played out largely between union leaders in the AFL-CIO, the largest US labor federation, and the movement’s rank and file, many of whom have vocally opposed the war and turned to their unions as an avenue for political action.

Also in the US, a US service member has announced a hunger strike.

Today active-duty Air Force Senior Airman Larry Hebert will begin a hunger strike to highlight the plight of the starving children of Gaza. pic.twitter.com/qRyVwBtsWS

— Veterans For Peace (@VFPNational) March 31, 2024

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