NEWSMAKERS
NEWSMAKERS
‘The Help’ reigns again at box office
LOS ANGELES
“The Help” remained Hollywood’s top draw with $14.3 million on a slow late-summer weekend whose business was even more sluggish as many East Coast theaters closed to ride out the storm there.
Irene was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm Sunday, but the weekend already was a lost cause for many theaters in its path.
“The Help” has been the No. 1 film for two-straight weekends. The acclaimed adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s novel about black Southern maids sharing stories about white employers amid the civil-rights movement raised its domestic total to $96.6 million and should cross the $100 million mark Tuesday.
Zoe Saldana’s action tale “Colombiana,” released by Sony, opened in second-place with $10.3 million. Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes’ horror story “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” a FilmDistrict release, debuted in third with $8.7 million. In fourth place was “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” with $8.65 million. Paul Rudd’s comedy “Our Idiot Brother,” distributed by the Weinstein Co., premiered at No. 5 with $6.6 million.
Jones cancels concert, cites ‘dehydration’
LONDON
“Sex Bomb” singer Tom Jones was recovering in a Monaco hospital Sunday, saying “severe dehydration” forced him to cancel a concert in the glamorous principality.
The longtime star, famed for his swivel-hipped appeal and soulful voice, apologized to his fans on his website and emphatically denied British press reports that he had suffered a heart scare that forced him to cancel his Monaco concert Saturday night.
“There are NO heart problems, as has been reported in the press,” the singer’s website stated.
Jones, a 71-year-old Welshman who burst to international fame in 1964 with “It’s Not Unusual” and other hits, blamed his illness on a long successful tour “where many of the shows were in locations that were in the throes of high summer heat.”
The website statement indicated that Jones had no choice but to make a rare cancellation: “Sir Tom was ordered by doctors not to perform in Monte Carlo yesterday evening due to severe dehydration,” the statement read. “This was extremely disappointing for Tom, the band and all connected with the tour.”
Saturday’s canceled show was to have been the finale of his 3-month “Praise & Blame” tour.
A spokesman for the Princess Grace Hospital in Monaco told The Associated Press that Jones was admitted to the hospital Saturday night and was doing well Sunday. There was no word on when Jones would be released.
Powell: Cheney takes ‘cheap shots’ in book
WASHINGTON
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday dismissed as “cheap shots” the criticism leveled at him and others in Vice President Dick Cheney’s memoir.
It was the latest volley in a clash that stretches back to their first years in the George W. Bush administration.
Powell went so far as to say that if Cheney’s staff and others in Bush’s White House had been as forthcoming as the State Department in the case involving CIA operative Valerie Plame, the indictment and conviction of Cheney’s friend and former chief of staff never would have happened.
Powell made the remarks Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” ahead of the Tuesday release of Cheney’s book, “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir.” Cheney said in an earlier NBC interview that the book would cause “heads to explode” in Washington, a description Powell said he expected from a supermarket tabloid and not a former vice president.
“My head isn’t exploding. I haven’t noticed any other heads exploding in Washington,” Powell said. “From what I’ve read in the newspapers and seen on television it’s essentially a rehash of events of seven or eight years ago.”
Associated Press