TV binge-watching catches on
You are not alone. A survey conducted for TIVO found that 14 per cent of respondents have “binge-watched” a whole season of a TV show in one week.
They surveyed an impressive 15,000 people, and 91 per cent said they’d watched at least three episodes of a show in one day at least once; 69 per cent within the last month.
The most binge-watched shows were, predictably, Breaking Bad, House of Cards and Game of Thrones.
Life in California: The final count isn’t in, but fans of the Los Angeles Angels have surely set a record, duly certified by some guy from Guinness Book of World Records — tens of thousands of them wore Santa Claus hats at Wednesday night’s baseball game.
Guinness says the previous record was a mere 872. The Angels provided the hats, to mark “Half Way to Christmas” day June 25.
Total attendance at Wednesday’s game was 39,082, but I suppose there were a few Scrooge types who didn’t join the fun. The Angels beat the Twins, 6-2.
Courteney Cox and Johnny McDaid, of the band Snow Patrol, have announced their engagement.
She’s 50. He’s 37.
Shia LaBeouf was acting out again Thursday night at a New York theatre, after a day of drinking.
Unwashed and smelly, he was escorted out by police after he went backstage during a performance of Cabaret and grabbed some performers’ bums — the musical stars
Michelle Williams — while smoking, shouting, spitting, etc. He also threatened the cops: “I’ll (bad word) you up!”
Hauled out in tears, he was taken to the nearest precinct station — and promptly began doing pushups. “He’s cursing. He’s jabbering away. He won’t shut up,” somebody at the cop shop told the N.Y. Daily News.
When the dust cleared, the actor was charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass. He’s 27.
Mexican-born director Guillermo del Toro made the splendid, memorable fantasy movie Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006, and everybody said “this guy is amazing.” But since then he’s been mostly just making money by the carload, with bilge like Hellboy and Pacific Rim.
I guess it pays, because he’s still at it: The other day he and Universal announced a second robots-versus-monsters instalment, Pacific Rim 2, coming to a multiplex near you on April 7, 2017.
Of course, there’ll be a cartoon TV series pegged to this, and comic books, too. And I suppose del Toro will have to hire additional people to count his money.
I guess I shouldn’t knock selling out for big bucks; I’ve never had the chance to try it. But still, what a waste of talent.
Now it can be told: Don Johnson recalls, in the Times of London, the party lifestyle in Florida during his Miami Vice heyday:
“There were politicians, state senators, drug dealers, police and the best-looking hookers in the business. … For years, I’d been concerned about carrying drugs around, and all these (bad word), police included, are carrying drugs around? And their drugs are better than mine? Hahahaha.”