Big Stars Square Off - The Last Rental - Scorsese's Horror

Clooney's Feuds w/ Crowe & DiCaprio 

Yeah-we all love celeb feuds

In an interview with Esquire Magazine, George Clooney broke the unwritten Hollywood code of silence and blasted fellow A-list actors Russell Crowe and Leo DiCaprio.

Clooney stated that Crowe had sent him a book of  his own poetry as a peace offering "to apologize for insulting the shit out of me, which he did."  According to Clooney, Crowe, "picked a fight with me. He started it for no reason at all."  In response, Clooney disparaged Crowe's band - '30 Odd Foot of Grunts' - which enraged Crowe further, claiming Clooney was nothing more than a "Sinatra wannabe".

DiCaprio, came into criticism by Clooney because of his entourage - known as the Pussy Posse.  According to George, "How important is it to have someone in your life to tell you what's what. I'm not sure if Leo has someone like that".  Clooney referred to a basketball game between George and Leo and their mutual set of friends.  Clooney said his team was, "all like 50 years old" (George is 52).  "The thing about playing Leo is you have all these guys talking shit. But they can't play at all.  We're all like 50 years old and we beat them three straight."

So, even in the Hollywood major leagues there is feudn' and fussn' - over, it appears, really trivial crap.  But than again, what else have these 'pussies' got to bitch about.

Blockbuster's Last Rental

The last movie rental by Blockbuster Video (the video and DVD rental chain) occurred last Saturday night at 11pm in Honolulu, Hawaii.  The movie rented was 'This Is The End' (figures) and right after, the store closed - for good. Dude in middle of photo was last customer.

Streaming videos, pay-per-view, and services like Hulu brought the demise of the once mighty Blockbuster empire - which accounted for over 70% of all video/DVD rentals at its peak.  The Dish Network, current owner of Blockbuster, is closing all of the remaining company-run 300+ stores leaving around 50 stores under license. The movie rental service ceased on Saturday night for all of The Dish owned stores.

In response to the news that 'This Is The End' was the last movie rented, Seth Rogen, the film's writer, director, and star, tweeted, "this is nuts and sad. In high school I would hang out at blockbuster every day."

Funny, I remember going to the local Blockbuster (which I was a member of) and waiting in line to get my rental after scanning the shelves for the latest films, or perusing for an old classic to re-watch, or for a film I had mentally footnoted to view when it came out on DVD - but I digress. Good or bad, technology change, in the digital domain, is relentless and unforgiving. Blockbuster couldn't make the transition to streaming fast enough and lost out to the likes of  TiVo, Ruku, Netflix, Redbox, and Amazon Prime to name several.

Scorsese's Favorite Horror 

Noted film director, Marty Scorsese was recently asked to list his favorite horror films - turns out Scorsese is a big horror fan. Following is a list of his favorites (in no particular order):

The Haunting - 1963               The Changeling - 1980
Isle of the Dead - 1945            The Exorcist - 1973
The Uninvited - 1944               Night of the Demon - 1957
The Entity - 1982                     The Innocents - 1961
Dead of Night - 1945               Psycho - 1960

A younger Scorsese behind the camera.