George Cloony sinks Robert Downey Junior at the Australian box office

From Sky News

Clooney sinks Downey at box office

Updated: 18:44, Monday January 23, 2012

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It may have been word of mouth or perhaps a timely Golden Globe Award but the George Clooney drama, The Descendants, has managed to knock Sherlock Holmes off the top of the Australian box office, jumping three places in its second week of release.

Returning $2.40 million over the weekend, according to the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia, The Descendants even managed to beat its own first weekend's take of $2.29 million.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows dropped two places to number three, also beaten by the children's drama Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, which took $1.90 million in its opening weekend.

The Muppets fell once place to fourth position, followed by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which dropped two places to number five.

Cold War drama Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy debuted at sixth place, with school holiday fare Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and Hugo both falling two places to seventh and eighth, respectively.

Science fiction thriller The Darkest Hour debuted in ninth place and Meryl Streep's Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady held steady in tenth place.

TOP 10 AT THE AUSTRALIAN BOX OFFICE LAST WEEKEND: 1. The Descendants - $2.405 million (Fox) 2. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island - $ 1.908 million (Warner Bros) 3. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - $1.860 million (Roadshow) 4. The Muppets - $1.660 million (Walt Disney) 5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - $1.446 million (Sony Pictures) 6. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - $1.422 million (Universal) 7. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked - $1.263 million (Fox) 8. Hugo - $1.172 million (Paramount) 9. The Darkest Hour - $627,299 (Fox) 10. The Iron Lady - $484,440 (Icon)

From News.com.au

Offensive tweets force Cineplex Australia to pull feed

A CINEMA chain has been forced to remove a Twitter feed from its website after jokes about bestiality and swearing inadvertently appeared next to session times.

Cineplex Australia - which has cinemas at four locations around Brisbane - kept a live Twitter feed on its website which collected all the comments being made about a particular film in real time.

But in an incident that has sparked a sharp rebuke from parents and family groups, the live feed collected both good commentary and bad last week - including comments about bestiality and swearing.

Tweets like "Shailene Woodley's cleavage deserves an Oscar nod for their work in The Descendants" and "Went to see The Descendants ... George Clooney is so f----ing hot" were on the website.

Another said: "I get that the guy and horse from War Horse were best friends but do you think they were also friends with benefits?"

Australian Christian Lobby Queensland director Wendy Francis said that sort of commentary on a popular website during the school holidays was "totally inappropriate".

"This website is not something that is restricted to adults," she said.

Cineplex Australia owner Leo Catalano removed the feeds on Friday, saying his business was "family cinemas" and those comments had no place on the website.

"We want no part of it," he said. "It shouldn't be on there."

QUT associate professor Axel Bruns said it was rare to see a company using an uncensored Twitter feed on its website.

"That's a very dangerous strategy," he said.

Katiedot wrote:I'm so happy for this that I'm putting it in its own thread:

From Sky News

Clooney sinks Downey at box office

Updated: 18:44, Monday January 23, 2012

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

It may have been word of mouth or perhaps a timely Golden Globe Award but the George Clooney drama, The Descendants, has managed to knock Sherlock Holmes off the top of the Australian box office, jumping three places in its second week of release.

Returning $2.40 million over the weekend, according to the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia, The Descendants even managed to beat its own first weekend's take of $2.29 million.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows dropped two places to number three, also beaten by the children's drama Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, which took $1.90 million in its opening weekend.

The Muppets fell once place to fourth position, followed by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which dropped two places to number five.

Cold War drama Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy debuted at sixth place, with school holiday fare Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and Hugo both falling two places to seventh and eighth, respectively.

Science fiction thriller The Darkest Hour debuted in ninth place and Meryl Streep's Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady held steady in tenth place.

TOP 10 AT THE AUSTRALIAN BOX OFFICE LAST WEEKEND: 1. The Descendants - $2.405 million (Fox) 2. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island - $ 1.908 million (Warner Bros) 3. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - $1.860 million (Roadshow) 4. The Muppets - $1.660 million (Walt Disney) 5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - $1.446 million (Sony Pictures) 6. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - $1.422 million (Universal) 7. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked - $1.263 million (Fox) 8. Hugo - $1.172 million (Paramount) 9. The Darkest Hour - $627,299 (Fox) 10. The Iron Lady - $484,440 (Icon)