USA'

The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.

clipped from finance.yahoo.com The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace. 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year

Cinema profits at record high

Stats show that comedy accounted for 24% of releases and 20% of box office, while drama was 21% of releases but just 7% of box office. Avatar made science fiction the box office king.

SHOOT: And as reality becomes harder to bear, cinema ought to become part of the staple for people seeking to esape it.

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk One was the year of A Clockwork Orange and decimalisation. The other was that of Avatar and the shattered economy. But while 1971 and 2009 were wildly different in terms of the technological limits of the films on offer, new figures published today show that they shared similarly buoyant levels of cinema-going. In terms of box office, it was a record year with takings topping £944m. Cinema admissions also shot up from last year's healthy 164 million to 174 million, not quite beating 2002 (176 million), but still up 6% and the second highest number since 1971. Much of the problem stems from the global economic downturn and also the failure so far of the movie industry to work out how best to make money from the internet. "The evidence is that the transition into the digital world is going to be quite bumpy," said Woodward. The big inward investment movies – or Hollywood funded – of 2010 include the final Harry Potter, John Carter of Mars and the next Pirates of the Caribbean.

Inception Ranked as 3rd Best Film of all Time on IMDb

SHOOT: Nolan rocks!

clipped from insidemovies.moviefone.com It's been a good week for Christopher Nolan's inception after it shot onto screens with glowing reviews and huge box office takings. And it's about to get better with news that film website IMDb (the internet movie database for those not in the know) has it at number three in its top 250 films of all time list. Not bad for a film that's a week old. The list is calculated based on user's votes giving a 1–10 star rating. And although Inception has fewer votes than most films on the list due to its relative infancy, the ranking is decided by averaging the votes for any one film meaning that the sheer level of early goodwill towards the flick has rocketed it up the list. It sits just behind first place film The Shawshank Redemption (16 years old and with over 500,700 votes) and The Godfather Part One (38 years old, over 398,000 votes). Fellow newbie Toy Story 3 is at number 8.

Film Review - Predators

“Predators” is a wildly entertaining picture that bends the franchise back to more captivating quandaries, erasing much of the bad taste left behind by previous installments. It took a few too many years to reach this point, but thanks to Robert Rodriguez, the Predators have finally been restored to their original tribal roar.

SHOOT: Can't wait to watch this.

clipped from www.brianorndorf.com Enter Robert Rodriguez, who assumes a shepherding role for “Predators,” questing to get beastly matters back on track, working from a script that understands the need for graphic violence, salty language, and burly men brandishing city block-sized guns. “Predators” returns the franchise to the basics, once again observing an anxious group in a jungle setting, slowly coming to grips with the monster hunters stalking the area. Cleverly, Rodriguez and director Nimrod Antal (“Vacancy,” “Armored”) rework the premise to shake Earth out of the equation, moving the action to a neutral planet the Predators use as a testing ground, sending packs of three at a time to hunt and kill whatever they’ve decided to parachute in. Outside of the fact that the new environment provides exotic, gorgeous locations (a mix of Hawaii and Texas) to survey, the fresh surroundings provide diverse elements of menace, as it’s not only Predators after the team, but the flora and fauna as well.