Monday May 18, 2015

Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” Music Video

Last night’s 2015 Billboard Music Awards didn’t open with a host’s monologue or a performance, but instead with the world premiere of the latest music video from Taylor Swift. For the “Bad Blood” music video, Taylor enlisted the help of her famous friends like Kendrick Lamar, Hailee Steinfeld, Lena Dunham, Cindy Crawford, Jessica Alba and others. The video, which was heavily hyped in the week leading up to the show, features a remix of the song with Lamar providing the rap sequences.

 

Taylor Swift Dominates 2015 Billboard Music Awards While Kanye Is Awful

The 2015 Billboard Music Awards were mostly Taylor Swift’s show. The megastar of course opened the show with the premiere of her ‘Bad Blood” music video and then proceeded to win 8 awards. Swift won Top Artist, the Billboard Chart Achievement Award, Top Female Artist, Top Billboard 200 Album, Top Billboard 200 Artist, Top Hot 100 Artist, Top Digital Songs Artist and Top Streaming Song. Calvin Harris took home an award for Top Dance/Electronic Artist and was also involved in some PDA with Taylor Swift ALL NIGHT LONG.

Kendall and Kylie Jenner introduced Kanye West for the show-closing performance. The audience booed them because apparently people are over the Kardashians. Kanye then gave a terrible performance that ABC censored most off. I really thought it was my television antenna, but apparently a full minute and two seconds of the performance was completely muted by ABC. The audience also is rumored to have booed Kanye at the beginning and end of his performance. Event organizers should also be booed and maybe fired for letting that whole performance happen.

Rita Ora’s dress was a highlight on the red carpet. AOL had a roundup of the best and worst dressed celebrities.  Billboard has the Top 10 moments from their awards show.

While the Kanye performance was terrible, other performances were well-received. Meghan Trainor and John Legend performed together. Charlie Puth and Wiz Khalifa performed their hit from the Furious 7 soundtrack, “See You Again” and were joined on-stage by Lindsey Stirling. Estelle performed with the stars of Empire. In a blast from the past Simple Minds took the stage to sing “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from The Breakfast Club.

Dean Potter Dies During Wingsuit Flight

The extreme sports community lost a legend on Saturday when Dean Potter died while attempting a BASE jump and wingsuit flight in Yosemite National Park. Graham Hunt also perished in the accident. BASE jumping is technically illegal in all National parks, but that doesn’t stop it from happening.

Pitch Perfect 2 Opens To $70 Million At Weekend Box Office

Pitch Perfect 2 blew away expectations in its opening weekend in movie theaters. Screen Rant had the sequel tracking for a $49 million opening weekend.  It instead made more in its opening weekend than the original made during its entire domestic theater run back in 2012. Behind positive reviews ( I enjoyed it quite a bit), Pitch Perfect 2 brought in an estimated $70.3 million over the weekend. It also brought in another $38 million in foreign markets, putting it over the $100 million mark worldwide in just 3 days of release.

Mad Max: Fury Road finished in second place over the weekend with an estimated $44.44 million. Avengers: Age of Ultron brought in $38.8 million in its third weekend of release.

I’ll have more on the weekend numbers on Thursday in my Weekend Movie Guide. I’ll also take a look at Tomorrowland and Poltergeist, the two movies opening in wide release this weekend.

First Trailer released For Steve Jobs

Universal Pictures is releasing their Steve Jobs biopic in theaters on October 9. The flick stars Michael Fassbender as the late Jobs. The film is based on Walter Isacson’s biography of the Apple founder. A leaked copy of the script hints that the film will focus on the launches of the original Macintosh, the NeXT Cub and the iMac.

 

9 Dead, 18 Wounded and 165 Arrested In Texas Biker Gang Fight

An absolutely insane scene unfolded on Sunday in Waco, Texas outside a Twin Peaks restaurant. Five different biker gangs were represented at the restaurant or in the immediate area when a fist fight broke out in a bathroom. That escalated to a fight in the bar that features knives, then to the parking lots where there were apparently more knives, chains, guns and other weapons. The bar had been hosting an event each Sunday for at least two months that drew bikers to the restaurant. The police had been aware of the situation and had warned the restaurant that violence was likely to occur. Waco police were on-site when the violence erupted, they were shot at and helped rescue innocent bystanders caught in the area. 8 gang members were killed at the scene, one died at a local hospital and 18 or more were taken to hospitals with wounds from the battle. More than 150 of the gang members were arrested by police at the scene. Police are now facing threats from the gangs.

 

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