'Pirates' again plunders overseas box office

LOS ANGELES: "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" continues to take no prisoners in its siege of the overseas box office, topping the chart this past weekend with an impressive $69.4 million in about 50 territories. With a total gross close to $800 million worldwide, the overall franchise is now sailing toward $3.5 billion in global receipts.

In second place, "The Hangover Part II" continues to drink in heavy amounts of international cash, tossing back $63.8 million in its second weekend of release in more than 40 territories, and with a worldwide tab so far of more than $347 million.

Debuting internationally in third place with $61 million in about 40 territories was "X-Men: First Class." The fifth installment of the successful series of films has earned over $130 million worldwide and demonstrates the appeal of super heroes both overseas as well as in North America.

"Kung Fu Panda 2" had a solid fourth place international showing in its second weekend, with $38.4 million in around 20 territories and a family-driven global total of more than $262 million.

Here are the rest of the top 20 movies at international theaters last weekend, followed by their international gross for the weekend (excluding North America), number of theater locations, number of territories, worldwide gross to date (including North America), and number of weeks in release as compiled Wednesday by Rentrak Theatrical and provided by Hollywood.com:

5. "Fast Five," $6,242,537, 5,127 locations, 45 territories, $551,191,301, seven weeks.
6. "Rio," $3,296,936, 3,159 locations, 37 territories, $460,604,351, nine weeks.
7. "Sunny," $2,693,171, locations unavailable, one territory, $28,186,415, five weeks.
8. "The Tree of Life," $2,576,664, 525 locations, 10 territories, $11,855,760, four weeks.
9. "Midnight in Paris," $2,554,008, 921 locations, three territories, $24,852,778, four weeks.
10. "Paradise Kiss," $2,543,730, 303 locations, one territory, $2,543,730, one week.
11. "Princess Toyotomi," $2,290,445, locations unavailable, one territory, $9,337,251, two weeks.
12. "Drucker in the Dug-Out," $2,251,959, locations unavailable, one territory, $2,251,959, one week.
13. "Monsieur Papa," $1,835,071, 325 locations, three territories, $2,092,141, one week.
14. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules," $1,810,964, 957 locations, 6 territories, $64,372,840, 11 weeks.
15. "Water For Elephants," $1,741,932, 1,816 locations, three territories, $108,110,064, eight weeks.
16. "Source Code," $1,612,580, 957 locations, 20 territories, $110,091,830, 10 weeks.
17. "Black Swan," $1,489,334, 21 locations, eight territories, $318,993,096, 20 weeks.
18. "The Rabbi's Cat," $1,412,336, 257 locations, three territories, $1,630,099, one week.
19. "Paul," $1,354,869, 187 locations, 12 territories, $90,940,029, 11 weeks.
20. "The Lincoln Lawyer," $1,350,677, 888 locations, 17 territories, $77,198,462, 12 weeks.

Shilpa Shetty today turns 36

MUMBAI: Globally known Bolloywood sexy diva Shilpa Shetty is celebrating her 36th birthday today.

Shilpa Shetty coming from Manglore city of Karnatka, an Indian state started her showbiz career at sweet 16. Following her role as co-actress in ‘Bazigar’ and central role in ‘Aag’ in the nineties, Shilpa got her first breakthrough with Akshay Kumar in the hit film ‘Khilari tu Anari’.

Shilpa Shetty shot fame in the UK after she won the celebrity Big Brother in 2007, married Kundra in November 2009.

Shilpa has to her credit the perfect figure to die for, an IPL team to kill for and a Big Brother crown to be jealous of.

Shilpa is known as the best Bollywood item girl for her grand dance performances on numerous film songs. Shilpa as a dancer has along list of fans and Salman Khan is one of them.

Video of SRK item song ‘Antenna’ released

MUMBAI: The video of long awaited song ‘Antenna’ featuring Bollywood icon Shahrukh Khan has been released.

Amidst magnanimous projects like 'Ra.One' and 'Don 2', Shah Rukh Khan was so pressed for time to get more involved into his home production's next offering 'Always Kabhi Kabhi' that the superstar wanted to in a way gift something to the movie that would bear the renowned SRK trademark and that was how the promotional song of the film "Antenna" was born.

In spite of having a packed schedule and being busy with the post production work of his films Shah Rukh Khan was involved with the song right from its nascent stages - from coming up with the beats and approving the lyrics,to going over various compositions for the song to even shooting for the video in a record breaking time.

Sources say that Shah Rukh Khan was present for almost all of the music sittings that Roshan Abbas and Pritam had arranged for he was completely involved in the making of the song from the lyrics composition, the visualizing of the music video and the likes. He even shot for the song in a flat 3 hours. SRK has always wanted to gift something to the film and "Antenna" seemed appropriate.

Lady Gaga album sells 1.1m copies in first week

LOS ANGELES: Flamboyant pop star Lady Gaga has sold more than one million copies of her new album to top the U.S. pop chart for the first time, according to sales data published on Tuesday by Billboard magazine.

Fans scooped up 1.11 million copies of her much-hyped release "Born This Way" during the week ended May 29, with a bit of help from a hugely popular 99-cent promotion by online retailer Amazon.com Inc .

It marks the biggest first-week sales total since rapper 50 Cent's "The Massacre" debuted to 1.14 million copies in March 2005. The last album to break the million mark was country starlet Taylor Swift's "Speak Now," which started with 1.01 million copies last November. Boy band 'N Sync holds the first-week record with 2.4 million copies for its 2000 album "No Strings Attached."

Billboard estimated that Amazon downloads accounted for upward of 440,000 downloads of "Born This Way." Overall digital downloads totaled a record-breaking 662,000 copies, Billboard said.

The meteoric fall of Atlantic City

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – Four years ago, some Atlantic City casino customers were shelling out $1,000 for a brownie sprinkled with edible gold dust in a Baccarat crystal they could take home.

Nowadays, some wait until 11 p.m. to eat so they can get a steak dinner for $2.99.

At the beginning of 2007, Atlantic City's 11 casinos were at the top of a wave of prosperity. Starting with the 1978 opening of Resorts, the nation's first casino outside Nevada, Atlantic City for years was the only place to play slots, cards, dice or roulette in the eastern half of the United States. The cash kept pouring in, the busloads of visitors kept coming and the revenue charts went one way: straight up.

And then, they didn't. Now, battered by competition from casinos all around it, Atlantic City is in a fight for its very survival.

The resort is furiously trying to remake itself into a vacation destination that happens to have gambling, but with no guarantee it has a winning hand even as other threats loom, including the possible expansion of casinos to north Jersey racetracks and a growing push for online gambling.

Intoxicated by years of success, Atlantic City missed numerous opportunities to diversify its offerings, widen its customer base and fend off competition that clearly was on its way even 20 years ago.

"The atmosphere was a total irrational exuberance; it truly was," said Robert Griffin, CEO of Trump Entertainment Resorts, who worked at Trump properties here in the 1980s and 1990s. "There was a feeling that there was no end to the good times and that the money would never end."

Then, disaster struck the nation's second-largest gambling market. A perfect storm of competition right on its doorstep in Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware, coupled with the recession, pummeled Atlantic City worse than any other casino market. In four years, a billion and a half dollars vanished, along with thousands of jobs and tourists. Pennsylvania, with its 10 casinos, is poised to knock Atlantic City into third place at some point next year.

How did things go so wrong so fast?

___

Cars streamed into Atlantic City on May 26, 1978, and people lined the Boardwalk for blocks, waiting to get inside Resorts on the first day it was legal to gamble there.

People bought tickets for buffets they had no intention of eating, just to sneak inside the casino earlier than the rest. Men relieved themselves into plastic coin cups to avoid losing their spot at the tables by going to restrooms. And cash — more than anyone had ever seen and more than management could imagine — flooded into the counting room, to the point that it took nearly an entire day to count it.

"It was euphoria," said Steve Norton, who was Resorts' executive vice president when it opened and now runs a casino consulting firm in Indiana. "I mean, it was an unbelievable time."

One after another in the 1980s, casinos kept coming. Revenues reached a high point of $5.2 billion in 2006.

And then the Pocono Downs harness racing track in Luzerne County, Pa., added slot machines and opened them to the public on Nov. 14, 2006. Suddenly, people in the heart of one of Atlantic City's key feeder markets could drive 10 or 20 minutes to play the slots instead of making a three-hour round trip to Atlantic City. In less than four years, there would be 10 casinos in Pennsylvania, all of which now offer table games, too.

They took in nearly $2.5 billion last year, approaching Atlantic City's $3.6 billion. So far this year, they are running neck-and-neck: $996 million for Pennsylvania, and $1.1 billion for Atlantic City.

"If you didn't anticipate this competition coming, you were asleep at the wheel," said Israel Posner, executive director of the Lloyd Levenson Institute of Gaming at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

David Schwartz, director of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Center for Gaming Research, said Atlantic City can be successful again, "but it's going to require a reinvention."

"Basically, the city needs to stop looking backward and start looking ahead," he said.

A look back reveals many missteps and lost opportunities. The most obvious: a failure to reinvent the resort as a place to go for more than gambling. Atlantic City belatedly jumped on the bandwagon, adding non-gambling amenities over the past eight years like celebrity restaurants, spas, shopping and top-name entertainment. The Borgata even built a stand-alone luxury hotel called the Water Club, and Harrah's indoor pool has become a cash cow, doubling as one of the city's hottest nightspots.

But back then, anything customers couldn't bet on was seen as a waste of money.

"Nobody wanted to build anything other than casinos," Norton said. "The property values shot up so high, it didn't make sense to build anything else."

There's plenty of blame to go around. Casino owners focused only on their own properties instead of the market as a whole, a habit that Atlantic City is only recently shaking off. Competing against each other instead of Las Vegas was the city's playbook for decades.

Now, the casinos are banding together for joint marketing efforts, and will chip in to help sponsor the biggest names in entertainment, rather than letting one casino pay the whole cost of a Britney Spears or Lady Gaga show, or a rodeo. And three casinos are even thinking of jointly funding a new convention or trade show center in Atlantic City to draw badly needed midweek business.

New Jersey also erred by failing to approve legalized sports betting in 1991 when it was given the chance to do so ahead of a nationwide ban, gambling experts say. A state senator sued the federal government in 2009 to overturn the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, but the suit was dismissed by a federal judge last month.

___

When Griffin, the Trump CEO, lays his head on the pillow at night, he worries that New Jersey will one day succumb to political pressure from lawmakers in the more populous northern part of the state to expand casino gambling to the Meadowlands racetrack, 10 minutes from New York City. Analysts expect it would instantly become a $1 billion market. State law now allows casino gambling only in Atlantic City.

"That would devastate us," he said. "This would become a two-casino town; it wouldn't even take five years. That's what keeps me up at night."

Maddie Downey, a bartender at the Showboat, has her own worries. The single mom has already lost one casino job when the Sands closed in 2006, and worries that gas prices will stay near $4 a gallon, keeping people away from Atlantic City.

"I'm just glad to have this job," she said. "I just hope it doesn't get any worse, and I hope the price of gas comes down."

When the Indian-run Foxwoods casino opened in Connecticut in 1992, it was the closest casino to Atlantic City — and a sure sign that more were to come. Mohegan Sun, another tribal casino, opened in Connecticut four years later. The resort responded by allowing its casinos to stay open 24 hours a day; they formerly had to close for a few hours in the wee hours of the morning. It also introduced new games like poker, keno and racing simulcasts.

But the money kept coming in, and the two Connecticut casinos didn't prove to be a major problem for Atlantic City, which sat on its cards. No new casinos opened until the Borgata in 2003, which would usher in a new era of grand dreams — very few of which would ever come true.

The Borgata touched off a casino arms race, with companies from across the country vying to build the next mega-resort here. At the start of 2008, there were plans for as many as four new casinos; MGM Mirage unveiled a $5 billion, three-tower casino project that would have been the largest ever built here.

Pinnacle Entertainment blew up the Sands to make way for its own $2 billion casino resort, modeled on a beach house. Before setting off the explosives that would bring it down, then-CEO Dan Lee spoke of the importance of keeping the market fresh, new and exciting. The challenge, he said, is "to compete in this new world, or be the next implosion."

Yet by the end of 2008, Pinnacle and MGM's projects imploded on their own, and Revel, the first of the new projects to actually put shovels in the ground, was limping along. It would run out of money in 2009 and halt construction on the interior. Morgan Stanley, its major financer, walked away from the project, deciding it was better to take a nearly $1 billion bath on the deal than to stay in Atlantic City.

After scouring the globe for financing, including asking the Chinese government, Revel CEO Kevin DeSanctis finally secured new financing in February 2011 that allowed the project to resume, with some state tax incentives.

"Every market got hit, but nobody faced the amount of new competition coming online as much as Atlantic City did," said Larry Mullin, who was president of the Borgata at the time and now runs an Australian casino company. "We were just exposed. Nothing was going to stop the convenience customer from trying a product that was closer to them. I just don't think there was any silver, magic bullet. It was a very tough situation."

___

Torn between demands from the New Jersey casino and horse racing industries, New Jersey's incoming governor, Republican Chris Christie, sided in 2010 with the casinos, which provided more tax revenue to the state's coffers. He refused to allow slot machines at the racetracks — something the racing industry has long wanted to keep pace with its competitors in other states.

New Jersey staged a quasi-takeover of Atlantic City's casino and tourist zones; Christie called it "a partnership." But the new tourism zone is run by the state and takes charge of many functions Atlantic City's often dysfunctional municipal government had long struggled with, including safety, cleanliness and economic development. (At one point just a few years ago, four of the previous eight mayors of Atlantic City had been arrested on corruption charges.)

The $30 million in annual payments that the casinos had to pony up to the horse racing industry, in return for keeping slots out of the tracks, will now be used to market Atlantic City nationally. The state rewrote many of its famously strict regulations for casinos, removing, among other things, minimum staffing requirements. They even allowed casinos to keep some jackpots that had built up on progressive slot machine games that they decide to cancel.

State-mandated economic redevelopment funds collected from each casino will now be used solely for projects within Atlantic City; before, the money was spread around the state.

The help cannot come too soon. Casinos are selling at fire-sale prices. Within the past year, The Tropicana, Resorts and Trump Marina have all sold for about 10 cents on the dollar from their values of just a few years ago. The Atlantic City Hilton stopped paying its mortgage in 2009 and is looking for a buyer. The casinos have shed nearly 15,000 jobs since 1997, with more layoffs to come.

‘Pirates 4’ still top pick at box office

LOS ANGELES: The fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie ruled the foreign box office for a second weekend, fending off strong debuts by the "Hangover" and "Kung Fu Panda" sequels.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," playing everywhere overseas, captured $123 million during the weekend, raising its total to $471 million -- more than three times its domestic gross ($153 million).

"The Hangover, Part II" pulled in $59 million from 40 markets. Warner Bros. said the opening is three times higher than the comparable opening gross of the original 2009 hit in the same markets.

The comedy drew huge numbers from its No. 1 U.K. bow ($16.4 million), while Australia chipped in $11.6 million and France $5.8 million. Germany and Russia will open this week.

"Kung Fu Panda 2" in 3D followed closely with $57 million from just 11 markets, mostly in Asia.

The sequel to 2008's "Kung Fu Panda" finished in the top spot in nine markets, with China ($18.5 million), Russia ($15 million) and South Korea ($13 million) leading the list.

This week will see "Kung Fu Panda 2" adding 11 markets as it rolls out gradually over the summer months to capitalize on school holidays.

No. 4 on the weekend was "Fast Five," which grossed $13.3 million in 61 territories, pushing the foreign total for the turbo-charged street-racing sequel to $346 million.

Coalition battles Grammys over category cuts

NEW YORK: A coalition of musicians is demanding the Recording Academy restore more than 30 categories cut from the Grammy Awards, alleging the reductions unfairly target ethnic music and were done without the input of its thousands of members.

A protest was held Thursday in Beverly Hills, Calif., at an academy board meeting. A modest turnout of musicians hoisted signs above their heads with such slogans as "Grammys Honor All Music" and "It's Not Just About Rap, Rock or Country." Some Latin jazz protesters brought instruments and turned the rally into a spontaneous jam session.

It was part of a campaign by those upset by last month's decision to reduce the Grammy fields, which this year totaled 109, to 78.

In a letter delivered to the Recording Academy Thursday afternoon, musicians ranging from Carlos Santana to Paul Simon and Herbie Hancock demanded the reinstatement of the categories. "We will not be disenfranchised," the letter warned.

Grammy President and CEO Neil Portnow said changes would be in effect for the 2012 Grammys. He urged dissenters to work with the academy, which would examine the effect of the changes for the 2013 awards.

But protesters hope the process could be reversed in time for next year's Grammy ceremony if at least one board member asks the academy to reconsider.

The academy announced the changes April 6; the move came after a more than yearlong examination of the awards structure, the first in the Grammys' 50-plus year history. Portnow said at the time that the changes would make the Grammys more competitive, and the awards more coveted.

But the move upset many academy members, who were taken off guard by the announcement.

After the academy announced the changes, meetings were held in chapter cities across the country to reach out to members.

The Recording Academy's board meeting ends Friday. If it concludes with the changes still in place, Sanabria is vowing boycotts of the Grammys, broadcast partner CBS and sponsors of the show. He said he will also urge people to resign from the academy.

Popular Cannes film reflects 'Arab Spring' spirit

CANNES: A film about a woman taking a stand against men in a North African village won cheers in Cannes Saturday, with some viewers moved by its expression of the spirit of the "Arab Spring" uprisings. A small handful of critics also booed during the packed screening of "The Source," directed by Radu Mihaileanu, later telling journalists they found its depiction of Arab life over simplistic. But the overwhelming majority of critics in the audience praised its resonance with real-life events, saying they would not be surprised to see it scoop a big prize at the annual film festival. The Source was the last of 20 films shown in the festival's main competition ahead of the closing ceremony Sunday where the awards will be announced including the Palme d'Or for best picture. Also premiered Saturday was "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia," a slow-paced, subtle examination of cruelty and betrayal by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The Source opens by declaring itself a fairytale in which Leila, the beautiful and feisty wife of teacher Sami, declares a "love strike," or ban on all sex, until the men in her village agree to carry the water from a spring high in the mountains. In a time of economic hardship and unemployment, men sit and sip tea all day while women lug heavy loads up steep paths. Leila decides to take a stand when her friend falls and loses her baby. Men and women fall out, with violent consequences. Women bicker about the value of tradition over change while conservative clerics try to exploit the village's divisions. "NEED FOR MORE REVOLUTIONS" Mihaileanu, a Romanian-born French director, told a news conference in Cannes that the film was partly a reflection of the recent uprisings in Tunisia and across the Arab world. "There has been tremendous hope since last December. There is hope for freedom and a strong desire to get rid of those in power and there is the idea of people deciding their own destiny," he said. He added that revolution on the streets of Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Bahrain had yet to be matched by a change in people's homes. "There is a second revolution which is essential, which is the revolution in the home, and the place of women in the family. Women should be made equals at home as well." The director, who is Jewish, said the idea for the film came from a true story in Turkey. Leila leads the battle in the village, confronting the village imam and quoting from the Koran in defense of her case. She is defended by one of the film's most colorful characters -- Mother Rifle, whose words are "like bullets," played by Algerian actress Biyouna. Turkish entry One Upon a Time in Anatolia follows a group of police officers and a doctor as they look for the corpse of a murder victim buried in the countryside. Light on plot, it has nonetheless won over critics with its craftsmanship. (Reuters)

Tense elimination on 'American Idol'

You have to wonder why producer Nigel Lythgoe even bothered to launch a country talent competition, "CMT's Next Superstar," on the CMT network this year. He already has a country talent competition. It's called "American Idol." Because its final two contestants are...country singers Lauren Alaina and Scotty McCreery. Yee haw.

OK, I have nothing against country music, and I think both Lauren and Scotty excel in their own styles within the genre and could have major careers in Nashville. But the elimination of raspy rebel girl Haley Reinhart this week means next week's finale is going to be a pretty ho-hum affair. Haley the wild child would have brought excitement--a duet with Gaga? a jazz jam with Casey Abrams?--not to mention a real element of suspense. A finale showdown between either of this season's chosen ones, Scotty or Lauren, and underdog Haley would have been a fight of Lambert-vs.-Allen proportions (that is, excellent television), not to mention it would have featured a vaster array of musical styles. But now it's country vs. country, apples vs. apples. Is it really going to be all that thrilling to find out who wins next week? Let's just call it a tie, give them both the record deals we know they're going to get anyway, and watch "The Voice" instead.

It's clear that this was the producers' plan from the beginning--Scotty was glowingly mentioned in some of Nigel's pre-Season 10 promo interviews, and Lauren was aggressively pimped throughout the season, ever since her first audition when Steven Tyler called her "The One." The powers-that-be really wanted these country kids, and I do mean KIDS--this year the age limit was lowered to 15 (the tender age Lauren was when she first auditioned), and in interviews Nigel frequently bragged about the caliber of this season's youngest singers. He also seemed to push Lauren and Scotty together every chance he got, having them sing cutesy duets and encouraging Ryan Seacrest to interrogate them about their (non-existent) romance. Meanwhile, Haley was thrown under the bus so much, I was beginning to wonder if this show was sponsored by Greyhound.

So, Nigel has gotten his wish. An all-country finale, a 16-year-old versus a 17-year-old. Congrats, Mr. Lythgoe.

However, Nigel should be careful what he wishes for. While Scotty and Lauren are obviously very popular, not everyone in America likes country music. Ninety-five million votes were cast this week, and some of those millions did go to Haley. So I wouldn't be surprised if, now that Haley's gone, some "Idol" viewers just decide to sit out the finale, and as a result "Idol's" ratings slump during all-important Sweeps Week. Nigel better try to get Aerosmith back on the phone and see if they'll reconsider performing next Wednesday.

But anyway, kudos to Haley for making it much, much farther than anyone, probably even Haley herself, ever imagined, and for taking the news of her elimination this week in her usual shrug-it-off stride. "I rocked it out and I had a blast," she said of her bumpy "Idol" run, before rocking it out on a swan-song performance of "Bennie & The Jets" that was more exciting than probably anything we will actually see on the finale next week.

And it does seem like Haley has one "Idol" big-wig in her corner--Universal Records' Jimmy Iovine, who arranged to have her sing the unreleased Lady Gaga ballad "You & I" a couple weeks ago and praised her throughout the season--so we may not have heard the last from her yet. Considering the incredible tenacity she demonstrated on this show, one day she may still Reinhart herself right onto the Billboard charts.

Say ‘I don't’ to ‘Something Borrowed’

"Something Borrowed" poses the question: What happens when you realize you're in love with your best friend's fiance? But the characters are either so ill-defined or unlikable, it's hard to care whether they get out of this tricky situation with their emotions and relationships intact.

And that's odd, and unfortunate, because "Something Borrowed" stars the ordinarily adorable Ginnifer Goodwin as a New York attorney who finds herself in that predicament.

Directed by Luke Greenfield ("The Girl Next Door") and based on the novel by Emily Giffin, "Something Borrowed" introduces us to Goodwin's character, Rachel, on the night of her 30th birthday. She's quietly freaking out about the passage of time because she's still hopelessly single, the clichéd trademark of so many chick-lit heroines. Meanwhile, her closest pal since childhood, the blonde party girl Darcy (Kate Hudson), is about to marry Dex (Colin Egglesfield), Rachel's good friend from law school.

Rachel introduced the two of them six years ago and encouraged them to get together, even though she was secretly in love with Dex. (And Egglesfield, a former soap opera star in his first major film role, is traditionally handsome in a young-Tom-Cruise sort of way.) But after a few drinks at her surprise party, she and Dex end up sleeping together - and that inspires them to revisit feelings they'd both suppressed.

Clearly, they're meant for each other, but each feels a responsibility toward Darcy - which makes no sense, because Darcy only feels a responsibility toward herself. As Hudson describes her own character in the film's production notes, "Darcy is all about Darcy." And as Hudson plays her, she is rampantly narcissistic; the script from Jennie Snyder Urman renders her in such one-dimensional fashion, it's hard to figure out what she does besides drink and shop. She may not even have a job.

So it's baffling that Rachel and Dex, two intelligent, ostensibly decent-hearted people, have chosen to spend any time with her at all, much less made her one of the most important people in their lives. It's also obvious that Dex's old-money parents would be happier with the sweet and proper Rachel rather than the flamboyant and obnoxious Darcy.

And so the majority of "Something Borrowed" features Rachel and Dex hemming and hawing over how to handle their burgeoning relationship, as the threat of the big day draws ever closer. Much of this takes place over dull weekends at Darcy's Hamptons beach house with a cadre of supporting players.