Fan Fare

Women are from Venus, Men are from … Pandora?

In 1992, John Gray’s relationship book “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” gave self-help romance seekers everything they wanted to know about the opposite sex. The book became a huge best-seller. But really, all anybody with a desire for romance needed to do was look at who goes to movies on Valentine’s Day, and why, to see just exactly what the opposite sex wanted.

That’s right. This weekend is THE WEEKEND for affairs of the heart, date nights and dinner-and-a-movie outings as V-Day hits calendars on Sunday. And movie ticket seller Fandango.com has polled moviegoers to see just exactly what they will go see in theaters. The results? Forty-two (42) percent of women want to go see the new movie, “Valentine’s Day” while 39 percent of men picked action-packed “Avatar,” which takes place on the faraway moon, Pandora.

In the pool, 92 percent of men say they are “willing to let their dates pick the movie” (Gee, awfully nice fellas), and 94 percent of men say that they do, in fact, actually pay for the trip to the theater (Now, that’s more like it guys).  And while 32 percent of women polled picked Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in the weepy romance “The Notebook” (2004) as their favorite onscreen couple, 20 percent of men chose Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana in “Avatar.”

We wonder: where does that leave one of the other new movies this week, “The Wolfman“? Well, only 10 percent of men and 7 percent of women want to see that horror show, according to Fandango.  … Maybe a little too much hair. Now, if it were a blue-haired wolfman…

Team Britney joins Ashton Kutcher, CNN in Twitter race

Game on. The race to 1 million followers on Twitter has a new player, after singer Britney Spears’ manager made it known she has joined the competition.

For those who have not heard about it, the race started earlier this week when actor Ashton Kutcher challenged cable news channel CNN to a Twitter duel, promising to ring CNN founder Ted Turner’s doorbell if he wins. Not one to shy from attention, CNN broadcaster Larry King put out a video online responding to Kutcher’s challenge. “CNN will bury you,” King vowed, as he also lectured Kutcher that Turner no longer runs CNN.

Then on Wednesday, Spears’ manager posted the following statement on her Twitter page. “Let’s get Brit across the million mark!,” he wrote. It was the equivalent of the United States joining World War I after sitting on the sidelines, because Spears is a Twitter powerhouse with more than 940,000 followers as of Thursday afternoon.

So far, Kutcher’s Twitter page sports more than 966,000 followers while CNN’s breaking news Twitter page has an impressive tally of more than 973,000 followers. 

The race goes on, but it could obscure the fact that even many avid Internet users are hardly fans of Twitter, which allows anyone to update friends and followers on the most minute aspects of their day. But it’s all for a good cause. Kutcher has pledged to donate to the Malaria No More fund if he wins, and CNN has agreed to also donate to the cause if it beats the 31-year-old actor and star of the movie “Dude, Where’s My Car?”

Sundance: Get your Tickets

Sundance film festival tickets are often hard to get, but here’s the secret to success.