Focus West Michigan
Focus West Michigan for 8-9-24
(upbeat music) - Today on Focus West Michigan, the DNR has added a new invasive plant to their watch list. Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as president 50 years ago today, this weekend's new films and more state and West Michigan news. For WGVU, I'm Joe Bilecki. Today is Friday, August 9, 2024. (upbeat music) Focus West Michigan is brought to you by listeners like you to support this show and everything we do. Visit WGVUnews.org and click the donate button. (upbeat music) A new invasive plant has been added to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources watch list. WGVU's David Limba has the details. Ficari Averna, better known as Lesser Celine Dine, is an invasive plant that has been found growing in floodplain forests in mid-Michigan, but has also recently been spotted in some areas of the Grand River watershed. Lesser Celine Dine is a non-native, low-growing perennial plant in the Buttercup family. It's usually found along streams and enforced in floodplains and is characterized by its heart-shaped leaves and glossy yellow flowers. Its three methods of reproduction are seeds, underground stems, or tubers, and bulbils, or tiny bulb-like structures where the leaf meets the stem. These three methods allow the plant to spread rapidly, crowding out native plants. According to the DNR, Lesser Celine Dine was first brought to Michigan as a spring interest species for gardens. The designation of the plant as an invasive species recognizes the threat the plant poses to native habitats and encourages the public to report sightings of Lesser Celine Dine online to the Midwest Invasive Species Information Network. You can learn more about the invasive plant at michigan.gov/invasives. I'm David Limbaugh. 50 years ago today, Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as president of the United States. His friends and family are coming to Grand Rapids to host public events to honor his legacy. WGVU's Demoresen reports. Mr. Vice President, are you prepared to take the oath of office as president of the United States? I am, sir. August 9, 1974. Then Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in as president of the United States after Richard Nixon resigned. Ford's son, Steve, was 18 years old and had just graduated from high school. But he recognized the historic significance of the day. Dad became the first man to become president of the United States that didn't go through a general election. He was appointed Vice President. He was never on the ticket with Nixon. This was a constitutional crisis. He joins others from Ford's time as president to host lectures, panel discussions, and the opening of a new museum exhibit in honor of the 50th anniversary. One panel member is Carla Hills, Ford's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the first woman to hold that position. In the '70s, to put a woman in the cabinet was a controversial thing. But you got to remember, my mother, too, was all for the Equal Rights Amendment for women. She was not your traditional Republican. And so, yeah, it was an interesting time. A time, he believes, has lessons to offer 50 years later. It's good to look back and realize we've been through tough times before. We survived. We got through the Vietnam War. We got through the Great Recession of 1974, things like that. And this country is a great country. For details on events and exhibits, visit the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum website. I'm Dee Morrison. The July Supply Management Research Institute Survey is showing signs of a West Michigan economic slowdown. WGVU's Patrick Center has the details. There are obviously some serious storm clouds on the horizon, but I'm not quite ready to declare a recession at this time. Brian G. Long is Director of Supply Management Research in the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University. All of our current numbers, and I underlined current numbers, which lag a recession, are still more emblematic of a slowdown, which is, of course, what the Fed is trying to accomplish with the higher interest rates. That could change with time, but right now, I don't see a big collapse in all of these different segments. Weakness in the jobs report panicked markets last week, but Long points out its evidence. Higher interest rates are slowing the economy, lowering inflation. Still, uncertainty is now on the minds of business leaders, and that will hinder growth. July's survey revealed new orders remained negative while production and employment indexes fell. Patrick Center WGVU News. Congresswoman Alyssa Slachan held her first rally today in Grand Rapids since winning the Democratic primary race for Michigan's Open US Senate seat. WGVU's David Limbaugh was there. There is no more profit, more talent, more hierarchy, the person that I know to pass the torch to. And our Senator, my friend, Alyssa Slachan. [APPLAUSE] Retiring US Senator Debbie Stabenow through her support behind Congresswoman Alyssa Slachan at the rally. Stabenow has served for over two decades as Michigan's first female US Senator, Congresswoman Hillary Scoulton, and Michigan Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks were also on hand, pledging their support for Slachan. Slachan took time to address some key differences between her and her general election challenger. Former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, who won the GOP primary. Mike voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And the protections repeat with preexisting conditions. This couldn't be more personal to me because of my own mother's struggles with her preexisting condition and not being able to afford her care. So there's a difference between us and how we see the role of the middle class and our jobs in bringing down costs, our responsibilities as legislators. Slachan also spoke of her willingness to find common ground with her Republican constituents. In Michigan, we used to be able to push and pull on each other respectfully in a civil way and make policies better. And I still believe in that. So I want a strong Republican healthy party. That's just not where we are with a lot of the elected. But I hold out hope, whatever it is, I'm going to work across the aisle whenever humanly possible in order to get back to that positive discourse. The general election will take place November 5. I'm David Limbaugh. A West Michigan based company announced today that it's recalling baby formula due to high levels of vitamin D. WGVU's Dean Morrison reports. The Parago company headquartered in Grand Rapids is issuing a voluntary recall of store brand premium infant formula with iron milk based powder due to vitamin D levels above the maximum allowed. The recalled product was shipped to 12 states around the country, including Michigan's CVS stores. Parago has notified the affected stores and requested the products be removed. There have been no issues reported, attributed to the elevated levels of vitamin D which were found during routine testing. For the vast majority of infants, short-term consumption of the affected formula is unlikely to cause health issues. But in infants with impaired renal function, there is potential for complications. If infants experience any symptoms while using the product, caregivers are urged to contact a physician and report to the Federal Drug Administration. I'm Dee Morrison. Yesterday, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz spent their second day in Michigan as part of a tour of battleground states. The candidates for president and vice president met yesterday with the United Auto Workers and Metro Detroit. Harris and Walz stopped at UAW location 900 in Wayne. Walz told the group that union votes will be critical to winning the election. - This is a bit of a region of the choir, but the choir needs to descend. (crowd cheering) The choir needs to descend. We know, we know that unions vote a minute last. The rest of America asked you. You know who doesn't believe that? Donald Trump. (crowd cheering) Walz and Harris also headlined a rally on Wednesday at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. This is the Democratic ticket's first Michigan visit since Harris announced Walz as her running mate. A new state audit finds the Michigan Department of Transportation or MDOT has been mostly sufficient at overseeing work zone safety. But as Colin Jackson reports, there are some exceptions. - The audit looked at a period from March 2022 through last November. The state auditor General's office found some issues like missing reports and a liaison reporting fatal crashes within MDOT. Department spokesperson, Jeff Kranzen, says the outside perspective is helpful for making sure the agency is meeting all its requirements. - The only way you would know if they followed them is if they documented it. Again, you know, at the end of the day, if you sat down and checked all the boxes to see if you did what you're supposed to do. And they learned that in some cases that they didn't and they need to do a better job of that. - Kranzen says the issues did not affect public safety and that MDOT is already taking steps to resolve them. I'm Colin Jackson. - New numbers from the state suggest a growing number of workers and job seekers join the labor force over the past year. We have more from Rick Pluto. This appears to be good news for employers who are anxious to fill positions. The data collected by the Michigan Department of Technology Management and Budget show the workforce growth is broad-based, including male and female and black and white people working or looking for work. University of Michigan economist, Gabriel Erlich, says this suggests more people are interested in finding employment following a rut after the height of the COVID pandemic. - I can't point to any one reason. It's, you know, it's been a broad-based phenomenon in terms of Michigan's, you know, the labor force participation rate picking back up, but, you know, it's been good to see. - People in the workforce are counted as part of the state's jobs numbers. Michigan's most recent unemployment number is a relatively low 4.1%. I'm Rick. (upbeat music) - This week on "The American Life." So Cameron's in the ocean and he hears from maybe a hundred yards away, someone yelling shark. - There was really three options. You sit there and panic and scream for somebody else to help and you don't do anything, or you swim the opposite way and try to protect yourself. - With the third option, you swim toward the shark. That's what Cameron did. Go shoot your head when you make that choice this week. - Saturday morning at 11 here on WGVU FM 885 and 953. (upbeat music) It ends with us as an adaptation of a Colleen Hoover bestseller starring Blake Lively. Borderlands is a science fiction action comedy starring Kate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jack Black. And Cuckoo is a horror mystery. WGVU's got Vanderworff and Eric Kuiper from Studio C talk the films and theaters today. - Wanna do the honors? - No, you go ahead. I need to take it in from here. - Well, this will be you'd say that, okay. (laughing) - Oh, that's my brother, Ryal. - The first official customer? - We'd have to buy something to be considered a customer. Right now you're just loitering. - We all have an idea what love can be. - I wanna see you again. - Now you see me. - You know what I mean. (laughing) - That special connection you feel, that first kiss. (dramatic music) - It ends with us new films starring Blake Lively. And what are you hearing about this, Eric? - Well, it's gonna do really well at the box office this weekend. And it's not gonna do as well as Deadpool and Wolverine. But Blake Lively is in fact, you know, a life partner of Ryan Reynolds. So they're the it couple at the cinema right now, for sure. This is the first of Colin Hoover's novels to be adopted for a film. This is definitely a very well read, you know, bestseller for sure. The title it ends with us, which is also the title of the book, is speaking to sort of really the heart of the film, which is Lily Bloom, who is Blake Lively's character, grew up in an abusive situation as a child. And now as an adult, she is fighting herself in romantic relationship, of relationships. And she's gonna make the decision about whether or not this trauma that she's experienced as a kid, she's going to pass on, right? Is she gonna continue this narrative in her own life? Which is, you know, this is so much what happens with abuse is one person experiences it, and they return to it over and over again, even though it's what tore their life up. This is the human condition so often. And so it's a really empowering movie about this woman who's making this choice that it's gonna end with her. It's gonna end with a new relationship of some kind. At least that's what she's striving for in the film. And as far as an adaptation, I think one of the things that this is really going to serve its audience well is from what I've heard, it is seen by scene, line by line, just a straightforward direct adaptation of the book. There's almost no creative license taken from the way the book was written and what shows up on screen. And when sometimes that's a really good thing, at least that satisfies the audience. You know, they just wanna go see this book that they loved play itself out on screen. So it's only 59% on Rotten Tomatoes. So it's not like critically, it's getting all this crazy love, but you know, the notebook is probably not a good comparable from actually the tone and tenor of the film. But if you go back and look at something like the notebook, which was a very popular book, you know, adapted for the screen, that was like 54% on Rotten Tomatoes back in the day. It was a huge, huge success. So while this is not, you know, a soulmate of the notebook, I think it's servicing somewhat of the same audience to a degree. And I think shows that this really isn't about what the critics think. This is a story people have invested in wanna return to it. - Well, one of the conversations we've been having quite a bit in the last few years about how the film industry has focused on these big gigantic tent pool, tent pole, you know, blockbuster films made, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to try and make a billion dollars. And in that these little genre films, like romantic films, are not being made as much. And romantic comedies aren't being made as much. And yet, is this, is it because this is based on the best selling novel that this one was greenlit? - I think that's exactly it. I mean, so here's the other safe bet. If you don't have a franchise on screen yet, right, and you're scared to try to start a new one of those, then go find established IP somewhere else, right? So Colleen Hoover, this, this, I believe is the first of maybe three books, you know, that are out and have done very well. So it's as long as you can deliver on the film, right? You can make a good adaptation. There's probably a built-in audience. Now, this is a trick that's been tried 100, you know, thousands of times. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This one looks like it's gonna work. Ticket sales have been very strong for this film, already the pre-sales. Early access shows that happened earlier this week, lots of people showing up to those. And so it was tracking in like the $35 million range when it first hit. And every week it's just gone up, up, up. The last number was somewhere around 50. I wouldn't be surprised if next week we're chatting in this thing open to closer to $60 million, which would be a real hit for a film like this. 'Cause it didn't cost that much. No, I mean, certainly compared to if, you know, we transitioned to the next film on the list, Borderlands, which is a Lionsgate release. It probably cost a lot. And action sci-fi with Kate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis. And it says action sci-fi, but looking at the trailer, it looks like there's gonna be a lot of humor involved as well. Yeah, I mean, you've got Kevin Hart. So yes, you know, he's not gonna play it straight. You wouldn't want him to, right? Like that's the fun of Kevin Hart. And Jack Black is also in this movie as a robot. I mean, he's voice acting for this, the squirrely little robot. So on paper, everything you just said. And then speaking of where did they get the IP? Borderlands is a first person shooter video game. It's one of the most successful video games of, you know, the last, I don't know, how many years? Well, we'll say 10 years or more, right? So they've gone to, they found an audience, right? They found a place where a bunch of people are bought in. Now they're gonna try to make a film adaptation. This movie is not going to open to 50 or maybe $60 million. The tracking has been going in the absolute other direction the entire time. And here you've got, you know, he's Kate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart. That seems like it should cook. Now we'll go back to Rotten Tomatoes. Seven percent on Rotten Tomatoes. This movie is just getting universally panned as basically having nothing in its core, right? That even the performances, maybe it's on the director that the performances aren't that solid. You know, a first person shooter video game doesn't necessarily have always a really strong plot narrative, right? So you just have these quirky characters. It just sounds like maybe they got the pieces, but they didn't get the, you know, the soup didn't cook together. And so we'll see, it's tracking at $10 million. And I'm curious, again, we could sit here next week and it could have done five. Who knows, we'll see. And the thing is here, you know, there's going to be a lot of special effects that are going to cost money for making this film. And then on top of that, I'm sure that the paychecks for Kate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jack Black were not small. If this movie opens to $10 million, that could, my guess is that doesn't cover one of them. Yeah, right? Let alone though, everything else. You know, they might have spent $10 million on craft services for the shoot, for all I know. So yeah, this one's probably going to sting Lionsgate a little bit. Also opening up, it's Friday, it's another horror film. Cuckoo. Yeah, so this, Cuckoo's being, since we're talking about who's distributing these films these days, is coming from Neon, which they're the ones that did long legs, which just-- Which is huge this summer. Oh, huge. And yeah, now again, back to how much it costs to make and how much it's making. Long legs, I don't know this for sure, but it's gotta be close to one of the most successful releases Neon's ever had, from just a pure dollars and cents standpoint. And no, they don't have the magic of the marketing around Cuckoo that they had with long legs. I don't know that it's as good of a movie. I just don't know yet. I will say I've heard that it's one of the best final girl movie performances, you know? So if people aren't familiar with that genre, I think speaking of Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, right? She's just the last woman standing, right? And so it's one of those. It's sort of the psychological thriller, you know, that turns really dark and that's why we're calling it a quote unquote horror movie. But it is more in that just like, oh, there's somebody coming and picking people off and she's the last one standing, a 17-year-old girl named Gretchen. And so, you know, that's where the strength of this, again, if you can do it, you know, like if you can deliver a really tight narrative that hits all the beats and all that stuff, then again, here's a movie. Now it's only tracking to open around 3 million, but if it's good, maybe it gets up to six, the thing probably didn't cost more than $10 million to make. Hangs around for a month and a half in the theaters, has a good second life afterwards, and it makes money for neon and they're on a roll. So Lionsgate may be swung and missed with Borderlands, but it's possible that neon is going to have kind of a one-two punch in the horror genre that could really help them out moving forward. All right, well, thanks for joining us. Thanks, Scott. (upbeat music) - This has been Focus West Michigan from WGVU for Friday, August 9, 2024. I'm Joe Bilecki. Our audio operations manager is Rick Bierling and our news and public affairs director is Patrick Center. We'll be back with more news and events in West Michigan on Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)