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‘Transylvania Hotel’ and ‘Looper’ score. Katzenberg’s night gig.

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After the coffee. Before looking into early retirement.

The Skinny: I saw “Looper” on Sunday and while I’m not sure about the whole “Terminator” meets “Back the Future” meets “The Bad Seed” plot, the performances were very good. I also liked a lot of Sunday’s season premiere of “The Good Wife” but could have done without the Kalinda fight scene. It was one step away from being something out of “The Matrix.” Monday’s headlines include the weekend box office and a look at Jeffrey Katzenberg’s night job as an Obama fundraiser.

Daily Dose: Last week, a lot was made out of the poor numbers CBS’s “Hawaii Five-O” posted in its premiere last Monday. However, these days it may be best to wait until ratings from digital video recorders come in as well. “Hawaii Five-O” added 2.5 million viewers and it’s 18-49 rating grew by 44%, when ratings from people who watched the show within three days of recording it are included.

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Booked hotel. “Transylvania Hotel” was the place to stay this past weekend. The animated Halloween flick took in $43 million, better than expected. Finishing in the second position was “Looper,” a science fiction thriller that made $21.2 million. “Looper” also took in about $36 million overseas. “Won’t Back Down,” the preachy drama about public schools, suffered from low attendance and took in only $2.7 million. Box office recap from the Los Angeles Times and Movie City News.

Obama’s Hollywood connection. DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, who as a teenager in New York City in the 1960s did grunt work for Mayor John Lindsay, has emerged as a key fundraiser for President Obama. While most fundraisers tend to try to work behind the scenes, Katzenberg is a little more flashy about it, which sometimes gets under the skin of Obama’s team. A look at Katzenberg’s efforts to re-elect the president from the Wall Street Journal.

New goal. Al Jazeera, the Middle Eastern news channel that also has an English-language version here, is turning its attention to soccer. It has launched BeIN Sport and spent almost $500 million buying soccer rights and is focusing on U.S. distribution. A look from Business Week.

Just what is mainstream anyway? New York Times columnist David Carr questions whether Republican candidate Mitt Romney can really score points by claiming there is a liberal bias in the so-called mainstream media. Carr notes that the Wall Street Journal and Fox News are top print and television news outlets in the country and neither is considered left-leaning. Just remember, I link, you decide.

Two errors. Fox News is blaming a “severe human error” for its airing of a man killing himself after a traffic chase last Friday. While there may have been mistakes in production that led Fox News to not cut away from its coverage prior to the man shooting himself, isn’t the real error the choice to cover a traffic chase? Too often cable news cynically serves up chases to titillate its audience even though such chases seldom have national news value. Reuters on the Fox News error.

Inside the Los Angeles Times: Scott Collins on the rise of cable programming.

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Follow me on Twitter. I’m an education. @JBFlint.

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