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Philosophical as 70 nears

More than 30 years after the breakup of the Beatles and on the brink of her 70th birthday, Yoko Ono has become philosophical about the days when many Beatles fans blamed her for the band's demise.

"I think that through that kind of incredible, strange confrontation, people started to understand me," the widow of John Lennon told the New York Post for a story in Sunday's editions.

Ono turns 70 on Tuesday, and more than 200 guests are expected to attend a cocktail reception in her honor at a Manhattan restaurant, the Post said.

Ono keeps busy these days managing the legacy of her late husband and producing dance mixes of his music and her own. She is about to release a dance mix of Lennon's Walking on Thin Ice -- the song Lennon was working on the night he was murdered in 1980.

"If he's observing me from up there, I'm sure he's proud of me," Ono said. "It's going to go on and on. This is what I love now, so it's great."

'Daredevil' debuts on top

Ben Affleck's Daredevil, a big-budget gamble on a comic-book character more obscure than Spider-Man or X-Men, paid off nicely with a $43.5-million weekend debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.

It was the second-best February debut ever behind the $58-million opening of Hannibal two years ago.

In Daredevil, based on the Marvel Comics hero, Affleck plays a blind attorney whose other senses have become superhuman, allowing him to become a deadly crusader for justice by night. The movie co-stars Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan and Colin Farrell.

"The first tier of comic books would be Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men. This would probably be a second-tier character, but from the audiences that showed up Friday night, there's a big fan base," said Bruce Snyder, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox, which released Daredevil.

The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, fell to second place with $19-million. The Kate Hudson-Matthew McConaughey romance got a boost from Valentine's Day audiences Friday.

Riding the wave of its 13 Academy Award nominations last week, the musical Chicago expanded to more theaters and took in $12.6-million, remaining in third. Disney's The Jungle Book 2 opened in fourth place with $11.9-million, and Shanghai Knights was fifth with $11.4-million.

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