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Yesterday, Warner Bros. guesstimated a $40 million opening for “Joker Folie a Deux.” It turns out they were overly optimistic.
As it turns out, “Joker” came in at just $37.8 million. That is a disaster worse than what was expected.
The Todd Phillips’ directed sequel to his 2019 hit just went wrong in every way. Rather than leave well enough alone, the producers and director made a movie no one wanted to see. And they didn’t.
The only bright spot is that Lady Gaga has a hit album, “Harlequin,” currently lodged at number 14 on iTunes. It would be doing better but so far there’s no CD or LP. Still, it should get Grammy nominations and maybe an Oscar nomination for one of its two original songs.
Daniel Craig is on a campaign to build a post James Bond career. He’s already appeared in a couple of Broadway plays. He’s become the star of the “Knives Out” franchise.
Now Craig takes on his most daring role with Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” based on the novel by famed Beat writer William S. Burroughs. Last night “Queer” got its star studded premiere at the New York Film Festival, where Craig was so applauded an Oscar nomination is not out of the question. The audience included Steve Buscemi — who once wanted to make this movie himself — and Natasha Lyonne.
The packed audience at the Alice Tully Hall premiere twent wild as the creative team took the stage for the post-screening Q&A. And it is not only because the movie stars Craig. Guadagnino explained how as a boy in Palermo, he picked up the Burroughs work and always wanted to make this film. While working on “Challengers” from screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes’ script, he gifted him the book one day and said “Read this tonight.”
The text of “Queer” — unlike say, Burroughs’ most famous book, “Naked Lunch,” — has a linear thread so a narrative could be made of the love story between Craig’s William Lee and a younger Eugene Allerton (a formidable Drew Starkey). Yes, there’s plenty of man-on-man sex –minus the testosterone. How else can you explain the tenderness? Prowling Mexico City looking for a connection, Lee has a tryst or two, essential to the vision of what homosexuality meant in the mid-century—achy, twitchy, awkward, and alone, Craig plays Lee’s vulnerability.
Of course, there are drugs involved. Costume designer J. W. Anderson spoke of dressing Lee in cool whites when the substance of choice was cocaine to the colors for heroin use. A funny moment comes when a doctor asks the sick Lee, Are you addicted to opiates? Cut into chapters, “Queer” proceeds to South America as Lee looks to explore “telepathy;” Lee invites Allerton to travel with him in search of yage, a hallucinogenic drug. The jungle scenes feature an unrecognizable Lesley Manville as shaman—the one significant woman in this movie, a transformation from the male Dr. Cotter of the book.
Another significant change: insisting that “Queer” did not have an ending, Guadagnino and Kuritzkes supply one, bringing closure to their plot. As Guadagnino put it, the novel opens a door and then closes it. Guadagnino proposed, “What if we went through that door?”
The ending satisfies, but for the Beat community that made its way to the Chelsea Hotel for the after party, there was plenty to parse. Poet Anne Waldman, from Allen Ginsberg’s estate, Peter Hale, from Jack Kerouac’s estate Jim Sampas. Luca Guadadgnino was just happy that his film passed muster with the Beat crowd, and captured the book’s spirit.
I am so sorry to report the passing of Cissy Houston at the age of 91.
She was the mother of Whitney, but also a great R&B star on her own. She and her group, the Sweet Inspirations, sang back up on many Aretha Franklin hits and often toured with the Queen of Soul. They were close friends, as well.
The Sweet Inspirations also released their own records that had big followings but never crossed over. Still they’ve lasted all this time.
Cissy was part of the larger Drinkard family, which included her cousins Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick. They grew up in the church in Newark, New Jersey where they were royalty.
The Houstons say Cissy died from Alzheimer’s. She’d been battling it for a long time. In 2015, when Aretha performed on the David Letterman Show, Cissy was asked to sing back up. In the video clip she looks distracted. No one knew then that the terrible condition had already attacked her.
Cissy also had two sons: Gary, and Michael, the latter with husband John Houston, who managed the Sweet Inspirations and was key to the launch of teenage Whitney in 1983. Whitney was “discovered” by Clive Davis singing back up for her mother, and the rest is history.
Whitney’s drug problems baffled Cissy as they got worse. She did not, contrary to supermarket tabloids, jealous of Whitney. But the more belligerent Whitney became because of the drugs, the more Cissy pushed back against her.
“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. We loss the matriarch of our family,” shared Pat Houston in a statement to the Associated Press. “Mother Cissy has been a strong and towering figure in our lives. A woman of deep faith and conviction, who cared greatly about family, ministry, and community. Her more than seven-decade career in music and entertainment will remain at the forefront of our hearts.”
I met Cissy and John in the mid 80s. We talked about Whitney but also about Cissy’s remarkable career. She gave new meaning to “back up” singing. On one of Aretha’s classic records, “Ain’t No Way,” that’s Cissy singing the sustained high top notes. It’s a unique recording for the ages. Cissy was so revered at Atlantic Records that producer Joel Dorn asked her to back up Bette Midler on her own landmark debut, “The Divine Miss M.”
Cissy did not have an easy life. Rest in peace.
In 2013, Aretha Franklin & Cissy Houston headlined McDonald's Gospelfest in Cissy's hometown of Newark, NJ. Here is rare footage of the two old friends bumping into each other backstage at @PruCenter at the end of the night. pic.twitter.com/AZ0NA7Exz8
— 365 Days of Aretha Franklin (@365DaysOfAretha) October 7, 2024
The American Music Awards were on CBS tonight. It’s the 50th anniversary, except last year there was no show.
The AMAs were always a second run show to the Grammys. No one who performed on them was allowed on the Grammys.
Last year they were usurped by another sketchy awards deal, the Billboard Music Awards. Dick Clark Productions produces all these shows, and they’re owned by the same company as Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Rolling Stone, and the Golden Globes.
Tonight’s show had no host, no audience, and no awards. It was a two hour clip job with some excellent live performances mixed in. A paid group of screaming young people — very Dick Clark American Bandstand — danced and jumped up and down in a mosh pit. It was an infomercial for something.
The highlights were live performances: Jennifer Hudson was sensational singing Whitney Houston, Nile Rodgers funked it out performing “Le Freak.” British singer Raye showed off her incredible voice on “It’s a Man’s Man’s World.” Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman” was the perfect ending — familar and unthreatening. Producers had so little material that they let the songs run long, which was satisfying.
The lineup of performers and music was tame, tailored to the older CBS audience. No rap appeared until fifteen minutes before the show ended, and that was just Nelly, now a friendly rapper.
Well, the AMAs couldn’t hurt you. They were just a way for CBS to buy themselves time before introducing their regular Sunday night programming. Another AMAs will air on Memorial Day weekend 2025, well after the Grammys, and we’ll be back to normal — whatever that is!
Last winter and spring, Donald Trump kept talking about wanting to have a mega MAGA rally at Madison Square Garden.
Now I’m told he’s going to surprise us with something either at the Garden or the Barclay Center in Brooklyn.
Trump bringing his goons and right wingers into Manhattan or Brooklyn would be daunting for the NYPD. The protesters would probably outnumber the people inside.
Of course Trump could try to fill Yankee Stadium or CitiField. But does he have enough fans for those venues? Unlikely. The number of empty seats recorded would be a real embarrassment.
Barclays or MSG are more in the 20,000 range, which Trump could pull off as he spouts lie after lie. Both places seem to have openings the week of October 20th.
Trump coming into New York City would be interesting since most of the city hates him. But his people will come in from rural areas. Maybe Ted Nugent will perform. Or Zachary Levi will introduce him!
PS MSG may not go for it. After all, they hosted a Nazi rally in 1939 sponsored by the German American Bun. Mayor Fiorella La Guardia was criticized for letting the rally go on, saying it was a matter of free speech. The area around the Garden went into lockdown. It’s taken decades and a lot of Billy Joel concerts to erase that memory.
Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton hit the Hamptons yesterday for a screening of a documentary they’ve co-produced called “Zurawski v Texas.” The film, made by Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault, is now being screened in the five states where abortion is on the ballot.
“This means you, New York,” the women shouted from the stage at the East Hampton Middle School where the packed audience stood to cheer the film team: the directors, producers Hillary and Chelsea, and a brave and hardworking legal team from the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Hillary Clinton, who carries her own presidential aura, cautioned the crowd “to make no mistake about the restrictive intentions of Trump and his associates.”
Mariska Hargitay, star of “Law & Order SVU,” provided star power as moderator of Q&A after the screening.
The women from the Center work with women suing Texas over its Draconian anti-abortion laws. The film, now seeking a distributor, is an unflinching look at women who have had to endure barbaric cruelty when some basic medical care was all that was needed to avert trauma and in the state of Georgia, now two deaths.
What the women want is a clarification of the language—when exactly, under the new Dobbs decision—is it legal for a doctor to perform procedures on women at risk? What is a “medical exception?”
As it stands, the medical community is scared. Doctors face fines and imprisonment. In one harrowing case, a woman is made to bring a pregnancy to term even knowing the baby had a zero chance to live. Calling her Halo, the parents watched her die in her four hours of life. The mother was so traumatized, she subsequently had her tubes tied.
This is what the Hamptons International Film Festival does best: showcase a film that you might not be able to see, bringing in the highest wattage celebrities to shine that light. If anyone can energize a crowd, Hillary can as she cautions everyone.
UPDATED: The Al Hirschfeld Theater, where Gavin Creel performed in “Hair!” has joined the list of theaters to dim the lights for him. Creel had said in an interview: “When I die, the Heavens will open and we’ll all go to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre – all the same people – and we’ll do [Hair] again.” The Hirschfeld is currently home to “Moulin Rouge.”
Earlier, I wrote:
Who deserves to have Broadway’s bright lights dimmed when they pass away?
There’s now an all out war between the theater community and the Broadway League over decisions concerning two popular stars who died this week.
The biggest controversy is over Tony winner Gavin Creel, incredibly popular with a long list of credits including “Hair!” “Into the Woods,” and “Hello, Dolly!” Creel died September 30th at age 48 from an aggressive cancer that took his life in two months.
The Broadway League announced that only some of their theaters would dim their marquee lights in memory of Creel but not all. This has set off a war of words on social media.
The League issued this statement: “The Committee of Theatre Owners will dim the lights of one theatre from every theater owner on Broadway in memoriam for the late Gavin Creel.”
There’s a petition on change.org with 20,000 signatures already, and more to come.
Actors Equity posted: “Equity has reached out to The Broadway League to express our concerns about the practice of dimming the lights of only a few theaters in memory of those we’ve lost. Everyone who receives the tribute deserves the full tribute.”
There are dozens more posts on Twitter echoing the same sentiment.
Dimming of the lights is a long held Broadway tradition. This week theaters will do it for James Earl Jones. It’s presumed Maggie Smith will be next (they just did it for her in London’s West End).
Plenty of people have been notoriously snubbed. Jan Maxwell and Marin Mazzie, two popular Broadway performers whose lives were cut short, finally did get some respect. Joan Rivers, who was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress and was a keen supporter of Broadway, did not. There are plenty of other examples.
Ken Page, who died this week, is also in the mix of complaints. Page was another vet who originated roles in “Ain’t Misbehavin'” and “Cats,” among other shows. So far there’s no word on whether anything will happen for him.
What does it take to dim the lights? A flick of a switch, that’s all. It takes three seconds according to theater employees. But it acknowledges the career devotion of people who worked passionately for very little. Broadway actors are not paid like Hollywood counterparts. It’s work, and it’s hard work.
The League is sending out a message that some are better than others. It’s a mistake.
In this video, Creel says when he dies he’d like to find himself performing “Hair!” again in Broadway heaven. “Hair!” was at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, which so far has no plans to dim their lights.
The colossal mess of “Joker Folie a Deux” has crystallized this morning.
The total weekend take for the $200 million spectacle is $40 million.
This means that no one went to see Joaquin Phoenix reprise his title role from the 2019 original. Lady Gaga fans didn’t materialize either.
This will be the last time we see Phoenix as Arthur Fleck/Joker. The first film was supposed to be a one off anyway, and not part of the DCU.
“Joker 2” joins Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” as the second gigantic disaster of this fall season. We are experiencing the opposite of “Barbenheimer” now. What do we call it? “MegaDeux”?
The use of Lady Gaga in one musical fantasy number might have been sufficient. But a whole movie? Who ever thought fan boys would want that? Or anyone?
Well, live and learn. Warner Bros. now has left on the schedule an animated “Lord of the Rings” movie and Robert De Niro in Barry Levinson’s “Alto Knights,” a much anticipated mob film.
The indefatigable Woody Allen opened a play Friday night in, of all places, Budapest, Hungary.
“Brooklyn Tale” is about a gangster and his family who somehow obtain a painting by Raphael, then must cover it up. Can art transform the gangster into being a good person? That’s the question.
Woody did not travel to Budapest, but by all accounts the play was a hit. He did send a video message you’ll see below. He says in a few weeks he’ll turn 89, so his life is “half over,” but he hopes to return to the magical Hungarian city one day.
I hope we’ll see “Brooklyn Tale” staged here in New York one day.
“Saturday Night Live” is celebrating its remarkable 50 years on the air this year with lots of A list hosts, musical guests, and prme time special in February 2025/
But something has gone wrong with the new Jason Reitman movie, “Saturday Night,” about the show’s first night in 1975.
The Sony release is not launching at the box office. Last night, “Saturday Night” made $102,000 in 21 theaters. That’s five thousand dollars less than it made last Friday night in just 5 theaters.
Fans of the show are not going to see this movie. The audience that saw the first show in 1975 isn’t going.
The Reitman film has mixed to good reviews with a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. There is no audience score as of yet.
“Saturday Night” has had odd marketing. It played at Telluride and in Toronto. But for a New York movie, it had no big local premiere. The surviving stars — Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, Chevy Chase — have been very mum. There’s been no effort so far to plug in on “SNL.”
Maybe fans feel they know the story already. Or that “SNL” is a TV thing. But I’m surprised. Overall buzz going into “Saturday Night” was high.
PS One note — I don’t know why Sony released this movie and not Universal, which owns NBC and SNL. Probably a great reason that will be explained to me by smarter people.
