Here’s the poster for Michael Moore’s new film “Fahrenheit 11/9.” He’s not pulling any punches, and you know exactly what this is about. It’s hoped there is a smoking gun, something that will explode in the news. The movie opens the Toronto Film Festival on September 6th.
“Who is America?” dropped some more in the ratings Sunday night, down to 269,000 viewers. It had been up over 300,000.
But Sacha Baron Cohen’s show is suffering from lack of advance promotion. Also, Cohen is not landing every punch. On Sunday he got nowhere trying to dupe Trumper Corey Lewandowski. Sacha struck out.
“Who is America?” also lost about a third of the viewers from its lead in on Showtime, “The Affair.” That show scored 595,000 viewers, a bug number for them as fans wanted to see how Allison (Ruth Wilson) died.
And what about Ruth Wilson? There’s more to the story of her exit from “The Affair” than complaining about pay parity. Stay tuned…
The reason I wrote my story on Saturday night about Aretha Franklin’s health crisis was simply to instigate a flood of messages of love for this remarkable woman. I am so thrilled by the response. Twitter is brimming over with messages to Aretha. Today she had visits from Stevie Wonder and from one of her two ex-husbands, actor Glynn Turman.
Now three of Aretha’s hits from the 1960s have hit the iTunes Top 100 Singles: “Respect,” “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You),” and “I Say a Little Prayer.”
Additionally, Aretha’s greatest hits album is number 6 on iTunes’ album chart.
Over at amazon, it’s a similar story. Many of her albums and singles have popped up on the respective digital and physical charts.
What a stunning tribute to Aretha, the greatest singer of our time, an outstanding human being who blazed so many trails. I’m sure she feels the love.
John and Yoko’s “Imagine” is back.
Yoko Ono is releasing a newly spiffed up version of the film she and John Lennon made back in 1971 to accompany the “Imagine” album. The film has been hand cleaned, and the soundtrack is remixed in Dolby 7.1
Performances begin September 18th. “Imagine” features not just John and Yoko, but also George Harrison (who was still talking to John after the Beatles break up).
Lennon said of the making of the film:” The one we’re making now [Imagine] is very loose; they just bring the camera every day and we just decide what to do that day, almost. We’re just making it up as we go along. It will show some of the recording sessions, but I’m not going to do a lot of that like Let It Be because they’re all boring, those things. But there is one song that we can show bits of all the way through, which is ‘How?’ from nothing to the finished thing.
And there might be one I’ll sing all the way through, which is ‘Give Me Some Truth’, because they’ve taped it at the right speed. Others I’ll use as background songs – I don’t know how many to put in yet – backgrounds to Yoko’s artworks downstairs, and there’ll be some shots of us in the house, and the garden, and then the contrast with some of the New York stuff which was shot by other people – and the guy [Jonas Mekas] that always shoots very fast with stills and single-frame stuff. There’s scenes of the party and on the boat, and some from Yoko’s session.”
It’s the kind of publicity you just can’t get under normal circumstances. But everyone wants it. Donald Trump, still pretending to be president of the United States, called former friend and White House staffer a “dog” this morning on Twitter.
Meantime, Omarosa Manigault-Newman’s book about Trump, called “Unhinged,” opened on the Amazon Books best seller list at number 5.
Donald unhinged? Never.
When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn’t work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2018
Exclusive:
Sony Music’s Clive Davis proposed this idea to Aretha Franklin in late June: an all-star tribute concert to commemorate her 60 years in show business. her 18 Grammy Awards, and six decade impact on music from pop to R&B to opera.
The date is November 14th for “Clive Davis Presents: A Tribute to Aretha Franklin,” presented with Live Nation.
Even before Aretha’s health became a concern this spring, she and Davis discussed the idea at length. Indeed, they each mentioned it to me last month when I went to to Detroit to see Aretha. The Queen of Soul was beyond delighted. She personally approved Jennifer Hudson, who is slated to play Aretha in a biopic for Sony/Tri-Star, as one of the lead performers.
Aretha herself had hoped to be in the audience if not actually perform. If she can’t get there, the show will be live-cast to her in Detroit via any number of methods.
A fantasy line up: A real show covering her all hits would fill up three hours easily. You can imagine Stevie Wonder singing the hit he wrote for her, “Until You Come Back to Me.” Paul McCartney originally wrote “Let it Be” for Aretha. Franklin’s Grammy winning cover hit of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” has been described by Paul Simon has his favorite version. Aretha also had a hit with Dionne Warwick’s “I Say a Little Prayer.” She also scored with Elton John’s “Border Song.” Aretha won a Grammy covering Sam & Dave’s “Hold On I’m Coming,” which Sam Moore could perform. Ditto on “Don’t Play That Song for Me.”
And then, of course, think of all the other hits– from “Respect,” “Chain of Fools,” “Think,” Carole King’s “Natural Woman,” and the two monster hits Aretha wrote for herself– “Daydreamin” and “Rock Steady.”
Here’s something you may not know: before Nile Rodgers offered “Upside Down” to Diana Ross, he tried to persuade Aretha to sing it. She just wasn’t feeling it, though. A couple of years ago, I got them on the phone together and they reminisced about it. “I still don’t think it was for me,” Aretha said to me later. “Diana was the right one!”
Where was Ronald Perelman last night?
The owner and chairman of Revlon was mysteriously absent Saturday night from the annual fundraiser he hosts for the Apollo Theater. Perelman very often “plays drums” with the Roots, the house band. Last night’s performers included Sting with Shaggy, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Chaka Khan, Pharrell Williams, Mavis Staples, Jamie Foxx, and, of course, Jon Bon Jovi.
There were plenty of A list celebrities (Jimmy Fallon, Robert Downey Jr., Christie Brinkley) at the show, which takes place at Perelman’s massive property called The Creeks, in Wainscott, the village between East Hampton and Bridgehampton.
But there was no sign of Perelman himself, who never misses the event. As one reveler put it, “he’d have to have been pretty sick to miss this.”
So what happened? Perelman’s spokesman tells me that he came down with a bacterial infection on Friday and had a temperature of 103. He spent the night in Cornell Medical Center, New York Hospital. “He’s home now and doing much better,” says the rep.
This is exclusive, and heart breaking for me and for the family and friends of the great Aretha Franklin. She is gravely ill in Detroit. The family is asking for prayers and privacy.
Originally diagnosed with cancer in 2010, Aretha, who turned 76 in March, bravely battled back and refused to be knocked out by illness. Her last performance as on November 2, 2017 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in New York. Her final public performance was at Philadelphia’s Mann Center in August 2017. It was a miraculous show as Aretha was already then fighting exhaustion and dehydration.
Aretha is surrounded by family and people close to her. She will be so missed as a mother, sister, friend, cousin. But her legacy is larger than life. It’s not just that Rolling Stone called her the number 1 singer of all time, or that she is the Queen of Soul. Long live the Queen.
More to come…
Someone in the Trump White House was dubbed “The White House Barbie.” A TMZ videographer caught up with Omarosa at National Airport and asked about sex in the White House. She replied, “There were some people gettin’ it on in the White House.” The interviewer throws out the name Hope Hicks. Omarosa replies, “Oh yeah, she’s the big one.”
SUNDAY PM UPDATE: “Unhinged” has risen to number 16 on amazon based on advance orders. Evidently, people who saw her on Meet the Press believed her.
SUNDAY UPDATE: Omarosa appeared on Meet the Press this morning. She says that since she finished her book and it was published she’s heard the tapes of Trump using the “n” word. She has her own tapes of General Kelly firing her, among other things. She told Chuck Todd she’d love it if the White House released her human resources record. “Unhinged” is at number 36 on amazon.com. right now. She appears on The Today Show tomorrow morning.
SATURDAY: Today Donald Trump labelled his old friend and employee, Omarosa Maniguault Newman, a “low life.” Reporters had asked about Omarosa’s book, coming on Tuesday, called “Unhinged.”
But Trump’s usual lowbrow sticks and stones inarticulate put down won’t work this time. “Unhinged” is already number 37 on Amazon, and 164 on Amazon’s Kindle service. She appears Sunday morning. By Tuesday when the book is released, “Unhinged” will be number 1.
NPR reports that Omarosa may have already contradicted herself in an interview with them vs. what’s in the book. But the fact is, Omarosa has had more access to Donald Trump than most over the last generation. Once she competed in “The Apprentice,” she stuck around to do Trump’s bidding.
Salacious? Unverifiable? Something tells me Omarosa is going to win a TKO in this round. Trump can call her all the names he wants. She has the goods. He gave them to her.