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Netflix’s “American Fiction” Starring Jeffrey Wright Wins Toronto Audience Award, Beats “The Holdovers” with Paul Giamatti

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The Toronto Film Festival Awards have been announced. “American Fiction,” starring Jeffrey Wright and from Netflix, won the Audience Award.

“American Fiction,” directed by Cord Jefferson, notably beat “The Holdovers,” starring Paul Giamatti and directed by Alexander Payne.

The second runner-up is The Boy and the Heron directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

All three of these films will now get their awards chances boosted at least for a few minutes until more films that weren’t at TIFF are unveiled.

The TIFF 2023 People’s Choice Documentary Award winner is “Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe directed by Robert McCallum. The first runner-up is Summer Qamp directed by Jen Markowitz. The second runner-up is Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa dir. Lucy Walker.

The doc winners will all be in the mix on November 19th when the Critics Choice Awards hands out their documentary prizes in New York. The races are on!

Soap Actor Billy Miller Dies At Age 43, Won Three Daytime Emmy Awards, Appeared in “Suits,” “American Sniper” (UPDATED)

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Terribly sad news this morning that Billy Miller has died at age 43.

He won three Daytime Emmy Awards for his work on “General Hospital” and “The Young and the Restless.” He debuted on “All My Children.” On “Y&R” he had a brutally depressing storyline when his character’s child was killed in a car accident.

Miller also appeared in Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper,” and also had roles recently on “NCIS” and “Suits.”

He had no credits in 2023. According to reports he’d been suffering from bipolar disease and a neurological condition called PSP. It was reported that he died from a stroke.

Miller was a fan favorite and very popular. He will be missed. There’s an outpouring of messages from his colleagues on Twitter X. Sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Drew Barrymore Caves, Pauses TV Show: Will Other Daytime Hosts Follow? Will The Talk Have a Live Audience?

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Drew Barrymore has caved to critics and paused her TV show until after the strikes are resolved.

Now the question is will other daytime talk show hosts follow suit?

Kelly Clarkson. Jennifer Hudson, Tamron Hall, and The Talk are all scheduled to return this week. The Talk is the only live show, and it remains to be seen if they will have an audience in the studio. My feeling is they won’t. There’s been no way for the public to book tickets, and CBS is likely worried about audience members becoming boisterous during the proceedings.

Barrymore wrote on social media: “I have listened to everyone, and I am making the decision to pause the show’s premiere until the strike is over. I have no words to express my deepest apologies to anyone I have hurt and, of course, to our incredible team who works on the show and has made it what it is today. We really tried to find our way forward. And I truly hope for a resolution for the entire industry very soon.”

Barrymore had to give in to the Writers Guild — and to SAG — if she wanted to keep any reputation. After declaring her show would go on, she then issued an apology on Instagram. The apology appeared so vague and insincere, and self serving, that her publicist made her remove it. That made things worse.

Drew’s only choice now is to join the picket line tomorrow, which I’m sure she’ll do, to try and spin this disaster.

As for the other talk shows I mentioned, we’ll see what decisions they make today. The daytime talk shows are covered under a different contract than the night time shows. Technically they can proceed, but only with scab writers. Some, like “The View” and Kelly Ripa’s show, say they’re not using writers and just playing it off the cuff. Soap operas are using scabs but if they don’t, their audiences will vanish, they argue, and the shows will be cancelled.

Keep refreshing.

Jann Wenner Bounced from Rock Hall Board After Admitting He Has No Respect for Female, Black Music Artists

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The New York Times is reporting that Jann Wenner has been bounced from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board after his astonishing interview yesterday.

Wenner admitted that he no had no respect for female or Black artists in an interview to promote his coming book called “The Masters.”

He said that he didn’t included women or Blacks in his book of interviews because he didn’t care what they had to say.

This is not a surprise to anyone who’s followed Wenner the last 50 years. Every rock artists and rock writer has been aware of it. Wenner as head of the Rock Hall has obstructed the introduction of women consistently, and most R&B artists. I’ve been writing about this for years. Carly Simon was only inducted last year after waiting since she was eligible in 1996. Carole King was in as a writer but not. a performer despite having the biggest hit album of the 70s. Linda Ronstadt was also only recently inducted.

When the Rock Hall began, the original committee — headed by Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Ertegun — pushed in as many Atlantic, Stax, and Motown stars as possible. But as years passed, the number of Blacks getting in diminished, Black women especially. Every year, the inclusion of people like Dionne Warwick, Patti Labelle, Chaka Khan, Janet Jackson has caused fights among everyone involved.

That Wenner — pugilistic, contentious. self involved — blurted this out is amazing. But in the times I’ve seen him in the last couple of years he didn’t seem like he was all there. He’s had serious health setbacks like a heart attack so who knows what shape his mind is in. The filter may be gone.

Always great when a really bad guy reveals himself, regardless of health issues. This will now be Wenner’s legacy. It will be interesting to see how Rolling Stone — now run by son, Gus — addresses this.

Russell Branded: Has Been Comedian Accused of Rape by Four UK Women Including One Who Was Just 16

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This is the only way comedian Russell Brand, a has been, could have been relevant.

Four women in the UK. including one who was 16 at the time. have accused him of rape.

Earlier today Brand rushed out a YouTube video claiming the charges were coming and that all the relationships were consensual.

A notorious creep whose career has been moribund for well over a decade, Brand rebranded himself as a conservative voice in the UK. He was briefly married to singer Katy Perry, who escaped the relationship before things really went south.

You can read the whole exclusive report here.

Pop Sales Irony: Diddy’s New Off the Grid Album Lying Around Like a Lox — Bieber, Weekend Singles Not Selling

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Hey Justin Bieber fans: you do know that your boy has a track out with Diddy? It’s called “Moments.” So far after 20 hours it has only 74,000 views on YouTube.

Hey fans of The Weeknd: you do know your star has a new single out called “Another One Like Me” with Diddy, right? That one’s doing a little better with 389K views on YouTube, which isn’t that great.

And no one’s buying these singles on iTunes. The singles — at 38 and 45 — and the Diddy album, which were released last night, are lying around like a lox.

Not The Lox, who ironically was an artist on Sean Combs’s old label, Bad Boy Records. Diddy recently said he’d return the rights to Bad Boy artists now that no one wants them anymore. The records are 30 years old.

Diddy’s new release, “The Love Album: Off the Grid” is at number 8 on iTunes after almost 24 hours. There is no clamor for it from fans of any of the 30 artists on the collection. The lack of interest in the Bieber track is surprising, but he’s a little out of vogue at this point. The Weeknd may have really harmed himself with that HBO summer series, “The Idol.”

None of the songs are on the Spotify daily streaming chart. This is a far cry from Diddy’s halcyon days but don’t forget — they were catalyzed by him re-recording Sting’s Police song “Every Breath You Take” and passing it off as his own. This album has some nice tracks but nothing that leaps out. That may be the problem.

UPDATE Drew Barrymore Rescinds Apology, Removes Tear-Stained Hostage Video from Instagram (See Here)

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Drew Barrymore was excoriated today for her apology video concerning her show’s return during the Hollywood strikes.

Now the tear-stained ridiculous video has been removed from Instagram. Below are some clips.

Drew acted as if she was in a hostage video, not quite explaining why she had to come back. She said it was “complex.” Yet she was going ahead with the show regardless.

Next week’s episodes have been taped and will begin airing on Monday. Drew said in the video there would be no writers, but no one believes this– there will be scabs because you could not produce her show without scripts and research.

What a mess.

In the video she says:
“I believe there’s nothing I can do or say in this moment to make it OK. I wanted to own a decision, so that it wasn’t a PR-protected situation, and I would just take full responsibility for my actions. I know there is just nothing I can do that will make this OK for those that it is not OK with. I fully accept that. I fully understand that. There are so many reasons why this is so complex, and I just want everyone to know my intentions have never been in a place to upset or hurt anymore. It’s not who I am.”

“I’ve been through so many ups and downs in my life, and this is one of them. I deeply apologize to writers. I deeply apologize to unions. I deeply apologize… I don’t exactly know what to say because sometimes when things are so tough, it’s hard to make decisions from that place. So all I can say is that I wanted to accept responsibility. And no, I don’t have a PR machine behind this. My decision to go back to the show — I didn’t want to hide behind people, so I won’t.”

“I certainly couldn’t have expected this kind of attention, and we aren’t going to break rules and we will be in compliance. I wanted to do this, because as I said, this is bigger than me and there are other people’s jobs on the line. And since launching live in a pandemic, I just wanted to make a show that was there for people in sensitive times. And I weighed the scales and I thought if we could go on during a global pandemic, and everything that the world experienced through 2020, why would this sideline us?”

Pop Sizzle: Olivia Rodrigo Pulls in Impressive 300K First Week for Sophomore Album, “Guts”

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Olivia Rodrigo is back with a second album. It’s called “Guts.” First week sales show she has plenty.

Rodrigo’s sophomore effort debuted at number 1 today with 302,000 copies. Sales were evenly divided between streaming and paid downloads/CDs.

“Guts” sold three times the number of the second place finisher, called “Layover” by a group called V. Luckily both releases are on Geffen Records from Universal Music Group.

“Guts” revived sales of Rodrigo’s previous hit album, “Sour,” which sold 27,888 copies – most of which came from streaming.

Rodrigo is just 20 years old. She’s in hot demand for the Super Bowl show next February– when she will be two weeks shy of her 21st birthday. Rodrigo and NSync together? Hmmmm…

She performed Sunday on the MTV Video Music Awards.

Gag Response: Trump Rages on Social Media Against Prosecutor’s Motion to Limit Speech, Calls Jack Smith “Deranged” Again

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It never stops.

Donald Trump has issued his response to prosecutor Jack Smith’s new motion to limit his public outbursts.

Trump says Smith is deranged — in all caps — and takes swipes at Joe Biden, too.

He doesn’t understand that this kind of post is what Smith is trying to stop. I’m with Trump, I want more of this stuff, sarcastically.

In his motion, Smith references many of the irrational and threatening posts we’ve written about here.

Smith writes in his motion:

“The Government seeks a narrow, well – defined restriction that is targeted at extrajudicial
statements that present a serious and substantial danger of materially prejudicing this case. The
Government’s proposed order specifies that such statements would include (a ) statements
regarding the identity , testimony , or credibility of prospective witnesses ; and (b) statements about any party , witness , attorney , court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and
inflammatory, or intimidating.”

He concludes:

“Consistent with its obligations to guard the integrity of these proceedings and prevent
prejudice to the jury pool, while respecting the defendant’s First Amendment rights, the Court
should enter the proposed orders imposing certain narrow restrictions on the parties public
statements regarding this case and governing any jury studies the parties may undertake.”

Click here to read Smith’s motion.

Jann Wenner, Founder of Rolling Stone, Admits He Has No Respect for Black or Female Performers, Lets Subjects Edit Their Interviews

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The real Jann Wenner speaks today in the New York Times.

He says basically he has no interest in or respect for Black or female performers. He’s publishing a book in two weeks called “The Masters,” which is just with old white men like Bruce Springsteen and Bono.

David Marchese of the Times says to Wenner: “In the introduction, you acknowledge that performers of color and women performers are just not in your zeitgeist.”

Wenner responds: “When I was referring to the zeitgeist, I was referring to Black performers, not to the female performers, OK? Just to get that accurate. The selection was not a deliberate selection. It was kind of intuitive over the years; it just fell together that way. The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”

Wenner has always been a pig. As head of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame he obstructed the induction of Blacks and women for decades. It was only after he was ousted that Carly Simon and Linda Ronstadt were included. Carole King waited 25 years to get in as a performer. The late great Seymour Stein fought Wenner tooth and nail every year to get Black R&B legends into the Hall of Fame. How do I know? He told me, for years and years, in real time.

Wait, stop: Wenner didn’t think Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Joni Mitchell, or Joan Baez was smart enough to be included in his book.

Wenner, who was never a journalist, admits to Marchese that he reads interviews back to his subjects and lets them make corrections. He confesses that he did this with John Lennon 50 years ago in their famous interviews. Wenner has spent five decades shilling for his friends. That he’s admitted this now may mean he’s got mental deficits we didn’t know about.

Blech. Ignore this book.