Sunday, September 29, 2024
Home Blog Page 189

Drew Barrymore Apologizes for Doing Show During Strikes, But It’s Too Bad, She’s Going To Anyway: “It’s Complex”

0

Drew Barrymore is a good little actress.

Almost in tears, the “ET” star says she’s sorry, she doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but she’s doing her talk show despite the WGA and SAG strikes.

She says it’s complex. She’s says she’s had a lot of ups and downs in her life, and this one of them.

Poor Drew. Maybe CBS Paramount TV has threatened to kill her children, I don’t know. But her staff had better start treating audiences with more respect. There have been reports of people wearing strike pins being thrown out. Not a good look.

Drew: you could pay your staff and not put on the show. If it’s about money, your producing partner is married to your friend, Jimmy Fallon. He’s paying his staff and doing gigs to support them. Get your act together!

Celebrity Divorce Court: Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness Splitting Up After 27 Years

0

It’s been a busy time for Hollywood divorce lawyers.

New to the game are Hugh Jackman and Deborra Lee Furness. They’ve been married 27 years. She’s 13 years his senior. I don’t think people are that surprised but still, it’s sad when any long relationship ends.

The couple — who have two kids, Oscar, 23, and Ava, 18 — told People magazine:

“We have been blessed to share almost 3 decades together as husband and wife in a wonderful, loving marriage. Our journey now is shifting and we have decided to separate to pursue our individual growth. Our family has been and always will be our highest priority. We undertake this next chapter with gratitude, love, and kindness. We greatly appreciate your understanding in respecting our privacy as our family navigates this transition in all of our lives.”

Jackman has made a fortune with his X Men and Wolverine movies, as well as “The Greatest Showman on Earth.” When the strikes are over he’ll be featured in the next Deadpool movie with Ryan Reynolds. Furness will leave with a nice chunk of change.

Trump Calls His Prosecutor Jack Smith “Deranged” and “Lunatic” on “Meet the Press” This Sunday

NBC is really hyping Kristen Welker’s debut on “Meet the Press” this Sunday. Her guest is Donald Trump, who seems to lie to her repeatedly and she just takes it. I guess NBC doesn’t care if this is just like the CNN Town Hall with Kaitlan Collins. They just want eyes.

In this clip, Trump calls his prosecutor Jack Smith “deranged” and a “lunatic.” He also says he’ll testify in his trials. I sure hope these prosecutors are better at dealing with him than these TV reporters. They are useless. Too bad about Welker — she seemed smarter.

RIP The American Music Awards This Year, They’ve Been Sidelined for the Billboard Music Awards Maybe Forever

0

If you were wondering why you haven’t heard about the American Music Awards, here’s the reason there’s been silence.

There aren’t any.

Usually the AMAs would come in November. But this year, the November 19th date has gone to the Billboard Awards.

And get this: two months out, no one knows how the BBMAs will even be shown to the public. No network deal has been announced/

I’m told the BBMAs may be a virtual show, with clips and pre-taped acceptances. It could very well be a streaming event and not on TV.

What happened to the AMAs? Dick Clark Productions, which produces them, was bought by the same company that owns Billboard magazine (and also Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline.com, Rolling Stone, and Women’s Wear Daily). So the survival of the AMAs collapsed on a branding issue. It was more important to emphasize the Billboard name.

Prior to this all happening, the BBMAs were on in the spring. It could be, I am told, they would trade positions and the AMAs would take that spot. But as it stands now, there’s no plan for them at all.

An insider points out that with the MTV VMA ratings this past Sunday — fewer than 1 million people watched across several channels — there may not be a financial place for the AMAs anyway.

Dick Clark Productions has a bigger headache right now. They still haven’t made a deal for the return of the Golden Globes. That awards show’s contract with NBC ended in controversy over membership– they had no Black members. They missed year because of it. Then NBC allowed them back for a year, and the ratings were miserable.

If NBC doesn’t take the Globes back, where could they go? Maybe Fox is the answer. ABC can’t do it because of the Oscars. CBS has the Tonys, Grammys and the Kennedy Center Honors. (They also have a bad history with the Globes pre-NBC.)

The Globes could go to Netflix or Amazon Prime, where the heat would be off. But the Globes also have the problem that they will be announced a week before a huge Hollywood weekend this January. In a space of a few days over Martin Luther King weekend, the Critics Choice, the Emmys, the AFI luncheon, and the Oscars Governor Awards will all happen. That first weekend in January for the Globes has been siloed. If the strikes are over, the stars will likely concentrate on the Big Weekend. The Globes may have trouble attracting an A list crowd in the audience.

In the meantime. RIP AMAs. They were always kind of shady deal anyway, the lesser stepsister of the Grammys.


Trump Gasses On About Electric Cars in Light of UAW Strike: “Pose Various Dangers Under Certain Atmospheric Conditions”

0

It’s a given that Donald Trump is a gas bag and a Luddite, a man who stands for the backward direction of humanity.

But his rant this morning against electric cars is simply hilarious. I don’t even think it has anything to do with Elon Musk. Trump fears progress on any level. He’d like a car fueled by Ivermectin.

And this has nothing to do with UAW workers. He could give a rat’s ass about them.

Like all his rally followers, UAW workers would never be allowed in his home for 10 seconds. He just wants to live in 1955, a simpler time when his parents were racists and treated him like crap. The good old days.

Electric cars, Trump declares, pose “certain atmospheric dangers.” He’s suddenly worried about the atmosphere? LOL. He himself is a giant pollutant.

BTW It does look like Trump wrote Electric Chairs, realized it and then crossed out part of the second word. Even better!

Renewed Contract Talks Between Studios and Writers Union Was a Surprise to WGA Leaders on Just-Finished Call (Exclusive)

0

The good news is that next week talks will resume between the Writers Guild of America and the studios aka the AMPTP. There had been an impasse and a lot of scuttlebutt about TV showrunners trying to take over negotiations. (It wasn’t true, they were just frustrated.)

The announcement of the meeting between both sides came in the late afternoon. But I can tell you exclusively that the news was shock to 50 or so “Captains” of the WGA strike. They had been on 90 minute Zoom call just prior to the announcement and no one in the upper echelons even mentioned that talks were back on.

“They read about it on Deadline.com,” says an insider of the trade online site that broke the news.

“All through the call the captains were asking what they could tell their teams to boost them up about the strike. Was there an end in sight? And all they were told was, stay the course, you’re doing the right thing.”

It’s hoped that next week’s meeting will actually contain talks, or be the prelude to immediate talks after so much time has passed. The TV networks can’t afford to let the strikes go on much longer without jeopardizing the 2023-24 season entirely. That would mean game shows and sports specials and no episodic TV at all unless everyone returns to work in the next month, says a source.

Do Wah Diddy: Sean Combs is the Ed Sullivan of Jazzy Hip Hop on “The Love Album: Off the Grid” with 30 Guest Stars and Phil Collins’ Drumset

0

Sean Diddy Combs’s new album, “The Love Album: Off the Grid,” should have been called “Clearances.”

I would love to be the lawyer whose billable hours went into clearing all the bits and pieces of samples and “interpolations” on this record. That alone would probably make a book,

There are approximately 30 guest stars on this album who contributed to 26 tracks. But there are maybe one or two whole songs that sound finished and not just rambling meanders at a late night cocktail party. There are certainly a lot of strings, no doubt made on a computer. (They don’t sound human.)

One way to get into “Off the Grid”: think of it as a throwback to The Ed Sullivan Show, with Diddy presenting acts draped against his own red-velvet curtain imagination.

On the album’s one true single, The Weeknd’s “Another One Like Me,” Phil Collins’ drumbeat from “In the Air Tonight” punctuates the production over and over. Let’s hope Phil was remunerated well for his time. There are versions of this song already all over YouTube that work better than this one, minus Collins and more economically cut.

Diddy does not know the meaning of “too much.” He also can’t grasp having a beginning, middle, and end to a song. Justin Bieber’s “Moments” starts strong but waffles even during its strongest moments. Still, I’d love to see the credits for the musicians on this track. It may turn out to be Bieber’s comeback if played right. (But why does it drift off? I wish it had an ending.)

There are a couple of tracks in which you might be able to make sense of what’s happening. I really like “Stay Awhile,” with vocals by a singer named Nija that sounds like its underpinning comes from Herb Alpert’s “Rise.” The track is just two minutes thirty five seconds, which makes it considerably shorter than most of the “songs” on this album. Diddy’s rap even sounds like it fits in. The same can be said for the track that immediately follows, called “Homecoming” featuring Jozzy. Teyana Taylor is lucky to get a succinct song called “Closer to God.” There’s also a nice turn from HERMusic aka Gabrielle Wilson at the end of the album, but I’d like to hear her version.

Maybe you could call “Off the Grid” cubist or mixed media. Diddy is going for a jazzy angle, that’s for sure, and a very “Quiet Storm” sort of melange. On the 7 minute tribute to Diddy’s late ex, Kim Porter, by John Legend and Babyface, the whole thing is thrown in doubt. But when he hits gold, as with Jeremih– on a lovely little song called “Boohoo– you actually feel like he’s totally in control. Diddy’s specialty is being able to hear the bits and pieces — he or someone must have listened to hundreds of hours of previously recorded music — and jigsaw them all together. For example: a track called “Intermission” is the repurposing of a more recent recording by Stax songwriter David Porter. He’s not even listed as the singer on Diddy’s album. And unless the clearance people come knocking, no one will know the difference.

Strike Fallout: ABC’s “General Hospital” Has Lost 300,000 Viewers Since May 1st, Hit Lowest Ever This Month

0

What is going on with ABC’s “General Hospital”?

I told you earlier today that one veteran actor is taking time off to battle blood cancer, so that’s first.

But now it seems that the show’s ratings are also ailing. Two weeks ago, the number of total viewers dropped to 1.8 million, the lowest ever or in anyone’s recent memory.

On May 1st, the soap had 2.1 million viewers, and that was also the case a year ago.

What’s happening here? Since the middle to end of June the show has been using scripts supplied by scabs of writers who’ve elected to be fi-core (keep writing, forfeit union benefits like voting). The new writers may have changed storylines and characters’ prominence. These things can make fans unhappy.

Disney-ABC has also had fights with various carriers resulting in their shows not being broadcast everywhere. But a lot of that is recent, and doesn’t account totally for the drop off.

Of course all three remaining broadcast soaps have had big dips this summer. A fourth show, “Days of our Lives,” airs on NBC’s Peacock and doesn’t release numbers.

“General Hospital” is starting to try stunt casting to bring back viewers. They announced today that Rena Sofer, last seen on the show 26 years ago, is returning. They’ve also been bringing back characters from now defunct ABC soaps “All My Children” and “One Life to Live.”

Something had better goose the numbers soon, or there will likely be changes when the strikes are over.

Strike News: Is CBS’s “The Talk” Really Coming Back Next Week? They Taped a Rehearsal Today, But So Far There’s No Way to Reserve Tickets

0

Is CBS’s “The Talk” coming back next week?

The word was the afternoon chat show was returning on Monday September 18th, same as Drew Barrymore’s show. It’s been off the air since May when the WGA strike began, as opposed to “The View” on ABC which has been live almost the whole time without writers.

Both shows are produced by CBS, but “The Talk” comes from Los Angeles while “Drew” is in New York. The latter show is now the subject of a very active protest and picket line, which is harming its PR.

So far there is no way to reserve audience tickets for “The Talk” next week. On the site for 1iota.com, there are tickets for “The View,” “Live with Kelly and Mark,” and other live shows. There is nothing for “The Talk.” One Twitter follower got a message from 1iota that the show was on hold until after the strikes are resolved.

On the CBS website there’s no mention of the new season of “The Talk.”

One person on “The Talk” who may be fighting the return is host Jerry O’Connell. He’s been photographed on the SAG picket line many times. (His Instagram page is full of supporting photos.) He’s a member and so is his wife, actress Rebecca Romijn. As glib as O’Connell is, it’s unclear if he could steer a daily hour without writers.

At “The Talk” production office in Los Angeles, someone who answered the phone said they had no idea if the show was returning next week.

PS I’m told they taped a rehearsal today, and will return on Monday without writers. The show will be ad-libbed live.

Hamptons Film Fest Scores Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” “Nyad,” “The Holdovers,” Paul Simon Doc, “Rustin,” and Ron Delsener Doc Among Others

0

The Hamptons Film Festival schedule is up, and it’s quite exciting.

The fest secured Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” for closing night, plus a raft of heavy hitters including George C. Wolfe’s “Rustin,” Alex Gibney’s Paul Simon doc, and Jake Sumner’s great film about concert impresario Ron Delsener. A big attraction coming is Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers” starring Paul Giamatti, which is so good there will be lines around the block!

Simon will turn up for a Q&A as well.

Netflix has a heavy hand in the proceedings. Along with “Rustin” and “Maestro,” they also have the opening night film, “Nyad,” plus Todd Haynes’ “May December” starring local actress Julianne Moore. They are all being touted for Best Picture nominations. “Nyad” is exceptional– well so is “Rustin.” (Haven’t seen the other two yet.)

I’m really excited to see “Orlando, My Political Biography,” directed by Paul B. Preciado, which tells stories of transition through unique reenactments and visual interpretations of Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando.” It’s my favorite of Woolf’s novels. Read it before the festival, it will blow your mind!

I’m also curious to see Frederick Wiseman’s “Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troigrois,” which centers on the day-to-night operations of the legendary French restaurant Troisgros, founded 93 years ago and currently being passed down to the 4th generation in a family of chefs.

There are lots of other activities including a tribute to “Past Lives” director Celine Song who will receive the 2023 Breakthrough Artist Award.

The festival runs from October 5th to the 12th. All the info is at  https://hamptonsfilmfest.org/