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Jennifer Hudson to Play Winnie Mandela

Roger Friedman
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We told you back on October 21st, that Jennifer Hudson was going to play Winnie Mandela.

This morning came the press release, only a month late. It’s ok! The Oscar-winner will be directed by Darrell Roodt in an indie production. More casting will be announced shortly…

…Members of Aerosmith are now giving joint interviews stating the obvious: they’re sick to death of lead singer Steven Tyler’s behavior. His surprise appearance at a solo Joe Perry show this month didn’t win him any friends. Perry says Tyler walked in, took over his stage, sang, and left. They still haven’t spoken…

…’The Twilight Saga: New Moon” will break all kinds of records this weekend, and bring in millions of teenage girls. It’s really a terrible movie, though, just picks up where the first one ended with no explanation. It reminded me of a Saturday afternoon adventure film. If you’d never seen episode 1 you’d have no idea what was going on. It also looks as cheap as “Mamma Mia,” and that’s saying something. Filmmakers skipped ‘depth of field’ and concentrated on bad dialogue. The whole thing had less appeal than a “Gidget” movie. Rob Pattinson, the star, is a poor man’s Luke Perry. Yikes…

…Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” got some of the best reviews ever for Moore. But it tanked at the boxoffice and now it’s been eliminated from Oscar competition. What went wrong? One word: Marketing. One more word: hubris. Moore was paid upwards of $25 million for this one. That left the distributor out of funds for anything. It’s too bad. Considering the state of the economy, Moore’s film might be of interest to a lot of people. But the commercials showing him clowning around on Wall Street with “crime scene” tape didn’t help. This was a serious film. It wasn’t treated that way…

Oprah’s End: As Predicted in November 2008

Roger Friedman
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Old news is new news this evening: Oprah Winfrey wraps up her syndicated talk show in 2011. She’ll announce it tomorrow on the show. I wrote about it in November 2008.

Winfrey’s extraordinary 25-year run has made her a multibillionaire. She also leaves a mostly knockout legacy for supporting and promoting the right causes. She’s also become one of the world’s biggest and influential philanthropists.

But all things must come to an end. And with Winfrey, it just means a beginning. She will move her show and her power to her own cable channel — called OWN — jointly owned with the Discovery Channel. The word “own” is the most important one here. No one will ever own Oprah but Oprah.

Not everything Oprah’s done has been perfect. As I reported last year, Winfrey’s Achilles Heel is her interest in power. When the paperwork was filed for her Leadership Academy in South Africa, it turned out she’d accepted $5 million from the same Republican who’d sponsored anti-Obama commericals in 2008 and anti-John Kerry commercials in 2004. She’s even good friends with the guy — even though it was Oprah who launched Obama on her show.

Still unresolved from Oprah’s run is her autobiography. She almost published the book several years ago with Knopf, then called it back at the last minute. Winfrey believes in a shallow transparency: She wants her audience to know which throw pillows she likes bes, but as little about her personal life as possible. It’s quite a change from the original Oprah, who talked about being raped and molested and used to do interviews from the audience. She built her show’s success by identifying with the audience. Eventually, she dropped that stance, and the populist program.

Last year, Oprah may have jumped the shark when she went a little too crazy for gobbledygook New Age guru Eckhart Tolle. She promoted his books and conducted online seminars about his flaky philosophies. It seemed like she was starting a cult.

But the real cult is of Oprah. And on OWN or wherever she goes next, her audience will follow her. And with a few missteps here or there, she will lead them someplace worthwhile.

Broadway Donuts via “Spinal Tap” Taste Good

Roger Friedman
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The best play to see right now on Broadway: Tracey Letts’s’ “Superior Donuts” It’s superior in every way.

Letts wrote the award-winning “August: Osage County,” which was much different, a classic drama about a family.

“Donuts,” however, is a laugh out loud comedy. Last night, on a Tuesday night of all things, when Broadway is usually sleepy, I got a kick out of listening to the “Donuts” audience burst into laughter over and over.

And why not? Michael McKean, best known from “This Is Spinal Tap,” the Christopher Guest movies, and as Lenny (his partner was Squiggy) on “Laverne and Shirley” plays the owner of a well established Chicago lunch counter. He’s also a widower with a sad past, but he makes great donuts. Jon Michael Hill makes his stunning Broadway debut as’ Franko, a 21 year-old black kid who comes to work for McKean’s Arthur and changes his life with a fresh perspective. The play is about family and friendship; it’s deceptively simple, but it resonates.

Last night we got another treat ”Marilyn Dodds Frank, sister of well known journalist Allan Dodds Frank (CNN, Bloomberg. The Daily Beast) ‘ made her debut as understudy to fluish Jane Alderman. Alan brought his twin 15 year-old daughters to kvell over Aunt Marilyn. Brava!

Penelope Still Not Pregnant; Tim Burton’s Sparse Cast List

Roger Friedman
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58947689How weird things must have been last night at the after party for Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces,” which finally gets released on Friday.

Star Penelope Cruz went to the screening to take pictures on the red carpet, but skipped the party. She’s gearing up for a possible Oscar nomination for “Nine,” anyway. Pedro himself was nowhere to be seen.

Has anyone noticed that Penelope was never pregnant, isn’t pregnant, didn’t have a baby, and isn’t engaged to be married? All of that was breathlessly and definitively “reported” earlier this spring and summer by tbe celeb mags. None of it was true. But wow ‘ it filled airwaves, pages and websites for a while.

Indeed, the pictures on the WireImage photo website are pretty funny. The turn out was so threadbare that the posted pictures include those of gossip queens Liz Smith and Cindy Adams, gossip princes George Rush and Sean Evans, and “Cinema Society” publicist Andrew Saffir with his boyfriend. I’m surprised that the paparazzi didn’t start taking pictures of themselves!

Also pictured from the “Embraces” party: a couple of actors who’d already been on the red carpet uptown at the Museum of Modern Art tribute to director Tim Burton. With a couple of costume changes, celeb guests like “Precious” star Gabby Sidibe and Rose Byrne from the TV show “Damages” managed to get two photo ops in one night!

Those MoMA parties usually feature a director’s various casts over the years. But Burton tends to work with just two actors over and over: his wife, Helena Bonham Carter, and Johnny Depp. They’re the stars of all his movies! That narrowed the guest list considerably. And with Depp there, that eliminated an appearance by Winona Ryder, his Burtonesque “Edward Scissorhands” co-star and ex girlfriend. Too bad: Winona was also the star of Burton’s really wonderful “Beetlejuice.”

There are, however, a lot of “atmosphere” pictures from the party: floral arrangments, desserts, etc.

The night’s producers did offer the Olsen Twins, who are so troll-like and scary that Burton should make a movie about them right away! And Billy Crudup did attend: he’s the star of one of Burton’s best movies (and most underappreciated), “Big Fish.”

There was a better showing on Monday night at Feinstein’s, where Gregory Generet’s jazz cabaret show sold out the room. Among his guests: legendary actress Cicely Tyson, and country superstar Larry Gatlin. It was absolutely the only time those two had ever been in the same place!

Michael Jackson Kids See “Twilight: New Moon”

Roger Friedman
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Michael Jackson’s kids are in a good news, bad news situation: two nights ago they quietly attended the Los Angeles premiere of “Twilight: New Moon.” Prince, Paris and Blanket went with family friends, got in through a side door, saw the teen vampire fest and didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “They loved it,” a friend told me.

With the kids: nanny Grace Rwaramba. She’s living in the Jackson house on Hayvenhurst in Encino, and is paid to watch the kids. As she did when Michael was alive, Grace has been put in the position of surrogate mother. It’s a little strange as she married her second husband earlier this year, a fellow Ugandan. Also, what happened to Rebbie, Michael’s eldest sister? She and Grace had a physical fight during the summer over the kids. Now Rebbie is gone.

But it’s a weird situation at best. Katherine Jackson was appointed the three kids’ guardian by the court. Yet she is not always with them. Mrs. Jackson travels, apparently: to London to see one son, to Phoenix to see her sister, and so on. “She can’t be there all the time,” says an insider.

And this has made Grace’s role problematic. Some people in the Hayvenhurst house want her gone. I received one call insisting that Rwaramba took the kids to “Twilight” without Mrs. Jackson’s knowledge and that the grandmother didn’t know where the kids were. Another caller insisted that everything was fine, and that Mrs. Jackson had agreed to the evening’s plan. And still in the middle of this, there are questions about who’s tutoring these children, and what kind of education they’re receiving at home.

And have they seen their father’s movie, “This Is It”? One source says no, but at the house the word is that Elizabeth Taylor took them to a screening.

Meanwhile, I reported on Monday that Disneyland was reactivating “Captain Eo” in January. But the Jackson estate has never given its approval to the revival of the 3D movie as an attraction. Insiders say that Disney, a family company, is acting on its own. Sounds like trouble down the road.

Rob Marshall’s “Nine” Love Fest Begins

Roger Friedman
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Rob Marshall’s “Nine” is finally making the rounds of early screenings, really early, and getting lots of love.

Over the weekend it was apparently shown to visiting press junketeers, members of the Directors Guild, the Hollywood Foreign Press, and the British Academy. At the DGA, Nora Ephron hosted the screening, then interviewed director Rob Marshall afterward.

It’s too early for reviews ‘ opening day isn’t until mid December and there’s still not a final print. But there’s a lot of buzz for the actors, starting with’ Daniel Day Lewis, Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard. Here’s a clip

Not to say the many other famous women don’t score; they do. Each of them ”Fergie, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Sophia Loren ‘ have smaller roles (as well as a show-stopping number). Here’s the trailer

Kidman, however, is getting a lot of kudos for her performance of the show’s hit, “Unusual Way.” Geffen Records may wind up putting it out as a single. You may recall that Nicole had a hit record a few years back on a duet with Robbie Williams of “Something Stupid.”

A couple of the numbers are already floating around on YouTube as fans seem to be making their own videos in anticipation of the real thing:’ Fergie’s “Be Italian” is sensational as one of the songs designed to make people leave the theater humming. And Kate Hudson’s “Cinema Italiano,” written for the movie, looks like a knockout in this new trailer

I did a hear a funny story from the international press junket. Sophia Loren, who is so magnificent and legendary, had to get used to Daniel Day Lewis staying in character all the time. Someone asked her about it, though, after the American actresses all sort of nodded and said it had been fine for them. Loren, though, laughed when she was asked: “It was very strange!” she exclaimed, shaking her head.

As for Oscars and all that jazz: it does seem as though Marion C will wind up in the lead actress category, alongside Meryl Streep, Gabby Sidibe, Carey Mulligan, and Helen Mirren, maybe. Penelope goes into Supporting, with Patricia Clarkson, Mo’Nique, Julianne Moore, and maybe Diane Kruger or Mariah Carey. The various races have begun! It’s a good thing January is such a long month.

Warner Music’s Mysterious Stock Price Rise

Roger Friedman
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The new top 10 CDs this week: albums from Sony/Columbia/Epic, Arista, Capitol, Decca, etc.

The only one from the Warner Music Group family, at number 10. It’s the Zac Brown Band, a jolly six man southern fried country blues bar band that is mostly unknown above the Mason Dixon line. That’s all right. They’ve got an authentic Georgia sound. And they’re keeping Edgar Bronfman, Jr and Lyor Cohen in Bentleys and Hamptons homes. Let’s hope Zac and co are living that well!

WMG also has numbers 11 and 12, too, but that point the sales numbers are cool.

In fact, WMG has had trouble turning the soundtrack to the new “Twilight” movie into a hit.

While the other labels do their best to make new artists work, WMG is kind of a mess. And yet yesterday, once again, they had a little run up in their stock price. Why? Who knows? Someone, no doubt. Make sense? Not a bit. Indeed, not a single album on the charts bears the actual Warner name.

This happens, though. Every quarter, right before an analyst conference call, WMG has a blip. Then comes the bad news. And the usual fall off. The next call is November 24th the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. That’s when Edgar Bronfman Jr will bring out the turkey. Or maybe a goose, and we’ll see if it’s cooked.

“Once” Again: Couple Split, But Music Lives

Roger Friedman
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swell season 300x250 Once Again: Couple Split, But Music LivesRemember Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the movie “Once“? They starred in the hit film together, won an Oscar for Best Song, had a bestselling soundtrack. They even got together in real life. It seems so long ago now, 2007. Time flies!

Well, they’re back, only they split as a couple. Glen tells me they’re “just friends.” They’re now called The Swell Season. They’re sort of like Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. And they’ve got a new, terrific album called “Strict Joy.” The first single should be a hit if, you know, radio stations still played music by people over 12. It’s called “Low Rising.” Here’s the video.

“Strict Joy” is almost all original material. But come on, they’re Irish ‘ they had to cover Van Morrison. And so “Into the Mystic” gets treated reverentially at first, and then it soars. Hansard is a stirring Irish vocalist, as Irish vocalists can be. Marketa makes a perfect counterpoiut.

No, they don’t have the hook of a new film. I joked with Glen they should have called the new album “Once Again.” But they’re trying to move on. Let’s move on with them!

The Swell Season tour kicks off tonight in Mesa, Arizona.

By the way, despite the “Once” soundtrack being on Sony/Epic, Glen decided to leave the big label world. The Swell Season is signed to hot indie label, Anti. What are they Anti? You can guess.

Rosie Gets Ready for Broadway

Roger Friedman
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Rosie O’Donnell’s coming to Broadway for one night only ‘ next Monday, November 23rd.

She’s raising money for her Broadway Kids and Maravel Arts Center at the famed Palace Theater on West 47th St. And she’s putting on a tribute to Queen Latifah, who’d better sing ‘ I think she will. She’s sensational.

Among the guests is Gavin Creel of “Hair,” Nikki Blonsky of the “Hairspray”movie, Melinda Doolitte, and Montego Glover, star of “Memphis.” Also, Rosie’s kids from the Maravel Center will put on their own number ‘ and I am telling you, these kids are all Broadway bound. It’s a remarkable group over there on the West Side. Plus I am told that there will be surprise guests. Very cool.

There are still a few tickets available. ‘Donating to Rosie’s charities is like a “best bet.” She runs a tight ship, and the results are always on view over at Maravel.

Paul Allen’s Cancer: A Year or More of Illness, Really

Roger Friedman
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Microsoft co-founder and major philanthropist Paul Allen announced last night he has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — certainly upsetting news. Everyone is rooting for him.

But when did Allen really become ill again? It’s anyone’s guess what exactly is going on with the 56-year-old owner of the Portland Trailblazers, Seattle Seahawks and recently bankrupt Charter Communications.

Last May, Allen abruptly left the Cannes Film Festival and his famed 414 foot yacht, the Octopus, and returned to Seattle. Allen — reportedly worth $10.5 billion — loves to party, and had tons of celebs partying hard. But his closest friends insisted to me that the cancer was back, and that he needed immediate treatment. Here’s the column I filed.

In fact, Allen’s people were obsessed with keeping press off the boat during the one party he did attend. The reports that came back were that the normally fleshy multi-billionaire was alarmingly thin.

Here’s what Allen looked like on June 9, when he turned up at a Blazers game.

Allen’s spokesman denied everything, and even denied he’d been sick through the prior year. But now it turns out that Allen had heart valve replacement surgery, at least, in that time. At the end of this past September he told a writer from the Portland Oregonian that he was “feeling much better” after hitting “a few bumps in the road.”

So who knows what’s really going on? Allen’s PR people are not going to tell us the truth. For example, this new release of info claims that he was diagnosed early last month — meaning October. But check out this picture from September 15; Allen’s change in appearance was being questioned then.

Of course, the irony can’t be lost on Allen: We wouldn’t be able to go back and have all these links and easy access to his history if he and Bill Gates hadn’t invented all this stuff. Same goes for Apple’s Steve Jobs and his illness.

We can only hope he’s on the mend now, and that he’s back in his beloved South of France — where he also has a massive estate — by next year’s Cannes Film Festival — and playing his guitar with Jon Bon Jovi and friends.

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