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A couple of things popped up in the music world today…
The Daily Mail got all excited about Yoko Ono leaving her massive apartment in the Dakota. They said she was permanently decamping to the massive farm in upstate New York bought by her and John Lennon years ago.
Not so, I am told. “Yoko always divides her time between New York and Franklin,” says a source. “She’s not leaving the Dakota.”
Frankly, the story made no sense anyway. At 90, needing round the clock aides, Yoko is better off in the city near medical help. Also, her attentive son, Sean, lives in Manhattan and wouldn’t be shlepping up to Franklin, New York on a daily or even weekly basis.
Strawberry Fields are forever, and so is Yoko!
BEATLES ADJACENT NEWS: Dhani Harrison (George’s son, we know by now) has re-started Dark Horse Records, his dad’s old label. Besides George Harrison albums, Dark Horse will release Leon Russell’s “Signature Songs” on March 17th. This best-of package was out of print, previously on Leon’s own label. Right now a CD costs $63 on Amazon! But Dhani is sending out a beautiful new version on LP (for the first time), CD, streaming, and carrier pigeon! The album includes “A Song for You,” “This Masquerade,” “Delta Lady,” and all his other hits. Leon was a Legend. Elton John loved him so much he made a wonderful album with him. Long Live Leon!
Sally Field was so charming and made such a moving speech at Sunday night’s SAG Awards. After two Oscars and a bunch of Emmy Awards she certainly deserved her Lifetime Achievement Award. She’s currently in the hit film, “80 for Brady,” with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Rita Moreno.
But what we didn’t quite get was something no one said: Sally’s eldest son, Peter Craig, is nominated for an Oscar this year. He co-wrote the screenplay for “Top Gun: Maverick” with Justin Marks, Christopher McQuarrie, Ehren Kruger, and Eric Warren Singer. They’re up for Adapted Screenplay.
Peter Craig is the son of Sally and Steven Craig, Sally’s childhood sweetheart. Her other son with Craig is Eli Craig, also a film writer and director and well known mountain climber. Sally’s third son, Sam, is the son of the late movie exec Alan Greissman.
Peter Craig’s other credits include co-writing “The Batman,” Ben Affleck’s “The Town,” and “The Hunger Games” movies.
Why didn’t Sally mention this in her speech? You know mothers, maybe not to show favoritism. Or maybe someone told her not to promote the Oscars. Whatever– that’s a talented family!
I can’t say I’m surprised. This past weekend’s “SNL” was not a big draw.
The show featuring Woody Harrelson and Jack White was a low scorer for “SNL” after a run of higher numbers. A total of 4.1 million people watched the show. This is about what Michael B. Jordan pulled a couple of weeks ago. Then came Pedro Pascal, and a slight increase to 4.3 million.
All of this is down from Aubrey Plaza’s 4.8 million with Sam Smith as musical guest back on January 24th. The only difference that’s obvious is that Plaza came from a hip TV show, and Smith had had a big single all year and was sure to do something weird.
Woody Harrelson’s show was pretty bad. The only really funny sketch was the parody of “The Whale.” But it was very insidery. Jack White is a gifted guitarist but his “songs” sounded like screeching. Also, the opening Trump sketch just fell flat. Then Woody’s monologue was a nutty railing against vaccine mandates. He also seemed stoned.
And so we move on to the next one. It doesn’t look that promising with recent Super Bowl winner Travis Kelce, and musical guest Kelsea Ballerini. Kelce did a great job for Kansas City but he’s not Patrick Mahomes and I doubt many people know who he is or why he’s on “SNL.” Bellerini?
Anyway, Micky Dolenz, last surviving member of the seminal 60s pop band, performed on the Tonight Show with Jimmu Fallon and the Roots tonight. They played “Last Train to Clarksville” and it was pretty awesome.
Micky is going on tour doing Monkees hits this spring, and announced a book of photos (and I hope stories) coming this fall.
Fallon and Dolenz are old friends. They last did this in 2015. Just the best!
Actor Damian Lewis announced tonight on Stephen Colbert he’s returning to my favorite show, “Billions,” on Showtime.
Lewis left “Billions” a couple of years ago to take care of his wife, the late great actress Helen McCrory who died tragically from cancer two years ago.
“Billions” went through season 6 without Bobby, who fled the US ignominiously after a long, exciting duel to the finish with Paul Giamiatti’s Chuck Rhoades. But there was a lot of unfinished business, so now Season 7 will deal with that.
Lewis and Giamatti and “Billions” have gotten no Emmy awards. Showtime has done nothing for them. But now that Showtime is morphing into Paramount Plus, the “Billions” world is adding “Trillions” and “Zillions” — really — as spin offs, maybe Viacom will run a real campaign for these guys, not to mention David Costabile, Jeffrey DeMunn, and Maggie Siff as well as creators Brian Koppelman and David Levien.
By now you’ve heard that Rupert Murdoch’s deposition in the Dominion Voting Machine lawsuit has become public.
There’s a lot to say here: Murdoch admits that the Fox News anchors knew they were creating falsehoods about Donald Trump’s “stolen election.” None of them believed it, or believed Trump’s lawyers, Rudy Guiliani and Sydney Powell. Murdoch basically admits that Fox News anchors lie to their viewers.
And what’s it all about? Ratings. Everyone in these series of depositions now included in the summary judgement admits to fear of falling ratings. Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan, testified “that the drop in Fox’s ratings would keep me awake at night.”
The lying, the ingenuousness of the on air personalities, is not new to me. The fact is, during the decade I worked at Fox News, most of the anchors talked openly about being Democrats and putting on an act so they could keep their cushy jobs and high salaries. Everyone had kids in school and mortgages to pay off. Almost no one believed what they were saying on air.
The Murdoch deposition material is riveting because for some reason he just owns up to everything. In the course of his soul-baring, Murdoch also manages to throw his anchors under the bus, in addition to Fox News chief Suzanne Scott. The lawyer for Dominion goes through all the Fox News personalities one by one, and Rupert does nothing defend them. In a couple of cases- – Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity especially — Murdoch just crumbles. If I were either of them I’d be calling my lawyer and packing my bags soon. He also dumps on Lou Dobbs, who eventually was fired by Fox.
The New York Times offered up a link to Dominion’s just filed demand for a jury trial and request of summary judgement. The 200 page document should be read aloud somewhere over weekend. It’s brilliant. I can’t say what 91 year old Murdoch was thinking, but we assume he does not have dementia. Still, if Brian Cox were playing him, we’d all be on the verge of tears.
Let’s cut to the chase. Murdoch is asked the key questions by Dominion lawyer:
And then comes the good stuff:
The motion then states: “There you have it. FC Chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath, as he had to once he finally faced the evidence , that the hosts of the accused Fox shows. He did far more than just host these guests and give them a platform that would be enough for Fox to be liable (publisher liable for republishing false and defamatory statement while knowing or recklessly disregarding the truth ) . He admitted that each of the Fox hosts (other than Tucker Carlson) endorsed the stolen election lies. .. As for Carlson , Rupert admitted that it was wrong to host Mike Lindell on January 26 , 2021 to repeat those allegations against Dominion if Carlson didn’t contest it. And Carlson admitted he did not contest it. For those and numerous other reasons , Fox has no viable neutral reportage defense…”
I’m getting a chuckle out of these stories marked “No One Wants to Play at King Charles’s Coronation.”
Really? They’ve got Lionel Richie, Take That, Kylie and Danii Minoque, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and a bunch of orchestras.
The UK press circulated that Elton John, Adele, Harry Styles, and the Spice Girls all declined. Are the Spice Girls even in business? Elton was a friend of Princess Diana, I doubt he’d do this gig. Adele is aligned with Meghan and Harry. Harry Styles is on tour.
The Palace has lots of other options. Where are UK standbys Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones? Did anyone ask Paul McCartney or Mick Jagger? How about Sting? There’s a pool of British rock stars who haven’t been mentioned. So everyone should get a grip. I’m sure the Coronation will be full of entertainment!
David Byrne is going to perform on the Oscars. He will join Son Lux and Stephanie Hsu to sing “This is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Hsu stars in the movie after launching from “Mrs. Maisel.” (Editors note: she’s a rising star!)
David Byrne on the Oscars! The ex leader of Talking Heads, Tony winner, who has an amazing show coming to Broadway this spring with “Here Lies Love.” That David Byrne! He won an Oscar for the original score of the 1987 film “The Last Emperor,” in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su. This is going to be an historic show.
Also performing that night will be Rihanna, and Diane Warren with Sophia Carson. It’s assumed the next announcement will be Lady Gaga to sing her hit from “Top Gun Maverick.” The other so far unannounced performers are from “RRR.”
It’s a good thing “Ant Man and the WASP: Quantumania” made a lot of money in its first weekend. In its sophomore outing, the ant and the bee were squashed like bugs.
“Quantumania” fell 70% in week 2, making $32.2 million. If this were an art house film, the execs would be having Champagne parties. But this is a Marvel movie. The US take — $167 mil — is underwhelming to say the least. That’s what an Avengers movie used to bring in on its first day!
Abroad, “Ant Man 3” (easier to type) has banked almost $200 million. So that’s good news. But if the movie drops proportionately this week, a squirt of Raid won’t be needed.
What’s the problem? Maybe just recycling old ideas over and over has finally worn out the Marvel audience. Where’s Tony Stark when you need him?
The SAG Awards were a stealth affair, presented just like the Critics Choice Awards two months ago in the same Fairmont Ballroom. Why?
And they were not televised. Less than a million people were watching on YouTube, which is probably just as well. The production was a mess on and off the stage.
I’ve never ever seen a speech go over as badly as Fran Drescher’s. She won the last election as SAG president by a nose. The union is very fractured, which showed in the ballroom. No one laughed or clapped during that speech. There was a frightening silence.
There were some sweet moments. Andrew Garfield was lovely introducing Sally Field, and she reciprocated with a beautiful speech. Her clip reel is pretty stunning. Sam Elliott, one of my favorite people, won for his work on “1883.” It’s about damn time. Jessica Chastain also gave a touching speech, as her win was unexpected. So was Jason Bateman’s. I would have given all the TV drama awards to “Ozark.” But then we would have missed Jennifer Coolidge telling us about her father pulling her out of first grade to go to a Charlie Chaplin Film Festival. This was Jennifer’s year.
As odd as the show was, nothing was weirder than Mark Wahlberg presenting the final award. I mean, he’s a nice guy, but really? That was kind of a throwaway.
Next year SAG moves to actual Netflix. They’d better do some work making friends in the next year to remedy this bizarre outing.
