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Go figure. “The Conners” has turned into a hit again. This is very improbable. But here’s the story.
Last night the Roseanne spin off hit its highest total audience in over two years. The show went over 4 million viewers. It hasn’t done that since November 4, 2020. This is amazing, really, because this show was dead. But now it’s scoring a million more viewers than last season.
What changed? The time slot. “The Conners” was always an 8pm show. Then two seasons ago it was dislodged to 9pm and dropped significantly. Now it’s back at 8pm and booming. Frankly, with all this success they should bring Michael Fishman back as DJ. The show doesn’t feel right without him. Attention, Bruce Helford.
“The Conners” is not only growing, it’s also beating the rest of the ABC Wednesday night schedule by thirty to fifty percent. The drop off for the rest of the night averages 2.5 million. “Abbott Elementary” should be an 8pm show another night. It’s on too late.
Roughly half the top critics who’ve reviewed Will Smith’s “Emancipation” on Rotten Tomatoes have disliked it. Overall, the Antoine Fuqua film has a 59% so far from all critics, and is considered “rotten.”
This is all apart from the slap and Smith’s controversy from the last Oscars. It’s all about the merits of the movie.
Seems like Oscars will not be a part of this discussion after all.
LA Times: Even with a physically impressive production at his disposal, Fuqua’s filmmaking instincts are clumsy and prone to cliché.
Chicago Tribune: While it has been built on the scarred back of a real man, the movie is too busy with the business of entertainment to focus on the “real” part for long.
AP: Fuqua’s film is often harrowing and gripping but also less nuanced and too narrowly confined in genre conventions than its real-life protagonist deserves.
The New York Film Critics are announcing their 2022 winners one by one. It’s always fun to follow along as the white smoke rises out of the chimneys.
Best Picture goes to Todd Field’s “Tár,” starring Cate Blanchett and heading to VOD shortly. This is not the first Best Picture for Field at the NYFCC. “In the Bedroom” and each of its actors, Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson, won in 2001. Congrats!
Best Director went to S.S. Rajamouli for “RRR.”
Cate Blanchett, Best Actress, TAR
Colin Farrell, Best Actor, “Banshees of Inisherin” and “After Yang”
Keke Palmer has taken Best Supporting Actress for “Nope.”
Ke Huy Quan is Best Supporting Actor from the confounding “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
Best First Feature is “Aftersun.”
Best Animated Feature is “Marcel the Shell.”
Best Non Fiction Film: “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Claudio Miranda, “Top Gun: Maverick”
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM: “EO”
BEST SCREENPLAY: Martin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Kanye West, bug that he is, says he’s leaving Twitter. He re-posted a famous picture of Hollywood uber agent Ari Emanuel, looking fit, spraying bulbous Twitter owner Elon Musk with a hose aboard a yacht.
Kanye also posted a picture of NBA Player Chris Paul but the name Dalio was on the photo, leading to speculation that Kim Kardashian either cheated with Paul billionaire Ray Dalio, or his son, Paul Dalio. Ray Dalio is the richest man in Connecticut and beyond. His Bridgewater Associates manages $150 billion. If Kanye is attacking the Dalio’s he’d better watch out. Ray Dalio could eat Kanye for a snack, spit him out, and step on him. But he’s a nice guy, very into meditating. Still…
He writes in the Tweet: “I caught this guy with Kim.” By the way, Paul Dalio suffers from bipolar disorder, just like Kanye, and made a movie about it starring Katie Holmes. His brother was killed in a terrible car accident in 2020.
Did Kim cheat with anyone? Did Kanye catch her doing anything? Or is he just off his rocker?
They’re about to release a few more Oscar buzzed movies to home viewing– Amazon Prime etc — while the films are in theaters and not really making any money.
Coming soon will be “The Fabelmans” and “The Banshees of Inisherin.” They are each going to be nominated for Best Picture, but that won’t be until January 24th or so. In the meantime, people are not going to theaters to see them and the studios can’t wait.
Already on VOD are “Till,” and “Armageddon Time.” Heading there shortly is “Bones and All,” the Timothee Chalamet chompfest of a cannibal movie.
The studios have been pushed into this position largely by Netflix, which is doing short qualifying runs in theaters for movies like “Glass Onion,” “White Noise,” “Bardo,” “Pinocchio” and so on. Moviegoers have now been trained to wait for these films to hit the Netflix platform, so why spend all that money going to a theater? Soon enough all these films will be available in your living room.
This means only blockbusters like “Wakanda Forever” and “Top Gun Maverick” — event films — will be useful in theaters. And that will cause the domino effect of many theater closures soon. This is what digital delivery has done to the arts: we barely have book or record stores, soon movie theaters will join them in the abyss. Restaurants, from which now anything can be delivered, are next. Soon the streets will be empty — well, they actually are, for example, on the Upper West Side. What a bizarre change: everything will be contactless. It’s a frightening thought, but it’s happening right now.
With movies, it’s a terrible loss. Not only are films meant to be on big screens, but they’re also a communal event. They’re not books which are read individually. And yet, with younger people watching big movies on telephones or iPads, the future belongs to the single -serve movie. Very sad.
UPDATE: Elon Musk Tweeted “Just clarifying that his account is being suspended for incitement to violence, not an unflattering pic of me being hosed by Ari.”
OVERNIGHT Fri Morning: Kanye West was suspended by Twitter for posting the swastika (see below) as well as defending Balcenciaga in their advertising scandal. (The designer unbelievably showed pictures of a female toddler holding teddy bears in bondage sex harnesses, which instigated charges of pedophilia.) During the day Thursday West also supported Nazis and said he was one, appearing on Alex Jones’s show. West said on another social media platform that his suspension was for 12 hours, which would mean overnight, and not be much of a punishment. He should be off for good.
EARLIER: Kanye West has just posted a picture of a swastika entwined with a Jewish star. He is disgusting, we get that. But he’s also a raging idiot, not just an anti-semite. He’s vile And this has got to stop. It’s time for Elon Musk to ban him from Twitter.
What’s wrong with this guy? Today he also advocated for the January 6th protestors as well as sang the praises of Hitler on the repulsive Alex Jones’s show. He’s allied himself with white supremacists and other villains of society. There’s nothing funny about it. West has some 30 million followers on social media, and they need to be wiped off the platform now.
Jane Curtin, the great comic actress from “SNL” and “Kate and Allie,” is 75 years old. So it makes no sense that she will play the mother of a 68 year old actress on “The Conners.”
This is hilarious. Curtin will be the mother to Katy Sagal’s Louise, Dan Conner’s second wife, on “The Conners” spin off. That would mean she gave birth to Louise at age 7.
I guess Louise would have to have a mother between 85 and 95, and there aren’t many actresses available in that age group. Estelle Getty was much younger than her “Golden Girls” character and carried it off with aplomb. I doubt Curtin is going to dress up as a 90 year old.
Did you know Van Morrison released an album this year? It came out in May and was called What’s It Gonna Take?
Total sales were just 10,500. Almost no one knew about it, and no one bought it. How those 10,500 did is a mystery to me. There were almost no reviews except for one that called it insufferable.
There are 15 songs on “What’s It Gonna Take?” The first nine have lyrics that are jus rants against the government — American, Irish — for putting us in lockdown and making people get a vaccine. Van doesn’t like to be told what to do, he’s made that clear. Some of those titles are “Fodder for the Masses,” “Fighting Back is the New Normal,” and “Money from America.”
The other six songs are actually pretty good. If we could stand Van anymore they’d be hits. The best of them is “Pretending” at six minutes, forty seven seconds. That’s not the longest song on the album. That would be the turgid seven minutes and forty seconds of “Dangerous” that kicks this thing off.
If we could take those six songs and chuck the rest, I’d be happy. Van’s voice is just wonderful in all its soulful splendor. The music for each song, and the band’s execution of such, are delicious. I could listen to instrumentals of these songs all day. Many kudos to the band, from piano to horns. Couldn’t be better. Soul. blues, New Orleans jazz filtered through Ireland. As a musician, Van stands tall. He should just stay clear of politics and polemics.
I listened to “What’s It Gonna Take” on Spotify, which used its algo to start another album right after without asking me. Thank goodness. The other album was Paul Carrack’s “One on One,” released last year. Top to bottom, start to finish, this is a winner. It’s on deep rotation for me now and I’m ordered the CD. Carrack has another album coming soon, with a new single (See below).
You know Paul Carrack’s voice. He had his first hit, “How Long,” with Ace, in the 70s. He sang lead on Squeeze’s all time smash, “Tempted.” He’s had incredible under the radar career. His voice is like dessert. Once you’ve heard it, you’ll want more.
How badly can this group maim “The Great Gatsby”? Weren’t two movies enough?
And yet, here comes a “Gatsby” musical from the people who gave us the failed “Paradise Square.” F. Scott Fitzgerald may have been difficult but he didn’t deserve this.
Music and lyrics are by “Paradise” purveyors Nathan Tysen and Jason Howland. The book– not the actual book, the book for the musical — is from Tysen’s wife, Kait Kerrigan. I’m sure these are lovely people but their credits do not bode well for success.
The director is Marc Bruni, who gave us the Carole King musical, “Beautiful.” which of course had songs by King, Gerry Goffin, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann.
According to a press release, a private showcase will be held in an undisclosed location on an unknown date sometime in December. Then the show will be cast and seen in a regional tour next year. The show is Broadway-bound, but that’s all we know.
Who knows? This could turn out to be the greatest thing since…”Paradise Square.” As always we cross our fingers for good luck! But if there’s a prologue song called “We beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” I will not be able to contain myself.
UPDATE: Reviews are at 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and dropping. With some positive thoughts, most reviewers are nixing this film.
Remember how everyone was so upset about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on live TV? Not anymore.
Tonight in Westwood not far from the Dolby Theater, Hollywood threw Smith a big red carpet gala premiere for his movie, “Emancipation,” like nothing ever happened.
Judging from clips of the red carpet, not one “press” person asked Smith about the slap. They stuck to the script and just asked about the movie. Amazing.
At the screening, Smith was introduced on stage to heavy applause and cheers.
“Thank you, thank you all!” Smith said. He made a joke about “standing in the light” when his spot on stage was lit up. He said, joking, “It’s a metaphor.”
He continued: “This project was an absolute monster of a project to make.” Smith praised his producers and crew and director, Antoine Fuqua, who was Zoomed in from Italy. He said, “This film is all about love.”
On the red carpet, Variety asked Smith about the film and he mentioned the beatings slaves took during the time of this movie. It was unironic. He did not mention the beating he tried give Chris Rock in front of 10 million people.
Emancipation opens in a dozen theaters on Friday, followed one week later by a run on Apple TV Plus and in 200 theaters. Smith is hoping for an Oscar nomination even though he’s banned from attending the Oscars. He would have to overcome Colin Farrell, Brendan Fraser, Bill Nighy, Austin Butler, and Hugh Jackman, none of whom has any controversy.
