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Daytime Emmys: Wendy Williams Nominated for Best Talk Show Host Despite Living in a Sober Home, She’s Only the Individual vs. Teams Like “The View” and “The Talk”

Roger Friedman
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Daytime Emmys: Wendy Williams Nominated for Best Talk Show Host Despite Living in a Sober Home, She’s Only the Individual vs. Teams Like “The View” and “The Talk”

The Daytime Emmy Awards nominations are out. “Days of our Lives” scored a huge 27 nominations in all categories, from Best Soap to writing, directing, etc. They picked up 15 acting nominations, which is also unprecedented. Ironically, many of those actors have left the show. “Days of our Lives.” from NBC and Sony Television, operates on a shoestring. They sweat it out every year to see if they’re renewed. But headwriter Ron Carlivati brought them back from the brink of cancellation. Good job!

Other unusual Daytime nominees are in categories like animation, where Oscar nominee Ruth Negga got a nod.

Wendy Williams, who this week admitted she’s living in a sober house and bravely battling personal demons, was nominated for Best Talk Show Host. She’s the only individual host, pitting her against “The View,” The Talk,” “Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest,” and “The Real.”

There are dozens of categories. There’s something for everyone! Too bad everyone can’t win. But “Barney Miller” star Max Gail is a shoo-in to win Best Supporting Actor for his Alzheimer’s story on “General Hospital.” And Beth Maitland, from “The Young and the Restless,” should win Best Supporting Actress. The rest is a cliffhanger!

Library of Congress 25 New Songs Chosen for National Recording Registry: Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man,” EW&F’s “September,” ” “La Bamba,” “Sweet Caroline,” and More

Roger Friedman
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Library of Congress 25 New Songs Chosen for National Recording Registry: Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man,” EW&F’s “September,” ” “La Bamba,” “Sweet Caroline,” and More

The Library of Congress has chosen 25 new recordings for the National Sound Registry. It’s an electic and terrific group including “Soul Man,” “Sweet Caroline,” Yiddish recordings, Jay Z, and more. Also on the list is the soundtrack to “Hair,” Cyndi Lauper’s debut recording, and “Minnie the Moocher.” Plus Earth Wind & Fire’s essential “September.”

The awards go to the recordings themselves and the people who made them. (Oddly today, by coincidence, David Porter, who wrote the lyrics to “Soul Man” for Isaac Hayes, has released his own Greatest Hits with re-recorded instrumentals of their famous Sam & Dave songs. The album notes make no mention of the performers. Skip it.)

Congrats to all the inductees!

2018 National Recording Registry

  1. Yiddish Cylinders from the Standard Phonograph Company of New York and the Thomas Lambert Company (c. 1901-1905)
  2. “Memphis Blues” (single), Victor Military Band (1914)
  3. Melville Jacobs Collection of Native Americans of the American Northwest (1929-1939)
  4. “Minnie the Moocher” (single), Cab Calloway (1931)
  5. “Bach Six Cello Suites” (album), Pablo Casals (c. 1939)
  6. “They Look Like Men of War” (single), Deep River Boys (1941)
  7. “Gunsmoke” — Episode: “The Cabin” (Dec. 27, 1952)
  8. Ruth Draper: Complete recorded monologues, Ruth Draper (1954-1956)
  9. “La Bamba” (single), Ritchie Valens (1958)
  10. “Long Black Veil” (single), Lefty Frizzell (1959)
  11. “Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Vol. 1: The Early Years” (album), Stan Freberg (1961)
  12. “GO” (album), Dexter Gordon (1962)
  13. “War Requiem” (album), Benjamin Britten (1963)
  14. “Mississippi Goddam” (single), Nina Simone (1964)
  15. “Soul Man” (single), Sam & Dave (1967)
  16. “Hair” (original Broadway cast recording) (1968)
  17. Speech on the Death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy (April 4, 1968)
  18. “Sweet Caroline” (single), Neil Diamond (1969)
  19. “Superfly” (album), Curtis Mayfield (1972)
  20. “Ola Belle Reed” (album), Ola Belle Reed (1973)
  21.  “September” (single), Earth, Wind & Fire (1978)
  22. “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” (single), Sylvester (1978)
  23. “She’s So Unusual” (album), Cyndi Lauper (1983)
  24. “Schoolhouse Rock!: The Box Set” (1996)
  25. “The Blueprint” (album), Jay-Z (2001)

Review: Jordan Peele’s “Us” Shows That His “Get Out” Was No Fluke: Scary and Searing Social Studies

Leah Sydney
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Review: Jordan Peele’s “Us” Shows That His “Get Out” Was No Fluke: Scary and Searing Social Studies

“Us” had its first all media screening in Los Angeles tonight and it was packed; they had to book a second theater at the Arclight in Hollywood. This will be happening in theaters all across the country this Friday when it is released and rightly so.  Jordan Peele wrote directed and produced this mixture of horror/mystery/suspense/ political humorous film.

This is a movie where your hands are covering your eyes at least some of the time.  Simply terrifying, yet the narrative connects the dots in an horror filled, suspenseful intriguing and clever way. Social commentary was the theme of his “Get Out,” and he brings the same sensibility to this film in a pitch perfect, precision like way.   The story starts with a beyond cute young girl named Adelaide who wanders off from her fighting parents at a boardwalk carnival in Santa Cruz CA.  She goes in to a house of mirrors and much to her horror, discovers a real girl who looks just like her.

Lupita Nyong’o plays the grown up woman who is still unnerved from the memory, as the audience soon is too. When her family, her loving and patient husband Gabe (Winston Duke) as her husband, her daughter Zora (Shadadi Wright Joseph) and son Jacob (Evan Alex) go back to Santa Cruz to their lake house and return to the same beach with a reluctant Adelaide. There they meet their friends, the Tylers (Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker) along with their spoiled millennial kids.  They go home and that night Jacob tells his parents, “There’s a family in our driveway,” hands down that becomes a classic movie line. Looking out their front door in pitch-black darkness, they see the creepiest silhouettes ever.

From there the story, the clues, the mysteries, the subtexts of every line, the symbolism, for some obtuse for some crystal clear.  There is a ton to shift through.  What’s clear though is that there is the “Us” and there are the “Others.”

Nyong’o is simply terrific, she’s equally convincing and at ease playing the loving devoted Mom and the soulless opposite. The cast is her equal. Music plays a key role in the film and the score by Michael Abels is sensational (he also scored “Get Out’) and the songs, including Janelle Monae’s “ I Like That,” Minnie Riperton’s “Les Fleur,” the Beach Boys, “Good Vibrations,” all fit seamlessly.  Film geeks and the masses of people that will flock to see this will be debating and figuring out each and every scene.  Betcha this Halloween the “US” costumes will be everywhere. Peele hits a cinematic grand slam, his oh so unique take on the current state of this country works brilliantly in “US.”

 

Death in Greenwich Village: As Anti-Septic Hudson Yards Opens, 40 Year Old Spaghetto Trattoria Is Closed by New Landlords

Roger Friedman
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Death in Greenwich Village: As Anti-Septic Hudson Yards Opens, 40 Year Old Spaghetto Trattoria Is Closed by New Landlords

I know, everyone is excited about Hudson Yards. It’s glass, steel, and chrome. It’s so ugly it’s mind blowing. A whole new futuristic neighborhood with no ties to the past has risen on Tenth Avenue and 30th St.

At the same time, there are yet more deaths of landmark spots in Greenwich Village. My favorite restaurant for over 40 years, Spaghetto Trattoria, on the corner of Carmine and Bleecker, is gone. The building that house it, 228 Bleecker, was apparently flipped again recently. It was sold for $18.7 million just a few years ago. Who knows what they got for it this time? The great blog Vanishing New York reported the restaurant had 15 years to go on the lease. That does not seem to have mattered.

So we go back to 1979. The corner restaurant was called Bleecker Luncheonette. It had a black slate front, and a criss cross metal fence that was pulled down most of  the time. Hours of operation were 12-2pm and 5-7pm. Period. It opened, it closed. There was no grace period. The windows faced Carmine Street. There was a lunch counter and about four tables. A little old Italian lady made the food, it was all fresh, and tasted like nothing else.

She pretty much had one waited. His name was Rene, he did everything. Within a couple of years, according to my memory and time, the little old lady died. The Luncheonette was bought by someone local, who put some money into the decor and expanded the place so it was now a proper restaurant with an outdoor cafe, checkered tablecloths, and a real bathroom. Rene was now the manager. It was a jolt. I remember one day in the 80s looking at red tiles Rene had found to match the old flooring. Everything would be authentic.

Mainly, the food did not change. Rene kept the recipes. And the prices never went up very much.

This is the spot in the movie where calendar pages flip by, from 1980 to 1990 to 2000 to 2010. Time stood still. I lured friends there who wanted to go to Da Silvano across Sixth Avenue, to see celebrities. The lambchops were $52. This was in 1999. Wait, I’d say, I’ll take you to my favorite place. The pesto sauce was so tangy you didn’t look for bold faced names. Maybe in 2012, I actually had a birthday party at Spaghetto. Like 50 people, all jammed in, loving the pasta and the sauces. Rene smiled like a Cheshire cat. Four decades had passed.

Today I must report the restaurant is shuttered. Most of Bleecker Street between Sixth and Seventh is unrecognizable now. The reason people came to the Village, to the “Little Italy” part of it is gone. I think of House of Oldies records remains, I don’t know why, on Carmine. There is one Italian pastry shop, Rocco’s that won’t last. Cent Anni, a fancier place, is long dead. Anything authentic has been sold to greed. At the corner across from Spaghetto there’s a chain gelato store– who cares? You can get it anywhere in the world.

Elsewhere in the nabe, the White Horse Tavern has been sold to people who will kill it, I’ll bet you now. It’s like when the Cedar Tavern was taken apart on University. The new owner said it would return, but he demolished the building. Where famous artists used to fight (recently depicted in “Mrs. Maisel”) there is now a nail salon. It looks like Cafe Loup may finally be gone, the taxman returned. There are gaping retail holes all over the village. The Cornelia Street Cafe, where writers read and singers sang, is a memory. The list goes on and on.

It’s Bill DeBlasio’s New York now. Many of our streets have been cut down to one lane, so cars compete on the pavement with everything and everyone. Most of the day, the traffic is terrible. We have no supermarkets, just a Citarella. Little by little almost all have closed. Apparently no one needs food, or paper towels. The city that never sleeps is closed by 10pm. “The kitchen closed at 10pm,” is what I hear now most of the time. Uh, we used to hang out here at 1am, I tell them. Even Il Cantinori shuts down early. Why wait for customers who are home, using Seamless and GrubHub to watch Netflix.

Congrats, we’ve moved to the suburbs. We can always meet at Starbucks.

Quentin Tarantino Joins Fellow Horror Directors for a Toast as “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” Poster Arrives to Tease New Film

Leah Sydney
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Quentin Tarantino Joins Fellow Horror Directors for a Toast as “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” Poster Arrives to Tease New Film

Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”  debuted its teaser poster today with Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio looking retro cool. The film tells the tale of the Manson Family killing of actress of Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) set against other crazy events in the summer of 1969.

At the legendary Smokehouse eatery last night Tarantino was a part of the Horror Director crowd as a guest of Director Mick Garris’s bi-annual Masters of Horror dinner. The gathering included James Gunn, who was congratulated on being rehired by Disney for “Guardians of the Galaxy 3.” He’s off to South America to shoot the reboot of “Suicide Squad.”

Among other horror maestros there were Joe Dante, Leigh Whannell, John Landis and Adam Rifkin. Tarantino and Rifkin, director of Burt Reynolds final film ‘The Last Movie Star,” commiserated over the legendary star’s recent passing. Quentin had cast Burt in “Once Upon a Time,” but unfortunately Reynolds died the week before he was supposed to shoot his role of George Spahn the owner of the ranch where the Manson family lived. (Tarantino did cast Luke Perry, will appear posthumously.) Bruce Dern stepped in play the role.

Very likely debuting in Cannes this May, Quentin’s homage to the town he loves, he’s been working on this script for five years, is filled with stars including the late Luke Perry, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Damian Lewis, Emile Hirsch, Timothy Olyphant and more. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” is set to be released on July 26th.

That’s All Folks: Kevin Tsujihara Out as Head of Warner Bros. In Mind Blowing Sex Scandal With a Plot Right Out of a Jackie Collins Novel

Roger Friedman
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That’s All Folks: Kevin Tsujihara Out as Head of Warner Bros. In Mind Blowing Sex Scandal With a Plot Right Out of a Jackie Collins Novel

Say goodbye to Warner Bros., chief Kevin Tsujihara. He is out as chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment, a job he’s held for six years.

“It is in the best interest of WarnerMedia, Warner Bros., our employees and our partners for Kevin to step down as Chairman and CEO of Warner Bros.,” said WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey on Monday.

Stankey added, “Kevin has contributed greatly to the studio’s success over the past 25 years and for that we thank him. Kevin acknowledges that his mistakes are inconsistent with the Company’s leadership expectations and could impact the Company’s ability to execute going forward.”

Tsujihara got mixed up in a crazy sex scandal that was scooped by the Hollywood Reporter two weeks ago. He was sleeping with an actress who thought she’d get acting jobs from the relationship, and she was “passed” to Tsujihara from Mariah Carey’s ex fiancee (but before they knew each other) James Packer. Packer and Brett Ratner were financing Warner films (with the help of our now Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin) as RatPac. You saw their logo on a lot of films. In 2013-14 Packer was sleeping with Charlotte Kirk, then she went to the married Tsujihara. The most she got out of it was a small role in “Ocean’s 8.”

If only Jackie Collins were alive. She’d get a bestseller out of this one!

It’s amazing what’s gone on at Warner Bros. Alan Horn ran the company really well until he was forced out. Now he’s the King of Hollywood, running Disney-Marvel-LucasFilm-Pixar. He got the last laugh. Ratner got caught in the #MeToo scandal, Packer–a Scientologist– got engaged to Mariah Carey after his fling with Kirk, then Mariah kicked him to the curb and kept his $10 million ring. LOL. Tsujihara was named one third of a trifecta running Warners that included Sue Kroll and Toby Emmerich. Kroll, who everyone loves, got out of there and started producing movies because who needs all this crap? Emmerich could become the head of Warners. But who knows what Stankey has in mind?

And then there are the movies. Remember them? Things aren’t so hot right now. “Harry Potter” is over, and the recent “Fantastic Beasts” wasn’t so fantastic. The DC Universe is a mess, although “Shazam” might kickstart it for the umpteenth time. Kroll brought the bright light with “A Star is Born.” Eastwood made a hundred mil with “The Mule,” a stealth movie. Aren’t you glad you don’t have these problems?

And Charlotte Kirk? Too bad they don’t make No Regrets jeans anymore. She’d be a perfect spokesperson.

To quote a past president of Warners, Elmer Fudd, That’s all, folks!

New York Times Story About Homeless 8 Year Old Chess Champion Raises $81K In Less Than Three Days for Kid, Family

Roger Friedman
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New York Times Story About Homeless 8 Year Old Chess Champion Raises $81K In Less Than Three Days for Kid, Family

On Saturday, 8 year old Tanitoluwa Adewumi and his family were living in a New York City shelter. They are homeless.

But a story in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof has turned that all around. Since Saturday, $81,000 has been raised for the family on gofundme.com.

The incentive here is that Tani is a grade school chess champion. His parents — who emigrated here a year ago from Nigeria– are hard workers. But they have nowhere to live.

Tani’s teacher, Russ Makofksy, started the GoFundMe page. He writes in the updates today: “This past weekend at the New York State Chess Championships he claimed the title of New York State Primary Chess Champion! (Top Players K – 3rd Grade).

Read the link to the Times story. Amazing! We’ll check back in and see how the campaign proceeds.

TV: Prescient “Billions” Returns with A Visit to Sparks Steak House and Talk of ’85 Gambino Hit Same Week as New Gambino Mob Murder

Roger Friedman
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TV: Prescient “Billions” Returns with A Visit to Sparks Steak House and Talk of ’85 Gambino Hit Same Week as New Gambino Mob Murder

I don’t know how Brian Koppelman and David Levien could have known there’d be a major mob the week their show “Billions” returned to Showtime.

But somehow they must have picked up a vibe. Or they knew the guy that killed Frank Cali this past week in Staten Island. Cali ran the Gambino crime family. And the last major hit on the leader of the Gambino’s was at Sparks Steak House on East 45th St. back in 1985.

On tonight’s opener, star Paul Giamatti as Chuck Rhoades and Michael Rispoli as Richie Sansome actually go to Sparks to cut a deal. (They’re surveilled by the US Attorney.) And then they go outside and re-enact the hit (without guns), ending the episode lying in the wells of the front seat of their car with the doors open.

WTF? Crazy! Until this week, no one has mentioned Sparks in eons. But that’s where Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino family, was killed before he managed to get his steak.

Weird! I doubt Koppelman and Levien could have guessed when they were writing the new season of “Billions” that Cali would get offed or that NY press would be reminiscing about Sparks from 34 years ago.

The rest of the opening episode was just as cool, with all kinds of great music references, and trips to power dining venues like Michael’s,  the former Four Seasons, EAT, and Barney Greengrass. We also cameos from Jerry O’Connell, Donny Deutsch and the blissful news that Samantha Mathis has joined the cast. Plus Asia Kate Dillon looked hot in a long brunette wig.

But the Sparks thing– this show rocks! Maybe Showtime can get them some Emmy nominations this year.

PS Where is Malin Ackerman?

Theater: Isabelle Huppert Is Up for Anything and She Can Play It, And She Does, Off Broadway in “The Mother” with Chris Noth

Regina Weinreich
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Theater: Isabelle Huppert Is Up for Anything and She Can Play It, And She Does, Off Broadway in “The Mother” with Chris Noth

Petite and pretty, Isabelle Huppert plays it edgy. In the 2016 “Elle” — for which she was Oscar nominated and winner of many awards– and this year’s “Greta,” her characters kill with aplomb. Those are just two roles in a prolific film career that also includes the shocking 2001 “The Piano Teacher.” Incest and self-mutilation do not faze her.

Currently in the play, “The Mother, ” at the Atlantic Theater, from Florian Zeller as translated by Christopher Hampton, and under Trip Cullman’s expert direction, she seethes with angst, jealousy, raging at her husband (Chris Noth in that role), repeating rapid fire: “Where were you this afternoon?” even after he’s answered in several ways—the office, at work, a meeting. Perched provocatively on an elongated white couch, a furniture version of an extended limo, reading a book—Marguerite Duras’ “The Lover,” she tells me later– her gaze is down on the page, looking and not looking simultaneously, a chilling portrait of a housewife on the brink.

What’s going on? An empty nester, she’s also wondering about their son Nicholas (Justice Smith), why doesn’t he answer her calls? Why doesn’t he phone? “Well,” says Noth. “He’s living his life.” “You are a very bad person!” she exclaims. Psychic contradictions turned outward, in a Freudian twist: the son attempts to strangle her. Cue Hamlet on Gertrude.

On the night we attended, lightning lurked in the Manhattan sky, and soon a heavy, epic rain pounded on the Linda Gross Theater’s roof. Was hell breaking loose? A voice instructed the actors on stage, Huppert and Odessa Young, playing a nurse among other roles, to exit stage left, and the audience to stay seated. We could not tell, was this a fourth wall break, or a tech mishap? The play resumed, sound system restored. As the rain tapered off, an audience that included the great Brenda Vaccaro, art dealer extraordinaire Larry Gagosian, and a couple who flew in from Paris for a night just to see Huppert in this role, lingered on to congratulate the star. The man said, “She’s worth it.”

PS Are there tickets? Get down there to West 20th St. and find out. You don’t want to miss this one.

TMZ Sticks To Its Story About Paris Jackson Suicide Attempt Even Though She Went to the Movies Same Afternoon

Roger Friedman
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TMZ Sticks To Its Story About Paris Jackson Suicide Attempt Even Though She Went to the Movies Same Afternoon

TMZ is sticking with its story that Paris Jackson attempted suicide on Saturday morning and was placed on a 5150 hold in the psych ward of a hospital.

They haven’t backed down even though Paris was photographed going to the movies on Saturday afternoon with her boyfriend. And it’s not like her “5150” started before Saturday morning. She was out and about and Tweeting away for two days prior.

She Tweeted minutes after the TMZ story, calling them “fucking liars.”

So, Paris went to the hospital for some reason. If she did attempt suicide, or anything else that was life threatening, it seems strange the hospital would let her leave. We wait for further updates.

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