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It was Rachel Maddow’s week on MSNBC. After a shaky start on Monday in which she pretty much was tied with Sean Hannity at 9pm, Maddow went on to slay the Fox News rival.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Maddow soared over 3 million total viewers. On Thursday she dipped a but still held Hannity’s feet to the fire.
We won’t know tonight’s ratings (Friday) til Monday. But Maddow won the week, the week of Acosta and so many other Trump disasters. Maddow’s numbers also dwarfed Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. Rachel Maddow: I’ll have what she’s having!
The Independent Spirit Awards may have trouble finding 95,000 people to watch their broadcast on IFC next February. Their nominees today swung from prior years’ Oscar overlaps to movies almost no one has seen. They gave their Robert Altman Award to “Suspiria,” a movie literally no one has seen and doesn’t deserve it under any circumstances. Altman must be rolling in his grave. What a mess. Their most nominated film, “We the Animals,” made $400,000 this summer.
Yikes! No wonder Film Independent shut down the LA Film Festival. To quote Lynn Ramsay: “you were never really here.”
BEST FEATURE
Eighth Grade
First Reformed
If Beale Street Could Talk
Leave No Trace
You Were Never Really Here
BEST FIRST FEATURE
Hereditary
Sorry to Bother You
The Tale
We the Animals
Wildlife
BEST FEMALE LEAD
Glenn Close, The Wife
Toni Collette, Hereditary
Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade
Regina Hall, Support the Girls
Helena Howard, Madeline’s Madeline
Carey Mulligan, Wildlife
Sony
BEST MALE LEAD
John Cho, Searching
Daveed Diggs, Blindspotting
Ethan Hawke, First Reformed
Christian Malheiros, Socrates
Joaquin Phoenix, You Were Never Really Here
BEST DIRECTOR
Leave No Trace
Sundance
Debra Granik, Leave No Trace
Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk
Tamara Jenkins, Private Life
Lynne Ramsay, You Were Never Really Here
Paul Schrader, First Reformed
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Minding the Gap
Of Fathers and Sons
On Her Shoulders
Shirkers
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Raúl Castillo, We the Animals
Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman
Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Josh Hamilton, Eighth Grade
John David Washington, Monsters and Men
Sorry To Bother You
Sundance
BEST SCREENPLAY
Richard Glatzer (Writer/Story By), Rebecca Lenkiewicz & Wash Westmoreland, Colette
Nicole Holofcener & Jeff Whitty, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Tamara Jenkins, Private Life
Boots Riley, Sorry to Bother You
Paul Schrader, First Reformed
ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD
Suspiria
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Bo Burnham, Eighth Grade
Christina Choe, Nancy
Cory Finley, Thoroughbreds
Jennifer Fox, The Tale
Quinn Shephard (Writer/Story By) and Laurie Shephard (Story By), Blame
BEST EDITING
Joe Bini, You Were Never Really Here
Keiko Deguchi, Brian A. Kates & Jeremiah Zagar, We the Animals
Luke Dunkley, Nick Fenton, Chris Gill & Julian Hart, American Animals
Anne Fabini, Alex Hall and Gary Levy, The Tale
Nick Houy, Mid90s
BONNIE AWARD
Debra Granik
Tamara Jenkins
Karyn Kusama
Roma
Netflix
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
Burning (South Korea)
The Favourite (United Kingdom)
Happy as Lazzaro (Italy)
Roma (Mexico)
Shoplifters (Japan)
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
A Bread Factory
En el Septimo Dia
Never Goin’ Back
Socrates
Thunder Road
BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Kayli Carter, PRIVATE LIFE
Tyne Daly, A BREAD FACTORY
Regina King, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, LEAVE NO TRACE
J. Smith-Cameron, NANCY
‘Suspiria’
Amazon
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Ashley Connor, Madeline’s Madeline
Diego Garcia, Wildlife
Benjamin Loeb, Mandy
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, Suspiria
Zak Mulligan, We the Animals
PRODUCERS AWARD – The 22nd annual Producers Award honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality, independent films. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant.
Jonathan Duffy and Kelly Williams
Gabrielle Nadig
Shrihari Sathe
SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD – The 25th annual Someone to Watch Award recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant.
Alex Moratto
Director of Sócrates
Ioana Uricaru
Director of Lemonade
Jeremiah Zagar
Director of We the Animals
TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD – The 24th annual Truer Than Fiction Award is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant.
Alexandria Bombach
Director of On Her Shoulders
Bing Liu
Director of Minding the Gap
RaMell Ross
Director of Hale County This Morning, This Evening
The mystery of Mariah Carey’s 2001 album continues.
“Glitter” suddenly rose to number 1 on iTunes this week out of nowhere, with no re-release or promotion. The album, a failure in 2001, just re-appeared. It’s not even available for streaming, isn’t on Spotify, and almost no copies of it exist.
According to BuzzAngle and hitsdailydouble, “Glitter” sold just over 4,000 copies. It finished at number 36 for the week.
Just to spell this out: the actual number 1 album for the week, Kane Brown’s “Experiment,” sold 106,775 copies including streaming. All week on iTunes, “Glitter” was positioned higher than “Experiment.”
Even now, “Glitter” is at number 13 on iTunes. Meanwhile, Mariah’s actual new album, “Caution,” is number 4. It’s her first first hit album since 2009.
But how did “Glitter” become a hit just on iTunes– especially when it wasn’t really selling? Why is still now a fake hit on iTunes?
One theory is that somehow iTunes has been gamed and is doing nothing about it. Something similar happened a couple of weeks ago with Chinese pop star Kris Wu. Suddenly, ten of his singles swamped the iTunes singles chart. His album jumped up the albums chart. No one knew what was going on. Billboard and Nielsen are still trying to figure this out. But very quickly, Kris Wu dropped off the charts and life went back to normal.
Carey’s fans think something magical happened. Carey may, too. But the whole “Glitter” issue has somehow been faked. In time, it will be figured out.
Meantime, The Beatles sold 61,000 copies of their new White Album box set. That number included 10,000 streams. That’s a real sale.
The Independent Spirit Awards used to go to indie films, actors, and directors. But in recent years, the awards– given by Film Independent out in Los Angeles– have turned into an Oscars Jr. Most of the nominations and awards go to the same people who receive nominations and awards for the Oscars.
So why have them at all? Good question. Last year, only 95,000 people bothered to watch the live ceremny on TV the afternoon before the Academy Awards.
There is so much overlap between the Spirit Award winners and the Oscar winners, it’s become a little ridiculous. At least his past year, “Get Out” won the Spirit Award was only an Oscar nominee. But in the years preceding, “Moonlight,” “Spotlight,” and “Birdman” all won both awards. Immediately before that, almost all the Spirit Award Best Features were the same as the Oscar equivalent, as well as the acting awards.
On top of that, Film Independent– the organization that gives out these awards– just announced they’re shutting down their other biggest enterprise, the LA Film Festival. It makes you wonder, what’s going on when they can’t even sustain that project.
So here we go again: down to Santa Monica to the freezing tent, the photo ops and weird private tents underwritten by sponsors who are getting what exactly out of it? No one who’s ever made an indie film can afford a Piaget watch. But they sponsor some of the Spirit Awards.
The White House had suspended Acosta’s press pass after an altercation in which a White House intern had grabbed a mic out of Acosta’s hand during a press conference. The White House claimed– erroneously– that Acosta had put his hands on the woman consequently. Press Secretary Sarah Sanders even offered a doctored video of the incident.
CNN sued the White House over the matter. Thirteen or more news organizations, including Fox News, filed briefs in support of CNN and Acosta.
William Goldman, oracle of Hollywood, Oscar winner for writing “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men,” has died at age 87. His death is a big deal, and a tragedy that will be observed all weekend no doubt in memoriams by his many friends and writers whom he mentored.
Goldman’s other credits included “The Princess Bride,” “Papillon,” “Heat,” Marathon Man” and many other classic films of our era. He was also a huge influence on the screenplay for “Good Will Hunting,” an unseen hand that guided Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to their Oscar.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is about to be seriously devalued.
Over 60 years in the history of the prize, it has gone to a wide variety of people: scientists, philosophers, philanthropists, cultural stars, military heroes, great statesman and so on. It has never gone to a major political donor. Until now.
Check the list on Wikipedia. Only one person will now be listed as a political donor. That’s Miriam Adelson, wife of casino billion Sheldon Adelson, who shovels millions into the Republican party every year. And I mean millions: $113 million to Republican party candidates, PACS, and committes in 2016.
That is all the Adelsons are good for: backing right wing causes. They do nothing for humanity. They are simply there for Donald Trump. And now they’re getting paid back.
Today’s Presidential Medal of Freedom is a joke. But what did we expect? Here’s an excellent evaluation of Adelson from the New Yorker.
By the way, just to make it interesting, the Adelsons have a number of interlocking and overlapping registered family foundations that funnel money back and forth among each other. From what I can tell they mostly benefit Israeli causes and institutions in the neighborhood of over $100 million. The Adelsons should certainly be receiving the Israeli Medal of Freedom.
As of midnight, Mariah Carey has two albums in the top 5 on iTunes. One is her new “Caution,” a very good record that debuted at number 4 when it was released.
The other is “Glitter,” from 2001, which has mysteriously infiltrated the iTunes chart for days at number 1. Now it’s number 5.
Nothing explains the “Glitter” revival. Insiders at iTunes are perplexed, too. One theory is that somehow iTunes has been hacked. It’s being checked.
One problem is that Buzz Angle, which counts albums sold, has “Glitter” at just 3,000 copies from last Friday through Wednesday night. If that’s the case, Buzz Angle has “Glitter” at number 28 so far for the week that ended Thursday night. Why has it been number 1 on iTunes? And it has no streaming. “Glitter” isn’t available on Spotify and few physical CD’s still exist.
The mystery continues today…
As for “Caution,” we’ll follow this closely. Mariah’s last album of new material, “Mariah. The Chanteuse” sold just 122,000 after debuting at number 3. “Caution” should do much better.
Last night Diane Warren got the awards season started by winning the Hollywood Music In Media award at the Avalon in Hollywood. Her award was for her Best Song In A Documentary “I’ll Fight” from “RBG” sung beautifully by Jennifer Hudson.
UNBELIEVABLY Diane has 9 Oscar nominations and no wins. So it’s TIME for a win. Listen to Jennifer Hudson, one of the all time greatest singers, deliver this gem. Caution: you won’t be able to get it out of your head.
BTW The HMMA recognizes music in visual media, which includes film, TV, video games, trailers and commercials.
Other HMMA winners include:
Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt for “A Star is Born’s,” “Shallow.”
Max Richter won for the score for “Mary Queen of Scots.”
Ludwig Goransson won for “Black Panther.”
Alexandre Desplat for “Isle of Dogs.”
Elton John and Bernie Taupin for their “Stronger Than I Ever Was,” from “Sherlock Gnomes.”
Kendrick Lamar’s “All The Stars” from Black Panther.
“Quincy” won for best Music Documentary.
Nicolas Britell won for HBO’s “Succession.”
Carlos Rafael Rivera for Netflix’s “Godless.”
Julianne Jordan and Julia Michels- Outstanding Music Film Supervision for “A Star is Born.”
Jen Ross for Starz’s “Power.”
“Black Panther” for Soundtrack Album.
Thomas Ades for “Colette” for Original Score for Independent Film.
Annie Lennox for “Requiem For A Private War,” from “Private War.”
This afternoon…Amy Schumer, pregnant, says on Instagram she’s in the hospital in Texas with hyperemesis. She’ll be okay.But we send our good wishes and get well soon…
Kanye West either wants to interview Van Jones or wants to be interviewed by Van Jones on CNN. Why? You can only wonder…
“King Kong” is on discount already, one week after its premiere. The $35 million musical has turned up on BroadwayBox and other discount sites. We have to watch this one now carefully. Go see it for the spectacle, not the music.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is about to be seriously devalued.
