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Surprise! (Not!!) Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth Call it Quits Officially After 8 Months: Her Album, His Movie Each Flopped

Roger Friedman
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Surprise! (Not!!) Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth Call it Quits Officially After 8 Months: Her Album, His Movie Each Flopped

What a shock. Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth have ended the marriage that started on the spur of the moment back on Boxing Day, December 26th. It’s hard to believe, isn’t?

No, it’s not. Their publicist says they’re still committed to parenting their pets.

Well, Miley’s Instagram stopped having photos of Liam in early May, when they attended Anna Wintour’s Halloween Ball at the Metropolitan Museum. From then on, it’s pictures of Miley in bikinis, no wedding ring. So it’s possible this all ended well before May 1st.

Failure fuels celebrity marriages. Miley’s “She is Coming” album was a botched experiment, selling just about no copies. Liam’s “Isn’t it Romantic?” romcom went belly up at the box office. So there were no Champagne corks popping in their household.

But how could it have worked anyway? Miley, who had already announced she was gay, told a magazine that she was queer, and that sex was not a big part of marriage. Liam could not have been amused. She said: “The reason that people get married sometimes can be old-fashioned, but I think the reason we got married isn’t old-fashioned—I actually think it’s kind of New Age. We’re redefining, to be fucking frank, what it looks like for someone that’s a queer person like myself to be in a hetero relationship. A big part of my pride and my identity is being a queer person. What I preach is: People fall in love with people, not gender, not looks, not whatever. What I’m in love with exists on almost a spiritual level. It has nothing to do with sexuality. Relationships and partnerships in a new generation—I don’t think they have so much to do with sexuality or gender. Sex is actually a small part, and gender is a very small, almost irrelevant part of relationships.”

I would guess that’s when Liam headed for the hills.

So now what? Miley and Liam already broke up once, when she took a “Wrecking Ball” to her life and career. That move worked, but nothing has since then. When she made up with Hemsworth, Miley went G rated with the “Younger Now” album. Huge flop. She tried to spice things up with “She is Coming,” but that was a strike out. At 26, she has the luxury of trying many different musical genres before settling down at 40 to a country residency in Branson.

Good luck! And god bless!

Box Office: Warner Bros.’ “The Kitchen” Cooks Up Disaster with Just $5.5 Mil Weekend — Latest Female Star Film to Fail

Roger Friedman
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Box Office: Warner Bros.’ “The Kitchen” Cooks Up Disaster with Just $5.5 Mil Weekend — Latest Female Star Film to Fail

It’s been a rough summer for films starring women, or toplining women.

Now we have a big disaster with “The Kitchen,” starring Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss, and Tiffany Haddish. It made just $5.5 million and cost at least $50 million if not more.

The whole thing is a total write off. Sadder still, this was the number 1 new movie of the weekend. But it’s not a surprise: “The Kitchen” had a ghastly 20% on Rotten Tomatoes.

“The Kitchen” follows “The Hustle,” “Booksmart,” “Poms,” and “Late Night” down the box office tubes. Was it that the movies were really no good? Or were they just poorly marketed? That’s the big question.

And now studios will have to think about that before new releases like Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women,” “Charlie’s Angels,” and the upcoming “Where’d You Go, Bernadette”?

The latter, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Cate Blanchett, is looming as a huge flop. Scheduled to be released earlier this year, “Bernadette” was pulled from Annapurna’s schedule for re-editing. Apparently, it didn’t work. “Bernadette” is barely being screened for press, and its premiere is being held sub rosa at the way downtown indie Metrograph Theater with a party on the premises. Not exactly Alice Tully Hall.

Annapurna Films, owned by Megan Ellison, has already had massive disappointments this year including “Booksmart.” Next Sunday, after it bombs, we’ll be seeing puns based on the title regarding the box office.  Blanchett and Linklater will be fine, but Annapurna is another story altogether.

 

 

Celebrity Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Found Dead in Jail, by Suicide or… Assassination, as His Powerful Associates Run for Cover

Roger Friedman
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Celebrity Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Found Dead in Jail, by Suicide or… Assassination, as His Powerful Associates Run for Cover

Jeffrey Epstein is dead. He was found in his Manhattan jail cell this morning, the announcement was it was suicide.

But clearly almost no one believes it was anything but an assassination. Yesterday, Virginia Guiffre’s depositions against Epstein were revealed in his unsealed indictment. She named powerful people who were part of Epstein’s world and clientele, including Senators George Mitchell and Bill Richardson, Chicago hotel billionaire Tom Pritzker, already accused model agency owner Jean Luc Brunel (who doesn’t care what you accuse him of, by the way), and plenty of others.

It’s the “others” whose names still haven’t come out, and will, who likely said ‘that’s it’ for Epstein. Also yesterday, Epstein’s very close pal Leslie Wexner, who owns Victoria’s Secret and The Limited and other brands, gave an interview throwing Epstein under the bus– or a fleet of buses– to distance himself from the jailed pedophile. Wexner has to be kidding if we’re supposed to believe him.

And then there’s Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s bff and procurer, his fixer, on the lam in Europe. Her father died mysteriously on a yacht in Europe years ago. She must be wondering how her end will come now. Maxwell knows everything, and could set her world on fire if she gave the information to authorities. She has to be going to the bathroom with bodyguards watching. Good luck.

Who wanted Epstein dead? Everyone. Who did it? Everyone. Stay tuned.

New York Times Adds Several Corrections to Last Sunday’s Article about Natalie Wood’s Sister, Lana Wood, After Publication

Roger Friedman
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New York Times Adds Several Corrections to Last Sunday’s Article about Natalie Wood’s Sister, Lana Wood, After Publication

The New York Times Styles section has been busy adding corrections to their cover story from last Sunday. When the article, “Lana Wood, Natalie’s Little Sister,” was printed, it was accompanied by one correction. But online, the correction was expanded to include more errors made by the mysterious author, Elinor Blake. Blake, whoever she is, has never published an article before, has no writing credits. As I reported on Sunday, Blake may be an illustrator and animator. She has no resume as a journalist. And the result seems to be all the corrections.

Still unclear is why the Times even published the story. Lana Wood has a long history of selling her accusations against her former brother in law, Robert Wagner. She’s made noise for 38 years without any actual evidence. Very strange.

Here’s the latest correction online:

An earlier version of this article misidentified the person responsible for the casting of the Wood sisters in “The Searchers.” John Ford was the director, not John Huston. The article also misidentified the law enforcement organization that employs Detective Ralph Hernandez and mischaracterized one of his statements. He works for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, not the Los Angeles Police Department, and he said that the coroner could not rule out that Natalie Wood was unconscious before she hit the water, not that he could not rule out that she was dead. And the article misstated the names of Ms. Wood’s nieces. They are Courtney Wagner and Natasha Gregson Wagner.

Lana del Rey Releases New Song, “Looking for America,” Donates All Proceeds to Recent Shooting Victims in El Paso, Dayton, Gilroy

Roger Friedman
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Lana del Rey Releases New Song, “Looking for America,” Donates All Proceeds to Recent Shooting Victims in El Paso, Dayton, Gilroy

Pop star Lana del Rey has released a new song calledl “Looking for America.” She’s donating all proceeds to shooting victims and familes from El Paso, Dayton, and Gilroy. The organizations are Gilroy Garlic Festival Victims Relief Fund, the Dayton Foundation, and the El Paso Community Foundation.

She wrote on Instagram: “Hi folks came back early from Montecito with my brother this morning and asked Jack Antonoff to come into town because I had a song on my mind that I wanted to write. Now I know I’m not a politician and I’m not trying to be so excuse me for having an opinion- but in light of all of the mass shootings and the back to back shootings in the last couple of days which really affected me on a cellular level I just wanted to post this video that our engineer Laura took 20 minutes ago. I hope you like it. I’m singing love to the choruses I recorded this morning. I’m going to call it ‘Looking for America”

This is not a song previously announced for Lana’s “Norman F—ing Rockwell” album. Maybe it will be added. Unclear. But “Looking for America” is already number 16 on iTunes.

Katy Perry Strikes Back from Plagiarism Defeat with “Small Talk,” Hit Single Co-written with Charlie Puth

Roger Friedman
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Katy Perry Strikes Back from Plagiarism Defeat with “Small Talk,” Hit Single Co-written with Charlie Puth

Katy Perry didn’t take her “Dark Horse” defeat by lying down and playing dead.

She’s got a catchy new single called “Small Talk,” which popped onto the charts at midnight. She wrote “Small Talk” with Johan Carlsson, Charlie Puth and Jacob Kasher Hindlin. Johan Carlsson and Charlie Puth produced the track with Peter Karlsson producing the vocals.

The short, punchy song should do a lot to assuage the loss last week over a plagiarism suit over “Dark Horse,” a hit single that was ruled infringed on a little known record. “Small Talk” also follows an earlier summer hit, “Never Really Over,” which took hold and still on the charts.

The question is, what is going on here? Is Katy aiming for a new album? Will all this work cohere into something important? I hope so. I loved her single “Chained to the Rhythm.” She needs more of that kind of song. Not so easy, but I like the idea of her working with Charlie Puth.

I do think, by the way, that being on “American Idol” is hurting Katy. She’s smart, and could take that time to really develop some musical ideas. She has to have enough money by now. Get back to the music!

CBS’s Number 1 Soap, “Young and the Restless,” Sinks to All Time Low Ratings, Down 760K Viewers from Last Year

Roger Friedman
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CBS’s Number 1 Soap, “Young and the Restless,” Sinks to All Time Low Ratings, Down 760K Viewers from Last Year

Sound the alarms. Something must be done quickly about the CBS soap, “The Young and the Restless.” The bottom has literally dropped out of the ratings.

For the week of July 22-26th, “Y&R” hit its all time low– 3.5 million viewers. They are down 760,000 fans since a year ago last week. All three of the other daytime dramas are way off, too, this summer. But “Y&R” sets the pace, and they are in real trouble right now.

The show has been adrift since former executive producer Mal Young got rid of a lot of the veteran actors and tried to replace them with new characters. It didn’t work. In the melee, many important names– Eileen Davidson, Christel Khalil– left the show. They have not returned. The show has lost its main focus. Also missing, except for guest appearances, is Emmy winner Jess Walton.

Newer executive producer Anthony Morina so far has not won back the viewers who left, and the erosion is now significant. Summer is always a slow time for soaps– kids are out of school, people are on vacation. But this is serious. Morina has got to restore the old order of the show pronto.  For one thing, the stories move like glaciers. They’ve got to pick up the pace.

Just to compare: two years ago, “Y&R” was headed toward 4.8 million viewers by the end of 2017. Where did all those people go?

Meanwhile, “Bold and the Beautiful” is off by more than 400K viewers from one year ago, and “General Hospital” is down by over 300K. “Days of Our Lives” is down by 200K.

The networks don’t need much incentive to cancel all the remaining soaps. If the ratings don’t improve drastically, they will use them as an excuse to fill the time with reality programming or talk shows. Someone had better tell the EPs of all the shows to make some swift, and positive, changes.

 

Review: Once Upon a Time…On Broadway as Jake Gyllenhaal, Tom Sturridge are the Brad and Leo of NY Theater

Roger Friedman
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Review: Once Upon a Time…On Broadway as Jake Gyllenhaal, Tom Sturridge are the Brad and Leo of NY Theater

There were a lot, I do mean a lot, of women packed into the Hudson Theater tonight to see two guys tell stories on stage. Of course, the men were Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge, each of whom has a following among the ladies. They are both, also, at the top of their current class of actors, ages 38 and 33, respectively, and the top of their game.

Everyone’s talking about Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt right now in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” But once upon a time in New York, we’ve got our own pair of star actors doing the heavy lifting 8 shows a week.

The guys appear each in two monologues: Sturridge in Simon Stephens’s “Sea Wall,” and Gyllenhaal in Nick Payne’s  “A Life.” They’re good plays, but without heavily talented actors with drawing power they’d be just as well seen off Broadway. Recently, Carey Mulligan and Billy Crudup each had similar situations down at the Minetta Lane Theater. A little further back, Laurie Metcalf and also Judith Light had their monologues at the Lucille Lortel Theater.

“Sea Wall/A Life” had an acclaimed run at the Public Theater, so why not try it out uptown for a few weeks?  It turns out it was a good idea. The box office is better than booming, and when reviews hit on Thursday night, empty seats will be gobbled up.

The monologues are a good match– stories of young men dealing with death and life. Each one is a little predictable and slightly on the nose, but the delivery is so adept that the material is elevated. The actors are a good match, too. They each come from theater families. Sturridge’s father,. Charles, is an acclaimed British director. His mother, Phoebe Nicholls, is known to American audiences from “Brideshead Revisited” and “Downton Abbey” (she played the wife of annoying cousin Shrimpy).

Gyllenhaal– well, you know his sister, Maggie, his talented screenwriter mother, Naomi Foner, their father director Stephen Gyllenhaal.

So there’s a lot of energy bouncing around the stage at the Hudson, and a lot of confidence. Sturridge doesn’t have the film resume of Gyllenhaal but it’s coming if he wants it. Even in the 2013 Broadway production of “Orphans,” Sturridge owned the stage. He was just 27 then. He’s even better now, making the slight “Sea Wall” epic and poignant. There are also lighter moments before a terrible catastrophe occurs, and it’s nice to see Sturridge smile.

Gyllenhaal is doing something few of his movie counterparts will try– he performs on stage all the time. Before “A Life,” he was triumphant in “Sunday in the Park with George” in the same theater.  (It seems like he’s aiming for stage/movie career a la Henry Fonda.) He’s a STAR, he has real charisma and ease, and is never boring.

“A Life” juxtaposes life and death for its narrator, Abe, who’s becoming a father and losing one simultaneously. Because “A Life” is a little lighter than “Sea Wall,” Jake can run into the audience as part of the show, and say audibly to an audience member, “Sorry if I woke you up.” Breaking that fourth wall makes a nice connection to the audience, who already feel they know Abe.

By the time, “A Life” is over, we feel like we know both characters from both stories. Director Carrie Cracknell adds a little twist at the end, tying the two performances together, that’s very sweet and haunting. But the two monologues will forever be linked because of it.

 

Bruce Springsteen Song from “Harry Potter” Repurposed for “Blinded by the Light,” the Newest Rock Star Soundtrack

Roger Friedman
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Bruce Springsteen Song from “Harry Potter” Repurposed for “Blinded by the Light,” the Newest Rock Star Soundtrack

A really terrific Bruce Springsteen song has never been included on an album– until now. “I’ll Stand By You Always” was featured in a Harry Potter movie (“Sorcerers’ Stone), but never made it to that soundtrack album. The song has always been available on YouTube, and so it is below.

It’s now featured in the new film, “Blinded by the Light,” which is like the Boss sequel to this summer’s hit, “Yesterday.” In that one, an Indian kid obsessed with the Beatles knew all their songs when others suddenly forgot them. In “Blinded,” a Pakistani kid obsessed with Bruce Springsteen…you can guess the rest.

There are 12 Springsteen songs on the “Blinded” soundtrack album.

I told you a couple of weeks ago, Universal Pictures is looking to slap some Prince songs into this kind of movie. David Bowie shouldn’t be far behind. We’ve already had Queen, and ABBA (twice). How about a Rolling Stones movie like this? Two Indian kids think they’re Mick and Keith. And don’t forget, an Elvis movie is coming…and a Bob Dylan musical is coming to Broadway…can the Monkees movie be far behind?

For Bruce, who hosted a premiere last night in Asbury Park, this is a great year. His Broadway show taped for Netflix is going to win an Emmy. His new album, “Western Stars,” has been a huge hit and should get some Grammys, and his “Western Stars” movie is debuting at the Toronto Film Festival. Not bad!

Six Months Ago, Trump Fundraiser (Equinox-Soul Cycle Investor) Stephen Ross Said: “I don’t like Donald, okay, we can stop there. We’d be here all day.”

Roger Friedman
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Six Months Ago, Trump Fundraiser (Equinox-Soul Cycle Investor) Stephen Ross Said: “I don’t like Donald, okay, we can stop there. We’d be here all day.”

Everyone is canceling their Soul Cycle and Equinox memberships. Why? Because their owner– or “passive investor” Stephen Ross is hosting a massive fundraiser for Donald Trump this weekend in the Hamptons.

Funny how times change. In February, Ross told New York magazine: “I don’t like Donald, okay, we can stop there. We’d be here all day.”

That’s when the Detroit born Ross, self made and said to be work-obsessed, was interviewed about the monstrosity known as Hudson Yards. He built that, too.

Canceled gym memberships won’t hurt him. He’s worth $7.7 billion. He also owns the Miami Dolphins.

Meanwhile, Equinox and Soul Cycle have disavowed Ross, saying he’s a passive investor and isn’t involved with them. Well, that’s like when Home Depot distanced themselves from their own passive investor, their co-founder Bernie Marcus. a billionaire Trump supporter. And what about New Balance shoes? (Oh wait, they turned against Trump.)

What will happen next spring? Will there be a boycott of the Tribeca Film Festival because the Murdoch family is their main investor?

Also Pizza Hut is closing 500 restaurants. I’ve never been there, or to Soul Cycle or Equinox. My boycott was ahead of the curve!

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