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Now the trailer for the Beatles Anthology video doc complete with a new ninth episode.
Disney Plus starts running it Thanksgiving weekend.
The miniseries follows the November 21st release of the CD-LP-streaming audio set with the new Anthology 4. Everything’s been remastered. The sound on the CD collection is sensational. The new tracks are a delight.
This is the first time the 30 year old Anthology has been streaming anywhere. The original DVD set is long gone. The new one will be a very happy and final replacement.
The Conde Nast magazine has excerpted “American Canto” by Olivia Nuzzi, who is now their west coast editor.
They’ve gone nutsy for Nuzzi.
Nuzzi was fired by New York magazine a year ago after she admitted to having some kind of affair with Robert Kennedy Jr while writing a profile of him.
It was a violation of journalistic ethics, and New York recognized that. Vanity Fair, under new editor Mark Guiducci, didn’t care.
“American Canto” will be released December 11th. It’s currently around number 4,000 on amazon.com
In the excerpt Nuzzi calls Kennedy “The Politician.” It’s clear she was, and still is, enraptured by him.
He’s even enraptured with himself. She says: “he desired desiring.”
Nuzzi says RFK Jr told her he had security issues and threats. She also intimates that doctors determined the famous “worm” in his brain wasn’t a parasite at all but it was too late to take back that story.
And this all in the excerpt.
So many things are wrong here: The Kennedy-Nuzzi affair, the book, the excerpt, the job. It’s staggering.
The writing is purple and overwrought. If this what to expect in Vanity Fair next from Los Angeles, well, the magazine had already gone off course It probably can’t come back now.
She writes: “I would take a bullet for you,” the Politician said. He always said that. “Please don’t say that,” I said. I always said that. From his mouth the bullet theoretical launched the bullet possible. I did not like to think about it. About the armed man at his speech. Or the armed man who broke into his home. Or the armed men he paid to guard him from armed men who sought to harm him while the federal government denied his pleas for protection from the security agency whose modern protocols were carved by the same bullets that cut boughs from his family tree and cut the track of the American experiment.”
“Baby, don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not a worm.” A doctor he trusted had reviewed the scans of his brain obtained by The New York Times, he said, and concluded that the shadowy figure was likely not a parasite at all. He sighed. It was too late to interfere with what had already vaulted from the sphere of meme to the sphere of screwy legend.”
“I knew alcoholics. I had been raised by alcoholics. I did not know other types of addicts in the same way. The Politician had told me, talking about someone else, that all addicts were pathological liars. He was rarely as judgmental as he was about other addicts. I did not think to apply his assessment to him or to our relationship. I did not think to apply it even when he referred to me as an intoxicant.”
UPDATED Listen, let’s get real. Jennifer Lawrence hasn’t made a good movie in ten years.
It’s hard to believe that David O. Russell’s “Joy” came in 2015. Lawrence had a good run with Russell, winning an Oscar for her sensational work in “Silver Linings Playbook.” She had a terrific turn in “American Hustle.”
Lawrence probably made a lot of money from “The Hunger Games” movies, so she’s in no chance of starving to death. But for the last several years, things have been going down hill. Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother” was an unwatchable, self indulgent fiasco. A not funny comedy called “No Hard Feelings” was beneath her and pointless.
Now comes “Die My Love,” for which streamer MUBI paid $24 million at Cannes last May. “Die My Love,” directed by Lynne Ramsay, is dead at the box office after two weeks. It’s made less than $5 million. Audiences don’t want to see it. They gave it a 45% approval on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics have bent over backwards to say something nice, but they couldn’t get beyond 75%.
Cinemascore gives “Die My Love” a D plus. Their audiences really hated it.
When Lawrence did those early movies, she was astounding. “Winter’s Bone,” the Russell films, even a small film called “Causeway” showed that she was capable of becoming a huge star as well as a fine actress. A lot was expected.
But “Die My Love” is drivel. It’s a waste of time and talent. The initial hype was that Lawrence gave an incredible performance even if the movie wasn’t worth it. Okay, maybe this is true because Lawrence has the ability to make almost anything work. But a movie only counts if people want to see it. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Lawrence is getting bad advice, that’s for sure. In “No Hard Feelings,” an utter waste of time, she was running around fully naked for no reason. In “Die My Love,” it’s again about showing off her body (hey, not bad, but why?) and perfecting white trash. Ramsay’s movie has a lot of nice images of a rural, charmless, and hopeless life. Lawrence’s new mother is doing “Diary of a Mad Housewife.” But who cares?
Sorry to be so difficult on this one, but no one’s getting any younger. There have to be better projects for Jennifer Lawrence than acting crazy and carrying around a butcher knife. This is not headed to the Oscars, but even worse, it’s not going anywhere.
On the imdb, Lawrence has a Scorsese project coming up called “What Happens at Night.” That could be her ticket out of this mess. But a comedy with Amy Schumer, and a murder mystery are not important. It’s time to buckle up and get serious.
As for “Die My Love,” maybe MUBI should get serious, too. Spending a lavish amount of money at Cannes or any other festival is not going to turn them into Netflix, or even Criterion. What does MUBI want to be? They made a splash with Demi Moore and “The Substance,” a bad movie with a likeable star. But the movies actual substance for MUBI to be taken seriously.
But Fred Goldman, father of OJ Simpson’s murder victim Ronald Goldman, has secured an agreement from Simpson’s estate
TMZ reports that the estate has agreed it owes Goldman $57 million for the civil judgement against Simpson.
The judgement, handed down in 1997, was for $31 million. But the Goldmans never saw any money. Neither did the family of Simpson’s ex wife, Nicole Brown.
With interest piling up for three decades, Goldman figured the Simpson estate owed him well over $100 million. But working with OJ’s estate lawyer, they agreed to $57 million.
Goldman won’t see anything like that in the end. Simpson’s net worth at death last year was said to be about $3 million. He was relying on his NFL pension and sales of merchandise. You may recall that a dispute over the latter sent him to jail for 9 years.
Ron Goldman was an innocent bystander, collateral damage to OJ Simpson’s rage induced murders. Simpson was acquitted in a mockery of a trial (lost decisively by Marcia Clark and Chris Darden). But he was found responsible for the deaths by a civil jury. Now he’s roasting in hell while his kids have to live with what he did to their mother.
It’s hard to believe now that a bunch of us spent 18 months on this horror story. Not only is Simpson, but so are great journalists (and friends) Dominick Dunne and Linda Deutsch. I really miss them. They would have had a ball with this latest episode.
And yes– I covered a story 31 years ago. I was in grade school!
The next episode of “Saturday Night Live” comes on December 6th.
The hilarious Melissa McCarthy is the host.
Musical guest is an artist named Dijon. It’s an odd choice. Not a mustard, Dijon is an indie artist not known to most people. He’s only around 300,000 records over his career, most thanks to streaming.
Dijon’s one non hit, called “The Dress,” was released four years ago.
Clearly, Lorne Michaels is not worried about ratings. Already this season he allowed Role Model to be booked. The guy was pretty bad, and so were the numbers.
Will Dijon suddenly catch on? Or will the skewing older audience just tune him out? I guess we’ll see.
PS I can’t believe this guy doesn’t have a song called “Grey Poupon.”
Tonight’s episode with Glen Powell and Olivia Dean was very good. The show has improved over the last three installments. The new kids are working out well. Ashley Padilla, who with the show last year, has blossomed into a star. (No offense to Chloe Fineman or Sarah Sherman, already stars.)
The marketing campaign for “Marty Supreme” is going to be a lot different than what we’re used to.
Star Timothee Chalamet — in the mix for Best Actor at all awards shows — has posted a hilarious video to Instagram.
It’s a parody of a marketing meeting between the star and his team. At first you’re not sure if it’s real or a send up. But then it clearly is satire, and deftly done.
I’m told that Chalamet wrote the piece and cast it with actors and directed it himself.
Chalamet turns 30 next month. He’s the youngest actor vying for awards this year and represents a new generation. I’ll bet the “Marty Supreme” campaigns are going change our whole perspective.
My favorite moments — Chalamet introducing the word “fruitionalize” and suggesting someone could “gain a new arm intellectually.”
Timothee has seen enough of Hollywood in the last decade to realize how ridiculous of all this is. He wants “Marty Supreme” marketed like “Barbie,” which he says was yellow. He instructs the team to paint Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower orange, like Marty’s ping pong balls in the movie. The best part are the team members agreeing with everything he says.
The story of Marjorie Taylor Greene was not one anyone could have predicted.
The Georgia congresswoman was all MAGA, devoted to Donald Trump and everything he stood for. She came across as a lunatic who spewed crazy, sometimes antisemitic, rhetoric like accusing Jews of controlling the weather with “space lasers.”
Everyone hated her.
Then things began to change. Her children needed health insurance. Her constituents couldn’t afford groceries. And something happened in the Jeffrey Epstein story that triggered her. Trump wasn’t opening the Epstein files. He was endorsing pedophilia and rape. MTG started to lose it.
Today she writes that since breaking with Trump she’s getting death threats. She’s actually blaming him.
Her post begins: “
I am now being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world. The man I supported and helped get elected. Aggressive rhetoric attacking me has historically led to death threats and multiple convictions of men who were radicalized by the same type rhetoric being directed at me right now. This time by the President of the United States.”
Trump is so outraged at her for questioning his policies, he’s turned against her. He wrote today:” I am withdrawing my support and Endorsement of “Congresswoman” Marjorie Taylor Greene, of the Great State of Georgia.”
He continues: “I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day. I understand that wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie in her District of Georgia, that they too are fed up with her and her antics and, if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support. She has gone Far Left, even doing The View, with their Low IQ Republican hating Anchors.”
Could MTG be Trump’s Achilles heel? Is her awakening to his own lunacy going to bring him down? Will she become a Democrat, or work within the GOP to destroy him? The discourse is utterly fascinating. MTG could be the largest crack in Trump”s wall of tyranny. He refers in his tirades to Greene appearing on “The View,” which she did without incident.
Now Greene’s X account is filled with protests against Trump, who Greene is still also trying to placate. She can’t figure out what to do or how to react to Trump? Is her MAGA alliance really over? Will her supporters and voters accept her without Trump? Can she convince them that he’s ruining the country and that she’s now standing for truth and justice?
We join this program in progress. A couple of years ago, MTG was so crazy I blocked her on Twitter. I’ve just now welcomed her back. For the moment.
I am now being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world.
The man I supported and helped get elected.
Aggressive rhetoric attacking me has historically…
Friday box office with Thursday previews was an issue of now you see it, now you don’t.
Numbers failed to materialize for “Now You See It” Part 3, or for “Running Man.”
We’re looking at $12 million and $10 million weekends, respectively.
That is Deadsville.
The whole box office is asleep.No buzz on anything.
The wait for “Wicked: For Good,” and “Marty Supreme” is now getting tense.
There’s just nothing happening. It’s a snooze.
Small releases like “Bugonia” and “Deliver Me from Nothing” are not amping up.
Things are so bad that Universal has anniversary runs of “Back to the Future” and the original “Wicked” lodged in the theaters.
SPC’s “Nuremberg” should be doing more, but it’s just lying there.
“Frankenstein” is doing business or did, but Netflix doesn’t report numbers and now Guillermo del Toro’s fine film is playing on the streaming platform. So much for that.
I guess “Jay Kelly” is out there somewhere. A top film for the year, but again, it’s Netflix, so no reporting.
Last week’s horror film, “Predator: Badlands,” was down 78% from last Friday, so that novelty has passed as well.
Taylor Swift’s “Life of a Showgirl” run is pretty much over.
Having sold over 4 million copies in its first week, “Showgirl” will likely top out at 5 million when all is said and done.
It’s been a great run but this past week “Showgirl” sold just 109,000 copies, mostly of all it from streaming. Just 17,000 were paid downloads, CDs, or LPs.
“Showgirl” had one big hit, “The Life of Ophelia,” and one minor one called “Opalite.” Because Swift prevented downloading of individual tracks from iTunes for the first two weeks, all sales went to the total album.
But it’s all over now. Total Taylor sales including streaming for this year are 4.9 million. Of that only 1 million was anything other than “Showgirl.”
She’s literally exhausted the audience for number of copies that could be sold. And it’s likely her total is actually half, with many customers buying two versions of the album.
Swift has swallowed the record business whole, devoured it really.
The irony is, Morgan Wallen has outsold Swift this year — 7.8 million including streaming. His album, “I’m the Problem,” registered 4.5 million.
Of course, no one wants to give credit to Wallen for anything. He was “cancelled” long ago and didn’t get any Grammy nominations this year (Swift is eligible next year).
Elsewhere on the iTunes album top 50 album, there’s Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” Mariah Carey’s Christmas album, and Elton John’s “Diamonds” box set. The latter is the real winner, since it’s a box set and it never stops selling. God bless.
Coming November 21st: the Beatles’ Anthology set, remastered with a new 4th chapter. The sound is amazing, it’s worth buying again if you got it 30 years ago. Nothing “new” as in undiscovered, but terrific unheard versions of old songs.
Awards season is coming, and there are some issues and news.
First the Screen Actors Guild awards — known as the SAG Awards — are rebranding for absolutely no reason.
Now they’re going to be called The Actors Awards. Go figure. Jobeth Williams, head of SAG right now, says this is to match their statue. Makes no sense, but no one asked anyone.
Second, the Golden Globes. Even with the Hollywood Foreign Press gone, the Globes look for trouble. Both Puck and The Ankler newsletters are hot on their trail for adding a category called Best Podcast.
According to the reports, amplified today in Page Six, Penske Media is selecting nominees for this category based on popularity numbers from their own rankings. So it’s not independent. On top of that, the reports say that the nominees are encouraged to advertise in Penske publications to Golden Globes voters.
The Globes and Luminate are owned by Penske, as are Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline.
CBS is the Globes network now. They were years ago until CBS kicked them out for shenanigans with grift and swag. For decades after, the Globes were on NBC, until they ousted them for not having Black members and also financial mismanagement.
Now CBS is owned the Ellisons, so their standards might be lower. But the real CBS might have questioned this latest ripple. According to the reports, Penske has been heavily courting podcasters like Joe Rogan and Megyn Kelly so they will bring their conservative followers to the show. Imagine a room of Hollywood liberal heavyweights cheek by jowl with those types. LOL.
Page Six is also complaining that they’ve been cut out of press coverage of the Globes which now favor the Penske publications. I’ve already been told unofficially that I can’t cover them either. For years during the Hollywood Foreign Press Association run, only HFPA photographers could take pictures. The whole idea of the regime change was to open up the Globes and make them democratic. Now it seems it’s worse than ever.
Disappointing to say the least.
Anyway, the Critics Choice Awards are Sunday, January 4th on the CW Network.
