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“Snow White” is pretty much dead now. No friends from the forest can save her.
Yesterday, the Disney debacle finished in third place, losing to two new releases, “Working Man” and “The Chosen.”
These two are B movies at best, but managed to trounce “Snow White,” which now has just $56 million in the till.
Everything about “Snow White” is cursed at this point. Disney’s only shot is to somehow revive the Pasek/Paul songs next winter for the Oscars. But it will probably be too late for that.
Meantime, A24 can’t make anything out of “Death of a Unicorn.” The horror comedy has top talent like Paul Rudd and Jenn Ortega, but the box office is DOA. Total for Thursday and Friday a little under $2.8 million.
Go see “The Penguin Lessons” this weekend. That’s my advice.
Last Sunday’s “American Idol” sent to an all time low in the ratings.
The third episode of Season 23 dropped to 4.063 million, or 9.91% from the previous week.
That’s a loss of 500,000 viewers in one week.
What’s happening? Is Carrie Underwood the cause?
Many fans voiced unhappiness with Underwood after she sang at Trump’s inauguration. They swore not to watch the show again.
Others say on social media they find her dull.
Underwood’s politics are far from dull, however. Not only did she sing for Trump, but a decade ago she mocked Obamacare on the CMA Awards with Brad Paisley. Although this incident was long ago, the video of it has recently resurfaced. See below.
This week’s “American Idol” ratings will be scrutinized, I’m sure, to figure out the trouble.
I reviewed Peter Cattaneo’s “The Penguin Lessons” for Neil Rosen’s PBS show, “Talking Pictures” and raved about it. (Should air in about 10 days.)
The extremely charming and well made film stars Steve Coogan, Jonathan Pryce, and an actual penguin. The latter may actually be up for Best Supporting Actor.
“Penguin Lessons” is released today, and if you’re an adult who’d like to see a real film with great charm, with nothing that will embarrass you or your companion, head to a theater immediately.
I’m warning you: this is a genteel film. No one flies around with a cape. There is no violence. Or sex, particularly.
Cattaneo based the movie on a memoir by Tom Michell published in 2016. It’s the true story of how Michell, an itinerant English teacher, arrived in politically savage Buenos Aires in 1976 at a posh boy’s school.
Coogan is 59 now, Michell was 24 when this happened to him. No big deal. In the film, Coogan is disillusioned with life. His child has died. The world is at war in many places but he is blissfully ignorant.
The class he’s assigned to is a little like the “Dead Poet’s Society.” But Cattaneo downplays that, and focuses on what happened to Michell. He rescues a penguin from an oil slick and brings him back to his apartment. For real. This is not CGI. The penguin, who plays right to the camera, becomes Michell’s best friend.
The movie has overtones of “Babe” and “Born Free.” Don’t call PETA. The penguin — not to be confused with Batman’s Penguin — has a great time. Michell named him Juan Salvador Gaviota and he’s never in danger of any kind. He has a better rider on his contract than John Travolta in his heyday.
Jonathan Pryce is the crusty headmaster who eventually winds up having conversations with Juan Salvador. There’s a subplot about a school maid and her granddaughter. The latter is abducted by the Argentinian police and returns unscathed. That is the movie’s biggest leap. But since a penguin is acting in this movie, already your sense of reality has been stretched.
Coogan is a delight, as always, and the perfect sort of detached personality who gives the film some gravitas. Michell is not keeping the penguin because of some zealotry. He wants to give it to the local zoo, but it’s very rundown and would kill Juan Salvador’s soul. Meantime, the bird eats like crazy and defecates all over the apartment. Several people comment on the smell.
No Oscars here, but a real relief from the daily pain of the news. Very recommended.
PS My colleague, Bill McCuddy, jokes: “If the penguin does go to the Oscars, what will he wear?” A ‘penguin suit’ would be redundant!
When Janet Drucker was made Executive Producer of the Peacock soap “Days of our Lives,” in August 2023, it was a big deal.
Drucker had been with the show since 1984. She was succeeding Albert Alarr, who’d been forced out after a litany of sexual harassmant claims and sued by one of the soap’s star, Arianne Zucker.
The word was the show would now be run by women.
Now Drucker is out after 20 months. She’s being replaced by Noek Maxam, her younger, male second in command. They say Drucker is retiring.
“Days of our Lives” is run by Ken Corday, the son of the couple who created the show in 1965, Betty and Ted Corday. He ran it so badly that “Days of our Lives” moved from broadcast TV on NBC to streaming on Peacock, where it often looks like summer stock. The sets are cheap, and the writing is more like a parody of soaps.
Still, it’s in production in some form, which is notable. One day someone will write a real behind the scenes story of what has gone on. No soap story will ever be that good, or full of more drama.
CBS Sunday Morning announced they will have a rare investigative piece. The subject: the Kennedy Center.
For 47 years, CBS has broadcast the Kennedy Center Honors. But with the current catastrophe engulfing the arts institution — and a looming contract negotiation — the network may be ready to face a nasty break.
Norah O’Donnell is talking with Deborah Rutter, fired after more than a decade as president; former National Symphony Orchestra artistic director Ben Folds; and board member Paolo Zampolli, about the Kennedy Center’s future.
Zampolli running the Kennedy Center is maybe the most horrifying aspect of all of this. He’s a Trump real estate crony who ran a questionable modeling agency and boasts to have introduced Trump to now missing wife, Melania.
Zampolli is better known for being on different sides of various lawsuits than arts management. He’s also had a colorful past with the United Nations in a wide range of capacities.
That CBS– not NBC or ABC — is investigating what’s happened at the Kennedy Center indicates one of two things: either they know the end has come to their relationship, or they’re trying to suck up to the new administration to keep the specials going. It’s hard to imagine O’Donnell carrying out the second option, but we’ll never forget her shocking “60 Minutes” piece on Saudia Arabia’s Prince MBS Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud in 2018, six months before Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident journalist, was chopped up.
If CBS loses — or gives away — the Kennedy Center Honors, there are plenty of people waiting to take over. Amazon Prime, owned by Jeff Bezos, would be there in a second. Bezos already has deals with Trump and would find this a feather in his cap.
Also ready to step in would be Trump pal Rupert Murdoch, who’d consider the KCH — with Trump as host, as Trump has suggested — a prestigious addition to Fox. Of course, the potential honorees– country singers, right wing athletes, and Christian entertainers — would be right up Fox’s alley.
So this should be a bigger Sunday show than “White Lotus.”
What a crazy load of BS yesterday from the Kennedy Center.
Another musical is canceled, this time it’s the musical “Legally Blonde.” It was supposed to run there in mid June.
The producer of the show is Jeffrey Finn. He also happens to be the Vice President and Executive Producer of Theater at the Kennedy Center, as well as the Artistic Director of Broadway Center Stage, the company that produces touring musicals.
So, got that? He canceled the show from both sides.
The fact is, no one wants to perform at the Kennedy Center anymore. Just because you own the rights to a show doesn’t mean you can get people to put it on.
Not even for money.
“Hamilton” pulled out of the Kennedy Center, and so have many performers. They won’t come back until the old regime is restored.
Donald Trump recently said he wants shows like “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera.” But that may be tricky since Andrew Lloyd Webber, who owns the shows he created, can’t stand Trump. Webber has a lot of money, he doesn’t the need the receipts from this Kennedy Center.
Sir Andrew told Trump to stop using his song, “Memory.” on the campaign trail. He once uninvited Trump from the premiere of “School of Rock” on Broadway. So it’s unlikely we’ll be seeing any of his shows produced under Donald Trump. They can always play at the nearby unencumbered National Theater.
“Snow White” was number 1 on Thursday night, with $1.8 million.
Nipping at its heels is 1999’s “Princess Mononoke,” with $1.2 million.
The 1999 (US release) Japanese animated film was directed by famed filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. It was distributed by Harvey Weinstein at Miramax in its heyday.
Now the princess, re-released by GKIDS, is number 2 by a mile at the Thursday box office. It did better than four other new films last night. And, at fewer theaters.
The Sundance Film Festival is about to create social cavity.
The news comes just in time as Utah, where film festival goers have suffered colds and pneumonia for 43 years, has today banned fluoride in the drinking water.
Sundance will head to Boulder, Colorado in January 2027. The appeal of Colorado includes moving from a backward red state to a forward thinking blue one.
Not just that: it’s a heckuva lot warmer in Boulder — by 12 degrees, and less snowy than in Park City. Also, when they saw a movie is “jaw dropping,” it won’t be literal.
Sundance has been fighting with Park City for years. The ski village is unaffordable for most people attending the festival. It’s impossible to get to theater venues, especially when it’s snowing. Every street runs in the wrong direction. Buses are still trying to get to their next stop.
Park City is also 1,500 feet higher than Boulder, so adios to elevation sickness. And maybe in Boulder it will be possible to get a cell signal! You could call a dentist!
The fluoride thing is true, by the way, especially in Salt Lake City. You could curse about it, but they’d arrest you.
So goodbye, Park City, where almost every art gallery carries portraits of bears with fish in their mouths, where I lost my voice once and had pneumonia twice. So long to the Park City Marriott, which actually had rooms in the basement with no windows. It was all a lot of fun!
“Succession” star Sarah Snook picked up a lot of awards for playing complex Shiv Roy on TV.
Sje immediately segued to the London stage and an Olivier award for playing 26 roles in the one woman version of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
Last night she opened on Broadway in “Dorian Gray” and cemented her chance to win a Tony Award for the same work.
Trust me, you’ve never seen anything like this uninterrupted (no intermission) two hour star turn. Snook is magnificent. The whole Australian production –adapted and directed by Kip Williams — is otherworldly. Very little compares to it for its ingenuity — maybe “Hamilton” as a whole.
But what Snook does with these 26 characters — most of them live, but some on video — stunning. I’m sorry to use so may superlatives, but she is nothing less than dazzling. This is a Broadway debut for the ages. It’s actually hard to believe Snook doesn’t pass out in her dressing room when it’s over. But she does 7 to 8 performances a week, matinees included. It’s as if she’s Wonder Woman, Lady Gaga, and Caitlin Clark all at once.
More info in the morning. But you should know when Snook appeared at the after party, she was her usual friendly self, no affectations. She is not a diva. If she wanted to be, no one would blame her.
Look out Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, and so on. Blanchett’s film company optioned the play for her star in a film version. Only Snook should carry over to the big screen, I’m afraid. The comparisons will never end.
Also, pretty remarkable that “Succession” has yielded an Oscar and Emmy for Kieran Culkin, an Oscar nomination and other awards for Jeremy Strong, Brian Cox aiming for a Tony next year, and certainly big things to come for Matthew MacFadyen.
Warner Bros. is betting big time on a huge fall release.
Paul Thomas Anderson directs Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn in “One Battle After Another.”
This is PTA’s biggest gamble since “Boogie Nights.” So far, it looks pretty exciting.
“One Battle After Another” is based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel, “Vineland.” PTA has already adapted another Pynchon book, “Inherent Vice,” which we like to call “Incoherent Vice.”
But this one has a good feeling. And we need this hit for the fall season. Cross fingers we’ll see it at the Toronto Film Festival.
