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Broadway Review: Clive Owen Makes a Rocking Broadway Return in Julie Taymor’s Must See “M Butterfly”

Roger Friedman
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Broadway Review: Clive Owen Makes a Rocking Broadway Return in Julie Taymor’s Must See “M Butterfly”

Clive Owen always seems like he should be James Bond, but he keeps playing these subtle and cool roles in things like “The Knick” and movies like “Trust” and “Shadow Dancer.” He’s ready for a superstar breakout role, and now it’s here. Owen really commands the stage in Julie Taymor’s new Broadway version of “M Butterfly,” which opened last night at the Cort Theater.

First of all, let me say that a Taymor collaboration with composer Elliot Goldenthal is always something to be excited about. Their “Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Brooklyn (and then filmed) a couple of years ago was a once in a lifetime experience. It was magical and astounding.

The pair has brought their great talents to David Hwang’s play, which has been updated to reflect what the world learned (a lot through Joyce Wadler’s exhaustively researched book) about the French diplomat in Vietnam who got everything political wrong and also didn’t know he was sleeping with a man posing as a woman. It’s a true story, and it’s as fascinating and as incendiary as it was in 1989 when John Lithgow and B.D. Wong created the roles.

Now newcomer Ji Ha (who came to the after party in a lovely, simple dress just to make the whole gender thing nuttier than ever) steps confidently into Wong’s high heels. Jin Ha and Owen each hold the audience in the palms of their hands. There’s also excellent supporting work from Enid Graham, Murray Bartlett, and Michael Countryman.

“M Butterfly” is a must see for the cast but always for Taymor and Goldenthal. What’s unique about this production: it’s very analogue. All of the gorgeous backdrop panels are guided by stagehands. There are no mechanics. Sometimes the panels waver, which is something I liked. After all the computerized movie pieces on Broadway, it’s kind of comforting to see an old fashioned set that springs to life on a human scale. Something about that gives “M Butterfly” the feeling that all of this really happened.

 

No Kidding: Comedian Turned Movie Mogul Byron Allen Will Release “47 Meters Down” Sequel to Surprise Hit

Roger Friedman
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No Kidding: Comedian Turned Movie Mogul Byron Allen Will Release “47 Meters Down” Sequel to Surprise Hit

Comic unleashed, indeed! Byron Allen, known for his syndicated shows with fellow comedians, has become a movie mogul over the past year. Did you know that?

Allen has just announced he’ll be released “48 Meters Down,” the sequel to his company Entertainment Studios’ “47 Meters Down.” The latter movie is the biggest indie hit of 2017.

Allen released “47 Meters Down” back in June after rescuing it from the fading Dimension Films, the commercial side of Weinstein Company run by Bob Weinstein. Dimension was going to release “47 Meters Down” under a different name straight to video. But Allen saw the potential of a shark movie with Mandy Moore, and went for it.

In Toronto this fall, Allen scooped by three more new films including festival faves “Chappaquidick” and “Hostiles.”

So stand back, everyone. We’ve got a new and serious player on the scene– and one who everyone will like!

 

How Paul McCartney Was Lied to by Jann Wenner Over His Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction

Roger Friedman
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How Paul McCartney Was Lied to by Jann Wenner Over His Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction

There are many great stories in Joe Hagan’s “Sticky Fingers,” the biography of Rolling Stone and Rock Hall founder Jann Wenner. Almost none of them are good, which is no surprise.

One thing Hagan really details is Wenner’s sycophantic sucking up to the memory of John Lennon, and his Velcro-ing to Yoko Ono to win her favor. In the process, however, Wenner made an enemy of Paul McCartney by lying to him about the Rock Hall.

According to Hagan, Wenner slithered around Paul and Linda McCartney in the Hamptons, buddying up to them.Hagan says that to get to Paul he’d go through Linda, but that the couple always kept their distance from him.

“We didn’t really wanna hang with him,” McCartney told Hagan. “We’d make fun of him.”

Eventually, Wenner asked McCartney to induct Lennon– who’d been dead for 14 years– into the Rock Hall at the annual Waldorf Astoria ceremony. Hagan writes:

Wenner told him that if he agreed to induct Lennon, the Hall of Fame would induct McCartney the following year. And so McCartney inducted John Lennon in 1994, reading an open letter to him that recounted the highlights of their lives together.

But Wenner’s promise was a lie.

The next year, McCartney discovered that he was not in fact being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I rang Jann and said, ‘I’m getting all the papers; I don’t appear to be in it. You fucking bastard,’ ” said McCartney. “We had a deal. A verbal contract that was not worth the paper it was written on. So that didn’t endear me to him.” (Wenner said he didn’t remember making such a deal.)

Wenner, in fact, then made McCartney wait four more years for his solo induction. By then Linda McCartney had died of breast cancer. Paul said at his acceptance: “She really wanted this,” holding up the trophy. Stella McCartney, their daughter, wore a T shirt that read “It’s about fucking time!”

 

 

Al Gore Reveals Another Inconvenient Truth About Leaving Paris Accord: Can’t Happen Until After Next Prez Election

Roger Friedman
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Al Gore Reveals Another Inconvenient Truth About Leaving Paris Accord: Can’t Happen Until After Next Prez Election

Al Gore — former President Gore if you voted in the 2000 Election — is back. He’s on the circuit for the DVD release of “An Inconvenient Sequel,” the follow up to the Oscar winning “Inconvenient Truth.” The producers of the newer movie are hoping to the make the Oscar short list and ultimately the top 5 nominees this year.

Considering it’s unusually warm for the end of October in New York, and over 100 degrees every day in Los Angeles, I think they have a chance.

Paramount invited everyone over to the Monkey Bar last night to meet Gore and the filmmakers. A lot of people walked over or took the subway in honor of the film.

Gore — still jolly, still focused–  told us something interesting about the US vow to leave the Paris Climate Accord. “The earliest we can get out is November 4, 2020– the day after the next presidential election.” Something tells me that will become an issue during the 2020 campaign. Even the Trumpiest voters can see the weather has changed, storms are now more dangerous, and that this is no time to be a climate change denier.

“The good thing is that that the individual states are going ahead and observing the accord,” Gore said.

As for Donald Trump: Gore spoke to him right after the election to make him aware of the seriousness of climate change.  But since then, there has been no contact. But of course, Donald Trump doesn’t think he needs a weatherman to tell him which way the wind blows.

Jeff Glor Named Anchor of CBS Evening News– I Told You This Last December

Roger Friedman
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Jeff Glor Named Anchor of CBS Evening News– I Told You This Last December

Jeff Glor has been named anchor of the CBS Evening News. I told you this would happen last December. No one listens. Anthony Mason was a great fill in after Scott Pelley was forced out of there. Glor has had the inside track right along. For one thing, he’s 20 years younger than Pelley and Mason, the right age to come in and knock off David Muir (whose popularity is Trumpian).

If Scott Pelley is Leaving CBS Evening News, Then Put Your Money on Jeff Glor as His Successor

Legendary, Amazing Fats Domino, Credited as an Inventor of Rock and Roll, Dies at Age 89

Roger Friedman
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Legendary, Amazing Fats Domino, Credited as an Inventor of Rock and Roll, Dies at Age 89

Fats Domino has died in New Orleans at age 89.

Along with a handful of musicians– Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley– he invented rock and roll. His piano work was the 9th Wonder of the World. His hit songs have been copied, sampled, influenced everything in rock and roll from the Beatles to Elton John, Billy Joel, even today’s kids like Charlie Puth and countless musicians in every generation.

“Ain’t that a Shame,” “Blueberry Hill,” “I’m Walkin,” “Walking to New Orleans,” Kansas City,” “My Blue Heaven”– they’re the basis of all the music we grew up with. There should be a national day of mourning.

John Huddy Speaks: Fox News Fired Him as “Retaliation” for Sister Juliet Huddy’s $1.5 Mil Sex Harassment Settlement

Roger Friedman
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John Huddy Speaks: Fox News Fired Him as “Retaliation” for Sister Juliet Huddy’s $1.5 Mil Sex Harassment Settlement

Three years ago, John Huddy was reporting from Gaza for Fox News, bullets zipping past his helmet during the broadcast.

What a difference time and revelations make: on Monday, at around 4:22pm in Jerusalem, Huddy was fired without notice or severance by Fox News. There was no cause, but Fox News’s PR department planted the story that Huddy had been involved in some kind of “altercation” with another employee.

Huddy, recently married and expecting a baby, was flabbergasted. But at the same time in New York– 9:22am– his sister Juliet Huddy had just finished telling another Fox News employee, Megyn Kelly, live on the Today show– about her work experience at Fox News. Huddy had received a $1.5 million settlement from Fox News this past summer for sexual harassment.

I’ve never met John Huddy, but I know his sister. She arrived at Fox News a little before I did, in 1998-99. She was there for years, a great reporter, a beautiful woman, with a really terrific personality. I thought she’d go far. But after a while her star dimmed, she was moved off to the local channel, Fox 5, and slowly vanished.

Here’s something I never knew: her brother John, stranded now in Israel, was the actual godson of Roger Ailes. John Huddy Sr. had been a close associate of Ailes for years.

John Huddy Jr. had been at Fox 5 also, prior to 2014. Then he was promoted to the network as a foreign correspondent, and sent to the middle east. “I never told anyone that Roger was my godfather,” John told me yesterday. “It wasn’t that kind of relationship. I  saw him, maybe once a year.”

He landed in Israel in June 2014 “in the midst of war. There were constant air strikes.” You can see him on YouTube dodging bullets. This is not a business for the faint of heart. Huddy was a star and never had any issues with fellow workers, he said, until it was revealed in January 2017 that his sister was one of Bill O’Reilly’s victims and had settled with him for $1.5 million. This was months before O’Reilly was ousted from his job.

“People asked why didn’t I leave, but I had a contract and I was doing a good job. And they were two separate things.”

But Huddy’s contract ended in April. He kept working and being paid. But his protections were probably not in place. When he returned from covering the protests in Catalonia, he got a call that a complaint had been lodged internally against him from a photographer he travels with, saying he and Huddy had been in a “physical altercation.”

“It never happened,” Huddy tells me. There had been an incident, though: Huddy says when his sister’s settlement had been revealed, his traveling producer and that photographer referred to the women at Fox News who’d complained about sexual harassment “whores and liars.” When Huddy reported this to his own boss, he says, the environment at work went from friendly to “nasty.” But he is adamant that there was no altercation. “I never touched him,” he says of the photographer. “It’s just retaliation.”

Well, Fox News is brutal when they want you out. I’ve had it happen to me, I’ve seen it with others, I wrote that when O’Reilly himself was being kicked out. They make up stories, plant stories, do whatever to discredit the person they are removing. And that’s what they’ve done to John Huddy, Jr.

Huddy gets one more paycheck this week. That’s it. He has no severance or settlement. His wife is three months’ pregnant. His feelings about Fox News now? “They don’t give a shit about American values.”

 

KISS Frontman Gene Simmons Said to Be Next Friars Club Roastee, After the Late Jerry Lewis

Roger Friedman
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KISS Frontman Gene Simmons Said to Be Next Friars Club Roastee, After the Late Jerry Lewis

friars officersExclusive The Friars Club– under investigation and on the heels of a settled sex harassment lawsuit–will induct new or old officers on Thursday night. Not being asked back as Scribe is Bruce Charet, subject of that very lawsuit. He’ll be replaced by Bill Boggs, whom everyone likes.

This doesn’t mean Charet won’t be around. “He just won’t have a title,” says a source.

Meantime, the Friars are having trouble with their roasts. They had wanted Harvey Weinstein all year but their own scandals had made Weinstein decline the invite. Now I’m hearing that since Weinstein will never be available, the Friars are going to have some kind of dinner honoring the late Jerry Lewis late next month. That should be a load of laughs.

Even more curious could be a winter-spring roast of KISS front man Gene Simmons. He’s at the low end of rock stardom. So hold on that news. Alan King must be turning in his grave.

Elton John to Receive Humanitarian Award from Harvard for AIDS Foundation Work

Roger Friedman
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Elton John to Receive Humanitarian Award from Harvard for AIDS Foundation Work

Elton John is having a big week next month celebrating his famed AIDS Foundation with partner David Furnish.

Sir Elton is receiving the The Harvard Foundation’s 2017 Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award on November 6th. The award recognizes prominent public-spirited leaders in honor of the late Rev. Professor Peter J. Gomes.  Over the past 35 years, Harvard Foundation humanitarian awards have been presented to an array of distinguished individuals, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu; United Nations Secretaries General Ban Ki-moon, Kofi Annan, Boutrous-Boutrous Ghali and Javier Perez de Quellar; gender rights advocate Malala Yousafzai; anti-child-labor spokesman Kailash Satyarthi; Cherokee Nation Chief Wilma Mankiller, and farmworker rights advocate Delores Huerta, among others.

EJAF is one of the best charities in the world, far more focused and awarded than groups like amFAR (currently clouded in controversy yet again). Bravo to Elton and to David for their continued accolades and service.

But that’s not all– the next night, November 7th, EJAF has its Enduring Vision gala at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. None other than Aretha Franklin is scheduled to perform on the Cathedral’s fabled stage. That should be quite a night!

Bruce Springsteen Excellent New Song for “Thank You for Your Service” Won’t Be Eligible for Oscar, But the Boss Could Perform it Anyway

Roger Friedman
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Bruce Springsteen Excellent New Song for “Thank You for Your Service” Won’t Be Eligible for Oscar, But the Boss Could Perform it Anyway

Bruce Springsteen has so much time on his hands– five shows a week on Broadway. But still he found the time to record the closing song to Jason Hall’s movie “Thank You for Your Service,” which opens Friday.

The movie is excellent, by the way, and so is the song. The film stars Miles Teller and Beaulah Kole as two vets who are having trouble adjusting to life after tours of Iraq. Haley Bennett is Teller’s wife, and comedian Amy Schumer makes a terrific dramatic debut as the widow of another vet.

Hall adapted the screenplay for Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper.” And while the basic story is not new per se, Hall and his cast invest so much of themselves into that you really care for these characters. Teller does his best work. And Kole is a revelation.

Producer Jon Kilik asked Bruce Springsteen last year if he could contribute a song to the film. Then last Christmas Day, Springsteen emailed him “Freedom Cadence” as a surprise gift. It’s an adaptation of an traditional army chant, and of course, it’s spectacular. Ron Aniello co produced “Freedom Cadence,” and in the final mix Kilik got to add background vocals. At my press screening we didn’t know this in advance– but everyone sat until the song was over, it’s that good.

Springsteen will in all likelihood still be on Broadway on Sunday, March 3rd, but it’s still possible producers Mike deLuca and Jennifer Todd will ask him to perform “Freedom Cadence” on the show. Unfortunately, it’s not eligible for Best Song as the material already existed. But Bruce will probably get a Golden Globe and Critics Choice nod for the song, so maybe he’ll turn up there.

Just as he did with “Philadelphia” years ago, Bruce really captures the tone of “Thank You for Your Service” with “Freedom Cadence.” It’s too bad it’s not eligible for the Oscar because it really sums up the gravity and beauty of Hall’s message. Please see this movie, and wait for this great bit of dessert at the end.

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