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Billy Crystal is a known quantity here in the US and we love him. And you know he’s a big baseball fan, particularly a Yankee fan.
In Australia this month on a huge tour that also includes New Zealand, Billy used his love of sports to help Russell Crowe. At dinner with Crowe and his rugby team The Rabbitohs, Billy wound up giving them an inspirational speech about winning that would make even Casey Stengel proud.
Crystal– who everyone would like to see back hosting the Oscars– has sold out his tour Down Under. He’s also gotten incredible reviews and the folks there are loving since Billy hasn’t been to see them since touring “700 Sundays” in 2007.
In Brisbane, the reviewer Roger Hall wrote: “The American comedian’s warm, hilarious show is the best thing I’ve seen this year and this is one bloke who deserved the standing ovation he got in the Concert Hall at QPAC.”
Billy’s just finished touring New Zealand to raves, then heads back to Australia (he already conquered Sydney) on Sunday for six shows in Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne. You know he must love it there if he’s missing a huge chunk of the baseball pennant races that are developing!
Crystal starts work on the animated “Which Witch?” feature directed by Brian Henson and produced by Brian’s sister Lisa (they’re the successful children of the late Jim Henson) this fall.
Is there a song of the summer of 2016? Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling” sort of was headed in that direction. But it’s unclear if it held on long enough.
Otherwise, this week’s total sales of Top 20 CDs and digital downloads came to 325,000. That’s the whole top 20. Need to Breathe’s “Hard Love” album notched just under 45,000 to be number 1. That is a truly awful number 1.
The number 50 album, by Switchfoot, sold 4000 copies.
Blake Shelton’s newest album was number 14 and sold just 10,000 copies. After that, from number 15 down to 50, it’s all less than 10,000 copies for everyone.
Streaming added a little but not a lot to the equation. For example, Drake sold 16,562 CDs and downloads. If you add in streaming, he gets up to 87,567. But Drake is the EXCEPTION. And for some reason, his audience doesn’t care about owning his music.
There are no big name releases scheduled between now and August 29th, when 70 year old Barbra Streisand has an album of duets with odd ball non singers. September looks pretty bleak too. I know of one big single by a Rock Star coming on September 2nd that will surprise everyone. But otherwise, it’s slim pickens.
Have the record companies just given up? Feels like it. We need a real surprise album drop fast. But who could it be? The only superstars are over 50, and even they get one big week during release. This is a broken business.
The Rolling Stones have spoken, joining Paul Rodgers and Free, and George Harrison’s heirs, and Queen, and just about every rock group whose song has been used by Donald Trump in his campaign.
Last night at the end of the convention, the RNC blared the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” over the loudspeaker in Quicken Loans Arena (what name!). You know, I thought Trump chose it, but that doesn’t make sense. The title sounds more like something from the RNC itself to the delegates who didn’t want Trump.
Anyway, it was just another violation of copyright.
The Rolling Stones do not endorse Donald Trump. You Can't Always Get What You Want was used without the band's permission.
EXCLUSIVE You may be reading about the lavish over the top party Leonardo DiCaprio threw in St. Tropez this week. Lots of stars came, and Leo made a big deal about donating millions to environmental causes– even though his Foundation does not file any paperwork and has no transparency.
But wait– the sponsor of the night was Swiss banking firm Julius Baer. They’re very private and handle only very discreet, exclusive customers.
It’s not enough that DiCaprio is already involved in the federal investigation into the financing of his movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” by Red Granite Productions, a Malaysian film company up to its eyeballs in trouble. Or that two of Leo’s former BFF’s– the late Dana Giacchetto and art dealer — spent time in federal prison for fraud and racketeering.
No, no. Julius Baer’s prosecution by the United States Attorney General is fascinating. Two of Julius Baer’s bankers Daniela Cadadei and Fabio Frazzetto, pleaded guilty to “conspiring with U.S. taxpayer-clients and others to help U.S. taxpayers hide their assets in offshore accounts and to evade U.S. taxes on the income earned in those accounts.”
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement: “Bank Julius Baer not only turned a blind eye to tax avoiders, but actually conspired with them to break the law. Together with our partners at the IRS, we will continue to prosecute financial institutions and individuals who facilitate tax evasion.”
But Leo is seen in hand out photos from the event this week with Bono and other celebrities who probably have no idea what Julius Baer is or what they’ve done against the law.
Other guests included Tobey Maguire, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Prince Albert of Monaco, and Kate Hudson. There were performances by Lana Del Rey and The Weeknd.
Donald Trump and the RNC are using a ton of music tonight without permission. They used Free’s All Right Now, written by Paul Rodgers tonight. But they also used it three days ago and were warned by Rodgers on Twitter.
Permission to use "All Right Now" was never sought for or granted by me. My lawyer is dealing with this matter. – Paul
George Harrison’s estate has denounced the Trump campaign for using “Here Comes the Sun” when Ivanka Trump walked out on stage tonight. Don’t cross the Beatles, Donald. You’ve gone too far. “If it had been Beware of Darkness, we might have approved it!” the Harrison estate Tweeted as a clever rejoinder.
The unauthorized use of #HereComestheSun at the #RNCinCLE is offensive & against the wishes of the George Harrison estate.
At 85 years old and newly married (for the third time), Murdoch will take over running Fox News and Fox Business as Roger Ailes is pushed out.
Murdoch has been on vacation since he married Jerry Hall on March 4th. He Tweeted on that day that he would Tweet no more, and hasn’t.
Instead he’s been enjoying whatever satisfactions an 85 year old can.
Now he will oversee Bill Shine, Jay Wallace, and Mark Kranz, who will all compete for Ailes’s job and none will get it. Murdoch and his sons, who hated Ailes, will comb the world for a Big Name to take over.
This is in the summer before a presidential election.
The only upside might be that Jerry Hall would come to New York. Everyone likes her. But she probably spends the summer in an exotic locale, and not at 1211 Sixth Avenue.
Lachlan Murdoch gets his revenge for Ailes taking away running the TV stations. Megyn Kelly gets hers for Ailes’ perceived lack of support during the Trump fight last winter. Trump gets his revenge for Ailes slighting him at every turn. A number of female reporters and staff are probably thrilled.
There was a well written but maybe too speculative story today about the Weinstein Company and their fortunes. They’ve recently announced a lot of date changes for new movies.
But now they’ve got Stephen Gaghan’s “Gold” and Michael Keaton in John Lee Hancock’s “The Founder” each coming during the last week of December for Oscar runs. This sends Matthew McConaughey and Keaton into the race, not to mention Edgar Ramirez from Hands of Stone, coming in August. Ramirez is also in “Gold.”
The only movie that really suffered a big change is “Tulip Fever,” which was moved abruptly to a dump spot in February 2017, the weekend of the Oscars. That’s a bad sign.
Otherwise, TWC seems to be confident enough to go for it. “Gold” is a business thriller that goes from Wall Street to Indonesia, and also stars one of my faves, Bryce Dallas Howard. “The Founder” is about McDonald’s and Ray Kroc. Good balance.
Oscar season? It’s around the corner. The other interesting Oscar development…I’ll save it for my next item…
Mark Boal, Oscar winning screenwriter of “The Hurt Locker” and screen writer of “Zero Dark Thirty” has filed suit against the US government. The government wants Boal’s taped interviews in the Bowe Bergdahl case. Boal used them for his award winning pieces on NPR.
here’s the press release–
Mark Boal filed a suit in a Los Angeles federal court against President Barack Obama, Department of Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning, Army court-martial convening authority General Robert Abrams and U.S Army Prosecutor Major Justin Oshanain response to Oshana’s threat to subpoena Boal’s taped interviews with accused Army deserter and prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl, who is facing a general court-martial.
Boal, through his lawyer Jean-Paul Jassy of Jassy Vick Carolan LLP, filed Boal v Obama Wednesday, July 20 in an effort to prevent the nearly unprecedented move by the military prosecutor in the Bergdahl case to force a private citizen into military court to relinquish legally protected materials for an ongoing military trial.
Boal has been a journalist for 20 years and is an Oscar winning filmmaker of “Zero Dark Thirty,” and Best Picture winner “The Hurt Locker,” the latter which of which drew upon his experiences as an embedded reporter in Iraq in 2003. The Tommy Lee Jones starring film “In the Valley of Elah” was based on Boal’s 2001 investigative reportage.
As stated in the filing: The threatened Subpoena from the North Carolina-based military prosecutor against a civilian is unlawful and inconsistent with the First Amendment, the common law, Department of Justice guidelines for the issuance of subpoenas to reporters and state protections for reporters.
“Mark Boal fully supports the military justice system and believes that Bergdahl has to face the music in a fair judicial process,” says Jassy. “But Boal is a civilian and a journalist, and under the First Amendment, he should not be hauled into a military court to divulge his unpublished and confidential materials. We are asking the federal court in Los Angeles to protect Mark Boal’s constitutional rights.”
Boal’s taped confidential interviews with Bergdahl are protected under the First Amendment. Many of Bergdahl’s revelations made during his 25 hours of interviews were made public–with his express and legal consent–by way of the multi-part “Serial” podcast earlier this year.
States Boal: “I support the Army, but this particular military prosecutor’s tactics contradict and undermine the stated principles and policies of the Commander and Chief and the Attorney General to protect First Amendment rights. It’s Orwellian, and bizarre.”
Boal’s litigation has drawn the support of one of the most respected journalism advocacy groups in the country, the Washington, DC-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
“We firmly stand with Mr. Boal in his effort to protect these tapes,” says the organization’s Executive Director Bruce Brown. “Well-established law recognizes that journalists cannot do their jobs to keep the public informed if they cannot work free from government interference.”
