Adele’s long awaited third album, “25,” is scheduled for November 20th. It’s made the release list on hitsdailydouble.com without any other fanfare.
That will make almost four years since her second album, “21.”
“25” will come a week after a teeny bopper war between One Direction and Justin Bieber. That means those two acts have a week to make their cases before Adele’s sales avalanche occurs.
More to come…
Listen to the outstanding new single from the great Gladys Knight
Gladys Knight is back, with a vengeance. I’ve already seen the video for her new single “Just a Little,” due October 5th. The audio single is released on Friday. You can hear it right here. If I Heart Music and I Heart Radio really love music, they’ll start spinning this without any fuss. The song is written and produced by Kanye West associate Symbolyc “S1” and Gladys’s protege Avhere. Gladys’s husband William McDowell is quarterbacking the whole deal. Buy this single on Friday. You can pre-order it everywhere now.
Video By Singersroom.com
April 28, 2006: Yogi Berra and his wife, Carmen, came to a pre-screening cocktail for the documentary “Toots,” about the famed restaurateur Toots Shor .
Shor’s granddaughter, Kristi Jacobson made the film, and her producers had invited a select few to join them before the movie was shown as part of the Tribeca Film Festival.
And so to The Beekman Pub, a hidden gem in existence since the mid-1950s, came Walter Cronkite, with his lady friend Joanna Simon; Andy Rooney, baseball legend Yogi Berra and wife Carmen, Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford, famed sportswriter Maury Allen, movie producer David Brown and wife Helen Gurley Brown, and longtime Toots Shor and 21 Club greeter Harry Lavin, who for 27 years was the most powerful man in New York.
Almost all of these people are gone now, with the exceptions of Kathie Lee, Joanna Simon. Harry Lavin retired from “21” last February.
I did talk to Yogi, of course, who was in fine form.
Here is part of what I wrote, a little goodbye to Yogi and to Frank Gifford:
Yogi Berra, who just turned 81, told me he’ll be at Yankee Stadium today and tries to make one game per series at home stands.
“But it interferes with my golf,” he said. “I love my golf.”
Yogi’s memories of Toots Shor’s?
“Lots of sports players all the time,” he said with a grin. “I went there with Mickey, Billy and Whitey. DiMag” — that’s what he called Joltin’ Joe. “Those were the days.”
Boy, were they ever! His favorite celebrity he ever met there? Marilyn Monroe, maybe? Nope. “Jackie Gleason.”
And as long as we’re on the subject, did he really say all those famous Yogi-isms, like “It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” and “It’s déjà vu, all over again”?
“My wife tells me I keep saying them now,” he laughed. And grinned. Yogi has the widest grin I’ve ever seen. “I don’t hear it.”
And here’s something weird: Yogi got introduced to Cronkite. If their paths met before, neither one recalled. Joanna Simon said, “Walter, it’s Yogi Berra.” Cronkite shook his hand. “How did that baseball thing work out for you?” he asked. Yogi laughed.
Frank Gifford, looking especially well, approached Cronkite. “It’s Frank Gifford,” Simon said. (Explanation for this announcing: Cronkite, who has all his marbles at nearly 90, is stone deaf. Getting his attention takes a minute.) Gifford extended his hand to Cronkite, who cracked, “Whatever happened to Frank Gifford?”
In fact, the Giffords made a date with Cronkite and Simon to meet up with them on Martha’s Vineyard this summer. Then the Browns, who are up there in the age department, shouted to Cronkite, “See you Sunday!” They were on their way to another event.
Cronkite looked worried. Most of the guests had left for the screening. “We’d better go,” he said, “or they’ll start without us.”
Fat chance.
Happy Yom Kippur! One Direction atones for its sins with “Infinity,” a new single released just as we shut down for the next day. You can hear it on Spotify.
Their new album, and possibly last, is called “Made in the AM.” Release date is November 13th. They’re going head to head with little Justin Bieber, whose new album also launches that day.
What will happen? Teens’ heads will burst. The two biggest teenybopper acts on the same day! Everyone duck! Parents, get out the hankies. And the cash.
The end of the world is coming. And it’s a Friday the 13th. Our lucky day. Don’t drag me down, boys!
“Everything Is Copy” is Jacob Bernstein’s entertaining and loving remembrance and tribute to his late, famous mother Nora Ephron. (He co-directed with Nick Hooker.) The title refers to a comment by Nora’s screenwriter mother, Phoebe Wolkind, who told her daughter, “Everything was copy.” On Phoebe’s deathbed – she died of drink – she commanded Nora, “You’re a reporter. Take notes.”
(Phoebe and husband Henry Ephron wrote many classic movies, including “Desk Set” starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, 1957.)
Nora and her mother – as well as Nora’s three sisters, all writers – believed everything that happened to you was material that could be turned into stories, essays, books, films. In other words it was all fair game to mine for material. And this way you controlled the narrative.
The great gift of the documentary, which is by no means a hagiography, is to once again hear Ephron’s words, witty and wise, in her voice. “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you; but when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh,” which comes from her anthology “I Feel Bad About My Neck” and which is voiced by Ephron in the documentary. “So you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke.” Always be the heroine, never the victim was her empowering mantra.
The biggest surprise of the documentary is that we don’t hear from Ephron’s husband of 25 years Nick Pileggi. Her youngest sister, Amy, is interviewed briefly, but younger son Max is not interviewed in the film. Perhaps for them her death in June 2012 at age 72 is still too close but it would have been illuminating and terrific to hear from Pileggi especially, whose absence in the film is conspicuous.
There are no big revelations about Nora’s life for anyone who followed her work or was familiar with her movies. Although maybe for the first time you hear Carl Bernstein on “Heartburn” and the effects of the film on him, where he was turned from a Watergate hero to “a goat” as someone says in the film. “The divorce between my parents went on for years and like many celebrity break ups had less to do with heartbreak than a mutual obsession with reputation. They fought over custody and child support and the movie adaptation of ‘Heartburn.’ For my mother ‘Heartburn’ was her central act of resilience, for my father it was steeped in revenge,” says Jacob Bernstein in the film.
“No question about it, I didn’t want that movie made,” Bernstein tells his son in the film. A condition for the divorce, to which Mike Nichols, who directed the film version of Nora’s book, was that Bernstein was awarded joint custody of Jacob and his brother Max and that nowhere in the film was the father to be portrayed as anything but “a loving and caring” father. Nora agreed. Mike Nichols was a signatory on the divorce papers. “It was the craziest divorce ever,” Bernstein said.
An emotional highlight in the film is when Bernstein confesses to Jacob that he was worried how the film might affect how his son regarded him and Jacob admits, “For a while it did.” Bernstein replies, “That was really interesting… for a while it did.” It seems like a spontaneous moment in the film and that this was a discussion they were having for the first time.
Early in the film as Jacob is interviewing his aunt Delia, she asks her nephew if he thought Nora would be happy that he’s made this documentary. “It was her philosophy in a certain way,” he replies.
Yet only Nora’s family members and closest knew that she had a blood disorder for the last six years of her life. When her friends were called by Jacob only a few days before her death and told of her condition they were shocked.
Jacob muses in the film, “For decades, my mother put her private life front and center. Writing about her feelings of physical inadequacy, the indignities of aging and the break up of her marriage to my father, but at the end of her life she chose to stay silent about the blood disorder that killed her. Why after being so open about everything else did she chose not to address the most significant crisis of her life?”
This was a story she couldn’t control someone suggests. And she was a control freak Delia says.
Close friends like Meryl Streep had no idea Ephron was sick and felt “ambushed” by news of her death. The various theories for why Ephron never wrote about her illness are bounced around, including that she was concerned how news of her infirmity would affect her career and opportunities to direct films, but nothing conclusive or satisfying is concluded. Nora never said why she chose not to tell she was sick. Even in the final month of her life, as she was dying in the hospital, she worked on scripts, including with her sister Delia, with whom she often collaborated.
Liz Smith, who knew Ephron well, weights in why Nora didn’t tell friends she was so ill. “She did it because she was a control freak.”
Celebrities and notable people who appear in the film to talk about Nora and read from her essays, include film agent Bryan Lourd, Richard Cohen, Bob Balaban, Barry Diller, David Remnick, Marie Brenner, Gay Talese, Steven Spielberg, Carl Bernstein, David Greenberg, Amy Pascal, Rob Reiner, Rita Wilson, Tom Hanks, Lena Dunham, Barbara Walters and the late Mike Nichols.
This is not a sentimental look at Nora Ephron, who could be bitchy and brusque and always hilarious, wise and witty. She softened after her marriage to Pileggi. “My mom was kind and she was generous,” Jacob says in the film. “She was also stern and unfailing honest and the combination of those things made people seek her approval. It’s very powerful to be someone who’s both loved and feared.”
“Everything Is Copy” is an HBO Documentary Film release schedule for next spring.
I first met Viola Davis when she appeared briefly, but memorably, in “Antwone Fisher.” She appeared briefly, but memorably, in “Doubt.” Despite two Tony awards, Davis didn’t have the big, leading roles available to her that would put her over the top. It’s only now, because of Shonda Rhimes and “How to Get Away with Murder,” that this amazing actress and woman and role model has broken through. One day she will have an Oscar. Or two. Here is her speech from Sunday night. I am so proud of her.
Update: I stand corrected. “What Do You Mean” was written and produced by Jason Boyd and Mason Levy to sound like Skrillex and Diplo’s “Where Are U Now?”
Justin Bieber– August 28th must seem like a dream to him now. That’s when he released “What Do You Mean,” a pretty bad pop single constructed by producers Diplo and Skrillex. But with clever social marketing and an appearance on the VMAs, Bieber managed to keep “What Do You Mean?” at number 1 on iTunes until…yesterday.
Summer, you see, is over. And so is “What Do You Mean?” It’s been replaced by Drake’s “Hot Line Bling.” The Bieber single spilled to number 9 briefly yesterday but has since rebounded to number 2. Are fans stuffing the ballot box, so to speak? I guess you can buy as many digital copies as you like. In the old days, this would have been boxes of actual singles. This is so much tidier.
But the real story of “What Do You Mean?” is more evident at radio, where it’s struggled. After 23 days, the single is at number 8 on Mediabase’s Top 40 radio chart. It’s up 8.8% from last week, but far behind Selena Gomez’s number 1 song, “Good For You.” Of course there’s a big irony there since Bieber and Gomez were once a romantic pair.
“What Do You Mean?” has probably peaked, although you never know: the right incentive could still push it to the top. The fact is, just turn on a radio. The Weeknd’s “Can’t Feel My Face” and Ed Sheeran’s “Photograph”, as well as all Taylor Swift, are ubiquitous. Want to hear “What Do You Mean?” You’ve got to wait a while.
Bieber’s album hits stores November 13th. Then we’ll see what shape he’s in, saleswise.
Long time couple and parents of two boys Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts will shoot a movie together this fall. “The Bleeder” is the story of Chuck Wepner, the real life boxer who inspired Sylvester Stallone to make “Rocky.” The project was announced in 2011, but now casting notices have gone out for a mid fall shoot looking for actors to play Stallone and Muhammad Ali among others.
Wepner was known as “The Bayonne Bleeder”– as in Bayonne, New Jersey. His most famous fight was 15 rounds with Ali in 1975. Ali won in a technical knockout. But Wepner came close to being the Champ. After that he was involved in an autograph forgery scheme that almost sent him to prison.
The “Rocky” stories seem to be based largely on Wepner’s career. According to reports there was some kind of undisclosed settlement between Stallone and Wepner early on. Wepner is said to have actually read for a part in “Rocky II” but didn’t get the job. “Rocky III” is thought to be largely based on one of his fights.
Schreiber will co-produce with Mike Tollin. Philippe Falardeau, a Canadian, will direct. Screenplay is by Jeff Feurzeig, Jeff Stahl and Michael Cristofer.
Watts, by the way, will play Wepner’s second wife, Linda. It would be a cool story if anyone knew if Watts and Schreiber were actually married. I didn’t realize it was still a question mark. Schreiber appears this season in “Ray Donovan,” of course, and in the Oscar- buzzed movie “Spotlight.” Watts was like the MVP of this year’s Toronto Film Festival.
In the middle of all that Emmy mishegos last night, between the Governor’s Ball and the HBO party, I raced over to the famed Whisky A Go Go on Sunset. Legendary singer Darlene Love was launching her album produced by Little Steven van Zandt, with a full orchestra crammed onto the Whisky’s tiny stage. There was a full horn section and four back up singers. Little Steven not only ran the band, played lead guitar but also sang with Darlene on a duet– “Still too Soon to Know.” Steve should sing more often. What a show!
Since HBO was beckoning I could only stay for five songs. They were delicious. Darlene was in fine voice, and Little Steven was in top form. The set was scheduled for two hours (you know E Street has no bounds). They may still be there! I watched from a perch above the stage with Steve’s beautiful and multi talented wife Maureen, Michael des Barres, and with Jimmy Iovine.. Yes, the the Apple/Beats impresario pulled up to the time-beaten Whisky in a chauffeur driven sleek black and big Mercedes. He loves music!
Darlene’s album is called “Introducing Darlene Love.” I hope she and the gang will come to the Cutting Room in NY and put on the same show. My fellow New Yorkers shouldn’t be deprived!
Sleeper songs on the album: “Among the Believers” and “Sweet Freedom.” http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Darlene-Love/dp/B012Z769SC
photo copyright c2015 Showbiz411
Is Jon Snow dead? Is Kit Harington coming back to “Game of Thrones” next year?
After last night’s Emmy Awards, what do you think? You bet he’s coming back.
I ran into the mastermind of “Game of Thrones,” George R. R. Martin last night, after the Emmys. His fans are panting for the next installment of the books upon which the HBO series is based. The last book, “A Dance with Dragons,” appeared in 2011. This past season of the TV series brought the action right up to the end of that book, complete with Jon Snow’s “death.”
When I asked Martin if Snow is really dead, he actually kind of laughed, gave a big smile, and said, “Just follow what happens in the books.”
He didn’t seem sad, and didn’t respond with a “Yes.” And at this point, it seems like a wink-wink. Martin and HBO aren’t stupid. If it Snows in March, when “Game of Thrones” returns, the cliffhanger ratings will be like an earthquake. And now that the show has finally won the Emmy Award — along with Peter Dinklage– the matinee idol of the show is not going anywhere.
The new Martin book, “The Winds of Winter,” is about to be announced as well. That book should bring back Snow and an avalanche of book sales preceding the return of the show. Well played!