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The big news this morning is that roughly the same people who went to the last couple of “Mission Impossible” movies saw “Rogue Nation” Thursday and Friday.
“Rogue Nation” did $4.4 mil on Thursday and another $16 million or so last night. This is pretty much on par for “Ghost Protocol” and number 3, the one with Michelle Monagahan. “Rogue Nation” will do $52 mil or so for the weekend. Not a record anything. But Tom Cruise is still in the game despite his nuttiness.
Is it a good thing? Yes. That’s a lot of money. Is it a bad thing? No, but ticket prices are higher now and the movie was in iMax too, so maybe it’s not quite as many people.
In other news, “Vacation,” which got terrible reviews, is a dud. But it will probably break even down the line.
The amazing Valerie Harper is out of the hospital and recuperating after a much publicized health episode. She’s been appearing on stage in Ogunquit, Maine in a production of the musical “Nice Work If You Can Get It.” But a few days ago she passed out and was raced to the hospital. Harper suffers from lung and brain cancer. But she’s beaten the odds so far with great courage, fortitude, and a good sense of humor. Tabloids reported she’d been in a coma and was on her way out. Not Valerie! Here’s what she posted to Facebook:
My dear friends and fans!
As always, thank you for your amazing support. I am happy to report I am not, nor have I been, in a coma.
As anyone who has taken strong medication knows, it doesn’t always agree with you, even with me as this experience proves.
I am confronting these hurdles with my usual enthusiasm and love of life.
Much love, Valerie
p.s.
But I must confess that the highlight of this ordeal came when I was escorted by two handsome young men and a pilot, in a medivac helicopter, as the full moon lit the sky. Talk about movie magic!!!
There was a time when Top 40 radio played everything including pop, R&B, and country. In 1970, Lynn Anderson scored a huge country hit that “crossed over” with “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” I was sorry to hear that she has passed away from a heart attack at age 67. She was a young star.
Later she had another cross over with the Carpenters song “Top of the World.” Listen to that original hit. It sounds as fresh today as it did then. Before radio fractured into the mess it is today, Lynn, Charlie Rich, Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gale, BJ Thomas, and so many others were a welcome presence on the “dial.”
“Rose Garden” was written by the late great Joe South, who gave Anderson many other country hits. He also had hit one smash hit singing “Games People Play.”
One Direction counters former member Zayn Malik’s announcement that he’s going solo: their new single dropped this morning. It’s called “Drag Me Down.” It’s already number 1 on iTunes.
No one can drag them down, not even Zayn! Those guys must be pissed at Zayn’s news. Anyway, it’s time for a new One Direction album, maybe their last. Their cycle is running to an end. We’ll see. This isn’t much of a song, more of a statement. But it’s their statement.
Tom Cruise came to New York this week for a triumphant premiere of “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.” He’s on the top of the world. The movie has excellent reviews.
Cruise swung into New York on an international premiere tour, starting in Vienna and then heading to London. From the UK Cruise came to New York for a big splashy premiere at AMC Lincoln Square theater. After that he flew to Toronto. Then we lost track of him.
The movie star saw a lot of people on this whirlwind trip, but the one person he didn’t see was his 9 year old daughter, Suri. Her mother, Katie Holmes, is living in New York with Suri right now. Last week Katie was on a lot of talk shows promoting her run in Showtime’s “Ray Donovan.” Her rep declined comment. But I am told she and Suri were in town this week while Cruise was here. It’s possible Suri saw him on Jimmy Fallon or “Entertainment Tonight.”
By all accounts, Cruise has not visited with Suri for almost two years. Sources say this is because Scientology has required him to “disconnect” from her. Cruise’s official excuse is that he’s been away shooting movies. But for a few minutes earlier this week, he and Suri were in the same city. But the mission to get together proved impossible.
Last week Prince pulled all his music off of Spotify. It was gone within minutes.
Today he released a new single to Spotify called “Stare” with a little riff from his old hit “Kiss.”
“Stare” is his best single in maybe 20 years.
What the heck? All of Prince’s catalogue is off of Spotify.
Meanwhile, Neil Young is finally off of Spotify. It took two weeks after he proclaimed the reason for leaving was the inferior sound, not the payments.
Zayn Malik has a new direction. He’s going solo, signing with RCA and Simon Cowell. He’s going to release a aolo album. Goodbye One Direction and being member of a group. He’s on his own.
In a release from RCA:
Simon Cowell of Syco Music says: “With RCA, Zayn has the perfect label to work with on his solo career. They are excited about working with him and I am sure whatever they release together will be special.”
Comments Peter Edge and Tom Corson of RCA: “Zayn’s a genius songwriter with an incredible voice, and we are proud to have him join our roster of iconic superstars. We are thrilled he has entrusted us to deliver his personal artistic vision to millions of his fans across the globe.”
Was this Zayn’s master plan when he left One Direction? You bet it was. That decision evidently had nothing to do with being tired or depressed or burnt out.
I guess I never explained why I left , it was for this moment to be given the opportunity to show you who i really am! #realmusic#RCA !!
I usually don’t get into the whole Emmy voting fray. But hear me out on one of my all time faves, beloved New York based actress Christine Baranski. She’s nominated for two Emmy Awards this year. two! Emmy voters, I think she deserves at least one, don’t you?
Baranski is nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama for “The Good Wife.” Her character, Diane Lockhart, is the linchpin of this underrated and so well executed popular series. Diane is a sleek and smart panther who prowls around “The Good Wife” ready to pounce, with a big heart when it’s needed. Baranski is simply a pleasure to watch. Her biggest competitors this year are Joanne Froggatt from “Downton Abbey” and Christina Hendricks in “Mad Men.” What a category!
If that weren’t enough, Baranski is also nominated again in comedy, for Best Female Guest Star in “The Big Bang Theory.” She recurs as Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, the uptight shrink mother of Leonard (Johnny Galecki). Her appearances are a treat. Watch this one:
Nominations in drama and comedy– very unusual. But Baranski is that way. I first saw her in Mike Nichols’ original production of “The Real Thing” on Broadway. Her career has covered everything from being Ethel to Cybill Shepherd’s Lucy (and stealing the show) in “Cybill” to knockout performances in movies like “Mamma Mia” and “Into the Woods.”
One of my favorite Baranski moments though is from “Reversal of Fortune,” when she played Klaus von Bulow’s lover Andrea Reynolds. It was unforgettable:
So let’s get with it, Emmy voters. Baranski is an acting treasure. And she’s just hitting her stride!
Janis Ian is the Grammy winning singer songwriter of the classic “At Seventeen” among other hits. Her first hit, “Society’s Child,” came when she was 16. On Wednesday she posted to Facebook her recollection of Bill Cosby trying to get her banned from TV after the two of them appeared on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. This is just insane, but as crazy as the rest of the Cosby stories. Janis responded to New York magazine’s extraordinary cover story this week with photos and stories from three dozen Cosby accusers.
Do I have a stake in this issue? Yes. Of course. Outside of being female, outside of knowing women aren’t “heard” as loudly as men are heard, outside of firmly believing that if women were treated equally around the world, many if not all of the world’s problems would no longer exist – outside of all that… I have a personal stake. No, I was not sexually bothered by Bill Cosby. We met because he was curious about me. My song “Society’s Child” was climbing the charts and creating a great deal of controversy. The Smothers Brothers took a huge gamble and had me on their hit television show. I was just sixteen years old when we taped it. I’d been on the road for months, doing press and one-nighters. My chaperone/tour manager, a family friend six or seven years older than me, was doing everything in her power to make sure I was protected and getting as much rest as possible. Remember. I was sixteen. Still in high school. Fairly naive, including about my own sexuality. For months on the road, my chaperone was the only consistent face I saw. Everyone else was a complete stranger – radio personalities, newspaper reporters, magazine photographers, audiences, promoters, disc jockeys, all strangers. So I clung to my chaperone. We’d never been to a big-time TV taping. We had no idea we’d have to be inside from early early morning until whenever they called for me. There were only a couple of chairs for us on the set – I was pretty low on the totem pole, way lower than Jimmy Durante or Pat Paulsen or Mason Williams (all of whom were wonderful to us). And I was exhausted. I’d been having nightmares for weeks, the result of the controversy surrounding “Society’s Child” and the death threats I was receiving daily. I needed to sleep. So I fell asleep in my chaperone’s lap. She was earth motherly, I was scared. It was good to rest.
We taped the show. I had a ball. (You can see it on Youtube, in fact. That’s me, looking scared, in the green dress. My friend Buffy from East Orange, where I’d started high school, made it for me. I treasured it.) Then we went back to New York, and I went back to school. A while later, my manager called me into her office. “What happened at the Smothers Brothers show?!” I had no idea what she was talking about, and said so. “Well, no one else on TV is willing to have you on. Not out there, anyway.” Why? I wondered. And was told that Cosby, seeing me asleep in the chaperone’s lap, had made it his business to “warn” other shows that I wasn’t “suitable family entertainment”, was probably a lesbian, and shouldn’t be on television. Again, a reminder. I was 16. I’d never slept with a man, I’d never slept with a woman. Hell, I barely been kissed, and that in the middle of the summer camp sports area, next to the ping pong table. Banned from TV. Unbelievable. Bless Johnny Carson and his producer Freddy de Cordova, one of the nicest men I’ve ever worked with, because they didn’t listen. Or maybe they didn’t give a damn. I don’t know. I do know that they broke the barrier Cosby tried to create. There’s a lot to bother a sensible person about this. The years these women were ignored. The years they were derided. That the story finally really “broke” because a male comedian named Hannibal Buress kept bringing it up, kept calling Cosby a “rapist”. Not because woman after woman after woman went to the police, to the press, to anyone who’d listen, with horribly similar stories. Let me be snarky for a moment. Interesting that there are so few women of color in the New York Magazine photo. Interesting that the ones in the photo all appear to be light-skinned. Perhaps darker skinned women have not come forward yet? Perhaps they’re among the other 12 women who’ve accused him but aren’t pictured? Or perhaps not. I have to wonder if this rapist has some issues with his own race. Continuing the snarkiness, I find it horrifying that his wife is still insisting it was all consensual. That she sounds more upset by “the invasion of privacy” than the rapes. People seem to be confused because she continues to stand by him. I have just two words for that – money, honey. According to the press, she’s his manager, and has been for years. And his “business manager”, eg the person who handles the money. So if there were pay-offs, she saw the checks. She is complicit. If it was consensual, why pay anyone to be silent? If it was consensual, why are there so many women who do not want money, who do not need fame, who are by turns ashamed, violated, exposed, vulnerable, and still continue to speak out?
Cosby was right in one thing. I am gay. Or bi, if you prefer, since I dearly loved the two men I lived with over the years. My tilt is toward women, though, and he was right about that. But what an odd thing, that a black man who slept with so very many white women chose to take my possible lesbianism away from our one meeting, rather than the message I tried to get across with “Society’s Child.” How pathetic. How truly, truly pathetic.
Tom Cruise isn’t the only member of his family to be employed thanks to “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.” His sister, Cass Mapother Capazorio, is billed in the credits as his paid assistant. Cass’s third husband, Greg Capazorio, runs Scientology’s Criminon– that’s the branch that recruits ex cons into the cult. All of Tom’s sisters, their children, and his mother are embedded in Scientology. It would take the IMF to get them out!
Luckily, Scientology is not expressed on the screen in “Rogue Nation,” an otherwise very fun big studio hit, the kind of summer popcorn movie that recalls the best of the four prior “Mission Impossible” movies and the TV series from the 60s and 70s. (There are many nods to the series this time, which is maybe why “Rogue Nation” works so well.)
“Rogue Nation” is also blessed with a terrific cast in the IMF team– Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, and Ving Rhames, as well as Simon McBurney, Sean Harris and Alec Baldwin. But director Christopher McQuarrie has scored big time with Swedish-British actress Rebecca Ferguson. The take away in “Rogue Nation”– aside from Tom Cruise’s physical fitness and derring -do– is Ferguson’s Lauren Bacall-like presence. Pretty much unknown except for the mini series “The White Queen,” Ferguson is launched here like a rocket. She is sensational.
With his characters fully delineated, and a (thankfully) streamlined plot, McQuarrie can concentrate on more important things: the look and sound of the film. Robert Elswit, repeating from MI4: Ghost Protocol, gives Cruise’s Ethan Hunt and co. dreamy visuals and rich panoramics. And as usual, the music is integral to “Mission Impossible.” Lalo Schifrin’s original theme is like a character unto itself at this point. Plus, Puccini’s “Nessum Dorma” from “Turandot”– ubiquitous at this point– still works like a charm to underscore a lot of the action. I like that McQuarrie makes the audience listen to a good deal of opera.
But it’s the set pieces that will bring people in. Some have little dialogue. But watching Cruise hanging from an airplane, or holding his breath for six minutes under water, etcetera– these are are the showpieces. You won’t want to miss them. Cruise throws himself into these things with abandon, and he looks great doing them.
Will all his outside craziness matter? In the end, no. It’s different for journalists. I’ve been blocked from Cruise’s Twitter page, and I wasn’t allowed into the early screening or premiere of the film because of my writing about Scientology. I can take it, and it doesn’t matter to filmgoers. “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” is a movie’s movie. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
