The “Xscape” phenom is over. Billboard put it at number 2 in its debut, hitsdailydouble.com gave it number 1. But even Hits concedes the part is over. “Xscape” sold 161K copes in its first week. Hits predicts a 50% drop to 80K in the second week which ends Sunday night. Coldplay’s “Ghost Stories,” they say, will come in around 360K. 380K. Country star Brantley Gilbert will pluck his strings at between 200 and 220k. The so called hologram didn’t help Jackson. “Xscape” was a valiant try. The Jackson estate should start releasing live albums. And put the hologram away. Creepy creepy creepy.
Cannes: Tarantino Wants to Release “Django” as 4 Hour Cable Series
Quentin Tarantino is here. He’s in Cannes for tonight’s 20th anniversary showing of “Pulp Fiction.” Tomorrow night he introduces the closing night film, Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone’s “Fistful of Dollars.” It’s been remastered and restored. Very exciting.
Today, Tarantino spoke at a short but lively press conference. You know, he’s brilliant. You think he’s a little crazy. Like a fox. I am always stunned by how his brain works.
What did we learn? He has 90 minutes of “Django Unchained” that no one’s seen. He wants to recut the whole thing into a four hour movie, divide into four one hour episodes, and put it on cable. HBO and Showtime are going to go crazy for this.
What else? He abhors digital projection. It’s like watching TV in a theater. Who needs it? “Digital projection is death of cinema.”
He watches his movies when he comes upon them on TV. He stumbled on “Kill Bill, Pt. 1” recently and watched it from beginning to end.
He says he’s “calmed down” about the leak of his script “The Hateful Eight.” He’s rewriting it now, and will rewrite it again. His “knife in back wound is starting to scab.” Whew! The movie will be made, in some fashion.
What else? Winning the Palme D’or was “the greatest achievement. I look at all the people who won, and who didn’t.” It’s his most prized statue.
So glad he came to Cannes even if it’s at the end.
UPDATE Cannes 2014: Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton the New Faces of amFAR
UPDATE MAY 25TH: Got a lot of positive feedback on this piece. Day after, saw their black Mercedes 350 sedan, stamped with amFAR name, roaming around Cannes. Today watched from coach on Delta flight Nice to New York as their events director took a nice business class seat home.
EARLIER: Wow– the good old days are over. At the height of the amFAR dinners in Cannes, Elizabeth Taylor was the honored guest and Elton John the performer. Now Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton were the new faces of amFAR last night at the rain drenched Hotel du Cap. How the mighty have fallen.
Sharon Stone was back in attendance last night after her awkward dismissal a few years ago. Stone is now the Imelda Marcos of amFAR. She’s present, but they don’t emphasize her. The group pulls in a few actors hanging around Cannes for other reasons, including Marion Cotillard and Jessica Chastain. They also featured pitch man John Travolta who was in town promoting a billionaires’ resort in Belize.
But it’s also Night of the Oligarchs, with Russian billionaires paying $9,000 a ticket and more to see Hollywood stars up close. Ooh la la. Knockout of the night: Jane Fonda, who flew back to Cannes for the event from her film shoot in Italy.
Lana del Rey and Robin Thicke provided entertainment.
amFAR is a good gig for their executives. CEO Kevin Frost was paid over $400,000 in 2012 according to tax filings. Thirteen other execs make six figure salaries.Total compensation of key employees came to $2.2 million. “Other salaries” equaled over $4.6 million.
In 2012 total expenses exceeded total revenue by $1.5 million. Net assets or fund balances fell by over $700,000. Outside consultants were paid around a total of $800,000.
Grants to organizations came to $8 million. Remember salaries totaled $6.8 million. Party on!
How about a comparison? The Elton John AIDS Foundation, much smaller, gave over $6.8 million in grants in 2012. Salaries and outside benefits came to around $400,000 total. Both groups use AAB Productions to help them put on their events. But EJAF only paid them $113,000 in 2012. amFAR was soaked for $253,625.
Hollywood “Sex Men” Case: Former Friend of Michael Egan Insists He’s Lying
Chris Turcotte is in his early 30s. He lives near Providence, Rhode Island and works for a self-described witch (she’s Wiccan) who runs a business distributing sex toys. But in 1999, Turcotte was an aspiring teen star in Hollywood who was best buddies with another teen wannabe star, Michael Egan Jr.
Egan is now suing four prominent Hollywood executives for sex abuse when he was a teen.Today Egan’s lawyer says he’s passed a liar detector test. And Singer has asked his lawyer Marty Singer to file for a dismissal of all charges.
Now on the eve of the premiere of “X Men: Days of Future Past,” Turcotte tells me Egan is lying.
Egan’s cases against Bryan Singer, Garth Ancier, David Neumann, and Gary Goddard were weakened this week when this was revealed: Egan, deposed in 2003 for an earlier case, testified that Neumann never touched him.
Turcotte isn’t surprised. He told me last week in a series of phone calls he was convinced Egan was making up stories of being abused by the men when he was underage. He has a theory, too: Turcotte told me that he thinks Egan may have filed the lawsuits as a preemptory move because he was afraid of what he’d said in interviews for a still unreleased documentary.
The film, by Amy Berg, supposedly traces the history of parties for underage teens especially boys, in Hollywood. Turcotte told me “Mike told Amy all kinds of stuff about those guys. Then I think he worried there would be legal trouble from them. So he went after them first.”
Turcotte says the clue that connects Egan to Berg is in Egan’s own words. “Amy’s company is called Disarming Pictures,” says Turcotte. “In Mike’s statement he talked about ‘disarming the pedophiles.’ That’s not a coincidence.”
Turcotte is from Rhode Island. But he says when he expressed a desire to be a teen actor, his mother packed him up and the family moved to Los Angeles. He went to San Fernando Professional School, where he — like Egan– met Scott Shackley. Scott’s older brother Chad was living in an estate with Marc Collins-Rector, where they threw parties for young people. Girls, nicknamed “Fish,” were allowed into the big parties but not the private ones. Boys were the target guests.
Turcotte says Egan was at least 16 if anything happened. “Mike’s lying about doing drugs over having [underage] sex with any of the defendants,” Turcotte says. He adds that Bryan Singer, especially, was very careful about getting I.D. from anyone he was interested in.
Stay tuned…
Cannes: John Travolta, Kelly Preston Promote Controversial Billionaires’ Caribbean Paradise
Last night in Cannes: John Travolta and Kelly Preston were flown in to host a high priced event promoting an environmentally controversial project. The couple were brought to Cannes to shill for a proposed billionaires’ paradise in Belize, an island in the Caribbean. Puerto Azul is under attack in Belize by just about every local group because it threatens protected and historical sites in Belize.
Puerto Azul, according to reports, could very negatively impact the Blue Hole, a World Heritage site in Belize that some believe could be named the 8th Wonder of the World. In 2012, the Great Blue Hole was cited by the Discovery Channel as number one on its list of “The 10 Most Amazing Places on Earth”.
The Travoltas have long been used as spokespeople by last night’s promote Oscar Generale (he’s a person), who puts together these events. Some of the other celebrities who attended last night– Heidi Klum, Adrien Brody, Rosario Dawson– may have thought the flashy gathering at the very very posh St. George villa in Cannes was for charity.
Alas, the event was to raise money for the massive enterprise under attack in Belize. The main investor is “business man” Domenico Giannini. He’s really just a real estate developer who’s been clever enough to use celebrities as his pitch men and women.
The Puerto Azul development in Belize would be a radical addition to the island. It would include an exclusive resort, hotel, golf, villas and spa, on Northern Two Caye (960 acres) and Sandbore Caye (10 acres), suitable to accommodate 1,000 guests and 2,000 employees. The plans call for an underwater lab, shopping centers, restaurants and bars, a golf club house, spa, airstrip and marina.
Tonight the Travoltas head to another celebrity appearance at the annual amFAR dinner in Antibes, where millions are spent. Rain and thunderstorms currently threaten the event.
Michael Jackson Album Hits Number 1 in a Squeaker Win
Michael Jackson fans really came through for their beloved star. The “Xscape” album beat the new release from the Black Keys and took the number 1 spot for last week. Jackson sold around 570 more albums than the Black Keys with a total of 161,909 sales (that’s physical CDs and digital downloads).
That number isn’t very high, but overall CD and digital sales are way down anyway as opposed to streaming. Nevertheless “Xscape” sales are not strong, certainly nothing like any number of contemporary and or living artists.
Did the hologram help? It doesn’t seem like it. As I wrote yesterday there was no sales bounce from the Billboard awards. But give Michael his due. He’s number 1 for his debut week. We’ll see if he can hold off Coldplay’s new album this week.
Mariah Carey May Get Her Biggest New Hit from George Michael
Mariah Carey’s new album, “The Elusive Chanteuse,” is streaming on iTunes Radio (if you can figure it out let me know). The album is officially released on May 27 th but reviews are coming in. Carey has surprised everyone again, and put together a hot collection of new songs that should send her right to the top of the charts. Good for her!
All the songs are original but one. And that one, called “One More Try,” is going to be a huge hit both on radio and in concert. And it was written and recorded by George Michael in 1985. “One More Try” has over 9 million views on You Tube. But I think Carey’s version is superior, much more gospel and R&B.
I can’t feature Carey’s track yet. Here’s George’s:
Legendary Beauty Actress Sophia Loren, Almost 80: “I Was Never Considered Photogenic”
Cannes: The great Sophia Loren gave a 90 minute interview today disguised as a “master class.” She told the audience at the Salle Bunuel in the Palais des Festivals “I was never beautiful. I was never considered photogenic.” When one audience member asked if it was important to be beautiful as well as talented in order to be successful, she quickly said “No.” All this coming from maybe the most gorgeous actress ever on the silver screen
The master class, or whatever it was, was set for 4:45pm. Nearly two hours before that, people started lining up in the overheated hallways. Security guards were unprepared for what turned into an onslaught. The whole scene looked like people trying to see The Beatles, not a nearly 80 year old Italian actress.
The Q&A following the interview and nearly as disorganized. And Loren, very cutely, kept slipping from French to Italian and back again, making the translator crazy. She could have spoken in English of course. But that would have been too easy.
At the mention of her great lover and co-star Marcello Mastroianni, Loren, actually teared up, cried a little and had to stop for a second. Of her great movies, she said that in “Arabesque” she “didn’t understand one thing.” She said, of the thriller which co-starred Gregory Peck, “I never knew what I was doing.”
Loren said she agreed to be in the movie musical “Nine” in 2009 to act with Daniel Day-Lewis. She played his mother. “He’s the greatest actor in the world today,” she said.
Loren wore a chic white pants suit studded with Swarovski crystals. She turns 80 this fall, but doesn’t look it or sound it. She said in order to succeed at anything you must be “obsessed”
“You have to be strong every single day,” she added.
Cannes: Anne Sinclair, Wife of DSK, Denounces Abel Ferrara Film
Anne Sinclair, now or soon to be the ex wife of disgraced French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has denounced the Abel Ferrara film about the couple’s life shown here in Cannes and all over France on Saturday night.
Writing on The World Post, Sinclair calls “Welcome to New York” ‘disgusting.’ She’s correct about a lot of what she says, but she should also thank Jacqueline Bisset for portraying her with sensitivity and intelligence.
Sinclair is Paris editor of The Huffington Post, a partner of the World Post.
She writes:
I will leave it up to viewers and critics to judge this movie — if they ever want to see it. Many have already expressed boredom and other unflattering opinions about it.
I’m not used to expressing my personal feelings here, but as “Simone” is a character that is meant to represent me in Welcome to New York, I would simply like to say how disgusted I am.
I am disgusted with a movie that presents the exposure of Gérard Depardieu’s body as boldness, when it in fact only makes you retch. I am disgusted with the film’s pathetic and ridiculous dialogue, and the way Abel Ferrara represents women throughout the movie — it must illustrate his own drives.
Above all, I also feel disgusted with the so-called confrontation between the two main characters. The film’s writers and producers are only projecting their own fantasies about money and Jewish people.
References to my family during the war are truly degrading and defamatory. They’re the contrary to what really happened. My grandfather had to flee the Nazis. He was deprived of his French citizenship by the Vichy regime. My father joined Free France and fought until the Liberation. Saying anything else is nothing but slander.
I never thought I would have to defend their memories against such anti-Semitic attacks. They’re without a doubt motivated by the director’s own issues, and by the producer’s naked greed.
That being said, I won’t give Abel Ferrara and Vincent Maraval the pleasure of suing them. They already said they wanted — and expected — to be sued. I don’t attack filth. I despise it.
Ryan Gosling Impresses with First Film, “Lost River”
There hasn’t been a bigger crowd anywhere in Cannes this year than the one for Ryan Gosling’s “Lost River.” Reminiscent of a lot of indie films, “Lost River” nevertheless in an impressive debut as Gosling wrote the sort of post-apocalyptic script and directed it with a real eye. Cinematography is outstanding. Christina Hendricks of “Mad Men” fame is luminous and shows that she should be someone’s lead actress all the time. There’s very nice work from Ben Mendelsohn and Saorise Ronan and a little boy who steals the film. Gosling has certainly been influenced by his own director friend Nicholas Winding Refn. That’s not a bad thing at all.