Neil Patrick Harris couldn’t do it since he’ll likely be a nominee for “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” So Hugh Jackman is back, June 8th, on CBS. He’ll be singing and dancing on the stage of Radio City Music Hall. The Tonys will need him this year more than ever. The crop of shows coming in is not that star-studded, nor is it very blockbustery. The big musicals so far are “Beautiful” and “Gentleman’s Guide.” The ones still to come include “Aladdin” and “Bullets Over Broadway.” Revivals include “Cabaret.” Jackman will offer added star power.
Beatles Special Will Be Re-Broadcast on CBS Wednesday Night
The Beatles 50th anniversary is not over. CBS will re-broadcast the big special “The Night That Changed America,” tomorrow night from 8:30pm to 11pm. So set your DVRs!The first showing yielded 14 million viewers.
The network would be smart to put the whole thing out on DVD, or at least on iTunes, after this showing. The only other time that Paul and Ringo have played together, post- Beatles, was in April 2009 at Radio City Music Hall for the David Lynch Foundation. And that was not filmed, as far as anyone knows.
The re-broadcast should keep helping sales of Beatles albums. Amazon lists about ten different ones in their top 100 including the 2009 “black” box set. My advice: buy that one, and the individual “Hey Jude” album. And you’re all set!
Funny? Tina Fey’s New TV Series Is Comedy About Women Rescued from a Cult
I know we’re supposed to trust Tina Fey. She is very funny, and she knows comedy. I did love “30 Rock.” But her new comedy is going to take a leap of faith, I think. It’s called “Tooken,” and it’s about women who’ve been rescued from a doomsday cult and its leader. Is this going to be funny? Tina Fey and her “30 Rock” collaborator Robert Carlock evidently think so.
“Tooken” stars Ellie Kemper from “The Office” as Kimmy. She’s kind of Mary Richards, if Mary had been brainwashed by a cult leader instead of just the victim of a broken engagement.
Kimmy’s friends are called Gretchen, Donna Marie, Clarice, and Cindy, according to sources. They were all in the cult led by Reverend Richard. Donna Marie is described as Latina. She got into the cult thinking she was joining a maid’s service that went to clean the cult house and never left. The others are friends who follow Kimmy out of the cult. Presumably, Reverend Richard will be a character as well.
You never know with sitcoms and their descriptions. Maybe this will work. It doesn’t sound funny. In fact, when it was described to me, I thought it was about the women in Pennsylvania who were held against their will for a decade. Now that was funny! (Just kidding.) I’m just not ready to drink the Kool Aid yet on this one.
“Tooken” will be one of many new shows on NBC this fall.
Shirley Temple, 85, Diplomat, Actress, and a Non Alcoholic Drink
Shirley Temple did a lot for the world. She went from child star to international diplomat. Along the way, she inspired a non alcoholic drink that kids could order when their parents were knocking a few back. For all that, we should be grateful.
Bits: Scorsese Tribute, Diahann Carroll Leaves Denzel, Ed Sheeran Plays Elton
There’s a lot of stuff going on…Here’s a sampling…
MARTIN SCORSESE is getting a mini tribute and retrospective this week at the Ziegfeld Theater. The films are his recent classics. On Thursday, February 13th there’s a Q&A with Leonardo DiCaprio, famed editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and “Wolf of Wall Street” screenwrite Terence Winter. How cool is that? You can get tickets at www.bowtiecinemas.com. Here’s the schedule:
Thursday, February 13th
THE AVIATOR – 12:00pm
THE DEPARTED – 3:30pm
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET – conversation prior to feature at 7:00pm
Friday, February 14th
SHUTTER ISLAND – 1:00pm
GANGS OF NEW YORK – 4:00pm
THE WOLF OF WALL STREET – 7:45pm
DIAHANN CARROLL has exited “Raisin in the Sun” starring Denzel Washington, set for an April opening on Broadway. Let’s face it, she was wrong for this role. The amazing LaTanya Richardson takes her place. She’s only 6 years older than Denzel, but will play his mother. She can do it. Carroll, I’m told, arrived for rehearsals in a fur coat with Chanel sunglasses. She thought it was “Dreamgirls,” I guess…
ED SHEERAN did such a great job singing and playing “In My Life” on the Beatles special. Now he’s been chosen as the entertainer for Elton John and David Furnish’s Oscar party. The dinner and party benefit the wonderful Elton John AIDS Foundation. Tickets are very hard to come by. Go to www.ejaf.org…
TV Ratings: Olympics Beat Beatles, But Fab Four Score is Still Huge
There was so much on TV last night! But the Olympics won the night with over 25 million viewers, a 6.9 share and a whopping 18 rating in the key demo (18-49).
But the Beatles impressed. The two and a half hour show produced almost 13.5 million total viewers. The 5 share was the second highest of the night for everything else but the Olympics. But it was older, wiser folks who tuned. The key demo number was 2.1.
At the least the Beatles brought the key demo up a bit. It was twice as much as “60 Minutes,” which preceded.
CBS would have been better off letting Ken Ehrlich just put on the three hour show as planned. That last half hour, a rerun of “The Millers,” did little business.
Beatles Special Sends Albums Back into Top 10 on Amazon, iTunes
Last night’s Beatles special did the trick. All of the albums are back on the charts. At iTunes, the “1” album with 27 hits is in the top 10. On amazon, the “red” and “blue” greatest hits albums are selling the best. But right behind those, on both charts, are “Abbey Road” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
On amazon, the “black” box set from 2009 and the new “US Albums” are in the top 30. Those two box sets are expensive, which is even better for the Beatles. My personal favorite album, “Hey Jude,” a greatest hits set released in the US and never available here on CD until now, is at number 35.
The special also seems to had had an effect on Paul McCartney’s “New” collection, which is also charting around number 90. During the special last night, Paul’s drummer had the “New” logo, not the Beatles’, emblazoned on his drum kit.
I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or intentional, but that logo seems like it was influenced by the wallpaper on some American Airlines planes. Funny where people get artistic inspiration these days.
Some Beatles fans have noticed that there were a scarcity of John Lennon songs in the special. There were, by our count, 12 McCartney songs, 5 Lennon, 2 Harrison, and the balance were Lennon-McCartney together. Paul said during the show that “I Saw Her Standing There” was written by him and Lennon. But in the past it’s always been attributed to Paul alone.
Noticeably absent from the line up: “Come Together,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and “Across the Universe.” But the show would have been three hours long.
Beatles Special: A Plus, But They Did Cut “Magical Mystery Tour”
And so we close Beatles weekend– first with a great event at the Ed Sullivan Theater, a panel discussion for CBS online moderated by Anthony Mason with The Rascals’ Felix Cavaliere, Foreigner’s Mick Jones, producer Peter Asher, Pattie Boyd Harrison, The Rutles’ Neil Innes, “Across the Universe’ director Julie Taymor, John Oates of Hall &, and new 5 time Grammy winner Nile Rodgers. Ed Sullivan’s granddaughters were in the audience as was his publicist, Bernie Ilson, who wrote the memoir “Sundays with Sullivan.”
They even put up a facsimile of the marquee from the night the Beatles debuted on Sullivan! Nice touch!
The 90 minute show was the first in a series for CBS.com. What better way to kick it off? After the show, the audience– which included CBS radio prize winners– was invited to stay and watch the Beatles special on the big screen in the theater. It was a little surreal. When I was in first grade watching the Beatles 50 years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that I’d be in the same theater, etc. It was a grand night. Martin Lewis even convinced Neil Innes to sing a Rutles song. And everyone sang “All You Need is Love” at the end, with Innes, Jones, and Oates on guitar.
I came home to the DVR of the special. The good news is that it ran mostly as we saw it in the L.A. Convention Center. The only song I think they omitted was Paul and his band on “Magical Mystery Tour.” There wasn’t time. Everything else was intact. Producer Ken Ehrlich did a good job presenting what the amazing show that we saw in that room.
A couple of thoughts: you can see it on the special and from the Grammys, which were held the night before across the street at the Staples Center. The Beatles family– Paul, Ringo, Yoko, Olivia, Sean, Dhani, Ringo’s wife Barbara, her sister Marjorie (who’s married to Joe Walsh) — were what made the two nights so pleasant. They were front and center, invested in the moment.
They sing along to the songs, dance. They’re not faking it. You watch them all mouthing the words to the songs. Sean Lennon even video’s the finale from his phone. Dhani Harrison does his father proud playing and singing on “Here Comes the Sun.” Even Yoko is having a good time. Old feuds are put aside. At the Grammy show, the whole gang sat right up front and were present for the whole show. It was refreshing.
Second: the songs are stunning, aren’t they? I thought I could fast forward through them. But it was impossible. I was very impressed a second time around with Keith Urban and John Mayer on “Don’t Let Me Down.” Annie Lennox is phenomenal singing “Fool on the Hill.” I really loved John Legend and Alicia Keys on “Let it Be.” My only real gripe: not enough John Lennon songs. But Ed Sheeran gave a terrific reading of “In My Life.”
Were the ratings good? Against the Olympics and “Downton Abbey”– who knows? If you loved music you watched the show. And you saw two and a half hours of live — live– music, no lip synching or Auto Tune, or any of the crap this generation has become so used to. There were live French horns in “Sgt. Pepper”! Musical director Don Was, band members Peter Frampton and Steve Lukather, were all superb. The Renaissance of Joe Walsh is an astonishingly nice thing to watch.
And no, I have no idea why those actors were there. Johnny Depp’s reading was bizarre. But they were like the furniture, really. They didn’t hurt a thing.
Kudos. Loved the interviews with David Letterman, too. Ringo seemed chipper, as usual. Paul actually looked a little dazed. What a thing for them to take in. This Beatles celebration is unprecedented, and it won’t happen again to anyone. They made history, and gave us our culture. Imagine if Shakespeare had been brought in 50 years after his first play, to the Old Globe, for a national celebration of his work. Or Beethoven or Mozart. It has to be a dizzying experience to know you were responsible for all of this.
photo c2014 Showbiz411
Paul McCartney on Beatles Special: “I was wondering if it was seemly to tribute yourself”
On tonight’s special, from last week’s concert in L.A., Paul McCartney spoke a little. He said, “I was wondering if it was seemly to tribute yourself. But I ran into a couple of American guys who said You don’t know the impact of the show on America. It changed a lot of people’s lives. I really didn’t understand it. But once I did, through them, I decided we’d show up.”
Ringo, in the cut away, points to himself. It changed his life. And ours. Some pictures. All c2014 Showbiz411.
Shia LaBeouf Wears Paper Bag On His Head to Berlin Movie Premiere: Reads “I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE”
A little UPDATE here: Back on January 23rd, an email LaBeouf sent to an L.A. art was picked up by the Defamer website. This is what Shia wrote:
I am in need of a performance space in Los Angeles I’m looking to put on a show. Your gallery is perfect. My plan is to repent in the way of the Middle Ages. For 7 days.
I am promoting it at the Berlin film festival. By wearing a mask I’ve made for the show, To the red carpet of the NYMPHOMANIC premier. The date for this action is the 9th I’d like to start my show on the 10th. The show works in conjunction with an online action- @thecampaignbook
Manifesto
So this is something he’s been planning right along. Good for him. The bag can later be used for a sandwich or for breathing if he starts to hyper-ventilate.
EARLIER: According to a report in Variety, and from accounts I’m just getting, Shia LaBeouf wore a paper bag on his head to the premiere of “Nymphomaniac” at the Berlin Film Festival. He did also come in a tuxedo, so that’s something. Written on the paper bag: “I am not famous anymore.”
Look, he’s either having a nervous breakdown or pulling off a kind of James Franco-esque college thing because he’s reading a lot of material about modernism. For weeks, La Beouf has been posting “I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE” on Twitter, just that, once a day.
I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE
— Shia LaBeouf (@thecampaignbook) February 9, 2014
This is what happens when you do college at home, without professors or guidance, and in public. He’s a bright kid. We may have to suffer through this as his collective parents.
LaBeouf has put up a separate website on Meta Modernism from reading “Notes on MetaModernism” by Vermeulen & van den Akker. His Twitter feed is @thecampaignbook.
Can you imagine what pains in the neck Franny and Zooey would have been if they had the internet?