I guess Conrad Hilton’s already flipped in his grave a few times. This is nothing new. Paris Hilton’s new video “Good Time” with Lil Wayne features several F bombs. It’s a dance single meant to be provocative. Is it really? No. Just the language is coarse and vulgar. What else is new? That’s hot!
Paul McCartney Plays New Song “Save Us” on Jimmy Fallon
Paul McCartney introduced a new song from his new album called “New” last night on Jimmy Fallon. “Save Us” is a straight ahead rocker. Paul is a wonder of energy and melody at 71. His voice sounds pretty good, too.
Scorsese-DiCaprio “Wolf of Wall Street” May Make Oscar Deadline After All
Exclusive: Now I am hearing that after much talk about a 2014 delay, Martin Scorsese– like Mary Tyler Moore–is gonna make it after all. Sources say that Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker are trying desperately to deliver a manageable length version of “The Wolf of Wall Street” for Christmas Day release.
The word: Their goal now is November 25th. After that, Scorsese will leave for the Marrakesh Film Festival. That will give the capable folks at Paramount one month to get marketing and promotion together.
If Scorsese makes it, this adds a new wrinkle into the competitive Oscar season. There are plenty of candidates for the 10 Best Picture slots and the five Best Actors. Not only that–Matthew McConnaughey will be eligible from three movies: Wolf, Dallas Buyers Club, and Mud. He’ll certainly get something.
Here are the realistic Best Picture contenders so far in no order: Gravity, The Butler, Blue Jasmine, August: Osage County, 12 Years a Slave, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, Fruitvale Station, Captain Phillips, The Monuments Men, Saving Mr. Banks, American Hustle, Mandela, All is Lost, Philomena.
Will Scorsese and Schoonmaker make it in time? We’re crossing our fingers.
UPDATE: See the Lady Gaga-Jeff Koons Album Cover for “Art POP”
UPDATE: I told you that Lady Gaga showed me her album cover a couple of weeks ago. Here it is, a collaboration for the ages. “ArtPOP” will be released on November 11th. Gaga enlisted famed contemporary artist Jeff Koons to create the cover. What’s interesting about Stephanie Germanotta is that she’s trying the same sort of things groups like the Rolling Stones and Velvet Underground did eons ago by exposing her audience to real artists. Those groups worked with Andy Warhol. Madonna — when she was interesting– was all about Keith Haring. Gaga is trying to broaden her horizons. Let’s just hope the songs are good, too!
Exclusive: June Squibb to Play Lena Dunham’s Grandma on “Girls”
June Squibb– you may remember her from Alexander Payne’s “About Schmidt” as Jack Nicholson’s wife. She was so good in that 2002 movie that her career took off. The now almost 84 year old actress moved to Los Angeles and became a regular on “The Ghost Whisperer,” “The Young and the Restless” and lots of TV shows.
But now she’s back with Payne and stealing the show in his wonderful “Nebraska.” This black and white gem showed in Cannes and opens tonight at the New York Film Festival. Squibb is spot on as the wife of Bruce Dern’s Woody Grant. Dern, Squibb, and Will Forte, who plays their son, are all easily Oscar candidates. So is the film, Payne, and the screenplay. And let’s not the black and white cinematography.
Squibb is so hot now she’s been signed to play Hannah’s– Lena Dunham’s– grandmother in “Girls” for the coming season. I hope she has time for it. She’ll be doing a lot of promotion for “Nebraska.”
Last night Paramount screened the film, then hosted a spur of the moment gathering at their HQ pre-NYFF. All the principals were there. I also ran into two beloved and favorite New York theater (and often TV) actresses, Harriet Harris and Jan Maxwell, as well as the great Jessica Hecht. Plus, the film was introduced by legendary Mary Louise Smith, who plays Squibb’s sister in law in “Nebraska.” The movie opens November 15th.
Bruce Dern is 77 and seems like a lock for Best Actor nomination. Best Actor is now a dogfight. We have Dern, Hanks, and Redford. We also have Forest Whitaker, Chewitel Eijofor, and Idris Elba. Then there’s newcomers Oscar Isaac and Michael B. Jordan. Wait! What about Matthew McConnaughey. This is going to be insane. They all deserve, each one of them.
Dern told me he watched “Nebraska” last week with some old friends– Jane Fonda and Haskell Wexler. They made “Coming Home” together in 1977. He was nommed for Best Supporting Actor, his only Oscar nomination. So he screened “Nebraska” with them for good luck. I think it will work.
Steely Dan Brings Classic Album “Aja” to the Beacon From Start to Finish
Ok. You know, I was 20 years old in 1977 and already five years into Steely Dan from the release of “Countdown to Ecstasy.” The album “Aja” was the pinnacle their original output of classic albums. I hadn’t seen them since June 2007. But last night Donald Fagen, Walter Becker and their outstanding band of musicians specializing in jazz and rock put on “Aja” from start to finish, all seven songs, taking around 40 minutes. It was a pleasure almost beyond description.
Becker and Fagen look pretty much as last seen by me. Their guitarist extraordinaire Jon Herington, who gets to play the intricate leads “Reeling in the Years” and “Kid Charlemagne,” is the Benjamin Button of rock. He actually looks younger than the last time I saw him, and his playing is more supple than ever. The whole band, including legendary bass player Freddie Washington, brother and sister Michael Leonhart (trumpet) and Carolyn (singer), and drummer Keith Carlock is a well oiled machine that can turn out the Steely Dan hits and still make them sound robust and rejuvenated.
Walter Becker, who lives in Hawaii was always an enigma, actually gets to be master of ceremonies. He plays solos, sings lead on “Daddy Don’t Live in New York City” and gets to tell jokes, introduce the band. Sometimes on stage he seems to be in a trance. But when he wakes up he’s funny, accessible, and brilliant.
Fagen, another enigma, has also loosened up over the years, is still the Ed Sullivan of jazz rock, but he’s also a strangely gifted multi-tasker who leads this group through its ornate paces. He gets away from the keyboards to play the melodica (a keyboard horn sort of) which provides a lot of amusement adds punctuated lightness- dare I say whimsy– to several of the heavier Steely Dan numbers like “Hey Nineteen.”
(Funny thing about that song, too– when it came out in 1980, Fagen referenced Aretha Franklin as maybe a forgotten golden oldie. Immediately thereafter Aretha launched her renaissance with Clive Davis, and has never gone away.)
The entire band’s versatility is just a pleasure as they mix the trademark quirky pop with real jazz. And you know that both Fagen and Becker would love to drop the hits and play obscure songs all night. But the new trend is to play whole albums. They did with others in the last week, but “Aja” was the one not to miss.
From the beginning of the title track to the end of “Deacon Blues” you really feel like there’s a chance actual music could come back to radio in our time. The gorgeous craftsmanship, the melodic beauty, the composition meaning something– you just wonder why anyone in the current record business would want to be involved with the junk we are now fed 24/7 that masquerades as music. Do I sound like a curmudgeon from 1977? I don’t care. Viva Steely Dan.
PS Songs last night not from “Aja” included Reeling in the Years, Boddhistava, Showbiz Kids, Kid Charlemagne, and Your Gold Teeth II.
Johnny Carson’s Lawyer Spills All in New Book– Including that Carson Carried a .38 and Frank Gifford Had An Affair with His Second Wife
Johnny Carson relied for years and years on the silence of his personal lawyer, Henry Bushkin. Now Bushkin has published a memoir in which he spills all about Carson. The book is already readable on Amazon.com although set up yet for Kindle. Bushkin says he, Carson, and a private eye went into Joanne Carson’s NY apartment– she was Johnny’s second wife–to find out who she was sleeping with. It turned out to be Frank Gifford.
Carson sobbed. Carson, Bushkin says, carried a .38 pistol on his hip in a holster. Here’s Johneeeeee…..” I realized,” Bushkin writes, “that I was probably one of the very few people who ever saw Johnny Carson cry.”
“Joanne has broken my heart,” Carson told Bushkin, “to the extent I ever had one.”
Bushkin says Carson wondered what Gifford had that he didn’t. “Gifford plays three positions on the field,” he said. “I could only get Joanne to go for one or two,” Carson joked. “I think I’ll use that in tomorrow’s monologue.”
MIley Cyrus to Matt Lauer Upon Hearing He’s 55: “You’re Definitely Not Sexual”
Miley Cyrus, always fun:
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Catherine Zeta Jones Makes A Splash at “Big Fish” Broadway Opening
My favorite thing about the Broadway opening of “Big Fish” on Broadway last night–besides Norbert Leo Butz’s magnificent work as the younged down Albert Finney character: chatting with Catherine Zeta Jones. She looked like a million bucks, was in a great mood, and enjoyed the show immensely. She came with Universal Pictures’ chief Ron Meyer and his good friend, producer Bill Haber– two guys once ran with Creative Artists Agency with Mike Ovitz.
CZJ is really a beauty, and it was nice to see her off duty–just as a guest, not promoting anything. I was standing in a row of seats in front of this gang at intermission. All of a sudden CZJ decided she wanted to stretch her legs. Luckily, they are long. She literally stepped over the backs of the chairs and into my row with incredible panache. She’s a dancer, after all. Coming back, she did the same thing again! No standing on ceremony!
Sitting just behind this group in the Neil Simon Theater: Regis and Joy Philbin double dating with Michael and Laurie Gelman. At the end of my row: Zach Braff with his beautiful blonde girlfriend, Taylor Bagley. At the end of the emotional show I ran into Marisa Tomei. “I cried!” she said, wiping away tears.
Around in the audience, plenty of New York icons and theatre types, from Whoopi Goldberg to Harvey Weinstein and so on. Right after the show I ran into Paul Haggis, who’s been in this column more times this week than Sting!
“Big Fish” by the way rests entirely on the magnetism of Butz, and the incredible choreography of Susan Stroman. She literally works magic on the stage. I was not a fan of Andrew Lippa’s monotonous songs. But Kate Baldwin sings one called “I Don’t Need a Roof” toward the end which should have been the template for all the others. It’s beautiful, and she’s lovely.
PS: No I did not look to see if CZJ was wearing a wedding ring, and we did not discuss anything like that. No one else did. It was just nice to see her looking happy and healthy. She’s a good egg.
Sandra Bullock on Work After Gravity: “I Will Only Do Fluff!”
Sandra Bullock should be very happy today. “Gravity” exceeded all predictions this weekend and took in around $55.5 million. It was well above the predicted $40 million. “Gravity” is headed to the Oscars for Best Picture, Director (Cuaron), Actress, maybe Best Supporting Actor for George Clooney, and all the tech nominations.
At last week’s laid back premiere at NY’s famed American Museum of Natural History, I asked Sandy what her next movie will be. “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t have any plans. But I think I will only do fluff from now on!” I asked if “The Heat” with Melissa McCarthy wasn’t fluff?
“That’s serious comedy!” she said. “I mean, real fluff!”
That’s because “Gravity” has little levity, just brevity. Mostly it’s heavy heavy heavy. And Bullock worked like a dog under physically exhausting conditions to make it right.
Meantime, “Runner Runner” turned out to be the dud that was indeed predicted, with $7.6 mil for the weekend. It’s too bad it didn’t work out. On to bigger and better things.