Why should we be left out? Hot on the news that there’s no one to play Freddie Mercury in his own biopic– Sacha Baron Cohen is out–comes news of a Queen musical in the U.S. An American tour of the West End’s “We Will Rock You” is headed here momentarily. The show opens in Baltimore on October 15th and will travel around the country before arriving on Broadway. There’s no New York date yet, but my guess would be next summer, after the Tony Awards. “We Will Rock You” has played in the West End for 12 years, sold 9 zillion tickets, and sent many hundreds of thousands of fans out onto the streets singing “Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you do the Fandango?” Of course, there is a character named Scaramouche in the show, ‘natch. The cast features The cast features Brian Justin Crum as Galileo, Ruby Lewis as Scaramouche, Jacqueline Arnold as Killer Queen, P.J. Griffith as Kashoggi, Ryan Knowles as Pop, Erica Peck as Oz and Jared Zirilli as Britney.
Broadway: 8 Major Stars Will Do Luxe Cruise Next Spring Instead of Musical
Broadway is moving to the high seas. Next March, instead of actually performing on Broadway in a musical and going to the Tony Awards, 8 major stars are scrubbing decks. Playbill magazine is sponsoring a cruise to Tahiti, of all places, during March 2014. And they’ve lined up a bunch of people who should be working on stage in the West 40s. These people are either very smart or something is wrong with how shows are being produced these days.
The stars are: Brian Stokes Mitchell, Christine Ebersole, wife and husband Audra McDonald and Will Swenson, Sutton Foster, Lea Salonga, Danny Burstein, and Rebecca Luker. Seth Rudetsky is directing their performances. If the M/S Paul Gaugin should become the Titanic, there literally will be no Broadway any more. That’s it. I can’t even count all the nominations and awards for all these people. It would be as if the Justice League of America took a vacation together. Or the X Men.
The details: the trip leaves Los Angeles on March 20th for nine days. Prices range from $7,547 to almost $20,000 per person. The low number is for a bunk with no windows but you get a bucket and a flare gun. At the upper range, you get a Broadway star to sing you to sleep.
Again: why aren’t these people on Broadway during the height of theater season? And if they’re not on Broadway, who will be? Oh right: big names from Hollywood who’ll leave their shows after three- to-six months. Sorry. I forgot!
Review: “Lovelace” GIves Us a Lot to Swallow
We all knew the name Linda Lovelace; her name would invariably evoke nervous twitters, derision and laughter. Co-directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman tell the story of Linda Boreman (her real name) a misguided young girl in her early 20’s who is from a dysfunctional working class family in Florida. She falls under the spell of a charismatic dirt bag and wannabe entrepreneur named Chuck Traynor. Boreman’s meteoric rise to become an internationally known celebrity porn star of “Deep Throat” pulls no punches and is at times gruesome to watch.
Amanda Seyfried earns her acting stripes here, her brave no holds barred performance completely sheds her “Les Miz” and “Mamma Mia” good girl image. Peter Sarsgaard plays Chuck with a creepiness that is unsettling throughout. Robert Patrick and an unrecognizable Sharon Stone portray her parents in an imperfect heartbreaking way, walking the line between the simultaneous shame and love they have for their child. Bobby Cannavale, Hank Azaria, Chris Noth, Adam Brody and Debi Mazar all play their porn posse parts perfectly. James Franco portrays Hugh Hefner in a slick and gross way that the real Hugh will probably not be thrilled with.
The production values, looking low budget, convincingly capture the mood of the time with enhancing costumes, sets and vivid soundtrack. The 93-minute film does gloss over some key points in Linda’s life, some admirable and some not, and gives her a free pass more than it should. And the movie doesn’t settle the question of whether or not Linda was complicit in making “Deep Throat” forced, as she claimed later, against her will.
In the end though, “Lovelace” is a fascinating and sobering film about the horrible choices that people and society choose to make. Her redemptive after porn life is relatively short lived; she marries, has two children and then tragically dies at the young age of 52 from injuries sustained in a car wreck. The fact that “Deep Throat” grossed an estimated $600 million dollars, with only $1250 going to Linda is, surprisingly, the least bothersome aspect of this tortured tale.
(PS Editors note: studios had better figure out better digital delivery systems for reviewers. Vici, a system used for “Lovelace,” failed to work properly. Academy voters are still going to require discs this fall and winter. )
Leah Remini Files Missing Person Report with LAPD on Scientology Chief’s Wife
Tony Ortega is reporting on his site (www.tonyortega.org) that Leah Remini has done the bravest thing yet: she’s filed a missing persons report with the LAPD on Shelly Miscavige, the estranged wife of Scientology chief David Miscavige. In all the years that Shelly Miscavige has been “away” no other Hollywood celebrity Scientologist has bothered to do anything like this– not Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Jenna Elfman, or any of them. Only Remini has had the nerve to demand to know what happened to this woman and why no one has seen her or heard from her in years. Ortega says Remini is also concerned about a woman named Barbara Ruiz, who worked in the Scientology literary office. She’s also disappeared. Is Leah Remini going to bring down Scientology on her own? You don’t mess with a girl from Queens.
PS I’ve confirmed with the LAPD that a report has been filed. No more information is available so far. We’ll keep checking…
Fox News Kicking Either Greta V-S or Shepard Smith to the Curb
So who’s out and who’s in Fox News? The Drudge Report broke the story that Roger Ailes has given Megyn Kelly the 9pm slot on the bombastic right wing network. That spot belongs to Sean Hannity. But Hannity will stay, no doubt. The really vulnerable show anchors are Greta van Susteren and Shepard Smith. Greta was already thought to be in a contract dispute with Fox. And Ailes said this afternoon at a Fox panel that he’s been talking to Smith about new ways of doing the news. Does that mean like from a different network? Who should stay? Who should go? And will people watch Kelly? There’s no honor among thieves, friends. Fox is gearing up for their big anti-Hillary campaign, so changes are afoot. Let’s also not forget mid term elections in November 2014. The rhetoric is already ratcheting up. PS Would either Greta or Shep go to CNN? Or Al Jazeera? Hmmm…
George Clooney’s All-Star Trailer for “Monuments Men” (Watch Video)
Here’s the trailer for George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men” starring Clooney, Matt Damon and a big all star cast headed for box office gold and lots of awards. Looks great.
UPDATE Beloved Actress Karen Black (Nashville, Five Easy Pieces) Dead at 74
UPDATE: Karen Black has died at age 74. She ran with a cool crowd when she burst onto the movie scene– Fonda, Nicholson, Hopper, DeNiro, Altman. She was a unique talent. God bless.
Earlier: This is a terrible story. But beloved actress Karen Black is dying of cancer. Her husband has posted a blog and a video updating her deteriorating condition. http://karenblackactress.blogspot.com/2013/08/august-7th-update-from-stephen-karens.html?m=1 Black is living in a nursing facility and the situation sounds pretty dire. If you’re too young to know, Karen Black made a name for herself in the 70s in “Five Easy Pieces,” “Nashville,” “Easy Rider,” and other classics.
Here is Karen from “The Great Gatsby” (1974):
Lady Gaga Gets Completely Naked for Art Video: She Was Born this Way
Lady Gaga: Stephanie Germanotta is back. Here she is, in her birthday suit, in a video for art practitioner Marina Abramovic. Now we know, she was born this way. Her hip surgery must have been very successful. Her leaked single “Burqa” is already on our site. And so we get ready for her official single release, her appearance on the MTV Video Music Awards, the November album, and her duets record with Tony Bennett.
The Abramovic Method Practiced by Lady Gaga from Marina Abramovic Institute on Vimeo.
Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs: Something Does Not Compute
Last night: the premiere at the Museum of Modern Art screening room for “Jobs” or “jOBS” or however you want to spell it. This is the movie starring Ashton Kutcher as Apple founder Steve Jobs. Josh Gad plays Steve Wozniak, Matthew Modine is John Scully, and Dermot Mulroney is their long suffering lawyer.
This is what you get from the movie: Steve Jobs was disloyal to his close friends, horrible to his girlfriend and illegitimate child, and basically a putz who had a gift for design and marketing. Kutcher, an affably guy of limited acting abilities, looks like he’s going to have a cerebral hemorrhage in some scenes as Jobs is supposedly “thinking.”
If only someone connected to the movie had done some of that hard thinking. “Jobs” is like a really long Lifetime movie without any glamorous women. It’s a linear biopic about someone no one likes or is really fond of. You learn a lot about computers and almost nothing about the people who made them. There’s very little insight into the man, Steve Jobs. Instead, Kutcher imitates his walk, his hairstyles, wears his eyeglasses, and eats fruit.
And I am really confused. I thought Jobs named Apple after the Beatles’ Apple because he admired the group. In the movie, it’s Wozniak who likes the Fab Four. Jobs likes Bob Dylan. The producers of the film spent so much money on licensing recordings by Dylan and Cat Stevens, among others, that their instrumental score sounds like it was lifted from Hallmark Hall of Fame Thanksgiving special.
Gad, Modine, Mulroney, and J.K. Simmons are the real winners here. If it weren’t for them, you’d leave the screening room within 30 minutes. Gad lights up the screen as Wozniak. Modine is so good you wonder why we don’t see him more. Mulroney really keeps the scenes moving as Kutcher’s concentration wavers. I also really liked Ahna O’Reilly as the babymama of Jobs’s first kid. She’s also in “Fruitvale Station” this summer. Keep an eye on her.
Joshua Michael Stern directed from a script by Michael Whiteley. They are each in deep water way over their heads. I suppose geeks will be interested in “Jobs.” But this is no “Social Network.” Indeed, this shows us what a great job Aaron Sorkin did humanizing those people and making the material accessible and clever.
Martin Scorsese and Liza Minnelli Reunited in Song for “Boardwalk Empire”
Once upon a time, Martin Scorsese and Liza Minnelli were quite an item. This was in a decade called the 1970s. Scorsese directed Minnelli in his cult musical “New York, New York,'” the film which produced Minnelli’s signature song. Now, thirtysomething years later, director and singer are reunited. Minnelli has just recorded a track for the new collection of songs being issued for Scorsese’s HBO series “Boardwalk Empire.” The second “BE” soundtrack is being released on September 3rd with Minnelli’s version of the 1923 Sophie Tucker classic, “You’ve Gotta See Mama Every Night (Or You Can’t See Mama At All).”
Since Minnelli’s version– which will close a new episode of “BE” this fall– isn’t ready yet, here’s Sophie Tucker. Looking forward to Liza’s take. She’ll be performing at Caesar’s in Atlantic City on September 28th, too– very fitting since that’s where “BE” takes place!