Never underestimate the stupidity of the American public. Someone said that. Last night the worst reviewed movie of the year, universally panned by everyone who writes about film, finished at number 1 at the box office. Adam Sandler’s “Grown Ups 2” took in over $16 million. It beat the highly praised “Pacific Rim” and the animation hit “Despicable Me 2.” How is it possible that Sandler’s meandering, coarse tripe could still make it to number 1? Is the audience drugged? Are they escapees from mental institutions? Do they have endless amounts of disposable income? Anyway, we’ll see how “Grown Ups 2” does the rest of the weekend. But no one who went to that movie last night can complain about not having money for anything. You wasted it on this.
Madonna Hosting “Bar Mitzvah” in NYC Saturday? Vogue Service at 9
This is a total rumor but it’s enough of a spit-take that I thought I’d mention it. Madonna is said to be hosting a “bar mitzvah” tomorrow morning for son Rocco Ritchie. Rocco is not yet 13– his birthday is August 1st. And he’s not Jewish in any way. Those are the two requirements for bar mitzvah– to be 13 years of age and to be Jewish either born or converted.
Rocco’s father is Guy Ritchie, the director of “Sherlock Holmes” and “Snatch.” He is not Jewish. Moreover, Madonna Louise Ciccone Penn Ritchie was born Roman Catholic.
Of course, the service is said to be at the Kabbalah Center in New York. The Kabbalah Center isn’t a synagogue. It’s a pay-for-pray facility, a cult run by the Berg family. The Bergs– Karen and her two sons, Yehuda and Michael, are said to be in New York for the big occasion. No word on Karen’s boyfriend, Muki, or her not-seen-anymore husband Philip.
If Rocco is being “bar mitzvah”-ed, I can only imagine the ceremony: lithe dancers with headsets sinewing around the “bimah”– the stage– wearing all white– Kabbalah Center people wear all white. First, a Vogueing service. Then: A candle lighting ceremony in which Madonna’s boytoys like Brahim and Jesus are called to the front. And then everyone throws $26 red strings at Rocco. Copies of Madonna’s “Sex” book are given to guests as parting gifts. Sounds like fun.
Since my invite was lost in the mail, I won’t be in attendance. And I had a nice fountain pen all picked out for Rocco! I hope Mercy and David Banda, the children Madonna got in Malawi, try the kugel and someone from the singer’s family pinches their cheeks. And Madonna is lifted up during “Hava Negillah” in an expensive antique chair.
Or maybe none of this is true, it’s just Tevye’s nightmare from indigestion.
Justin Timberlake Clever Michael Jackson Tribute in New Song “Take Back the Night” (Listen)
Justin Timberlake does a clever mini Michael Jackson tribute in his new single “Take Back the Night” from “20/20” part 2 due September 30. It comes in at around 2:30 here. Listen — “Wanna Be Starting Something” and a line about “Michael Jackson/can drive you crazy.” Nicely done. Between this single, JT’s first 20/20 album and “Get Lucky,” it’s really the summer of 1978 all over again. Disco lives. I never thought that would happen. But it’s like a breath of fresh air. This reminds me of George Benson’s “Give me the Night.”
WWOR Canceled Newscast– Seven News Writers Fired: Writers Guild Outraged
Writers Guild East just realized Channel 9’s newscast is gone. WWOR is owned by Fox News/News Corp. I don’t understand why the FCC hasn’t stepped in already. WWOR replaced their only newscast with a crap canned show a la TMZ that looks like a bunch of jackals running around with minicams. They should all be ashamed of themselves. But you know CHannel 9 once hosted Morton Downey Jr’s embarrassment of debasement, so I guess they could argue it’s the station’s history. Even worse: Richard Bey. The fact is, Channel 9 has always been a garbage dump. FoxNews/NewsCorp just cinched it.
Statement:
The Writers Guild of America, East learned last week that WWOR was abandoning New Jersey news coverage by canceling its last remaining local news show.
As a result seven Writers Guild, East news writers – all of them long time employees – were given their walking papers. This was done in typically cold corporate form: members were called into a meeting on July 3rd and told they were out of a job and that they should collect their things and leave. The boxes they packed were searched before they left. Because their Guild contract requires two weeks’ notice before a layoff, those members will continue to receive their salaries until the middle of the month as well as one week of severance pay for each year they worked, cushioning the blow but not the injustice.
WWOR owner News Corp. (whose television division is now known as “21st Century Fox”) has long underplayed the legal requirement that it provide local news coverage to the people of New Jersey – a legal condition of its holding the license to operate in the state.
The Guild joins Senator Robert Menendez’s call that the FCC conclude its review of 21st Century Fox’s application to renew its license for WWOR, as well as the ongoing investigation into whether WWOR made misrepresentations related to that application.
“We agree that WWOR is not serving the interests of the people of New Jersey as required by FCC rules,” said WGAE Executive Director Lowell Peterson. “The people of New Jersey deserve a television station that will honor its responsibility to provide thoughtful, professional coverage of the issues facing the state. WWOR should add news programming, not chase it off the airwaves.”
Review: “Pacific Rim” Is the Weekend’s Big Studio Success
Guillermo del Toro, thankfully, never disappoints his slavishly devoted film groupies. The futuristic “Pacific Rim” gloriously shows his quintessential touch, by reflecting his rich poetic fantasy and testerone filled imagination. That and so much more is up on the screen in this nonstop raucous filled visual feast of filmmaking.
Who knew that monsters fighting robots and the layered characters that save the earth could become a true summer experience that fulfills what so many movies so far this year have unfortunately not. “Rim” is scary, smart and scientific, with humor weaved in throughout. The visual effects are stunningly believable and artistic in every scene. The way cute and capable Charlie Hunnam plays a former Jaeger pilot Raleigh Becket, Jaegers being the massive robots the humans built to defeat those pesky alien ocean creatures. Idris Elba always is perfection and he is again here. The gravitas he portrays playing the seasoned professional marshaling his forces for one last stand against the creatures is the emotional vortex of the story.
Scene-stealers Charlie Day and Burn Gorman are the Laurel and Hardy version of the nerdy to the rescue scientists. Veteran actor Ron Perlman has a terrific comic turn as the black market evildoer. Rinko Kikuchi plays the young Japanese protégé with heartbreaking secrets of her own.
Del Toro’s films are always filled with detail and carefully thought out, there is art and skill here, the way it should be. Not these awful so-called blockbusters we’ve been forced to sit through, hear that “Lone Ranger,” “Man Of Steel,” “White House Down,” well the list goes on. The Academy should hand the Oscars for Visual, Animation and Sound Effects to Del Toro’s team right now. Del Toro’s artistic integrity and his otherworldly mastery creates magic, excitement and good old fashion fun. Get ready for the “Pacific Rim” movie ride; it’s the best one to go on this summer.
Lady Gaga Album in November: I Told You This in February
Remember when I told you Lady Gaga’s album “ArtPOP” would come in November? http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/02/12/lady-gagas-new-album-wait-until-november. Today she announced it on Facebook. A single will arrive on August 19th. Gaga is recording a duets album with Tony Bennett right now. She won’t finish “Art POP” until after that. This does mean that only the single will be eligible for Grammy awards on January 26th. The album will have to wait until 2015. Lady Gaga aka Stephanie Germanotta is very talented. I really wound up liking “Edge of Glory.” But let’s hope the new songs take her away from sounding like Madonna, and are more like “Just Dance” and her earlier, more original hits.
Leah Remini’s Scientology Exit: May Never See Husband, Mother, Sisters Again
Leah Remini has left the so-called “church” of Scientology. She sent out a brief statement last night thanking fans and friends for their support. But what hasn’t been addressed is what happens to her husband, mother, sisters, and stepfather. They are all in the cult, too. And one of the main things about Scientology is called “disconnection.” When someone leaves the group, they are cut off from any left behind who’s still inside.
When Oscar winning director Paul Haggis left Scientology a couple of years ago, he cited disconnection. His now ex-wife Deborah Rennard was cut off from her parents, who’d been in the cult for years.
Remini’s mother Vicki Marshall started with Scientology in at least 1997. She worked her way up to 8th level of Operating Thetan. I think this means she speaks to aliens. Whatever. She’s in it up to her eyeballs.
Leah Remini has three sisters– Shannon and Nicole, a half sister named Elizabeth. They are all listed as having taken many classes and worked their way through the system. This also means Scientology has made a fortune off of them because the classes cost a lot.
Elizabeth Remini has had problems with the law because of her drug addiction. She was arrested in 2005 in North Carolina and charged with five felony counts of cocaine possession and dealing the drug.
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Leah Remini also brought her husband, Angelo Pagan, into Scientology. He owns a popular diner called Vivian’s in suburban Los Angeles. Last Tony Ortega called Pagan and asked him if he and his wife were leaving Scientology. Pagan said they weren’t. But now that Remini seems to have made the break, Pagan would have to go, too.
“He’d have to leave,” says one former member. “They’re very happily married. Otherwise, they’d have to divorce. She wouldn’t be allowed to see him again.”
Of course, that’s what Tom Cruise did to Nicole Kidman after their divorce in 2001. He disconnected from her, and made it difficult for her to have a relationship with their children.
Pagan did not return phone calls yesterday.
The ex-member I spoke to said to may take some time before Remini or her husband are able to deal with the reality of the situation. “You have to go through like a detox period. A debriefing. You realize how you’ve been treated, how much money you lost, how lied to you were. It’s not easy. And you’re losing all your friends.”
Remini is taking a gamble. Through Scientology she was able to associate with Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, Will and Jada Smith, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. She and JLO had gotten very buddy buddy. When Suri Cruise was born, Remini was one of the few insiders who was on the scene thanks to her Scientology connections. Now it’s all over.
Murdered: Broadway Costume Designer’s Teen Son Was Not a “Lucky Guy”
The 18 year old son of a famed Broadway costume designer and a popular Brooklyn teacher was murdered on July 2nd in Richmond, Virginia. Toni-Leslie James has won and been nominated for many awards for her work. Just this season she designed the costumes for Tom Hanks’s “Lucky Guy” on Broadway and the amazing “Comedy of Errors” at Shakespeare in the Park.
On July 2nd, her 18 year old son Jett left the house where they spend summers in Richmond, Virginia at 10:45pm. According to reports he had $4 and an iPhone in his pocket. He went to the corner store to get snacks. Within 15 minutes he was dead, the victim of a robbery gone bad.
In New York, where Toni-Leslie James and her husband, lighting designer David Higham (he teaches at Brooklyn’s PolyPrep), have many ties, only CBS2 has reported this story locally. But at the opening of “Fruitvale Station” this past Monday, a movie with a similar story, someone mentioned this tragedy to me.
In Richmond, three young men were arrested and charged with the crime. Jett has been down in Richmond only six days.
Here’s the not very good report from Richmond TV. (Not to diminish the story. But I don’t know why the correspondent is dressed this way. A jacket and tie might make him and the story seem more important. The guy looks homeless.)
Notes on “Fruitvale Station,” The Best Movie Released So Far in 2013
Ryan Coogler’s extraordinary “Fruitvale Station” opens today in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Forget all this other stuff– from Adam Sandler to more sci fi robots to John Travolta’s ridiculous ‘Serbian’ accent. None of this matters. “Fruitvale Station” is not like “Precious” but it resonates similarly: you feel the truth of it immediately, from the first scene, to the last. This is quite an accomplishment for 27 year old Coogler and his first film.
Some thoughts: Michael B. Jordan plays the late Oscar Grant in a career making performance. I didn’t watch “Friday Night Lights” closely enough to recognize him. I was shocked later to learn that was a geeky teen with dreds on “All My Children.” This shows you how soaps find young actors. Amanda Seyfried was in a lot of scenes with him, so was Leven Rambin.
Jordan makes Oscar Grant, whom none of us ever knew, into a real person, a 3D human being. But all the actors in “Fruitvale” make their characters come alive, especially Octavia Spencer and Melonie Diaz. And the script has some nice funny touches, too, especially the mini story about birthday cards different for white and black people. There’s a lot of knowing looks in the audience when that story is played out.
The BART cop who shot unarmed Oscar Grant in the back and killed him served only 11 months in jail for involuntary manslaugher. He did wind up losing a civil case. Oscar Grant’s young daughter got a $1.5 million settlement which isn’t much when you realize her life is now full of terrible obstacles.
Oscar’s best friend, who I think in the movie, was played by Ryan Coogler’s very engaging brother Keenan, also sued the city and BART in 2009. Last year he was found shot dead in a car. He was not involved in drugs or any criminal activity. It’s an unsolved murder. You can only surmise what happened to him.
The first time I saw “Fruitvale Station” it stayed with me for two weeks. When I saw it again the other night, it had the same effect. I can’t stop thinking about it now. First, it’s a tragedy, a monumental miscarriage of justice. Second, it’s a great movie. As Coogler said to me at the premiere, “You don’t really want to celebrate after you see it.” But Coogler and that cast deserve a lot.
PS Not to be overlooked: especially good are supporting players little Ariana Neal, Ahna O’Reilly, Marjorie Shears, Kevin Durand, and Chad Michael Murray.
See this movie.
Hasselbeck Hustled Off “The View”: Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry?
I’m no fan of Elisabeth Hasselbeck. But her departure from “The View” on Wednesday was really a matter of “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” ABC announced that she was leaving at 7pm on Tuesday, well after every deadline had passed and when most web reporters on the East Coast thought they were done for the day.
The next morning, Hasselbeck not only announced she was leaving “The View” for Fox, but was leaving at that very moment. It was mid week, mid month, and right in the middle of sweeps. Couldn’t they have had her finish out July? The show goes ‘dark’ until Labor on July 31st.
But Hasselbeck’s exit was long in coming. I told you in March that she was out when Joy Behar announced she, too, was going from “The View.” When the news about Hasselbeck broke, Barbara Walters announced on the show that it wasn’t true, sort of. She said if her co-hosts wanted to leave they could, and they would announce it in their own time.
I filed this item: http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/03/11/the-view-elisabeth-hasselbeck-gets-short-reprieve-to-come-up-with-an-out
I can tell you that the people with “The View” have been waiting patiently for Hasselbeck to make her own announcement. And when she did, they didn’t hesitate to remove her right away. Watching her farewell speech was astonishing. In a way, it was worse than Ann Curry’s infamous exit from “Today.” The look on Bill Geddie’s face was priceless. And I did love Hasselbeck calling Sherri Shepherd “my sister in Christ.” Shepherd hadn’t even bothered to come in that day.
And as far as Barbara Walters saying they were going to “take their time” replacing Hasselbeck: both Brooke Shields and Jenny McCarthy have been under consideration since March. There won’t be empty seats at the desk when “The View” returns in September.