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Will Smith Private Quasi-Scientology School is Shut Down

Roger Friedman
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Will Smith Private Quasi-Scientology School is Shut Down

UPDATE: The website for the school, which taught around 70 kids, is gone. NVLA is now like the lost city of Xenu.

EARLIER: New Village Leadership Academy is no more. This was the private school stared by Will Smith and wife Jada Pinkett Smith in 2008 with ties to Scientology. The intrepid Tony Ortega reported on his site www.tonyortega.org on Wednesday that he’d confirmed with several sources attached to the school that the Calabasas, California organization was kaput.

This must be a blow to the Smiths, especially with “After Earth” bombing at the box office.

Though the school may be closed, their website is still up. According to GuideStar.org, the non profit institution still has no Form 990 filed for 2012 But their 2011 filing shows that school chief Franca Campopiano, an avowed Scientologist, was making $200,000 a year. On website whyweprotest.com, an anonymous former parent wrote in: “This horrific institution has CLOSED! The star founders should be ashamed of the lies propagated by the unethical staff.”

Recently I reported that John Travolta had donated money to the school as a fellow Scientologist, from the charitable fund he started in his son Jett’s memory.

Because New Village still has not filed for 2012, it’s hard to say what their financial situation was. But in 2011, they claimed net assets of negative $284,931 and liabilities of $1,235,154.

The school ran from Kindergarten to 6th grade. If anyone has more info, please email me at roger@showbiz411.com. We’ll try and figure out where all the money went.

The shut down must have been sudden. Back on April 29th, New Village ran a week long fundraising auction on Ebay. Some of the items included Will Smith’s suit from “Men in Black,” a Yamaha motorcycle owned by Jada, and a training session with Sugar Ray Leonard.

 

 

Jimmy Fallon Ready for the Big Time: Hires McCartney Lawyer, Billy Joel Publicist

Roger Friedman
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Jimmy Fallon Ready for the Big Time: Hires McCartney Lawyer, Billy Joel Publicist

Jimmy Fallon is getting ready for the big time. The star of “Late Night” will move to the “Tonight” show starting next February. So the former “Saturday Night Live” player is upping his game considerably. I’m told Fallon has hired Lee Eastman and his father, John, of the famed Eastman and Eastman firm. John Eastman, whose late sister Linda was married to Paul McCartney until her tragic death in 1998, has been representing the Beatle since before the group broke up in 1970.

John Eastman’s late father, the first Lee Eastman, was considered a genius for buying up song catalogs. The Eastmans are considered the creme de la creme in the cut throat music business. They rescued Billy Joel from some dire circumstances years ago, as well. Fallon has also picked up Claire Mercuri, Joel’s long time rep as his new publicist. Now with the right people in place, Fallon looks unstoppable as he tunes up his guitar for a winter re-birth. If you can tell, I am a huge of Fallon’s show. It’s smart and sophisticated while still  reaching a mass audience. And the guy isn’t even 40 yet.

Jay Z Puts His “Magna Carta” Next to the Real One at Salisbury Chapel

Roger Friedman
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Jay Z Puts His “Magna Carta” Next to the Real One at Salisbury Chapel

Tomorrow (tonight 12:01am) brings Jay Z’s “Magna Carta” album to 1 million Samsung app downloaders. (I sure hope the album comes in more easily than the app!) Anyway, as a great publicity stunt, Roc Nation-Def Jam has put the “Magna Carta” cover art on display in England at Salisbury Cathedral. That’s one of the four places where parts of the real “Magna Carta” are displayed. A desecration of history? No doubt. But a funny idea nonetheless.

magna carta meets magna carta

Clooney, Bullock to Open Venice; “Lone Ranger” Slow Start, Warren Beatty’s Early Start

Roger Friedman
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Clooney, Bullock to Open Venice; “Lone Ranger” Slow Start, Warren Beatty’s Early Start

George Clooney and Sandra Bullock will open the Venice Film Festival this summer. Their movie “Gravity,” directed by Alfonso Cuaron, will get a lot of international press on opening night, August 28th. Bullock will be coming off her big hit, “The Heat.” Clooney is finishing up his “Monuments Men” for Christmas release with Cate Blanchett and Matt Damon. Gravity is a Warner Bros. release for October 4th unless someone questions the title. People may confuse it with either the 2010 or 2012 TV pilot…

…Hi ho. “The Lone Ranger” made $2 million on Tuesday night in midnight showings. That’s not very good. Get ready because when the box office figures arrive tomorrow afternoon, it’s going to get worse. “Lone Ranger” is up to around 25% on RottenTomatoes. This morning, all the New York papers panned it. So now it’s just a question of whether marketing can overcome reviews…

...The original slackers from early TV are finally on DVD. Shout Factory has just released a complete box set of “The Many of Loves of Dobie Gillis,” written and created by Woody Allen’s favorite writer, the late great comic genius Max Shulman. Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver- pre “Gilligan’s Island”– star as Dobie and his beatnik pal Maynard G. Krebs. Don’t kid yourself– they were the forerunners of Richie and Fonzie and dozens of other similar characters on TV after that. The shows hold up beautifully. They are subversively funny, very sarcastic, and quite the opposite of what you might expect from the pre-Beatles 1960s. STAR ALERT: Both Warren Beatty and Tuesday Weld got their starts on “Dobie Gillis.” Plus there are lots of extras in this box set. http://www.shoutfactory.com/?q=node/217376

Yeezus! Kanye West CD Falls Whopping 80% in One Week To Number Three

Roger Friedman
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3
Yeezus! Kanye West CD Falls Whopping 80% in One Week To Number Three

Yeezus! Kanye West’s cacaphony of an album took a beating in its second week on the charts.”Yeezus” fell a whopping 80% in sales in its second week, from number 1 to number 3. It was replaced by Wale (155,000 copies) and last week’s number 2, “Born Sinner” by J. Cole with 83,000 copies.

In its first week, “Yeezus” sold 327,000 copies. This week, it moved only 65,000 units. Lack of a single, a song or anything you could hum probably had a lot to do with it. Not even the birth of North West, his reality show inspired baby, could keep Kanye in the game. And things will get worse as Jay Z releases his “Magna Carta” next week. The hit album of the summer remains Daft Punk and their single “Get Lucky.”

This week brought new releases by old friends India.Arie (“Songversation”) and Julia Fordham (www.juliafordham.com).

Kerry Washington Breaks Vanity Fair Cover Color Barrier

Roger Friedman
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Kerry Washington Breaks Vanity Fair Cover Color Barrier

I am so pleased to see Kerry Washington on the cover of Vanity Fair this month. The new issue is on sale July 7th but it’s in New York today. Kerry breaks the Vanity Fair cover color barrier–the magazine rarely features people of color, and when they do, they are relegated to side panels. Such was the case for Kerry in this past year’s TV issue.

But now there she is–the star of “Scandal” and “Django Unchained” is very involved with lots of issues and organizations including the Creative Coalition. She’s smart, beautiful, and talented. I first saw Washington in a movie at Sundance called “Lift” in 2001. It was a breakout role for her. I wish more people saw that film. I met her in Sundance and knew right away she was going to be a star. And while Vogue has had no trouble putting black women on their covers, Vanity Fair for some reason has been reticent. This is a nice summer treat– and Kerry looks fantastic. Mazel tov!

PS Kerry has a lot of competition at the Emmys this year if she’s nominated on July 18th–Julianna Margulies, Elizabeth Moss, Michelle Dockery, and so on. But I think this is her year. “Scandal” is a hit, and so is Kerry!

August 2013 cover (2)

Pierce Brosnan Family Tragedy: Stepdaughter Dies of Ovarian Cancer

Roger Friedman
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Pierce Brosnan Family Tragedy: Stepdaughter Dies of Ovarian Cancer

Sad news: Actor Pierce Brosnan’s stepdaughter– but also his adopted daughter–has died of ovarian cancer. Charlotte Brosnan was 41. She was the daughter of Pierce’s  late wife Cassandra and her own late husband, Dermot Harris. Dermot was the brother of famed British actor Richard Harris, also now gone. That makes Charlotte first cousin to “Mad Men” actor Jared Harris and his two brothers.

Cassandra was five years older than Pierce, who adopted her two children (son Christopher) and changed their names to Brosnan. Pierce has said that Dermot Harris– who died of a heart attack at age 43 in 1986– wasn’t much of a father. Pierce– a stand up guy who’s taken care of all these families and kids–  once described Cassandra’s marriage to Harris as “painful.”

The great tragedy is that Cassandra, Charlotte, and Cassandra’s mother all died of ovarian cancer. Charlotte Brosnan leaves husband and two children.

“Charlotte fought her cancer with rare grace and humanity, courage and dignity,” Pierce Brosnan said in a statement. “Our hearts are heavy with the loss of our beautiful dear girl. We pray for her, and that the cure for this wretched disease will be at hand soon. We thank everyone for their heartfelt condolences.”

Jay Z New Album: Lobbying Group Caves, RIAA Will Count His 1Mil Giveaways

Roger Friedman
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Jay Z New Album: Lobbying Group Caves, RIAA Will Count His 1Mil Giveaways

Jay Z’s “Magna Carta” giveaway is almost here. Samsung will send out 1 million free copies on July 4th. They bought ’em from Universal Music for five bucks each. Billboard and Soundscan so far are not counting the million copies for their charts. It’s a bulk sale, they maintain. And it’s free. Samsung also bought the albums for half the price they’d sell for on iTunes or amazon.

But the RIAA has caved in. The Record Industry Association of America gives platinum and gold albums based on “shipped units” not actual sales. Until yesterday they waited 30 days to see what returns came in before they gave the awards. But yesterday they announced that with digital sales they won’t wait anymore. And they will count the “Magna Carta” give away.

No surprise. The RIAA has five people from Universal Music on its board. They’re not exactly cutting edge, they go where the wind takes them, where it blows, so to speak. They’re the group that sues grandmothers for downloading, but let Bit Torrent, Pirate Bay and Lime Wire run wild for years until the record business was decimated.

It’s not to see they took a hard line on this one. Jay Z probably got his platinum album yesterday afternoon. Meantime, though I downloaded the app from Samsung, I’ve never actually been able to see the lyrics to the songs. A big gray box cuts them off. God knows what I’m missing…

http://www.riaa.com/news_room.php?content_selector=riaa-news-blog

 

“TWA Flight 800” Doc: NTSB Briefing Today Will Address Rumors, Conspiracies

Roger Friedman
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This afternoon in Washington, the NTSB–National Transportation Safety Board–will hold a briefing about the tragic crash of TWA flight 800. This is tied into a documentary which will air beginning July 17th on Epix. TWA flight 800 crashed on July 17, 1996. Kristina Borjesson directed it.

Here’s a personal note: I was in Atlantic Beach, Long Island picking up my cousin’s kids, and we saw that plane take off. I said, “Kids, that’s a plane I’ve taken before.” An hour late we arrived at my great aunt’s house, and saw what happened on TV. It was unbelievable.

Apparently a lot of other people found it unbelievable too. Two hundred thirty people were killed in the crash. If you remember there were sightings of other planes, and a lot of unanswered questions. In the film, a half dozen former member of the team that investigated the crash finally come clean on how they were undermined and what they think really happened.

We’ll have to wait and see what comes of the briefing and a petition to re-open the investigation.


Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp: Hi Ho, Tarnished Silver

Roger Friedman
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1
Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp: Hi Ho, Tarnished Silver

“The Lone Ranger” takes place in the 1860s, sometime after the Gettysburg Address. But late in the movie a band in Texas plays Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, written in 1880. You already knew two hours earlier that Gore Verbinski’s movie starring Johnny Depp as a pirate called Tonto made no sense, but this cinches it. That, and the endless rounds of machine gun fire available to the cowboys and Indians in this interminable film.

“The Long Ranger” is two and a half hours, feels like four, and if you could come in just 15 minutes before it was over, you could experience the best part without missing a thing. That’s when, finally, Armie Hammer rises up on his white steed called Silver, the William Tell overture plays, and The Lone Ranger yells “Hi ho Silver!” Really, it’s a two hour wait to get that point. And still the movie keeps going even when this one almost interesting sequence passes.

It may be key that first the William Tell Overture is played, followed directly by the 1812 Overture. The whole movie is an overture without a symphony. It’s endless, with little to no plot or character development. Just lots and lots of action, lots of explosions, flashbacks, flashbacks within flashbacks.

The whole thing is hung on a gimmick recalling “Night at the Museum.” A boy sees a display of a “Native Warrior.” The boy is dressed like the Lone Ranger. The Warrior is Johnny Depp stuffed and portraying Tonto in his later years. Depp resembles nothing less than Billy Crystal in “The Princess Bride.” If he started speaking with a Yiddish accent, we’d be totally in the other movie riffed on here, “Blazing Saddles.”

This movie cost upwards of $200 million. Disney tried to stop it once, and pulled the plug when they saw the budget ballooning bigger and bigger. That they accepted this budget is amazing. You do see the money on the screen, but it’s squandered on worthless ness. Depp plays Tonto as Keith Richards. (What else is new?) Hammer is good looking and purposely bland as the Lone Ranger because he’s second fiddle to Tonto.

And as with most of these summer blockbusters, it’s all played for jokes. Lacking a story or a plot, the characters have nothing to do but yuck it up. If I hear the expression “Not so much” as a punchline one more time, my head is going to explode.

There’s a vast amount of computer generated activity, too.  A lot of it looks very unreal, almost on purpose (but not quite).

Some nods to the supporting cast which comes and goes: Helena Bonham Carter has no idea why she’s in this movie, or which movie she’s in. She may have wandered over from “Les Miserables” or “Sweeney Todd.” James Badge Dale plays the Lone Ranger’s brother briefly, but is wise enough to exit early. William Fichtner and Stephen Root are largely unrecognizable.

How Disney got into this situation again just two years after “John Carter” is a mystery. Maybe “The Lone Ranger” will open better. But they’re going to have trouble in China– the Asians working on the railroad aren’t treated too well. And Americans may not be so keen seeing Depp as a bumbling American Indian. And American Indians won’t be too keen seeing their elders sort of laughed at. It makes you realize how much work went into “Dances with Wolves” and that was far from perfect.

Thursday morning box office results are going to be interesting. Go see “Frances Ha” this weekend, and “World War Z,” and “20 Feet from Stardom” and “Before Midnight” and even “Star Trek.”

 

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