Paramount Pictures has postponed the Pittsburgh premiere of “Jack Reacher” with Tom Cruise out of deference to the victims and survivors of Friday’s Connecticut school shooting. In the movie, Reacher investigates the murder of five people with six shots from a sniper. The film is based on a novel by Lee Child.

It’s not the first time this year that real life events have derailed the marketing of a movie. The Ben Stiller movie “The Watch” was originally called “Neighborhood Watch.” It was about a group of suburban dads who protect their streets, and it was supposed to be a comic take ending in them discovering aliens. But months before it was released, George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin and the story became an overnight sensation. This column first reported the situation. The movie’s title was changed to “The Watch” but it was too late. The film was DOA.

http://www.showbiz411.com/2012/04/09/ny-times-follows-up-on-our-neighborhood-watch-story

“Reacher” has nothing to do with the current situation but the timing is bad. The Connecticut shooting is less than day old, and it’s a massive tragedy. It will involved, if you think about it, 27 funerals, many of children, in a small town. Meanwhile, “Reacher” is committed to opening on Friday, December 21st. Today there is a press junket–already set to be without Cruise–here in New York. Tomorrow–Monday–Cruise and the film are set for a screening and tribute at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Cruise’s only American media appearances for the movie are this week, too, on David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon’s shows. Now what? “Reacher” is coming, premiere or not.

UPDATE: Voting for Oscar nominations begins Monday at 8am Pacific, 11am Eastern. See below for the press release.

The Motion Picture Academy sent out a list today of 282 films they say are eligible for Best Picture. They include “Here Comes the Boom” and “Paranormal Activity 4.” But seriously there are like 20  films or so on any real list. Here they are:

Argo

Silver Linings Playbook

Lincoln

Les Miserables

Django Unchained

Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Zero Dark Thirty

The Master

Skyfall

The Sessions

Moonrise Kingdom

The Dark Knight Rises

Promised Land

Quartet

Cloud Atlas

The Intouchables

Amour

Rust and Bone

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Promised Land

Life of Pi

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Nominations voting for the 85th Academy Awards® will open at 8 a.m. PT, Monday, December 17, for the 5,856 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  Members will have until 5 p.m. PT, Thursday, January 3, 2013, to vote electronically or mail in a paper ballot. Any paper ballots received after the deadline will not be counted.

Nominations and final Awards ballots will be tabulated and verified by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to ensure that all aspects of the balloting process are accurate and secure.

This will be the first year the Academy is providing its membership the opportunity to vote electronically. Several voting resources will be available to members, including assisted voting stations in Los Angeles, New York and London, and a 24-hour support call center during voting periods.

The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Oscar Sunday, February 24, 2013, at the Dolby Theatre™ at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live on the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.

The hunt for Tom Cruise continues: the man so many consider “the biggest star in Hollywood” is remaining off limits to press for his latest film, “Jack Reacher.” Even though “Reacher” has pretty good reviews, and should be a Christmas hit for Paramount Pictures, Cruise is keeping it low key. He’s skipping the entire press junket for “Reacher” this weekend in New York.

A call sheet went out to press today and the “available” talent will be Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo (who told me recently how much he loved working with Cruise on the movie), plus author of the “Reacher” books Lee Child, and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie.

But no Cruise. Tom is making an appearance in Pittsburgh tomorrow afternoon at a “premiere” for “Reacher”–he’ll likely sign autographs and wave and smile, sort of like the politician in Robert Altman’s classic film “Nashville.” Next week he appears on both David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon, which are usually live shows and not taped in advance. But Cruise will otherwise not be available for interviews on “Reacher.”

So far “Reacher” has six positive reviews and one extremely negative one on rottentomatoes.com. It has good buzz. But the real reviews from all the junketeers won’t come until after they’ve seen the movie this weekend and registered their reactions–which may not be until right before the movie opens next Friday, December 21–the same day the world is supposed to end.

Meantime Paramount is riding high with “Flight”– which should be nominated for Best Picture, it’s excellent–and David Chase’s rocking musical  “Not Fade Away” which premieres Tuesday and will be a welcome addition to the Christmas releases.

PS I’ve never read these “Reacher” books, where the main character is supposed to be six foot five. If Cruise is good in the role it won’t matter. Jack Reacher is a fictitious character. It’s a non issue. If Reacher were a basketball player it might be a different story. But he’s not.

The Rascals are back, at last. You’re too young to remember them, exactly, but you know their songs: “I’ve Been Lonely Too Long,” “Good Lovin’,” “It’s a Beautiful Morning,” “How Can I Be Sure,” “People Got to Be Free,” and “I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore” were all top 10 or better. The quartet was the blue eyed soul group on the famous Atlantic R&B roster, labelmates with Sam & Dave, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Percy Sledge. Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati were the Lennon and McCartney of Atlantic until they were not; their fall out was epic. But in their day, the Rascals were glorious. Their greatest hits album, “TimePeace,” was in every college dorm room for years and years.

Now you must run, not walk, to the Capitol Theater in nearby Port Chester, New York (just 35 mins by train), where the Rascals have at last been reunited by Little Steven van Zandt and his wife Maureen producing “Once Upon a Dream.” The original four are alive and more than kicking in this two hour retrospective that includes video, interviews, and of course magnificent live performances of all the hits by Felix, Eddie, Dino Danelli and Gene Cornish with a sensational back up band and singers. It’s all been cleverly staged and assembled by van Zandt and Marc Brickman. There’s a clever narration by Vinny Pastore aka Big Pussy from “The Sopranos.”

For last night’s opening show, the crowd included another rocker of the era, Tommy James, and actor Robert Wuhl, LA Dodgers announcer Charlie Steiner, music publisher John Titta, famed promoter Ron Delsener, legacy singer Vaneese Thomas, musician Steve Gadd, the one and only Tommy Mottola, and actor Chazz Palminteri.

Considering that they haven’t played together for 40 years (with a couple of recent one off exceptions), the Rascals–once the Young Rascals,and joked Robert Wuhl, soon to be the Little Rascals–were pretty “wascally.” It’s hard to imagine a tighter, funkier sound out of  band half their age. The songs, originally produced and arranged by Atlantic’s geniuses Arif Mardin and Tom Dowd, remain little works of art. Cavaliere and Briganti’s vocals don’t have to be smooth; they’re as full of mellifluous grit as they were in 1968. They’re also full of so much personality, you could say they are and were the white Temptations.

This is the time to catch this show, while it’s in its cult moment. “Once Upon A Dream” plays shows this weekend and next. Then it moves into a long pre-Broadway circuit for fine tuning. There won’t be a lot to do, just some trimming and tightening. “Once Upon a Dream” tells the Rascals’ story. But it also depends entirely on the music for its ultimate success. Maybe because the group was away so long, everything sounds fresh and new. You just wonder why there’s nothing like this now on the charts. We’ve been lonely too long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctwOewTCskc

I just got a press release from PBS that they’re showing the Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour” this Friday. Just one hour prior they’re also showing a documentary about the making of the movie. This is funny– two days notice, no fanfare on their website. You’d think after the whole Mitt Romney thing they’d be jumping through hoops with publicity. Anyway. “Magical Mystery Tour” was recently released on Blu-Ray DVD etc all remastered and spiffed up and ready for mass consumption.The Beatles and Apple have so much money, I don’t understand why they don’t use their publicist, Elizabeth Freund, to do these things properly. Everything is always a mystery, or a last minute surprise. It’s very annoying.

Here’s the release:

The story behind Magical Mystery Tour is revealed on Magical Mystery Tour Revisited on THIRTEEN’S Great Performances, Friday, December 14 at 9 p.m. on PBS. (Check local listings).

Now with the film fully restored to the highest technical standard with a remixed soundtrack, it’s time to tell the extraordinary story of Magical Mystery Tour: why it was made, how it was made and the circumstances in which it was made

To tell the story, this film calls on those who were there, most notably Paul McCartney, who had the original idea, and Ringo Starr, director of photography. John Lennon and George Harrison are represented through interviews over the years and through their appearances in the film itself and in the copious and fascinating outtakes.

Line producer Gavrik Losey and cameraman Michael Seresin evoke the heady atmosphere of the shoot, along with Jeni Crowley and Sylvia Nightingale who, as teenagers, reported from the coach for The Beatles’ Fan Club magazine. Paul Fox, then controller of BBC One, recalls making the deal with The Beatles for the film. Also sharing their reminiscences are Martin Scorsese, Peter Fonda, Paul Gambaccini, Terry Gilliam, Neil Innes, Paul Merton, Barry Miles, Annie Nightingale.

It provides a chance to evoke 1967 as it was – post-war Britain as much as the summer of love, when a new set of artists with The Beatles at the helm came up with an alchemy that turned the ordinary and the commonplace into the magical and mysterious.

So: the Golden Globes nominations are in, and they are meaningless, frankly. It’s a lot of fun, but basically the SAG Awards are the best indicator of Oscar because SAG members comprise a huge voting block at the Academy. The Globes are voted by 80 or so very odd people who require an immense amount of feeding, watering, and petting. Even then, it’s hard to imagine what’s crossing their minds other than getting their pictures taken with stars.

This year, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association made some big errors. Other than Jon Hamm, “Mad Men” was cut out of the show. “Mad Men” had an amazing season. Its last five or six episodes were wonderful. Hamm, Christina Hendicks, Jon Slattery and the entire cast excelled. So what went wrong? In all likelihood, since the show is older, they didn’t put the time into entertaining the HFPA.

The group also ignored Robert DeNiro’s best performance in 20 years in “Silver Linings Playbook.” He will get his Oscar nod, and could win. It’s beautiful work. DeNiro has the best line in a fantastic movie–“When life reaches out with a moment like this it’s a sin if you don’t reach back.” That should be the line of the year in movie advertising. DeNiro is sensational.

The HFPA also snubbed “Silver Linings” director David O. Russell and “Les Miserables” director Tom Hooper. I don’t know who they would have taken out. But it seems to me that Ang Lee is vulnerable; “Life of Pi” is a technical achievement. Both Hooper and Russell should be in the Oscar mix.

Ditto Paul Thomas Anderson. How could the three actors from “The Master” be nominated but not the director? They didn’t do it by themselves.

There are others certainly. And it must be no small joke to Tina Fey that she’s nominated but not “30 Rock” or anyone else from the show. Ouch! Ditto Amy Poehler. They’ll have a lot of jokes for the night they host the show.

Some Golden Globe noms were announced before a national announcement tied to the morning shows. Meantime, Eddie Redmayne of “Les Miserables” is working the fan line at the “Today” show. Christoph Waltz of “Django Unchained” is sitting on the “Today” couch, which must mean he was nominated. (Surprise! How could they know all this? Clairvoyance?) Each deserves a nomination for their work. (Can you imagine if they were live on TV and hadn’t been nominated?) Well, the Globes are on NBC so obviously they knew last night who the nominees would be.

Big snubs: Barbra Streisand, “This is 40,” “The Hobbit,” “Skyfall,” “The Dark Knight” and Paul Thomas Anderson and “The Master.” The HFPA loves stars, I’m surprised they didn’t find room for Streisand. And Leslie Mann, who is so good in “This is 40.” Criminal!

Good news: Nicole Kidman was nominated for “The Paperboy.” She won’t win against Anne Hathaway or Sally Field, but it’s nice to be in the fame. David O. Russell was snubbed as Best Director, for “Silver Linings.” Good thing the Globes don’t predict the Oscars. Russell will be a DGA and Academy nominee.

And the weird: I don’t know how “Les Miserables” is supposed to compete with comedies, or vice versa. There’s nothing funny about “Les Miz.” That category was introduced when there were “musical comedies” like “Hello Dolly!”

BEST PICTURE DRAMA

Argo, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty

BEST PICTURE COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Les Miserables, Silver Linings Playbook, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Moonrise Kingdom

BEST ACTOR DRAMA

Daniel Day Lewis, Richard Gere, John Hawkes, Joaquin Phoenix, Denzel Washington

BEST ACTRESS DRAMA

Jessica Chastain, Marion Cotillard, Helen Mirren, Naomi Watts, Rachel Weisz

BEST ACTOR COMEDY

Jack Black

Bradley Cooper

Hugh Jackman

Ewan MacGregor

Bill Murray

BEST ACTRESS COMEDY

Emily Blunt, Judi Dench (Hotel), Jennifer Lawrence, Maggie Smith (Hotel), Meryl Streep

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams, Sally Field, Anne Hathaway, Helen Hunt, Nicole Kidman

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Alan Arkin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones, Christoph Waltz

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook,
Argo
Django Unchained

BEST DIRECTOR

Ben Affleck

Kathryn Bigelow

Ang Lee

Steven Spielberg

Quentin Tarantino

FOREIGN FILM

Amour

A Royal Affair

Kon Tiki

Untouchables

Rust and Bone

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Brave
Rise of the Guardians
Frankenweenie
Wreck It Ralph
Hotel Transylvania

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – MOTION PICTURE
FOR YOU, from ACT OF VALOR
Music by: Monty Powell, Keith Urban Lyrics by: Monty Powell, Keith Urban
NOT RUNNING ANYMORE, from STAND UP GUYS
Music by: Jon Bon Jovi Lyrics by: Jon Bon Jovi
SAFE & SOUND, from THE HUNGER GAMES
Music by: Taylor Swift, John Paul White, Joy Williams, T Bone Burnett Lyrics by: Taylor Swift, John Paul White, Joy Williams, T Bone Burnett
SKYFALL, from SKYFALL
Music by: Adele, Paul Epworth Lyrics by: Adele, Paul Epworth
SUDDENLY, from LES MISERABLES
Music by: Claude-Michel Schonberg Lyrics by: Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schonberg

TV:

BEST TV SERIES — DRAMA
Breaking Bad
Boardwalk Empire
Downton Abbey
Homeland
The Newsroom

BEST TV SERIES- COMEDY

The Big Bang Theory, Episodes, Girls, Modern Family, Smash.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS — COMEDY-MUSICAL
Emily Blunt
Judy Dench
Jennifer Lawrence
Maggie Smith
Meryl Streep

BEST ACTRESS IN A TV SERIES — COMEDY
Zooey Deschanel
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Lena Dunham
Tina Fey
Amy Poehler

BEST ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES — DRAMA
Connie Britton
Glenn Close
Michelle Dockery
Claire Danes
Julianna Margulies.

BEST TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES
Game Change
The Girl
Hatfields & McCoys
The Hour
Political Animals

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR — TELEVISION
Max Greenfield
Ed Harris
Danny Huston
Mandy Patinkin
Eric Stonestreet

BEST ACTOR- COMEDY

Alec Baldwin, Matt LeBlanc, Don Cheadle, Louis CK, and Jim Parsons

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

NICOLE KIDMAN HEMINGWAY & GELLHORN
JESSICA LANGE AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM
SIENNA MILLER THE GIRL
JULIANNE MOORE GAME CHANGE

SIGOURNEY WEAVER POLITICAL ANIMALS

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
KEVIN COSTNER HATFIELDS & MCCOYS
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH SHERLOCK (MASTERPIECE)
WOODY HARRELSON GAME CHANGE
TOBY JONES THE GIRL
CLIVE OWEN HEMINGWAY & GELLHORN

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
HAYDEN PANETTIERE NASHVILLE
ARCHIE PANJABI THE GOOD WIFE
SARAH PAULSON GAME CHANGE
MAGGIE SMITH DOWNTON ABBEY: SEASON 2
SOFIA VERGARA MODERN

What is going on with the investigation into the cold blooded murder of Brandon Woodard? The New York Times says this morning that despite his rap sheet, Woodard was “from a successful family.” Is the newspaper of record smoking something we can get? Brandon Woodard’s family, as I told you on Tuesday morning, is far from successful at anything except being in court, defending themselves in lawsuits, and against claims by a Tony winning actress.

To wit: Brandon’s stepfather is a disbarred lawyer with at least a former substance abuse problem. His mother has or had a mortgage and lending company in Los Angeles that has its activities suspended at least once by the State of California. Sandra McBeth Reynolds Wellington has spent more time in court rooms than Perry Mason–but for the wrong reason.

Mrs. Wellington is married to the ex-lover of Tony award winning actress and soap opera star Tonya Pinkins. Ms. Pinkins told me exclusively in this column on Tuesday morning of her long haul through the court system with the Wellingtons. She has documented it all on a website she created.

The mother — Mrs. Wellington, aka Sandra McBeth aka Sandra K. Reynolds– has her own list of criminal activities and convictions. http://www.sandramcbeth.info/docs/SUPERIOR%20cOURT%20OF%20CALIFORNIA%20INDEX%20CRIMINAL%20CASES.pdf

Here are the links. Looking for Brandon Woodard’s killer at Avis Rent a Car, or talking endlessly to the people on West 58th St. is not going to solve this crime. The answers are at United Mortgage in Century City, Beverly Hills, California with Mrs. Wellington. The only way a hit man was hired to kill her son was likely as revenge for something that went very wrong in a business that has created numerous enemies.

http://www.showbiz411.com/2012/12/11/exclusive-all-my-children-star-says-not-surprised-brandon-woodard-murdered-enemies-list-is-huge

http://www.showbiz411.com/2012/12/11/exclusive-manhattan-killing-executed-mans-mother-had-enemies-in-los-angeles

Chris Martin of Coldplay just dedicated his third song of the evening at the 12-12-12 Concert to “Anthony,” the garage worker who died in a flood during Hurricane Sandy. Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow live in the River Lofts on the West Side Highway, along with Meryl Streep and her family, and where Tommy Tune is said to have lost a treasure trove of artifacts in the building’s basement storage space. Other celebrities live there, too. But the state of the art building could not stand up to the ravages of the Hudson River overflowing. Many of the wealthy people who own crazy-view glassed in mansions in the sky over in West Soho or Tribeca had a lot of damage. But Anthony, who worked in the underground garage there, died during the storm. It was nice of Chris Martin to mention him. Martin’s performance of “Losing My Religion” with Michael Stipe was a highlight of the night.

By the time Billy Joel came on at the 12-12-12 show I’m not sure what day it was, or if the Oscars had come and gone. Sometimes ‘more is more’. Around the time the Rolling Stones played “Doom and Gloom” instead of a classic hit, the mind had wandered. Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters with Eddie Vedder and the Dark Side of the Moon, a vibrant Jon Bon Jovi AND Springsteen made up for all of it. A few actors had come and gone.

But then there was a kind of wasteland– The remaining Who, and who knows what else. Kanye West did “GoldDigga” with Jamie Foxx, a rip off–er a tribute to–Ray Charles, and something indecipherable while looking sort of nuts. Kanye and Alicia Keys were the only featured black performers. Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, and Smokey Robinson may have all been in bed.

Oh yes: Leonard Cohen’s lawyers, I hope, are preparing a massive lawsuit against Adam Sandler for desecrating “Hallelujah.” WTF, as they say?

But then: Billy Joel. From Long Island. Yes, he looks old. Naturally aged, not bone jangling British thin. He looks like he’s from Long Island. And he is a relief. Playing, singing, melodies, classic songs, lots of LIFE. As a lifelong part-time Long Islander, I cheered. My only gripe with Billy Joel is no new music in 20 years. But his catalog is simply a delight. No Auto Tune (hello Kanye). No artifice on the keyboards (Alicia!). You can sing the songs with him (no Doom and Gloom for him). Thank you Billy.

“We’re going to be alright. We’re going to get through this,” Billy says. Okay. I will donate money now to the Red Cross or Salvation Army in his honor.

So we wait for Paul McCartney: keep refreshing. And drinking coffee. The Golden Globe announcements are at 8:30am, which may be minutes after this show ends.