Well, well. I told you last week that “heritage” groups Green Day and No Doubt were back with new albums. And that Amazon was deeply discounting them down to $7,99 to spur sales. As it turns out, it didn’t work. While both groups will sell around 100,000 copies this week. neither will hit number 1. That distinction goes to more modern group Mumford and Sons, whose newest release “Babel” is outselling the older groups 2 -to-1. Hello! Mumford is even on a small label–GlassNote, founded and run by our old pal Daniel Glass. This speaks volumes about rock music, youth, and passion for what you’re doing. “Babel” includes a Russ Titelman produced track of “The Boxer” featuring Paul Simon and Jerry Douglas of the Alison Krauss band. Very cool. Att’n Green Day, No Doubt: I think this is why REM retired. And they were making good records right up to the end.
Whitney Houston’s Mother and Sister in Law File Petition Against Bobbi Kristina
According to reports, Cissy Houston and Whitney Houston’s sister in law Pat Houston, the executor of Whitney’s estate, have filed a petition in court in Atlanta against Bobbi Kristina, Whitney’s daughter. They’re concerned about her lifestyle and well being, and are asking the court to restructure Bobbi Kristina’s inheritance. They’re trying to protect her against “undue influences” — in other words, Nick Gordon, that kid who Whitney took in, who has since her death allegedly become Bobbi Kristina’s lover and enabler. Bobbi Kristina was involved in a serious car accident last week. Obviously, her family is now very concerned about her well being. More to come shortly…
PS Both Courthouse Confidential and the Hollywood Reporter have reversed the names and gotten it wrong–Marion is Pat Houston’s name, she is Whitney’s sister in law. Emily Cissy Houston is Whitney’s mother…
“Family Guy” Seth McFarlane to Host the Oscars!
Another great press release from the Academy. Seth McFarlane, so good on “Saturday Night Live” a couple of weeks ago, is hosting the Oscars. Great idea.
From the press release:
Seth MacFarlane will host the 85th Academy Awards®, telecast producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announced today. This will be MacFarlane’s first appearance on Oscar’s stage. The 85th Academy Awards will be broadcast live on Oscar® Sunday, February 24, on the ABC Television Network.
“We are thrilled to have Seth MacFarlane host the Oscars. His performing skills blend perfectly with our ideas for making the show entertaining and fresh,” said Zadan and Meron. “He will be the consummate host, and we are so happy to be working with him.”
“It’s truly an overwhelming privilege to be asked to host the Oscars,” said MacFarlane. “My thoughts upon hearing the news were, one, I will do my utmost to live up to the high standards set forth by my predecessors; and two, I hope they don’t find out I hosted the Charlie Sheen Roast.”
“Seth is unbelievably talented,” said Academy President Hawk Koch. “We couldn’t be happier with the creative team we’ve assembled. With Craig, Neil, and now Seth, we’re off to a great start.”
MacFarlane made his feature directorial debut this summer with the box office success “Ted. “He also co-wrote and produced the film, and voiced the title character. “Ted” has brought in over $420 million worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing films of the year.
MacFarlane is the creative force behind the television series “Family Guy” and co-creator of “American Dad!” and “The Cleveland Show. “In September he hosted “Saturday Night Live” for the first time, for the show’s 38th season premiere. An accomplished live performer, MacFarlane has played to sold-out audiences at London’s Royal Albert Hall and New York’s Carnegie Hall.In 2011 he released his debut album, “Music Is Better Than Words,” which earned two Grammy® nominations. He also has earned 13 Emmy® nominations and won two for his work on “Family Guy.”
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, 2013, at the Dolby Theatre™ at Hollywood & Highland Center®. Don Mischer will direct the telecast for the third consecutive time. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries worldwide.
Exclusive James Bond-Adele: “Skyfall Is Where We Start/A thousand miles and poles apart”
This morning Adele has confirmed my news that she’s written and recorded the theme song for the James Bond movie “Skyfall.” I think this news escaped early–it was meant for release on Friday. Adele will debut “Skyfall” on Thursday at 7pm EST on www.adele.tv
Here are links to our Adele coverage: http://www.showbiz411.com/2012/09/29/adele-may-be-a-bigger-draw-than-daniel-craig-for-skyfall
And here are some lyrics, exclusive to this column. Thanks to sources in the record biz:
“This is the end/Hold your breath and count to ten/Feel the Earth move and then/Hear my heart burst again.”
“Let the sky fall/Let it crumble/We will stand tall/And face it all/together.”
“Skyfall/Is where we start/A thousand miles and poles apart/Where worlds collide/and days are denied/You can take my name/But you’ll never take my heart”
2013 Oscars: How Things Stack Up So Far
Everyone wants to prognosticate the Oscars. They are months away. We still have not seen several movies, and some we won’t see for a while. Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and Tom Hooper’s “Les Miserables” are big, big question marks. No one knows what will come with Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained.” But based on what we’ve seen, and what’s being shown this week at the New York Film Festival, here’s how things stack up. To be continued, with many twists and turns to come…
BEST PICTURE:
Argo, The Master, Silver Linings Playbook, Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Life of Pi, The Paperboy, and Cloud Atlas are all in the mix to different degrees. Lincoln, Les Miserables, and Django Unchained are out there, somewhere. Zero Dark Thirty and The Promised Land also have promise. Flight, and two movies with similar titles–Quartet, and A Late Quartet, have possibilities. Hitchcock, with Anthony Hopkins, remains a mystery still.
BEST ACTOR:
Ben Affleck (Argo), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings), Tom Hanks (Cloud Atlas), Tommy Lee Jones (Hope Springs), Richard Gere (Arbitrage), Omar Sy (The Intouchables), Bill Murray (Hyde Park on Hudson), John Hawkes (The Sessions), Brad Pitt (Killing Them Softly) are all strong as is Jean-Louis Trintignant, a long shot from Amour. Daniel Day Lewis, Denzel Washington, Hugh Jackman, and Russell Crowe are wild cards.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robert DeNiro, Roberto Benigni (outstanding in Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love), Scoot McNairy (Killing Them Softly–watch him), Alan Arkin, Jim Broadbent (brilliant in Cloud Atlas), Matthew McConnaughey (The Paperboy), Jeremy Irvine, lead the list. A lot depends on who does what in Django.
BEST ACTRESS:
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings), Halle Berry (Cloud Atlas), Kiera Knightley (Anna Karenina), Meryl Streep (Hope Springs), Viola Davis (Won’t Back Down), Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone), Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha), Emmanelle Riva from Amour are names to be considered. I loved Jane Fonda in Peace, Love and Understanding–she’ll get a comedy nomination from the Golden Globes, certainly.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Nicole Kidman, Amy Adams, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Anne Hathaway (Dark Knight Rises? Les Miz?), Jackie Weaver, Susan Sarandon, Mickey Sumner (Frances Ha), Laura Linney (The Details), Winona Ryder (The Iceman). Unknown: Sally Field is a strong possibility from Lincoln, Kerry Washington from Django.
BEST DIRECTOR:
Ben Affleck, David O. Russell, Paul Thomas Anderson, and then–who knows? Steven Spielberg, Tom Hooper, Kathryn Bigelow? The Wachowskis? Woody Allen? (Come on, the singing in the shower stuff was hilarious).
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Younger Son Christopher Now a Shriver, Too– Joins Brother Patrick
Here comes Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography, “Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story” published officially today, Monday, October 1st. It was more or less panned by the New York Times yesterday. The pre-publicity has Arnold cheating on Maria Shriver before they were married, with Brigitte Nielsen., And then later with the maid, with whom he fathered a child. My sources say Maria Shriver had no idea all this stuff was going to be in the book, and she’s not happy.
Effect on the kids: Now both of Arnold’s sons with Maria Shriver have taken her last name and jettisoned Schwarzenegger. Younger son Christopher, who just turned 15, entered Twitter as a Shriver. His father’s illegitimate son with housekeeper Mildred Baena, is just a few days older than Christopher. Son Patrick has stuck to his guns since his father’s infidelities were discovered last winter. He calls himself Patrick Shriver on Twitter. The couple’s eldest daughter, Katherine, still a Schwarzenegger, announced on Sunday night that she was taking a break from Twitter. Daughter Christina has so far also kept Arnold’s name. Interesting that the sons dropped it and the daughters retained it.
On a Tweet from September 28th, Christopher thanked Katherine, Patrick and Maria for giving him a great birthday. No mention of Arnold.
With all this press, you’d think the book would be doing better out of the gate. But it’s at number 49 tonight on Amazon.com. I suppose as Arnold does the interview circuit, it will go up the charts. But it’s not an instant hit.
UPDATE: “Total Recall” hit number 20 on overall non fiction this morning. Arnold’s crazy and frank interview on “60 Minutes” obviously piqued everyone’s curiosity.
As “The Master” Nears $10 Mil Box Office, A Real Life Parallel Occurs
Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” is nearing $10 million in limited release, with just about everyone predicting acting awards for its three stars–Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams.
But no one could have predicted the real life parallel that’s just occurred in Hollywood, as Scientology raised and educated actor Johnny Lewis — on a hit cable show– this week murdered his landlady and fell to his death. Lewis killed Catherine Davis, 81, who ran a kind of home for screenwriters and actors in Hollywood not far from the massive amount of real estate owned by Scientology including their Celebrity Center.
Since the tragedy, Lewis has been revealed as something of a drug addicted either socio-or psychopath, with arrests, jail time, and a long list of inexplicable crazy-scary altercations. He’s something of a real life Freddie Quell, the nutcase played by Phoenix so deftly in “The Master.” Freddie is completely off his rocker, given to violent outbursts and uncontrollable fits. He’s also a raging alcoholic who mixes up his own concoctions to stay anesthetized.
Freddie, of course, becomes involved with Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of a made up “religion” called The Cause. The Cause has been compared to Scientology, as Dodd is based at least a little on L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who invented Scientology.
Lewis’s father rose to the high ranks of Scientology, becoming an Operating Thetan 7– or someone trusted enough to be told about aliens and other Scientology mumbo jumbo. Lewis himself took Scientology courses and was featured as a “celebrity Scientologist” until this week. In “The Master,” Freddie becomes the most trusted associate of Dodd until he disappears after one of Dodd’s weirder experiments.
“The Master” is playing in 850 theaters for the time being, and will likely stay in limited release until awards season. The Weinstein Company is following a similar path to its past “literary” releases, which usually catch fire with nominations and then take off. Scientologists are flooding internet message boards claiming the movie is a dud, boring, or a failure–far from the truth, but funny to read.
Exclusive: Justin Timberlake Finally Recording New Album After Six Years
Exclusive: Justin Timberlake is in the studio making a new album. There’s no title yet, but I’m told Timberlake has been working around the clock with Timbaland and other producers. The album, which could have “many more than a dozen new tracks” would be ready for the first quarter of 2013 for Sony’s RVA label.
The project is considered very “hush-hush” at Sony, and very much low profile as it’s being done quickly.
It’s been six years since Timberlake’s second album, “Future Sex/Love Sounds,” came out in 2006. It yielded several hits like “What Goes Around Comes Around” and “Sexyback” (more a riff than a song, but whatever). But then Timberlake went into movies and made only occasional appearances as a guest star on other people’s records.
The album is being recorded in Los Angeles. A new Timberlake album would be an adrenaline shot in the charts. A gifted singer and dancer, Timberlake should easily have retained his following even after more than half a decade.
Madonna Gives Another $750K to Kabbalah, But Little to Anyone Else
Madonna– rich, rich, rich–is not very charitable at this point. Her new tax filing for her Ray of Light Foundation paints an interesting picture about the currently on tour artist and what she does with her money. In 2011, Madonna only gave away $770,000– and nearly all to it went to the cultish Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles. Despite all the scandals, lawsuits, and possible grand jury, Madonna simply gave Karen Berg’s sketchy, possibly harmful group the same amount she did last year.
And that’s just about it. Madonna also gave $15,000 to the TJ Martell Foundation, and $5000 to the Jewish Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Los Angeles. There was nothing for the arts, AIDS or cancer research, or any regular religious institutions. Consider that celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O’Donnell give away millions, support schools,–oh wait–
Madonna was supposed to build a leadership academy in Malawi, Africa. But that’s over and the charity involved– a Kabbalah front called Raising Malawi–is gone with it. So much for Madonna and Africa.
Madonna did pay one salary, to Philippe van den Bossche: $106,986. That was an increase of $35,000 from the prior year. And then Madonna fired van den Bossche, who took the fall in the collapse of Raising Malawi.
And while Madonna gave away $770,000 in 2011, she lists the total assets of Ray of Light Foundation at a whopping $9.3 million. Forbes says she’s worth $650 million.
Ousted Warner Music Chief Finds Ally in Forbes 400 Billionaire
EXCLUSIVE: Lyor Cohen is a survivor. He’s a man who certainly lands on his feet. Ousted just this week from his position running Warner Music Group–which he basically helped run into the ground–Cohen has already bounced back. He sent an email around on Friday notifying his pals that he was now working out of the offices of Toms Capital LLC, a hedge fund on West 14th St. in the trendy meatpacking district run by Israeli billionaire Noam Gottesman.
Gottesman is number 245 on the Forbes 400. He’s also 804th of all billionaires in the world. He owns a lot of things including the GLG hedge fund — which he sold in 2010–and the very hot restaurant Eleven Madison Park. According to Forbes he now concentrates on collecting art and on philanthropy. http://www.forbes.com/profile/noam-gottesman/
Cohen knows how to play the corporate game. He went from Edgar Bronfman, Jr. to Gottesman, 51, almost seamlessly. Cohen has a famous girlfriend in designer Tory Burch; Gottesman reportedly dates actress Lucy Liu. Gottesman obviously doesn’t follow the record business, or he’d know that Warner Music was slashed to ribbons under Cohen and Bronfman, developed no new artists, and relied heavily on the mega selling acts they inherited to keep them going. While Universal Music and Sony soared, WMG fell into moribundity. Eventually it was sold to Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries and taken private after the stock of WMG fell from $33 to almost nothing.
Last week, the New York Post reported that Cohen had been “noodling with the idea of” a music management firm, while at WMG. It seems like Toms Capital may be his biggest noodle. Gottesman must know how much it costs to be in business with Cohen, who played his own version of Hamptons-type Monopoly with expensive homes while at WMG. It would appear that Cohen had Gottesman set up as a Plan B if he couldn’t cut a deal with Blavatnik.
The email was sent to: “Partners, friends, family members, artists, producers, managers, agents, lawyers and athletes”… Athletes? Maybe Cohen is going to manage not just musicians.
One funny thing: when you call the phone number Cohen sent out on his email, an automated voice mispronounces Cohen’s first name in a most unfortunate way. That should be changed pronto on Monday.