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Boots Riley’s latest comedy is dying fast at the box office.
Now at $5.2 million after opening this past weekend, every day numbers have dropped precipitously.
Yesterday receipts were down 50% from Monday.
It’s no surprise. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score is a woeful 72%.
This is in direct opposition to the critics score of 92%.
But Neon couldn’t make audiences come to “I Love Boosters,” which has ‘cult film’ written all over it.
The subject: professional shoplifters exact revenge on the fashion industry. Keke Palmer and Lakeith Stanfield lead the cast, which also features Demi Moore.
It sounds like a new idea, but I remember Kerry Washington’s first film, called “Lift,” which was totally winning and established her career.
Riley had the same problem in 2018 with his “Sorry I Can’t Hear You.” Good reviews, no audience. Maybe wait another six years and see if people come around.
Apparently, the city of Tampa is ok with Kanye West.
So is Raymond James Financial Services in St. Petersburg, Florida.
They’re welcoming the pro-Hitler, Nazi leaning rapper to the Raymond James Stadium on Friday, June 26th.
The financial firm has naming right on the stadium, which is owned by the city of Hillsborough, Florida and financed with public funds.
They’re all cool with Kanye, singer of “Heil Hitler,” and seller of swastika emblazoned t shirts coming to their town for a musical night.
They don’t seem to be aware of the outrage Ye’s shows caused in Los Angeles. Or that he’s been banned from performing in several countries including England and France. Hey– it’s May. That was so April.
If I were a Jewish customer of Raymond James, I’d be getting out before this article ends.
Tampa might not be so keen on Kanye. So far, ticket sales are slow in pre-sales. The Blue Dot Fever is all over the stadium with loads of empty seats. It should also be noted that Kanye is not using the whole venue.
Parliament-Funkadelic legend George Clinton — the reason we have a lot of our music — is going to court.
Clinton says Universal Music Group has gotten funky with his royalties. He’s suing them for $1.1 million in fees he says they withheld connected to another lawsuit.
The Detroit News reports that:
“In a complaint filed Friday in Detroit’s federal court, Clinton says UMG has been withholding 100% of his royalties for more than three years based on the company’s involvement in a separate case filed by the estate of a former bandmate.”
The bandmate is the late Bernie Worrell, also quite famous. Clinton and Worrell’s estate are in a battle over royalties, too.
Bernie Worrell’s estate claims that Clinton deceived him and failed to share millions of dollars generated by dozens of their songs, including hits like “Give Up the Funk,” “Flash Light,” and “Maggot Brain.”
“Give Up the Funk” also must have generated millions since Clinton first began recording for UMG in 1969.
Jon Robin Baitz’s very funny play, “Pther Desert Cities” is getting a revival this fall.
The casting is perfect. Julia Louis-Dreyfus will make her Broadway debut in the role created by Stockard Channing. Allison Janney will pick up Judith Light’s part, which will probably get her a Tony nomination. Light won the first of her two Tony Awards in the role of Silda. (She also won the Drama Desk.)
The men include the great Ed Harris and “Stranger Things” star Joe Keery. Also featured, the wonderful Lily Rabe.
The production comes to the Hudson Theater in September, directed by John Benjamin Hickey.
This is a good move for JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Live productions, which has recently given us Keanu Reeves in “Waiting for Godot,” and “Sunset Boulevard.”
“Other Desert Cities” had five Tony nominations back in 2012 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer.
I don’t want to jinx it, but this one is a no-brainer! It’s about time JLD brought her exquisite comic chops to Broadway!
Expect to see Anna Wintour, with sunglasses, in the front row on opening night. Her daughter, Bee Carrozzini, is an investor/producer.
The Knicks destroyed the Cavaliers tonight. I’m sure the ratings were very high.
In the real world, jazz great Sonny Rollins died at age 95. He was a magnificent musician. God bless him.
In the pretend world of commercial music and network TV, The American Music Awards were aired on CBS but no one cared. Very lame. Few stars showed up. The ones that did got a prize. They included BTS, Katseye, and Sombr, who are all lovely but not important musicians.
BTS — the Korean KPop group — won a bunch of awards but didn’t even perform live. They used a pre-tape on the pre-taped show.
All the big names that were “nominated” skipped the show. That’s Taylor Swift and her ilk like Olivia Dean, Teddy Swims, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter (who won Album of the Year), Justin Bieber, and so on.
Who did show up? Past stars like the Goo Goo Dolls, the Black Eyed Peas, twentyonepilots, and Billy Idol. Yikes. They multiversed in from the 1990s. They all got something called “throwback awards,” which I swear I heard as something else.
Rolling Stone was so confused they reported the show took place on Sunday night. (see below)
Deadline.com had a headline tonight that could make you cry. “AMAs 2026 Red Carpet Photos: Hannah Berner, Karol G, Ejae, GloRilla, Maluma, Hilary Duff.” Most of the guests were filler from reality shows.
CBS is the big loser. They let the Grammys go, and made a deal with Dick Clark Productions for the AMAs, the Golden Globes, etc — the also ran awards shows that fill the time between the Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, and Grammys. I guess they didn’t understand that Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, and the like had better things to do.
It’s overall a sad story. What makes it worse is that when the show concluded, no one reported the full list of winners. No trades, not even Billboard. Social media was silent except for paid BTS social media pluggers. The complete list wasn’t issued until about 11:40pm Eastern. By then most smart people had gone to bed.
And Sonny Rollins? The greatest saxophone player of all time entered heaven having never heard of any of these people. He was given wings and a halo.
You’ll see below the 11 minute interview actor Paul Mescal had with Paul McCartney today on amazon.com.
It’s a cute plug since Mescal is playing the Beatle in four films coming in April 2028.
In the interview, McCartney mentions “an actor named Peter Ustinov.” Mescal had no idea what he was talking about. He’s young, he’ll learn. He just found out about Shakespeare!
So who was Peter Ustinov? I was lucky enough to know him. He was a great British actor, but also a hilarious, erudite writer and filmmaker. You couldn’t make it through a meal without collapsing in laughter. His memoir is called “Dear Me.”
Peter won TWO Oscars, for Supporting Actor in “Topkapi” and “Spartacus.” He had one other nomination, for “Qup Vadis,” and one for writing the screenplay for a film called “Hot Millions” in 1969.
A few weeks ago I ran into David Letterman at the opening of Lorne Michaels’ documentary I reminded him of the time, 40 years ago this fall, when I brought Peter to his show on NBC. He was promoting a book for UNICEF. Producer Bob Morton asked if Peter would be agreeable to the following: during the show, it would look like the stage was turning upside down, rotating a full 360 degrees. When Peter came on, he’d have to pretend that he was hanging on to the deskn.
Of course, Peter said Yes. He did it, and it was brilliant. The clip is below.
I urge Paul Mescal and everyone else to see Peter’s movies and read his books. There’s no one like him now, and we are the poorer for it.
Elordi is a movie star now. After “Frankenstein,” he appeared in Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” with Margot Robbie. He’s off and running.
Meantime, Sydney Sweeney’s Cassie has had an X rated season on “Euphoria.” Who knows if she’ll live past the May 31st finale?
And Zendaya? She’s not coming back, either. She was just in “The Drama,” and has “Spider Man,” and “Dune,” and who knows what next. Her Rue, as they say, is at a dead end.
So Elordi’s exit is not a surprise.
Maybe the bigger question is, Will he play the next James Bond?
Some time ago I wrote that it looked like he had the famed role locked up. That was the chatter during the winter, when the “Frankenstein” Oscar nomination made him the talk of the town.
But now I’m told definitively that Elordi will NOT appear as the next 007. The biggest stumbling block? “He’s too tall,” says an insider. At six-foot-five, his James Bond would stand out in a crowd. That’s the reason I was given.
Well, Sean Connery was six-foot-two. But, of course, three inches could make a difference. And Daniel Craig is five-ten. Bond did shrink over the years. Both Callum Turner — a name we hear bandied about all the time — and Henry Cavill — who would be a natural — are six-one.
In any case, my source says, emphatically, “Jacob Elordi is not playing James Bond.”
BTW, Elordi said in a post-episode podcast last night that the coffin Nate died in was “cozy” and that the snake was very friendly.
Next up for the tall man: Ridley Scott’s “The Dog Stars.” Followed by years and years of hits, I’m sure.
Back in 2007, Paul McCartney released an underappreciated album called “Memory Almost Full.” A smartly nostalgic song called “My Ever Present Past” was the highlight. The singer was starting to explore his extraordinary life with disarming honesty.
As it turns out, that song may have presaged “The Boys of Dungeon Lane,” McCartney’s most satisfying album since — I’m not kidding — “Flaming Pie” in 1997. “Dungeon Lane” is a triumph on every track, no duds, a total vision that recalls Paul’s best work. We actually don’t deserve it.
Really? McCartney’s almost 84. His voice may not be as supple as it once was, but 70 years of singing rock and roll will take its toll on anyone. He’s also spent much of his career competing with himself, which is no easy task. Still, “Dungeon Lane” is a remarkably well produced, beautifully written group of 14 songs full of vigor and keen observations about his, well, ever present past.
You never know with McCartney. With the whole Beatles and Wings catalog behind him, he has nothing left to prove. Approaching “Dungeon Lane,” you wonder what dormant micron was left in his brain that could produce this particular concoction. But then again, we have no template for an almost 70 year career.
You do know something is up with the opening track. “As You Lie There” — the first of five songs written with producer Andrew Watt — starts with McCartney narrating his own memoir, and positions the whole project as a sort of documentary. It sets the stage for what’s to come. Deceptively, it seems like a reverie, but then Paul turns up the volume and makes this moment almost a sinister vibration. It feels like a kid torn between sweet love and obsessing over a woman he imagines across the street.
If you’re looking for singles, McCartney doles them out beginning with track 2, “Lost Horizon,” the first of several tracks that are meant for singing along with the radio up loud. I can only hope Paul agrees because this is the hit this album needs to cross over into the public. (It begs for a slightly longer version.)
The next group are instantly accessible songs pop rock delights like the deliriously happy love story “Ripples On A Pond,” a walk down memory lane to hitchhiking with George Harrison in “Down South,” and the trippy “Mountaintop.” These three follow “Days We Left Behind,” itself a deceptively simple memory track that only reveals itself after repeated plays.
At that point, a path has been established by McCartney and Watt. We turn toward some more serious undertakings like “Never Know,” my current favorite track, an rock-n-blues track about the uncertainty of being in love, with the line “My mind is black and blue.” Wait. Stop. You start thinking about the lyrics throughout this album. They’re also McCartney’s best in about 30 years. “Never Know” also culminates in a traditional McCartney coda, an instrumental re-setting of the musical theme stated up front.
In a Q&A online, McCartney plays dumb about “Home to Us,” a number so crafted for him and Ringo Starr it’s ridiculously sublime. Ringo should be performing this all summer with his All Starr Band. It’s a new custom made repainted “Yellow Submarine.” It should also a hit somewhere in the multiverse. Listen to it once, you will never stop humming.
Paul saves the best for last Four songs in a row to the end of the album start with the breey, lighthearted “Life Can Be Hard,” that swells with a stripped down orchestral arrangement. The bridgein that song is a lovely piece of architecture. “First Star of the Night” is a sweet melody no one else could have written. “Salesman Saint” follows, one of the few actual autobiographical songs, about his parents. And then McCartney finishes off with “Momma Gets By,” a stunning, lush and melancholy ballad that tells a story — he’s ever the wistful paperback writer — like “ady Madonna,” “She’s Leaving Home” or “Another Day.”
Do we call “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” a masterpiece? We’re pretty lucky to get this album from Paul McCartney after everything else he’s given us in this lifetime. In interviews, he always brushes off compliments. But of course after almost seven decades, what’s he going to say? A few years ago, when Stephen Colbert asked how he wrote all these songs, he finally suggested, “Or maybe I’m just a genius.”
I think that’s the answer.
One last thing: get the CD or the LP — there are plenty of versions offered. This album is so well made by Watt — who also produced the new Rolling Stones album — it must be heard through real stereo speakers if not really good headphones. Just playing it on a phone demeans the work.
“The Boys of Dungeon Lane” appears on Thursday just after midnight in all forms and on all platforms.
For some reason, there’s an internet theory about Taylor Swift more pressing than her wedding.
By the way, the wedding is definitely July 3rd. Where it is, I don’t know. Yet.
Anyway, a rumor has built up that Swift is somehow on the “Toy Story 5” soundtrack.
She either sang her own song, or covered something else, maybe by Randy Newman.
Or, at the least, another singer covered one of her 2,000 songs.
Maybe she’s playing Woody’s singing sister? Let’s start that rumor!
The reason for this gossip has to do with a countdown clock that appeared on Swift’s website. For some reason, Swiftians connected the image to the movie.
For better or worse, here’s the low down. Fans of “Toy Story” will either be happy or sad about it.
Taylor is NOT on the soundtrack and has nothing to do with it.
That’s from the best source on the subject.
After all, she’s allegedly prepping for that wedding.
Will we get new Taylor Swift music in 2026? Pretty likely, since she’s a music machine. I can’t imagine that she hasn’t written three albums in the last six months.
But the “Toy Story 5” soundtrack will go on without her.
