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Kennedy Center Honors Announcement is Now Way Overdue: Will This Be the Week We Hear Trump’s Choices? And Where Will It Be Held?

Roger Friedman
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Kennedy Center Honors Announcement is Now Way Overdue: Will This Be the Week We Hear Trump’s Choices? And Where Will It Be Held?

The clock is ticking for this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.

Most years, the announcement of the names comes in July. Once recently, it was June.

Last year, the announcement was made on August 13th.

But so far, this year, crickets from Trump and his lackeys who’ve driven the Center out of business and into chaos.

Now we’re ten days late from last year. One problem is that the Kennedy Center is closed except to staff. Some kind of construction is going in inside the building. Can it even be used in December for a show and a reception?

As I’ve said before, there aren’t many venues in Washington for this kind of event. And the planning for producers does take three or four months. So decisions have to be made.

If they do put on the Honors, who would get them? Who would accept one? Liza Minnelli told me earlier this year that she’d take it if offered. Liza would appease a lot of audiences — theater, movies, gay, music. But a source close to her told me they doubt she’d accept it under Trump.

The MAGA actors who could be chosen include Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, and Dennis Quaid. If Voight got it, they could ask his “Coming Home” co-star Jane Fonda to present it. I’d pay money for that.

In music, there are plenty of country stars who’d line up for the honor, starting with Lee Greenwood.

But R&B, jazz, dance, classical music? Those would likely be harder areas to find someone.

Stay tuned this week. We may be skipping the Kennedy Center Honors this year…

“Spider Man” Spins Web Toward $900 Million This Week, Will Become 2nd Highest Grossing Movie Ever Tomorrow, Plus “Insidious” Proves its Name

Roger Friedman
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“Spider Man” Spins Web Toward $900 Million This Week, Will Become 2nd Highest Grossing Movie Ever Tomorrow, Plus “Insidious” Proves its Name

What a week for Sony Pictures.

Moribund most of the time, Sony rose from the ashes with “Spider Man: Brand New Day.”

The 9th Spider Man movie now stands at $854 million total in the US. Tomorrow, Peter Parker and pals will surpass “Avengers: Endgame” and become the 2nd highest grossing movie of all time.

By the end of the week, the total should be $900 million, which is as amazing as Spider Man.

Meantime, Sony’s “Insidious” proved its name. It’s certainly insidious. The weekend take was $28 million.

Mindless entertainment, but what the heck?

Maybe Tom Rothman can throw some money to Sony Pictures Classics now to promote their line up of quality movies. Last night, I watched “I Swear,” which opened in April after winning BAFTA Awards. It’s a beautiful film but it made $1 million here with no promotion. Star Robert Aramayo should be a Best Actor nominee. The film could be a Best Picture entry, and certainly a player at the Gotham Awards. Sony should give it an art house release again. If only Peter Parker were in this movie!

Plus: There’s a lot of life left in “The Odyssey.” A $19.5 million weekend brings the total to $539 million. The weekly change was only down 17%. I hear Homer is smoking Cuban cigars and throwing parties at the Parthenon in the sky!

Paris Jackson Throws an Album Release Party — and LaToya is One of Her Guests: Michael Jackson Could Never Have Imagined This Scenario

Roger Friedman
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Paris Jackson Throws an Album Release Party — and LaToya is One of Her Guests: Michael Jackson Could Never Have Imagined This Scenario

Paris Jackson had an album release party yesterday. And guess who was there? Aunt LaToya!

Isn’t it amazing? It’s 2026. Michael Jackson’s daughter is rockin’ out with album releases, his nephew Jafaar is playing him in movies, La Toya is stopping by for a hug.

I give Paris a lot of credit. Her album, called “Happiest Day of My Life,” is something she’s just manifested with her own persistence and hard work. Despite early troubles (who wouldn’t, in her situation), Paris seems like she’s got it together. A lot of kids wouldn’t have made it this far.

Her catchy new single, “Bang Bang,” is below.


Indie Star Clairo Drinks $8000 Bottle of Wine at McNally Restaurant: Hold On, Taylor Swift, The New Girl Singers are No Waifs, They All Come from Big Money

Roger Friedman
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Indie Star Clairo Drinks $8000 Bottle of Wine at McNally Restaurant: Hold On, Taylor Swift, The New Girl Singers are No Waifs, They All Come from Big Money

Long gone are the days of waifs like Joni Mitchell or Judy Collins turning up in Greenwich Village with their guitars.

And forget Madonna, who arrived in the East Village and slept on floors. Or Jewel, who became homeless after rebuffing her boss’s advances.

The new star girl singers come from wealth and privilege.

That couldn’t have been more underscored than last night, when famed restaurateur Keith McNally had quite a surprise in his own eatery, the famed Minetta Tavern. He reports on Instagram that he encountered indie artist Clairo — whom he’d never heard of — dining in his place, and she definitely was not singing for her supper!

McNally reports: “She was with four friends and ordered an $8000 bottle of wine (La Tache Grand Cru, Romanée-Conti 2013). I didn’t know Clairo from Adam, but she generously sent me a glass of the $8000 wine with a lovely note.”

Clairo has never had a hit record in the six years since she first started getting press mentions. She may have amassed 1 million in sales thanks to streaming of early hits from 2019. A couple of her songs have drifted around, but she’s never gotten to the level of Sabrina or Taylor. She’s more like Maggie Rogers, who probably wash down dinner bottles of $8000 wine.

No, as I wrote quite a while ago, Clairo’s real name is Claire Cottrill, daughter of top former Procter and Gamble and Coca Cola marketing exec Geoff Cottrill. Geoff was Brandweek’s “Marketer of the Year.” He worked at Starbucks’ HEAR Music. He’s been a co-chair of Musicares at the Grammys. He recently served as chief brand & games officer at Topgolf.

Cheers to Clairo and her $8000 wine!

More successful are two other pop tarts. Stella Lefty has been on the top of the charts all summer with her song “Boston” and album, “Long Way Home.” She’s 24. How’d she pull this off? Her dad is a co-founder of Groupon. Eric Paul Lefkofsky — according to Wikipedia — “is an American billionaire businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Tempus AI, and the co-founder of Groupon, Echo Global Logistics, InnerWorkings, and Mediaocean. As of June 2024, he is also a co-managing partner of Chicago-based venture capital firm Lightbank.”

Cue the guitars.

And let’s not forget Gracie Abrams, struggling on the charts right now but basically a hit since she opened Taylor Swift’s tour a couple of years ago. Her dad is JJ Abrams, famed movie producer and director of things like “Mission Impossible,” “Star Wars,” and “LOST.”

This all started with Taylor Swift, whose father Scott, was also a top stock broker and finance guy who managed millions of dollars of clients’ money. (The original rumor was that he the heir to Swift meatpacking. That was like people thinking Linda Eastman came from Eastman Kodak!) Scott invested in Taylor’s record company, Big Machine, when she was signed and the rest is history.

And ve

FYC: Actor Ashton Kutcher, Who’s Done So Well In Tech, Muses About Director Mike Nichols and the Meaning of Twitter, Macro vs. Micro Thoughts, Etc

Roger Friedman
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FYC: Actor Ashton Kutcher, Who’s Done So Well In Tech, Muses About Director Mike Nichols and the Meaning of Twitter, Macro vs. Micro Thoughts, Etc

Ashton Kutcher is musing about late director Mike Nichols and the meaning of Twitter.

I’m not sure what it all means, but Kutcher has done so well in tech that it must be important.

For your consideration, here, in the Twilight Zone. Kutcher makes striking sense the second time you read it. We could use more of this reasoning.

I’ve found current X to be an emotion reflection on a fleeting moment with brief insightful snippets that compound over time. The danger is when you replace deep learning and understanding with the emotional whims of people who’s character you do not know. Only more exemplified by the reductionist reactions of those who don’t know you.

Transpo Secretary Sean Duffy’s Reality Show “The Great American Road Trip” is a Bust: Only 23,000 Views Total Over Six Episodes in 3 Days

Roger Friedman
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Transpo Secretary Sean Duffy’s Reality Show “The Great American Road Trip” is a Bust: Only 23,000 Views Total Over Six Episodes in 3 Days

When planes were crashing and trains were derailing, Trump’s transportation secretary was busy doing something else.

Sean Duffy and his family, it was revealed much later, were filming a reality show for YouTube.

It made sense. Duffy and his wife Rachel Campos-Duffy (now a Fox News contributor) met on MTV’s “The Real World.” They are totally manufactured people who have lived like they were on “The Truman Show” for 30 years.

But now “The Great American Road Trip” has debuted on YouTube. There are six episodes, about 25 minutes apiece.

No one is watching them.

So far, “The Great American Road Trip” has amassed a total of 23,000 views over the six episodes.

Episode 2 got a little jolt when I — and a few others subsequently — revealed that Duffy didn’t want his bright, articulate daughter to go to Harvard because it would “corrupt and pervert” her. it was a cringe episode that showed the Duffy’s to be backward, small minded people afraid to let their child discover the, uh, actual real world.

But even that publicity didn’t help. I don’t think anyone was surprised to learn that these two morons from a reality show were of no value whatsoever.

The biggest revelation was that they have nine children — nine! — and that soon each one will start rebelling. That’s the series I’d like to see, when the first one says their gay, trans, or brings home a non white companion.

Luckily the government did not pay for this waste of time. Forbes estimates that corporate sponsors kicked in around $5 million. The same sponsors — like Boeing, Toyota, Shell, Google, Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, United Airlines, Lyft and CRH (a provider of building materials for highways and other critical infrastructure) are said to have spent $100 million lobbying Congress last year.

So basically, donations were a shakedown, like everything else in the Trump administration. It’s a protection racket.

It’s all money flushed down the toilet. And who knows what will happen to the daughter who wanted to go to Harvard? The parents want a Catholic school, like Boston College, and will probably get their way.

“The Odyssey” Starting to Lose A Little Steam at the Box Office After Wildly Successful Summer Ride, Sets November for Home Video, Streaming

Roger Friedman
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“The Odyssey” Starting to Lose A Little Steam at the Box Office After Wildly Successful Summer Ride, Sets November for Home Video, Streaming

Believe it or not. “The Odyssey” is finally losing a little steam at the box office.

Of course, it’s made $1.3 billion worldwide, about half of that in the US.

And it’s playing like gangbusters.

But Universal has set the date for streaming to begin, and DVDs and Blu-Rays to hit the stores. It’s November 17th.

By then, “The Odyssey” should be well past $700 million in the US — and well on its way to a dozen or more Oscar nominations and eventual win.

Chris Nolan’s epic is still playing in 3,200 theaters, so don’t worry. See it in IMAX or at least on a big screen. I can’t imagine anyone watching it on their phones. God forbid!

Legend Faye Dunaway Getting a Special Award During Venice Film Festival, So Is Billionaire’s Daughter Nicola Peltz Beckham For Just Being Herself

Roger Friedman
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Legend Faye Dunaway Getting a Special Award During Venice Film Festival, So Is Billionaire’s Daughter Nicola Peltz Beckham For Just Being Herself

Want to good laugh?

Faye Dunaway, a famed actress and Oscar winner, is getting a special award during the Venice Film Festival. It’s called the Kuneo Award. It’s not part of the Festival, but happens at the same time.

Good for her, Faye deserves it for her fine work in so many films like “Chinatown,” “Network,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” and “The Thomas Crown Affair.”

But then, an award is also going to Nicola Peltz Beckham. She’s the daughter of billionaire Nelson Peltz. She’s married to the Beckham kid who makes grilled cheese on TikTok and won’t speak to his parents.

Nicola, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “has been plucked to receive a rising star award for her work as an actress, producer and budding filmmaker.”

The Reporter says of the 31 year old, “Beckham wrote, directed and starred in [a movie called] Lola. Her resumé, which dates back 20 years, includes roles in The Last Airbender, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Bates Motel, Holidate, Welcome to Chippendales and The Beauty.”

I needed this laugh, which also involved a spit take. I don’t recall Peltz’s stunning career going back 20 years, but I might have been out of town. The aforementioned “Lola,” which existed in 2024 thanks to Vertical Releasing, merited but two reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and no rating.

Each review was half a star. One of them said: Lola feels like a film where the script is almost nonexistent…There was little to think about or emotionally connect with, and the film remains flat from start to finish.”

The other said: “Her acting felt stiff, and I found her performance annoying.”

Maybe this all sounded different in Italian. I do know Kuneo, translated to English, means “donation.”

I know it’s funny, and the award is bogus, but think of all the deserving up and coming filmmakers who could benefit from the attention. But maybe she can teach them how to make French toast.

Confirmed: Oscar Winner Woody Allen at 90 Preparing to Shoot 51st Film in Spain This Fall, Also Finishing Up New Book and Stage Play

Roger Friedman
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Confirmed: Oscar Winner Woody Allen at 90 Preparing to Shoot 51st Film in Spain This Fall, Also Finishing Up New Book and Stage Play

Exclusive:

Woody Allen will turn 91 this November but that’s not stopping him.

By the time the Oscar winning director and writer reaches his birthday, he will have filmed his 51st movie in Madrid, Spain.

I’ve confirmed that Woody will make the film, possibly called “Madrid,” in September and October. No cast has been announced yet. This was the film he was supposed to shoot last spring, but now he’s ready.

I’m also told that Woody is putting the finishing touches on a second novel, and on a stage play.

Spain has proved to be a good luck setting for Allen. His “Vicki Cristina Barcelona” is a classic, and Penelope Cruz won her Oscar in that film. An all time classic.

Allen’s last movie, “Coup de Chance,” shot in France, received raves and a healthy life on video after its release.

His most famous movie, “Annie Hall,” was recently shown on TCM as part of a Diane Keaton tribute. Now 50 years old, the film — like all of them — stands up beautifully. There’s always been a lot of talk about how “Annie Hall” was shaped from footage shot with a different idea. Who cares? The finished product is so full of heart, humor, and wisdom, not to mention laugh out loud funniness.

I can’t wait to see “Madrid,” or whatever it’s finally called. A Woody Allen movie these days is a gift!

PS Don’t forget, I told you the Carnegie Deli is re-opening soon on Seventh Avenue. It was the setting for one of Woody’s most hilarious films, “Broadway Danny Rose.” The Carnegie should definitely have a Danny Rose sandwich!

Gwyneth Paltrow Strikes Out Sending Herself Up After Sam Altman Dinner Invite Incites Mass Disappointment That She Embraces Open AI Chat GPT

Roger Friedman
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Gwyneth Paltrow Strikes Out Sending Herself Up After Sam Altman Dinner Invite Incites Mass Disappointment That She Embraces Open AI Chat GPT

I told you a couple of days ago that Gwyneth Paltrow was hosting a celebrity dinner in the Hamptons for Open AI/Chat GPT creator Sam Altman.

The invite for August 29th leaked out, and immediately Gwyneth was denounced for supporting AI at a time when original content creators are suffering at its hands.

Paltrow thought she’d fight back by posting send ups of her own invite, making the honoree either “Sex and the City” character Samantha Jones, or Shrek. See below.

This only made things worse. Paltrow has now called attention to this regrettable decision. Granted, her Oscar is almost 30 years old and Paltrow doesn’t do much acting anymore. She’s basically the president of Goop. But Hollywood, music, theater, publishing are all under attack from AI. She did not take the side of human artists. Imagine if her beloved parents — Blythe Danner and the late Bruce Paltrow — had their work stolen or desecrated by AI.

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