Support independent journalism, free from the trades and other publications that are part of the tinsel town machine.
For 12 years, Showbiz411.com has been covering Hollywood, Broadway, the music business and the business of celebrity. Ads are our main source of funding, but contributions (not tax exempt) from readers who enjoy the scoops, exclusives, and fact based reports are always welcome and very appreciated. To inquire about ads, email us at showbiz411@gmail.com.
Paul McCartney’s first song on “SNL” last night was a new one, “Days We Left Behind,” which is kind of a mix of “Things We Said Today” and “Days of Auld Lang Syne.” It’s from his new album, coming May 29th.
So we assumed the second number would also be a new one. But Paul surprised us, and the audience, with “Band on the Run.” Listen to the audible gasp of delight in the room. I swear, I did the same thing at home. It was like someone brought you the best gift ever.
Over the closing credits of the show, Paul and band performed “Coming Up.” Apparently they played two more songs after the cameras were off. Paul turns 84 next month. God bless him.
Thanks to Perpetual Guest Carl Tabor writing on Instagram we know the Vanity Fair party last night was a bust. No celebs, lots of advertisers. Took place a the Tetou pop-up revival way out on Cannes beach just as I told you the other day.
No one knows what Carl does, or how he gets into parties. But I’m sure glad he goes. This is what he says. You’ll notice a scarcity of A list names. Gone are the days of De Niro, Ford, Fonda, et al. Where was even John Travolta or Vin Diesel or James Franco, the festival’s main ‘gets’ this season? Did they have someplace better to go?
“The #vanityfair #Cannesfilmfestival #party for the last 15 years the vanity fair cannes party was always held at hotel du cap eden roc. But this year the relocated tetue restaurant was the place to be vivi nevo shows up late with the head of LVMH Bernard Arnault. a cute girl starts taking video from meta glasses while a guy shines a bright light they are from meta and are getting the stars to take pictures using the video glasses. The ruling family of qutar are in the house there is a ex military type in plain clothes standing with a huge Louis Vuitton at his feet looking at the crowd suspiciously. Over all a magical nigh and the good part is its right by my apartment over looking the Croisette.”
The picture from Carl’s Instagram puts him squarely in the center of the action!
Meantime, Charles Finch’s dinner was a far cry from the old days, also at the Eden Roc, with Mick Jagger and so on. He’s moved to a restaurant as well, shedding A listers. Sponsor Montblanc, pen in hand, must have wondered about the ball point of all this money spent.
The juggernaut of “Michael” and “The Devil Wears Prada 2” continues unabated.
The real news there is “Devil” is starting to slow down at the box office while “Michael,” inexplicably, is getting hotter.
“Michael” took the number 1 slot this week with $26.1 million, bringing to closer to the $300 million mark. Worldwide, “Michael” is at $700 million. Shamone!
“Prada” was a distant second place with $18 mil, and a total of $175 million. Worldwide is $546 million.
These movies are big hits, although it’s unclear where that will put them in awards season. They’re perfect for the Critics Choice and Golden Globes, but Oscars may not be so easy.
The other big success of the weekend is a horror thriller called “Obsession” which made $16.1 million. No stars per se unless you include Conan O’Brien sidekick Andy Richter. “Obsession” is from Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Pictures, one of the great success stories of all time.
On the losing end came “In the Grey,” with two big movie stars — Jake Gyllenhaal and Henry Cavill. It’s a Guy Ritchie special, but relegated to a distribution company with a name similar to deli meats — Black Bear. No one knew it was coming, so no one went. Total $3 million. Next time, maybe, send some sliced turkey or a screening invite.
Lorne Michaels knows how to end a season.
He gave musical guest Paul McCartney a very rare three songs, including the five minute “Band on the Run.” Acts never get such long songs.
The two other numbers were “Days We Left Behind” from the new album, and the show closer “Comin’ Up.”
McCartney also was in a sketch and was very funny.
It was a great season finale with Will Ferrell especially good as Jeffrey Epstein in the cold open with James Austin Johnson as Trump. Other guests included Molly Shannon, Aziz Ansari, and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
What will we do for the next three months on Saturday nights? We’ll find something!
PS Some thought Ringo would join Paul on the “SNL” stage. But I think that reunion might happen this week on Stephen Colbert to send off the Ed Sullivan Theater…Bari Weiss is turning it into a Sephora…
Swatch, the plastic watch company known for its innovative designs, is having a bad morning.
The company has had to close some stores because riots are breaking out in the streets.
The cause of the uproar is a plastic watch face that comes on a lanyard, has no watch band, and isn’t even a limited edition.
It’s the latest Swatch collaboration with a “real” watch maker, in this case Audemars Piguet.
The watch is called Royal Pop, it comes in eight colors, and costs around $400.
Public response has been like the Gold Rush of the 1890s. Prospectors — aka re-sellers — think they can score a few and flip them for thousands of dollars.
They will be sorely mistaken. After this initial crush, Royal Pop will be available everywhere, and for a long time. And it’s unclear who will want it aside from a few collectors. It’s very expensive. For $400 you could buy a nice vintage watch on ebay or almost anywhere.
Replying to a customer’s frustration, Swatch Tweeted back: “We do our best to fulfil demand, and we hope that anyone who is a fan of this collaboration will soon be able to get their hands on one of these watches.
We recommend that you check back regularly with your nearest selected store.”
JUST IN: Swatch shut down some of the FCFS locations for the Audemars Piguet x Swatch "Royal Pop" Collection that was supposed to drop today @Swatchpic.twitter.com/CTwiFHa0wW
He arrived wearing a toupee and a weird half-beard that was probably hiding something. Let’s not speculate.
Cannes chief Thierry Fremaux surprised Travolta on stage with an honorary Palme d’or, which ticked a lot of people off. But really, with “Saturday Night Fever,” “Pulp Fiction,” and a few other films outweighing his crap resume, Travolta deserved it. Why not?
And then they screened Travolta’s hour long movie debuting on Apple TV this month even though Cannes doesn’t allow streaming films. It’s called “Propeller One Way Night Coach,” based on some children’s book the actor wrote years ago.
The reviews are like walking into a propeller. The Wrap said: “it feels like it may have actually been directed by an alien discovering human interaction for the first time.”
On RogerEbert.com: “It’s a gift that Travolta made for himself and family, something he likely wanted to leave as a part of his legacy. That doesn’t make it a good movie.”
From BBC.com: “John Travolta’s new film is a dud. It shows why great actors can be bad directors”
The Guardian: “A sweet, odd diversion – more eccentric, maybe, than Travolta intended.”
Screen Daily: “an authentic and genuine oddity of a project.”
So how did this all come about, Travolta bringing a bad one hour kid’s movie made for streaming to the elite Cannes Film Festival? We can only surmise the backstage horse trading. But without Travolta, there wouldn’t have been much to write about from Week 1.
Semrush reports that the Conde Nast title’s web traffic fell 55% in April.
According to Semrush: “In April vanityfair.com received 3.73M visits with the average session duration 06:30. Compared to March traffic to vanityfair.com has decreased by -55.02%.”
In March, VanityFair.com had puffed up to 8.29 million. Even in February, the number was 6.23 million.
That’s not all. ComScore agrees. They say VanityFair.com fell to 6 million monthly visits, putting them well behind other entertainment sites like Variety, Rolling Stone, the NY Post’s Page Six, and Harper’s Bazaar.
So where did everyone go?
Vanity Fair is now being run by Mark Guiducci, the 36 year old pal of Anna Wintour’s daughter. His prior experience is not on a par with Graydon Carter, Tina Brown, or even Radhika Jones. Guiducci is mostly known for running a live event called Vogue World.
Since the new regime took over, Vanity Fair has become a mystery to former readers. The magazine profiled Trump White House staffers, which was weird enough. They put Kylie Jenner on the cover instead of acknowledging the Oscars. And that wasn’t good for Kylie’s boyfriend, Timothee Chalamet, who doesn’t understand that the cover killed his chances at winning an Academy Award.
Indeed, the “Hollywood issue” appeared in December, for some reason. It featured no women, and the wrong men. The message was: “we are clueless.”
Cover stories are a disaster, too. Another one this winter was actress Margaret Qualley, who’s very talented but largely unknown to the greater public. Almost immediately, the story — which had no juice of any kind — was disappeared from the site’s homepage.
The editors don’t seem to know what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. A big issue is that they got rid of their Hollywood team, which had the connections and the savvy to gauge hits. The current staff has missed covering any of the big movie hits. They could have just put Michael Jackson on the cover and had a win.
And then there are the parties. The Oscar party, with a guest list cut in half, was not a success. Tomorrow, the annual Cannes party is not at the Hotel du Cap, but at a pop up restaurant way at the wrong end of the Cannes beach. The sponsor is Meta, which means a lot of influencers and tech people.
Also, so far no one has seen Guiducci in Cannes this week. But he did host a podcast in New York with Jack Schlossberg, the Kennedy running for Congress in Manhattan. Carter or Brown would have been holding forth on the Croisette. As it is, Carter is hosting a Cannes soiree on Tuesday with CAA super agent Bryan Lourd. Ouch!
Wintour installed Guiducci as editorial director, a pawn for her enjoyment. The results are not promising. Since Jones became editor the magazine has been in decline. But these new figures should sound alarms.
Not really. But for a third time the New York Attorney General has been unable to convict Harvey Weinstein of rape.
The latest trial saw a jury deadlocked 9 to 3, to acquit.
A lot of people — the many women who had perilous encounters with Weinstein — will be grievously disappointed. But this has gone on for 9 years. In New York, at least, the end may be here.
In a statement, DA Alvin Bragg’s office wrote even though they have nothing to ‘brag’ about:
“While we are disappointed that the proceedings ended with a mistrial, we deeply respect the jury system and sincerely thank all of the jurors for their time and dedication. For nearly a decade, Jessica Mann has fought for justice. Over the course of many weeks during three separate trials, she relived unthinkably painful experiences in front of complete strangers. Her perseverance and bravery are inspiring to the members of my office, and more importantly, to survivors everywhere. We will consider our next steps in consultation with Ms. Mann, and in consideration of Harvey Weinstein’s pending sentencing following last year’s trial conviction for forcibly sexually assaulting Miriam Haley. As always, we will continue to prosecute crimes of sexual violence – no matter who the defendant is – in a survivor-centered manner that uplifts their voices in the pursuit of justice.”
The defense team countered:
“The defense team of Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos, and Jacob Kaplan put on a powerful case. After hearing the evidence multiple times and seeing two juries unable to reach unanimity, it’s clear there is significant reasonable doubt here. What this also shows is how deeply public perception and prejudice surrounding Harvey Weinstein have become embedded in society. For some people, regardless of the evidence presented, saying “not guilty” has become emotionally or socially impossible. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office should stop retrying the same case and focus its time and resources on the actual violent crime, chaos, and public safety issues impacting New Yorkers every day.”
Yeah. You wait for this stuff to happen then it’s comedy gold.
Harry Styles has launched a pair of earplugs he’s selling for $39.
They aren’t ear pods. They’re for blocking out loud music.
I mean, do I have to say it? It’s a sign of the times, to quote Harry.
This way, we don’t have to listen to his music.
They’re called Loops, and they look like earrings. They’re made by a company called Pleasing.
I will find them very pleasing.
Sorry, the jokes just write themselves.
Oy vey.
Pleasing says it’s also made these things for professional racing, which makes sense. If they did a Trump brand, that would be welcomed. But why oh why for a musician?
Harry’s next single will be called “Listen No More.”
