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Dennis Locorriere aka Dr Hook of the famed medicine Show, has died of kidney disease at age 76, a couple of weeks short of his birthday. He was married three times.
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show were the kind of pop act that could survive in the 1970s with catchy singles. They didn’t win Grammy Awards and they weren’t hip. But they were the sort of group where you’d ask, Who sings that? And be surprised at the answer.
Dr. Hook had several hits starting with “Sylvia’s Mother,” one of a few songs circa 1973 where the narrator is at the sad end of a telephone call. “Sylvia’s mother said Thank you for calling.” It was a story, back when songs with them were appreciated. It probably helped that the group sing and play instruments.
Dr. Hook was also self-referential. That’s what made “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” take off. There was actually a time when acts wanted to be on that cover. Eventually, they made it.
Other hits included “When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman” and “Only Sixteen” (don’t worry, the narrator was, too).
RIP Dennis Locorriere of Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. Way back when I interviewed him for the "Where Are They Now?" section of @RollingStone and he was funny and candid about their moment in the pop sun. pic.twitter.com/cKPtVtpfrl
“60 Minutes” ends its season tonight. It will not return in the same condition.
The most respected news program on TV will not see its 60th birthday in 2028 wit the same independence and courage of its convictions.
Probably leaving: correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Bill Whitaker.
The former saw her El Salvador prison story postponed and then played on a night no one was watching. CBS News chief Bari Weiss sees Alfonsi as a threat to her world domination and string pulling by Trump.
Whitaker, who’s done such a great job, turns 75 this summer, and is Black. Weiss isn’t crazy about either trait. He’s going to retire, at least from CBS. He should be given a huge send off, but Weiss will probably get him a gift card to Sephora.
Lesley Stahl, in her 80s, will probably stay until Weiss does something really bad to her. Scott Pelley? It’s 50/50 he’ll come back in the fall. But Weiss can’t really do the show without him.
Executive producer Tanya Simon is also a coin toss. She comes from establishment CBS News. Her father was beloved correspondent Bob Simon, who survived being kidnapped and all kinds of other atrocities only to die in a rogue Uber on the West Side Highway. Simon will have to decide if she can go forward with a “60 Minutes” for Fox News viewers, or go elsewhere.
With new Hollywood stars, Thierry Fremaux was counting on Barbra Streisand to attend closing ceremonies and receive her honorary Palme d’or.
Now she says she can’t make the trip because of a knee injury. I’m sorry, she didn’t know that when she accepted?
Streisand is now the second actor to cancel Cannes over an injury. Earlier, Jacob Elordi said he broke his toe.
Are these real injuries? We don’t know.
I feel bad for Thierry. Everything has gone awry this year. No big studio movies. Few stars on the Croisette. Lots of D listers roaming around. No deals for distribution. And now, this.
Streisand said in a statement:
“On the advice of my doctors, as I continue recovering from a knee injury, I am sadly unable to attend the Festival de Cannes this year. But I am deeply honored to receive the Honorary Palme d’or and had so been looking forward to celebrating the remarkable films of the 79th edition.
“I was also very much looking forward to spending time with colleagues whom I so admire – and, of course, returning to France, a place I have always loved. While I regret that I can’t be there in person, I want to extend my warmest congratulations to all of the filmmakers from around the world whose extraordinary talent and creative vision are being celebrated this year.
“My heartfelt thanks to the Festival, and to everyone who continues to support and champion the art of cinema.”
The Festival says they will still put on a tribute Saturday night. Maybe Barbra can send a taped message, or appear via Zoom.
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.
