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Yes, Kathie Lee Gifford is back plugging Balance of Nature.
(How much money does she need?)
Gifford doesn’t seem to care that the FDA has issued warnings about the shady vitamin supplement company, shut them down temporarily, and tried to warn the public that the company’s idiotic claims of fruits and vegetables stuffed into a capsule cures nothing.
In November, the FDA halted all sales again. Balance of Nature complied shortly thereafter, but if you’re not getting the message at this point, I’d say it’s your fault if I were a juror. The public has been warned.
I actually did think Gifford was savvier than this. She was criticized last year for doing one of these. Since then Balance of Nature has been outed for all the above reasons. She could be doing commercials for lots of things. But this outfit? She couldn’t stump for a used car dealer in Nashville?
Let’s hope KLG isn’t actually ingesting this stuff. Even prayer won’t help her then!
A family that criminals together doesn’t necessarily rally when someone is ill.
On Christmas, the Trump family took a group photo. Melania was missing, and so was her mother. Her father, however, floated off to the left, looking perplexed.
On New Year’s Eve, the family partied at Mar-a-Lago. Trump spoke to the crowd and admitted that Melania was with her mother, in a Miami hospital, because she was severely ill.
I told you last week that in 2018 the late Ivana Trump told me Melania’s mother had cancer, was very sick, and that the then-First Lady was spending all of her time with her in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Now that Mrs. Knauss seems to in serious trouble, that wouldn’t stop Donald Trump from throwing a big party, taking pictures, and carrying on. He certainly wasn’t at his wife’s or mother-in-law’s side. Of course, this is no surprise since Ivana Trump is buried on the Trump golf course without a marker, her grave covered with weeds.
Donald’s message: “I don’t care, do you?”
Also missing at New Year’s Eve: Ivana Trump and family. Her excuse: Donald wasn’t really her father, she barely knew him.
Jennifer Lopez is starting the new year with a song built in Frankenstein’s lab.
The single is called “Can’t Get Enough” and it has no fewer than 10 songwriters! Some of them are the people who wrote the original songs used to construct this hybrid, including Alton Ellis and Dennis Coffey, back in the 70s.
“Can’t Get Enough (I’m Still in Love with You)” is a sample of a Sean Paul song called, “I’m Still in Love with You.” It’s an ‘interpolation,’ meaning JLo’s just lifted out the Paul song and stuffed it into a new single. This has been common practice now in hip hop for 35 years, and Lopez has done it before. Why write a new song when you can just stick together some old ones?
But this is a problem now because samples are being sampled. It turns out, Sean Paul’s song is really a cover of a 1967 reggae song called “I’m Still in Love with You” and made it a hit in 1977 by Marcia Aitken. It was written by Alton Ellis. Where Coffey comes in is unclear, but he is a famous Detroit instrumentalist who had a massive hit called “Scorpio” in the 70s.
Lopez’s new album, “This is Me…Now,” is loaded with samples. One song has SIXTEEN credited writers! Another one — a sample of a Chris Isaak song — also has TEN. There’s also a reworking of “Superstar” by Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett, made famous by The Carpenters.
I give a lot of credit to the people who listen to hundreds of old records looking for bits and pieces they can use to create a new song. The big winners here are the lawyers who have to get permissions and clear the songs rights — in the cases where that really happens.
Shecky Greene defined the notion of the Catskills comic on “Ed Sullivan.” How many times has someone been called “a real Shecky Greene”? It’s a term of endearment if you’re trying to be a wise guy or a jokester.
There are a ton of tributes to Shecky today on the internet. He was 97! Few people realized he was still alive. But the idea of Shecky Green brings a smile to people of a certain age. We remember! He was from the hallowed era of Alan King, Freddie Roman, Stiller & Meara, Joan Rivers, Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller. Before woke and PC– when jokes could be jokes!
His real name was Fred Sheldon Greenfield, but he did once a race horse called Shecky Greene. Shecky ran with all the famous Vegas guys, the mobsters and the showgirls. He was a big part of the now defunct Friars Club. His pal, “Hollywood Squares” Peter Marshall — also 97 — posted a lovely tribute to Shecky tonight.
I loved #SheckyGreene like a brother. We met in ’50 working the Chase Hotel. I saw all his ups & downs & he made me laugh through them all. Sweetest man in the world. Best comic ever (w/80 yrs in the biz I’ve seen them all). Thank God for his wife Marie. I’ll sure miss him. pic.twitter.com/rQHOgY2x5J
(EXCLUSIVE) Oscar winning writer director Paul Schrader wants to clarify comments attributed to him about Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Schrader, Scorsese’s long time friend and collaborator, was reported to have said he thought Leonardo DiCaprio should have played the FBI agent investigating the Osage murders.
The interview appeared in French, in Le Monde. Variety translated it this way: “Marty compares me to a Flemish miniaturist. He would be more the type who paints Renaissance frescoes. Give him $200 million, a good film will inevitably come out of it. That said, I would have preferred Leonardo DiCaprio to play the role of the cop in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ rather than the role of the idiot. Spending three-and-a-half hours in the company of an idiot is a long time.”
Something got lost in the translation. I immediately emailed Schrader to see if he was — implausibly — criticizing his friend. He was not. Today Schrader posted on Facebook:
“While in Italy for an last month I spoke openly with cineastes on awide range of subjects. Thanks the our clickbait culture one of those comments became a headline in Variety. Roger Friedman emailed me to say that my comments about “Flower Moon” had blown up on the internet. I told Scorsese when I first saw the film that his film that was a great film and I say that now. I accept full well that any comments made on FB are a considered publication choices. But what I don’t understand so well is how entre nous conversations among film buffs are also considered publication choices.”
So there you have it. Whatever happened in Le Monde, it just didn’t travel well. So just forget it. Schrader, often crankily candid, didn’t mean it to come out that way.
Last night, people went to the movies, albeit with some abivalence.
Warner’s hit the trifecta: “The Color Purple” will finish off tomorrow with a very healthy $50 million. “Wonka” is still wild, heading toward $140 million, “Aquaman 2” is splashing away to $80 million.
A big hit for families is “Migration” at almost $55 million. Universal always hits a home run, even if quietly.
Not looking good for the long race: “Ferrari,” which now has $11 million after almost a week of release.
I just watched the AFI 50th Anniversary special on TCM hosted by Ben Mankiewicz and written by Bob Gazzale. It’s must see TV if you have any interest ih Hollywood.
My first takeway is that you almost have to watch it twice to see all the stars sitting in the ballrooms while the 50 salutes progress. You literally see the changing of the guard three times. The early tributes are to people long gone who still look good — Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, directors like Frank Capra and John Ford.
You see the next generation in the background of the first, as they are either guests or being presenters from the stage. You can almost imagine if the AFI annual salutes had begun 10 years earlier, in 1963, who would have been in attendance. As it is, at my age, seeing people who I’ve been lucky to get to know when they were really young is a kick in the pants.
The director thing — it seems like more of them were saluted at the start. Hitchcock is there, David Lean, Robert Wise, Capra and Ford, later Scorsese and Spielberg. I feel a little said that Robert Altman never got the award, or Sidney Lumet, but there are so many, the AFI could do a tribute once a week.
Highlights from the special include really getting to see Jimmy Cagney, Jimmy Stewart, Sidney Poitier as real people, not just icons from their films. A young Jim Carrey does a hilarious impression of Clint Eastwood. Two outstanding musical numbers are featured. One is Jennifer Hudson tearing down the theater singing “A Change is Gonna Come.” Another — and very rare — is Frank Sinatra singing a rewritten “My Way” to Cagney. Sinatra is at top voice — extraordinary!
Phyllis Diller points out on stage that the last time she was there she a different face. You see as the 50 years go by the progression of faces and spouses. A lot of times you say, “Isn’t that?” My old pal George Christy is even in one shot. Because of subsequent memoirs, we know a lot about what was going on in everyone’s lives. But sitting there, they look so innocent — Jack and Anjelica, for example, or Carrie Fisher’s show stopping tribute to George Lucas. Denzel Washington telling the story of how he met Poitier on the street. And then Chadwick Boseman — looking very frail (and no one noticed??? how is it possible?) explaining how Denzel once underwrote his acting classes.
Other moments that stand out are Woody Allen’s very funny, touching thoughts on Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda’s rousing acceptance speech, Orson Welles all organized and spiffed up. I think I even spotted Joseph Cotten in the crowd for Welles’s honor. Barbara Stanwyck, a trail blazer, plus comics like Mel Brooks and Steve Martin, and on and on and on.
The AFI Life Achievement Award: 50th Anniversary special will be shown many times on TCM. It’s a winner. This coming April, Nicole Kidman will be the next honoree, very deservingly, for winner an Oscar, starring in blockbusters, and being dynamic in her choice of independent films.
Tom Wilkinson — one of the nicest and most talented actors ever — has died suddenly at age 75. He was nominated for Oscars twice, won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, as well as the Independent Spirit Award, “In the Bedroom.” I knew him pretty well for a long time, and will miss him very much. He brought a sense of nobility and grace to every role he played.
His Oscar nominations were for “In the Bedroom” and “Michael Clayton.” Wilkinson made a splash in the US in “Shakespeare in Love” in 1997, his career took, and he never looked back. Earlier that same year, he was also a star of “The Full Monty,” a huge box office hit. His other films included “Sense and Sensibility” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”
At one point, Tom was working so much that I congratulated him for some film I said he’d been in. “I wasn’t in that,” he replied, laughing. I said, “You’ve been in so many lately, I thought I saw you.” That might have been around the time he won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for playing Benjamin Franklin in the “John Adams” miniseries on HBO.
I’ll never forget the year Tom was nominated for “In the Bedroom.” I was standing in front of the Four Seasons Hotel on Doheny waiting for my car when he and his wife pulled up in a taxi to check in. The place was buzzing, there were no porters around, and the cab just sort of dumped them before arriving at the front door. I noticed them, and wound up getting a cart and helping them into the hotel. We always used to laugh about it later.
What a shame he’s gone. Condolences to his family. He will be sorely missed.
After a huge opening on Monday, the terrific, emotional musical had a big drop mid week.
But last night, “The Color Purple” was up 25% from Thursday, taking the biggest leap of any film in the top 10.
“Aquaman 2” is finding a holiday audience. It will be up near $80 million by the end of New Year’s Day. So maybe $100 million isn’t out of the question. But much beyond that? Hmmm…
“Wonka” rounds out Warner Bros’ big trio. Just keeps finding more candy along the way, heading to $140 million by the end of the four day week.
Lots of small movies all jockeying for place including “Poor Things,” “Iron Claw,” “All of Us Strangers,” “Zone of Interest.” “Memory” from the nearly existent Ketchup Entertainment is proving to be a bit stuck in the bottle.
As 2024 arrives, will the music just be about Taylor Swift?
The answer is: no.
R&B superstar Usher is Coming Home on February 11th. That’s Super Bowl Sunday, and Usher will be making a gigantic comeback playing the halftime show at Las Vegas’s Allegiant Stadium.
He’s also dropping a new album called “Coming Home,” which will be released by a new record company and entertainment force called gamma. The guy behind gamma is Larry Jackson, who’s been a force at Apple Music after getting his start with Clive Davis at J Records 20 years ago.
Not so coincidentally, Apple is the sponsor of the half time show — produced by Jay Z’s Roc Nation — and an investor in gamma.
Another significant player in the Apple launch is Todd Boehly, whose Eldridge Industries has a hand, seemingly, in everything right now including owning The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, the Golden Globes, Dick Clark Productions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and even the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
“Coming Home” is set up to succeed like crazy. It’s overseen by Usher’s (and Jackson’s) old pal, L.A. Reid. You can already hear some of it on on YouTube already. From the sound of it, “Coming Home” is Usher’s strongest album in decades his last album (which came out way back in 2018).
Among the potential hits is a song called “Believe,” which feels like it will be the centerpiece of the Super Bowl show along with “Risk it All” — his sexy new song with HER Music from “The Color Purple,” “Good Good” with 21 Savage and Summer Walker, and “Boyfriend.” They’ll be mixed in with Usher’s mega hits like “Yeah!,” “Love in this Club,” and his “U” songs: “U Remind Me,” “U Got it Bad,” and “U Don’t Have to Call.”
By the time the Super Bowl show is over– and before the final touchdown — watch for “Coming Home” and all these tracks to zoom to the top of iTunes with a major push, as well as Apple Music and Spotify.
According to Billboard, gamma comes armed with $1 billion to do business on all entertainment fronts. Usher’s massive kickoff will just be the beginning. This group was serious about Usher, too. Apparently, they bought out the last album he owed on a contract at RCA Records.
Usher puts on an incredible show, too. I’ve seen him several times over the years, including once he when he took over the off Broadway show, “Fuerza Bruta” at the tiny Daryl Roth Theater back in 2007 and mesmerized the audience close up.
So hold on. Usher is going to “usher in” 2024 big time!
