Friday, December 19, 2025
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Is This The End for “CBS News” and “60 Minutes”? Ellison Hires Conservative Bari Weiss to Run the Shows Despite No Experience

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If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would imagine this set up:

Trump tells buddy Larry Ellison and his son David, new owners of Paramount CBS, to destroy the news division. Devalue it instantly. Force all the hard line journalists out.

So here we go. David Ellison has hired Bari Weiss to run CBS News. She’s a conservative domestically, but pro-Israel. She’s married to a woman, but will she turn against gay rights in her Foxification of the news?

Weiss is reviled in mass media. She was forced out of her op-ed role at the New York Times. Former employees of The Free Press, which she has now sold to Ellison for $150 million, are complaining about her all over social media.

How will this work? It reminds me of when Penske Media hired Nikki Finke and gave her a forum. We know how that worked out.

Weiss, 41, sent this widely distributed out memo today to the staff.

Suddenly media reporting is going to juicy again.

Jane Goodall’s Parting Words: She’d Like to “Send Musk Up in One of His Spaceships with Trump, Putin, and Netanyahu”

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The late Jane Goodall had unsparing last words for ELon Musk and Donald Trump before she died.

Goodall gave an extraordinary interview to Netflix last March for a series called “Famous Last Words.” It was done to be broadcast only after her death.

The unlikely interviewer, who did an impressive job, is Brad Falchuk, the TV producer husband of Gwyneth Paltrow.

Goodall, a great scientist and philanthropist, does not restrain herself in her thoughts about Donald Trump and his gang of cronies.

Taylor Swift Drops Video for “The Fate of Ophelia” on You Tube Right After 3 Day Run in Theaters, Gets 1 Million Views in an Hour (Watch)

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Taylor Swift has had quite a video weekend.

She charged fans 12 bucks to see her new video in theaters. Now “The Fate of Ophelia” is free on YouTube.

Already heading to 1 million views, certainly will five or six times that.

She sold 3 million albums to six people who collected everything as souvenirs. Reviews of “The Life of a Showgirl” are mixed, and some of the songs were lifted from previous hits by other people.

She also released four more CDs at bucks a pop.

What’s next? God only knows.

The video? Production gets an A plus. The uncredited editor, costumer, and production designer gave Taylor a motion picture level video. Cost? Millions, but who cares!

Get thee to a nunnery, Ophelia!

Trump Alert This Friday 5AM: Nobel Peace Prize Announcement Will Set Off President At War with Portland, Threatening Super Bowl Fans

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If you have a calendar, call it up or get it out.

Circle or mark this Friday, 5AM.

That’s when Nobel Awards will announce the winner of the Peace Prize.

Donald Trump will be up all night, stewing and posting on social media, awaiting an award he won’t receive.

He thinks he’s ended seven wars and brought peace to the world. In fact, aside from not ending any wars, he’s caused a huge amount of pain and suffering in his own country.

Trump has declared war on Portland, Oregon by sending in National Guard troops from California to disrupt the happy lives of their citizens.

Across the country ICE agents are thuggishly kidnapping, arresting, and bullying anyone they see of color. They’re pushing women to the ground and kicking them.

Kristi Noem, the dog killing cabinet member, says when the Super Bowl comes to Santa Clarita, California next February, ICE agents will be deployed to snatch anyone they think might be illegal, even if they’re not, and they don’t care.

So, no, Wednesday at 5am all we will hear is the announcement that someone worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize has earned it. From the White House, there will be rants and raves, punishments and threats. Maybe Trump will declare war on Oslo or put a 3000% tax on smoked salmon.

If we’re smart, we will turn over and go back to sleep.

The Rock aka Dwayne Johnson Pinned to the Ground, Has All Time Low Opening of $6 Mil with Wrestling Movie

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Dwayne The Rock Johnson has been pinned to the wrestling mat.

His movie, “The Smashing Machine,” made just $6 million over the weekend.

The real life story of Mark Kerr, a mixed martial arts star, attracted no interest from the audience.

It didn’t help that Johnson altered his appearance severely, didn’t look like himself, and offered a kind of downer experience.

Now A24’s entire year rests on tomorrow night’s “surprise” screening at the New York Film Festival.

“Marty Supreme” stars Timothee Chalamet as a real life late 1950s ping pong player who hooks up with Gwyneth Paltrow — old enough to be his mother.

Among the producers is former Scott Rudin associate Eli Bush, who is coincidentally married to the daughter of cinematographer Darius Khondji.

Director is Josh Safdie, brother of Benny, who directed “Smashing Machine.”

Tickets sold out for the showing at 50 bucks a pop. I will depend on the kindness of spies to get a reading on it. Will “Marty Supreme” score, or get paddled?

Featured in the movie are two notorious real life political conservatives: Kevin O’Leary from “Shark Tank” and NY supermarket king John Catsimiditis.

I’m actually surprised A24 couldn’t drum up interest in “Smashing Machine.” After all, they got Oscars for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Taylor Swift Weekend: $33 Million Made from Infomercial Movie for New Album, More than 5 Times Box office for The Rock’s Wrestling Movie

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Ka ching!

Taylor Swift Weekend continues.

“The Official Album Party Release Infomercial” made $33 million in three days.

The “film” plugs her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”

More than five times the number of people who plunked down $12 tickets for Swift saw The Rock’s wrestling movie, “The Smashing Machine.” The Rock took in $6 million, a devastating all time low for his career.

This comes as Hitsdailydouble.com predicts sales of 3 million albums, including streaming and downloads.

At that rate, the same number of people who saw the movie this weekend also bought the album.

On Rotten Tomatoes there are no actual reviews from critics. But the audience adored it, at 96%!

Records have been broken all over the place. “Most Ever” in every category: sales in one day of 12 songs you won’t remember 10 years from now, etc.

Plus, overnight Taylor issued four CDs of extras that could have been included in the initial release. They’re 8 bucks apiece. So an extra $32 on top of the $14 for the original CD, or $30-something for vinyl, plus the merchandise.

All for many songs that sound just like other music.

It’s fantastic!

Keep refreshing…

Taylor Swift Jumps the Shark with “Surprise” Extra CDs to Sell Us Now That “The Life of a Showgirl” Could Set a Record

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Taylor Swift is a merchandising maven.

As I’ve said before, Harvard should let her take over the business school.

Now that her album, “The Life of a Showgirl” is selling millions of copies, she’s got more “surprise” CDs to sell her fans.

Nothing like milking a good thing.

There no surprises, actually. The Swift machine has been planned out in detail. So less than 24 hours after the initial release, Swift has got more goods to hawk.

Mind you, she’s already got it hooked up so you can’t download individual tracks from her album. The whole thing has to be bought as one piece.

Now come 4 CDs more, with “Acoustic versions” of the “Showgirl” songs. The CDs will cost $7.99 and sales will count toward her weekly total.

One CD, dubbed the “Life Is A Song Acoustic Version,” will include “Opalite (Life Is A Song Acoustic Version)” and “Ruin the Friendship (My Advice Version)” as the bonus tracks. Another, called “Dressing Room Rehearsal Version,” will feature “Wi$h Li$t (Settled Down Acoustic Version)” and “The Life of a Showgirl (Dressing Room Rehearsal Acoustic Version).”

A third, “Alone In My Tower Acoustic Version,” has “The Fate of Ophelia (Alone In My Tower Acoustic Version)” and “Eldest Daughter (Now You’re Home Acoustic Version)” as its added attractions. And the fourth new CD, “So Glamorous Cabaret Version,” includes two versions of the same track, one of which is a voice memo demo rather than a new recording: “Elizabeth Taylor (So Glamorous Cabaret Version)” and “Elizabeth Taylor (Original Songwriting Voice Memo).”

Yes, that’s right a memo.

If Swift could sell you the water bottle caps from the recording sessions, she’d do it.

All of this is meaningless. It’s cynical, and a con. Many of the songs on the new album sound ripped off from other artists’ music. Why would anyone want more of it?

The thing is, none of this music is different or even interesting. Think of Joni Mitchell 19 years into her career having already finding new avenues of jazz and African music to incorporate into her repertory. Or Paul Simon. Or Marviin Gaye just a decade into his career coming up with “What’s Going On?” Taylor Swift is the ultimate recycler of known material. It’s like buying a 3D printed house instead of using an architect.

Taylor Swift Not Allowing Individual Tracks from “Showgirl” to Be Downloaded, to Drive Up Album Sales and Protect the Songs

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I was wondering why no singles from “The Life of a Showgirl” were showing up on iTunes.

Turns out it’s not going to happen.

Swift and her team have made the whole album “album only” on iTunes. You can’t download individual tracks.

This is a good trick to drive up album sales. Why let the album splinter? If you want one song, you have to take all 12.

In the streaming world, it’s a different story. You can stream individual tracks, maybe listen to one and skip the others.

But to own some milk, you gotta buy the cow.

This is not typical of album releases, but it’s very Swiftian. This is why she owns a big estate in Rhode Island, houses in New York and Nashville, and we’re in a rent controlled apartment!

PS It’s the same over at amazon.com. And why is this? Because the SWifties obviously are unsure of a single breaking out. I don’t hear one. Radio may not either. So this way, they hedge their bets.

Trump a Guaranteed No Show at Super Bowl as Noem Insists “NFL Sucks,” Vows ICE Will Arrest, Bully: LA Olympics Next?

Dog killer Kristi Noem is coming for immigrants who attend the Super Bowl next February.

On a podcast this week she said of the NFL: “They suck and we’ll win and God will bless us.”

Noem follows Trump stooge Corey Lewandowski insisting ICE will bear down on Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clarita, California looking to find anyone they can arrest or bully.

This is all because the NFL chose Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny — an American citizen — to perform at the half time show.

At least we know that Trump will not be a guest at the Super Bowl, and the winners won’t be visiting the White House.

The Super Bowl is generally considered the Super Bowl of all sporting events on TV, drawing the biggest crowds. This year will be no different no matter who are the final teams.

Tickets to the Super Bowl are around $5,000 so there may not be a lot of illegal immigrants in attendance. But the people who work in and around the stadium could choose to stay home. Half of the population of Santa Clarita is non-white, which means this will be a ghost town during the Bowl.

With all of this pending, how can the Olympics Committee seriously envision having their 2028 event in Los Angeles? Or any US city? If things are as they are now, imagine what ICE will be like in 2028. Boggles the mind. It should make for great TV.

https://youtube.com/shorts/dYMQKXjaK-I?si=UfRejgQTi12lZiKh

The Jackson 5 Motown Songwriters Won’t Be Happy When They Hear “I Want You Back” as Taylor Swift’s New Song, “Wood”

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Many of the Jackson 5 songs were written by Fonce Mizell, Freddie Perren, Deke Richards, and Berry Gordy.

They called themselves The Corporation.

The music was provided by the Funk Brothers.

Now they can all hear their song, “I Want You Back,” again.

Taylor Swift has ripped off “I Want You Back” for her new song, “Wood.”

I told you yesterday that Taylor had already ripped off “Cool” by the Jonas Brothers to get her title track, “The Life of a Showgirl.”

Across the internet, fans are finding obvious paths to the new Swift songs. “Ruin the Friendship” comes from a song by The 1975, for example. The group is one of her favorites.

What the heck is going on here?

Swift doesn’t have to worry about getting sued on this one. All three members of The Corporation are dead. Gordy is 95 and very rich. So the odds are, they’ll leave her alone — unless their estates say something. And they might.