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Jann Wenner has cancelled all promotional events for his new book, “The Masters.”
A notice went out from the 92nd St. Y this evening cancelled Wenner’s planned Q&A with Cameron Crowe set for October 18th. Crowe made his career at Rolling Stone in the 1970s — see the movie “Almost Famous.”
It’s a stunning turn of events for Wenner, whose entire legacy has been destroyed in one week by his comments in the New York Times last week. He said that female and Black performers were too inarticulate to be interviewed and he wasn’t interested in them anyway.
In pre sales on amazon, “The Masters” has dropped to number 3,595.
All the studio chiefs met today with the Writers Guild and will continue negotiating tomorrow, according to a WGA post.
The sudden seriousness of the studios is welcomed as the deadline looms for the 2023-24 TV season. If the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes aren’t resolved by early October, my sources say it will be impossible to put on a season.
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Disney’s Bob Iger, Universal’s Donna Langley and Warner Bros Discovery’s David Zaslav were present today for the negotiations, a sure sign that the studios are finally in panic mode. There are no daytime or nighttime talk shows, no new material on TV, and actors can’t promote the fall and winter movies. The actors have already missed the Telluride, Venice, and Toronto Film Festivals. Now the New York Film Festival looms, as does the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Watch for the studios to give in with a carefully worded announcement that saves face but gives the WGA important concessions.
Steve Martin and Martin Short have cancelled their sold out shows in Las Vegas this weekend.
Martin writes: “Dear fans and enemies, Unfortunately, our sold-out shows at the Wynn in Las Vegas this Friday and Saturday has to be postponed because of rampant Covid in our crew and one other essential guy. We are sorry for any inconvenience, but we are moving to mid-December, where your tickets will be honored with an added “date-moving tax,” of nine thousand dollars.”
Jimmy Kimmel and late night colleagues Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert were supposed to raise money for their crews at a Vegas Strike Force show. But no. Kimmel Tweeted: “Well, Las Vegas, I got Covid, and sadly, we need to cancel this weekend’s Strike Force Three show. I could never live with myself if I got my hometown friends sick. Thanks to all who purchased tickets, everyone will get full refunds and we will try to reschedule if possible.”
This is why yours truly got the new vaccine on Monday. Don’t listen to Robert Kennedy Jr. and Eric Clapton, who are now Nuts-in-Arms. Get the vaccine! If famous people can get it again we are all at risk!
PS The US govt will start giving out free COVID tests next week again– they know something is happening!
PPS Sorry for Martin and Short, but you can watch the new episode of “Only Murders in the Building” now on Hulu. Meryl Streep has some big plot twists!
Peacock hand delivered this crate of goodies all over New York and LA today to television writers, press junketeers, and so on. (Not me. I’m not in that group!)
The crate — which looks pretty expensive — is to promote the Peacock Mel Gibson John Wick miniseries coming this weekend called “The Continental.”
So far, reviews are pretty bad, with only a 47% of 37 critics liking it. (I’ll try and watch it when it hits Peacock.) Indiewire wrote: “The Continental” soon crumbles under its impossible burdens. The action is plentiful, yet can’t compare, the storytelling is careless, beyond repair, and the realization of vaunted myths, well, buyer beware.”
The fact that Mel Gibson, antisemite and racist, is in it should be enough to turn elsewhere for entertainment. They say it’s a limited series, and that’s apparently true.
But Peacock must have felt they would get some PR from the recipients of the bourbon, whiskey, bitters, and a glass decanter. And here it is.
Elon Musk says Neuralink is coming right away. In a post on his Twitter X account, Musk says:
“The first human patient will soon receive a Neuralink device. This ultimately has the potential to restore full body movement.
In the long term, Neuralink hopes to play a role in AI risk civilizational risk reduction by improving human to AI (and human to human) bandwidth by several orders of magnitude.
Imagine if Stephen Hawking had had this.”
A breakthrough or the beginning of a horror movie? We’re about to find out how chips and artificial intelligence will change our lives.
Earlier Neuralink posted: “We’re excited to announce that recruitment is open for our first-in-human clinical trial! If you have quadriplegia due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), you may qualify. Learn more about our trial by visiting our recent blog post.”
The first human patient will soon receive a Neuralink device. This ultimately has the potential to restore full body movement.
In the long term, Neuralink hopes to play a role in AI risk civilizational risk reduction by improving human to AI (and human to human) bandwidth by… https://t.co/DzqoYI27Ng
Sherri Shepherd went ahead with her live talk even though there’s a writer’s strike. Now she’s been paid back by the universe.
Shepherd says she has tested positive for COVID and so her live show is cancelled for the rest of the week. If she’s smart, she’ll say it’s long COVID and wait until the strike is over.
Sherri’s show has been going on because she says she has no WGA writers, and just makes it up as she goes along. But the guild isn’t happy and it’s bad look for her.
Here’s hoping she gets well fast, and changes her mind about the show until the strike is over.
Jann Wenner’s book, “The Masters,” is set to be published next week.
But signs are bad for sales as “The Masters” has fallen on the Amazon book charts from around number 1,400 to number 1,972. It’s headed in the wrong direction, nearly off the top 2,000.
The drop in pre-sales and in standing on Amazon is directly attributable to the disaster Wenner himself caused beginning last week with an interview in the New York Times.
Wenner said that the interviews in the book — with Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Mick Jagger, John Lennon and other old white male rockers — didn’t include Black and female musicains because they were inarticulate. He immediately crossed out artists like Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder, saying maybe if Marvin Gaye was alive he’d be a possibility.
Reaction was swift and fierce. The founder of Rolling Stone magazine was disowned by them even though the current editor is his son, Gus Wenner. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dismissed him from its Board of Directors.
Wenner’s legacy has now been ruined by promotion for a book that will probably not sell at all when it’s finally published next Tuesday.
You may have read about the TV producers whose deals with the studios have been suspended because of the WGA and SAG AFTRA strikes.
The names include heavy hitters like Lorne Michaels, JJ Abrams, Chuck Lorre, Greg Berlanti, Bill Lawrence, John Wells. Lions Gate has out a half dozen producers including Paul Feig on ice. CBS has done the same with most everyone. So has NBC Universal, except for one: Dick Wolf.
Someone who answered the phone yesterday at Wolf Entertainment said yesterday. “We’re still working. We’re here.”
Wolf Entertainment is currently the biggest TV producer anywhere. Wolf has nine hours of primetime TV every week: all of Tuesday night on CBS with his “FBI” shows, all of Wednesday and Thursday nights on NBC with his “Chicago” and “Law & Order” shows.
But in all the announcements of TV producers’ deals being placed on hold, Wolf’s is the one never mentioned. He’s the king of TV. In a way, you have to admire that. Neither NBC nor CBS has made a move against him.
“They never will,” says a source. “They’re afraid of him.”
That any network is afraid of any producer is amazing. But of course they’re afraid. Without those nine hours, primetime would be blank. There’s too much at stake to start a war with Wolf’s empire. And think of it: NBC cut off Lorne Michaels, their one other consistent money maker and flag waver for almost 50 years.
Hats off to Wolf. When the strikes are over, he’ll be ready to go. If anyone survives the strikes and is back on the air first, it will be Wolf.
Listen to a preview of “Addicted to Romance” from the new film “She Came to Me” starring Anne Hathaway, Peter Dinklage and Marisa Tomei. The song comes out tomorrow, September 29, ahead of the movie next week. pic.twitter.com/tftHVu9Obf
Rebecca Miller’s “She Came to Me” is an oddly endearing, quirky indie movie coming next week to a theater near you. It’s a fable with no special effects with an impressive cast including Peter Dinklage, Marisa Tomei, Anne Hathaway, Brian D’Arcy James, and Joanna Kulig (from the movie “Cold War”). You couldn’t do better.
So how to top the cast? End the movie with an original Bruce Springsteen song called “Addicted to Romance,” never heard before and I would guess written for the film. Patti Scialfa sings background on what turns out to be a Springsteen gem that feels just like “She Came to Me” — old school, melodic, memorable. The people behind the movie should convince Bruce to put it out as a single pronto cut to their clips. They would have a hit.
Miller knows how to come up with left field plots that that turn on unexpected moments. Her films like “Maggie’s Plan” and “Personal Velocity” have cemented her place in this quirky world. “She Came to Me” is a dramedy about dysfunctional people in Brooklyn. Dinklage is an opera composer with a current creative blockage married to Hathaway, a composed, fashionable (wealthy) shrink on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She’s looking for more and may find it in religion. They have a teenage son, a Romeo who falls in love with D’Arcy James and Kulig’s daughter, their Juliet.
It sounds like a nice, tidy set up but the curve ball is Marisa Tomei as — believe it or not — a self confessed sex and romance obsessed tugboat captain looking for a one night stand. When she docks in Brooklyn, she meets Dinklage and changes his life. He writes an opera about their mysterious encounter, decides she’s his muse while at home, Dinklage’s family is coming apart at the seams.
“She Came to Me” doesn’t sound like it would work and no studio would ever greenlight it. But the material is enchanting. Miller is full of surprises and nuances. Her cast is terrific, everyone of them a scene stealer although Hathaway is kind of remarkable. And that’s coming from a big Marisa Tomei fan. Also, if the tugboat part doesn’t get you, Miller throws D’Arcy James and Kulig into an inventive unpredictable little plot twist to get to her ending.
If all this isn’t enough, Miller stages two scenes from original mini operas that could easily be expanded and play in real life at BAM.
“She Came to Me” is an old fashioned New York style film, much in the vein of Woody Allen, Nora Ephron, and kind of a balm after all the noise of planned Hollywood hits. Plus it has a delicately memorable score from Bryce Dessner of the group, The National. Originally Steve Carell was supposed to play the opera composer along with a different cast that never came together. It’s Dinklage’s credit that he assumes the role with no mention of his height difference. He is just outstanding in everything he does, and totally believable as the cynical center of this cacophony.
Will Springsteen cap his year by performing at the Oscars? He should. The song is called “Addicted to Romance.” His fans will be addicted to it.
Listen to a preview of “Addicted to Romance” from the new film “She Came to Me” starring Anne Hathaway, Peter Dinklage and Marisa Tomei. The song comes out tomorrow, September 29, ahead of the movie next week. pic.twitter.com/tftHVu9Obf
