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You’ve got to hand it to the front page editors of the New York Times.
Instead of running a huge version of Donald Trump’s mug shot, they minimized him but making the picture from his Atlanta booking the size of a postage stamp.
The main photo on page 1 is of
The crashed plane carrying Putin enemy and Russian dissident Yevgeny V. Prigozhin. The message there is that we all know what really happened to the former Wagner leader. When Vladimir Putin doesn’t like you, the choices are poison, falling out an open (or closed) window, or a crash of some kind.
As for Trump, the Times laughs in his face. A small face, at that.
Two people from the world of soaps, daytime and nighttime, must get appropriate send offs.
David Jacobs died this week at age 81. He created both “Dallas” and “Knots Landing,” the two most popular nighttime soaps of all time. David was beloved by everyone who worked on both shows, and the mark of that is that the casts of both shows remain close and continue to be friends, they have such great feelings about their time together.
Jacobs pitched “Knots Landing” first to CBS in the mid 70s, but they wanted something with a little pizzazz. So he came up with “Dallas,” which took off after about 5 episodes. The Ewings combination of new money and country style Texas living skyrocketed. The show was supposed to be about Romeo and Juliet — Bobby and Pam — but antagonist JR Ewing played by Larry Hagman lit a fire. Hagman, previously nice guy astronaut Tony on “I Dream of Jeannie,” was delicious in his evil. When his character was shot, the show went through the roof. Meantime, Jacobs invented JR’s loser brother Gary to spin him and his family off for “Knots Landing.” The trick worked and “Knots” lasted a stunning 14 seasons.
David had nothing to do with the CBS reboot of “Dallas.” I wrote in 2012:
David Jacobs, creator of “Dallas” and “ Knots Landing,” tells me he’s been excluded entirely from the coming reboot of the famous series on TNT. He will get to keep his “created by” credit, but nothing else, no money, and no participation. “I’ll get the $714 Writers Guild fee for a sequel,” Jacobs says. Jacobs tells me found out that “Dallas” was being restarted second hand. When he inquired about it, he says he told everyone — including new head writer Cynthia Cidre–that he was essentially retired and didn’t want to write the show. “I didn’t want any authority,” he told her at their one lunch. But he did think a consultancy wouldn’t be out of the question since basically, “Dallas” relies on all the characters he created in the 1970s–JR Ewing, Bobby Ewing, Sue Ellen, and their family, even the same Southfork Ranch set.
“All I said was that I’d like to be a presence. I told her if you need anything on the back story, I’m there. I never heard anything from her again until I heard TNT ordered a pilot.” Jacobs was involved with the failed John Travolta movie version, because the movie and TV rights had been separated in his original contract. “In the early 2000s, we took the movie to Warner Bros. They passed, and then New Regency bought the movie rights. But they didn’t make the movie.”
NANCY FRANGIONE has died at age 70. Nancy lit up NBC’s “Another World” for the first half of the 1980s and then returned many times during the 90s. Her character, Cecile, ran through husbands, at one time was the princess of a small country. She was entirely self-centered which only worked because Frangione was beguiling in her lack of guile. She was a rich girl with no money who was constantly on the prowl to make a big score. The audience loved her. Prior to “Another World” she played a good girl on “All My Children,” but that was just rehearsal for her reign of terror as Cecile, a larger than life soap temptress and villianess. What a shame she’s died so young.
If you were hoping to see “Dune Two” soon, you’ll have to keep waiting. Warner Bros. is pulling it from the fall and moving the sequel to “Dune” to next year.
The reason? Ostensibly because with the strikes, the very expensive, intricate movie cannot be promoted properly.
But Warners will go ahead with three releases this fall, rolling the dice that the strikes will end and the world return to normal.
The musical version of “The Color Purple,” the updated “Wonka,” and the “Aquaman” sequel will proceed on schedule.
“Dune” may do better anyway with some breathing room and away from “Wonka,” which also stars Timothee Chalamet. Could there be Chalamet overkill?
Moving Denis Villeneuve’s epic to March 15, 2024 also means it will miss the Oscar season this time around. Doing this, Warner’s clears the way for “Barbie” to secure a Best Picture nomination without question.
The move also helps “The Color Purple” in its chances. I’m hearing it’s very good.
Donald Trump has been arrested for the 4th time. He became the first ex US president to have a mug shot taken. On his booking record he said he weighed 215lbs, which means no one weighed him.
What a glorious moment. This is what Trump deserves for everything he’s done in his life but most certainly since he started questioning Barack Obama’s place of birth. For every name he’s called his opponents or others in government, for enabling hate, and coming close to destroying the US. Does he have a conscience? No. But every other human being in the world knows the truth.
Trump has so little dignity that he’s already posted a copy of the mug shot with the words “Never Surrender!” LOL.
Kim Cattrall returns to “Sex and the City” today in the season finale of “And Just Like That.” Samantha calls Carrie from a limo and instantly saves the show. The scene lasts one minute and 30 seconds.
Cattrall filmed her scene by herself. Sarah Jessica Parker contributed her side of the phone call on another day. Oh well. They’re such good actresses they seem happy to speak to each other. But we all know the real story.
Producer Michael Patrick King is smart. He uses the old show’s jolly score under the conversation, which has to do with Samantha being thwarted in her plan to fly in to New York for one night to join Carrie and her dinner party. For a minute, you feel nostalgic for the good old days.
But the old “SATC” did not include scenes that in this series are only useful for fast forwarding. While there was improvement in Season 2, the show is a drag without Cattrall. Who knows what the numbers are? No one. Is anyone watching “And Just Like That?” It’s hard to imagine it has a widespread fanbase. But it will be back one more time, and let’s hope that’s the end of it.
Best character of the season: Kristin Davis. She has a scene in Episode 10 that reminded me of Patti Arquette in “Boyhood.” If this show is ever part of an awards campaign, I’d push her for supporting actress in a comedy.
He’s announced his arrest time at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta. It’s 7:30pm. Is Trump expecting to get a crowd of his insane followers to show up? So far few fans have come to his arrests and arraignments.
Trump is still crowing about his Twitter views on the Tucker Carlson interview last night. He doesn’t get it. The likes still trail way behind. It’s not a success.
“The Blind Side” case continues. Michael Oher recently filed suit against the Tuohy family, but the family has the receipts and Oher faces dealing with Hollywood powerhouse film Lavely and Singer.
Now Alcon Entertainment founders Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove have put out a statement. They say:
“The deal that was made by Fox for the Tuohy’s and Michael Oher’s life rights was consistent with the marketplace at that time for the rights of relatively unknown individuals. Therefore, it did not include significant payouts in the event of the film’s success.
“As a result, the notion that the Tuohys were paid millions of dollars by Alcon to the detriment of Michael Oher is false. In fact, Alcon has paid approximately $767,000 to the talent agency that represents the Tuohy family and Michael Oher (who, presumably, took commission before passing it through).
“We anticipate that the Tuohy family and Michael Oher will receive additional profits as audiences continue to enjoy this true story in the years to come. In addition to these contractual payments, Alcon made a charitable contribution to the Tuohy family foundation. We offered to donate an equal amount to a charity of Mr. Oher’s choosing, which he declined. ”
The Club’s stunning loss to Gyure (ironically pronounced “jury”) stings in particular because the former CEO was found guilty for failure to file personal taxes and for former tax offenses. He was sentenced to one year of supervised release in July 2019. He’d been a lightning rod at the club after it was raided by the FBI several years ago. At that point, the fabled club fell apart, with the remaining celebrities leaving the organization to disreputable members. But Gyure had rallied remaining followers who showed up in court to support him.
That was immediately followed by a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by the club’s former receptionist against the club. She won nearly $1 million in a settlement. The cause of the suit, Friars “Scribe” Bruce Charet, remained with the club nonetheless, bringing in his own business partners to run it.
The Friars and Gyure have a bizarre history. Even as the Club was falling apart, was under federal investigation, endured the sex harassment lawsuit, they kept renewing his contract. Then in 2020 they abruptly terminated him. Gyure turned around and sued the Club. The Club countersued sued him in 2022 for embezzlement.
Long gone are the halcyon days of Alan King, Freddie Roman, Larry King, Joan Rivers, and so on. Even before the club went downhill it was shunned by the new generation of comics like Jerry Seinfeld, David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, and so on. They wanted nothing to do with it as it sank into oblivion.
Since Gyure was ousted, and lawsuits were filed by both parties, the Friars have drifted into a kind of hell no one could have imagined. Charet and his associates, according to sources, still have some kind of hold over the Club. I reported earlier this year that the Club lost its trademark rights to its 100 year old logo. The sign outside the Club was stolen or removed during the filming of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and still hasn’t been found. Just recently they announced they were licensing the audio from their decades of their famous Friars Club Roasts to Sirius XM despite questions about who owns the rights. It’s unclear if the participants ever signed waivers. The Club also lost its 501c3 tax free charitable status.
The Club has been padlocked shut for most of this year.
Donald Trump went on Twitter (X) last night for an “interview” — meaning PR stunt — with the moronic Tucker Carlson.
So far, on the social media platform, the meeting of these lesser minds has 180 million “views” — meaning looks for a couple of minutes or so.
Trump is bragging on his own social media right now that the number could get up to 300,000!
But the “likes” of the interview tell a different story — just 583K. That’s a fraction of the so called total views. And a small one. Even if the likes get up to 1 million, that’s a pretty sad response. It lags way beyond the total — and even that number doesn’t indicate who watched the conversation all the way through. Trump foments hate in the talk, and refuses to say civil war isn’t possible.
The Trump/Carlson gasbagging of each other took place while the potential GOP presidential candidates debated each other on Republican state media, er, Fox. News. It looks from the NY Post and Foxnews.com that Rupert Murdoch is going with bland, vague, hate-filled Ron DeSantis for now. The Florida dweeb governor, who’s turned his state into a cultural wasteland, gets the most attention today in Murdoch’s media.
Today at 4pm we get Trump’s mugshot after his 4th arrest on his 4th indictment. Should be quite an afternoon in Atlanta!
The Specials once sang “A Message to You Rudy” which was not about Rudolph Giuliani but has come to have new meaning over time.
Decades of despicable behavior — lying, cheating, infidelity, gross meanness — ended in at the Fulton County Courthouse today with the arrest, mug shot, fingerprinting, and $150,000 bail.
New Yorkers despised when he was mayor. He lost his mind a long time ago. After Gracie Mansion — and his affairs, let’s not forget — Rudy went from hating Donald Trump to becoming his stooge. And this is where it’s landed him.
Whatever happens next is the cherry on top of the sundae. But what satisfaction to see this clown brought finally to his knees.
