Clint Eastwood celebrated his 93rd birthday on May 31st in Carmel, California. His family gave him a cake, of course, and it MADE HIS DAY.
Clint is supposed to direct a new film called “Juror #2.” Will he do it? I’ll bet he does, even if he such sits in the directors chair and points. Clint is the original indie director. He’s made a ton of great movies. And he’s not done.
Amy Pascal can open some more Champagne.
“Spider Man: Across the Spiderverse” is a mega hit.
Total Thursday previews plus Friday opening came to $51 million. Predictions now are for a $113 million weekend. This would put the second film in the series at $78 million more than the first.
Not bad.
Sony should figure out a way to work Spider Man into all their releases!
The usual ‘this animated movie should get a Best Picture nomination’ stuff has begun. It’s like we’re in Groundhog Day. Not happening.
The rest of the box office belongs mostly to “Fast X,” the latest installment of “The Fast and the Furious.” It’s doing as well as the last one because, really, they have a core audience and that’s it
A24 bungled the Julia Louis Dreyfus movie, “You Hurt My Feelings.” It’s dead. They will have a solid opening weekend in very very extremely limited release with “Past Lives.” Looking at $200K in four theaters. Are there hot dog fingers? We’ll see.
Someone call Olivia Benson to arrest these people!
Sunday night comes the premiere episode of HBO’s “The Idol.” Pop star The Weeknd stars with Lily Rose Depp, daughter of Johnny Depp.
A bunch of good actors play supporting roles including Jane Adams, Eli Roth, Hank Azaria, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Troye Sivan, Hari Nef, and Dan Levy. They are all supremely unlikeable, actually detestable characters. There’s no one to root for.
Depp is naked most of the time. So that’s one thing. “Idol” is an R rated show, leaning toward NC-17.
The Weeknd shouldn’t quit his day job.
The singer’s first big hit was called “I Can’t Feel My Face.” That could be the title of this episode. The major plot point is that Depp’s Jocelyn has taken a selfie of her face splattered with (I’m sorry to write this) male splurge. They call it something else. It’s discussed endlessly and the selfie, which is shown, goes viral. I dare you to discuss this, with their wording, to your friends or family.
The show is disgusting. Unlike director Sam Levinson’s “Euphoria.” there is no heart here. It’s just a dark piece of coal at its center. It seems like the whole point is to suggest the music business is just vulgar and coarse. Mental health is treated like a punchline. Not only that, Roth engages with Adams in “banter” that is nothing but antisemitic. You will cringe from their conversations. Azaria sports an accent he would have been better off leaving at home, His presence is in stark contrast to his brilliant guest spot on “Mrs. Maisel” this season.
Don’t blame me if you watch this thing only to turn it off. HBO cannot do rock and roll shows. The cursed “Vinyl” was like “Succession” compared to his garbage.
When Freddie Mercury died in 1991 at age 45 he left half his estate to his friend and “common law wife,” Mary Austin. The other half went to his parents, his sister, and her family.
At the time, in 1991, the estate was valued at 75 million British pounds. But thirty years later, everything is about to change as the publishing rights and recorded rights to the Queen catalog are about to be sold.
I spoke to a couple of actual insiders about a report that the deal could be worth $1 billion. Is this possible, I wondered? Queen’s songs, I suggested, are very eccentric and not that usable for commercials, and so on. The answer I got surprised me.
“Yes!” said a source who knows this stuff. “Most of the big stars who control their own catalogs have sold. Dylan, Bruce, Sting, and so on. There aren’t that many left. Maybe Dolly Parton, or Pink Floyd if they could get it together. The Bee Gees. Elton John would be off the charts. Imagine if the Beatles’ songs were available. Or the Motown catalog in this environment. So Queen is huge. Top of the list.”
Part of the incredible reality here doesn’t sink in. We remember Freddie Mercury as a young man. But he would be 77 this year, the same age as those big rock stars who’ve sold their catalogs. If he were alive, he’d probably be doing the same thing.
I’m told that a billion may be a bit high, but the Queen catalog could be anything north of $750 million. Queen is selling both the song publishing and the rights to all the master recordings. They have a lot of hits like “We Are the Champions,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Under Pressure,” and so on. Their greatest hits often pops up in the top 40 albums among contemporary artists.
A source says of the rumor that Universal Music Group might take it all: “It’s possible since Queen’s records are there. But their song publishing is at Sony. This could be two sales totaling between $750 mil and $900 mil. I would not be surprised.”
I’m told that with the diminishing number of artists left to buy, the big recording companies and all the catalog companies like Hipgnosis and Primary Wave armed with private financing and they have do something with it, or lose it. They’re ready to spend.
So get ready. Once a deal is done, you may hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” split in pieces to use in commercials. Think of a commercial with the intro “Is this the real life/Or is it fantasy?” floating to reveal a new car, a tech company, or a bar of soap. Crazier things have happened.
If this comes to pass, those heirs I mentioned could be splitting a huge pot of gold. And they wouldn’t be alone. The deal will also buy out the other members of the group for both the recordings and the publishing. For example Brian May wrote many of the hits in the catalog including “We Will Rock You.” John Deacon wrote “You’re My Best Friend.” Roger Taylor wrote “I’m in Love with My Car.” All three of us those could be recycled into commercials for decades to come, making a billion dollars not seem unreasonable.
Cynthia Weil‘s death, reported today, can not go without more conversation.
I spoke to another legend, Mike Stoller, another Brill Building graduate who wrote dozens of hits with his partner, Jerry Leiber. Leiber and and Stoller, Mike told me, worked with Barry and Cynthia Weil to write the all time classic, “On Broadway.”
Stoller, who’s 90, recalled: Barry and Cynthia had written a song called “On Broadway” which Phil Spector recorded with someone, but it didn’t work. Don Kirshner asked if we could re-write it. Jerry and I were working with the Drifters then. We said, Only with their permission. So we all got together at Jerry’s apartment on Central Park West. We were sitting on the floor. Jerry and Cynthia were trading lines. Barry and I were working on the melody. Cynthia was a great lyricist. She was also a sweet, dear person.”
The result of their work was magic. “On Broadway” became an all time standard for the Drifters. Twenty years later, Tommy LiPuma produced George Benson‘s version, giving it a second life.
Mann and Weil wrote dozens of other hits, many that I mentioned in my previous article. But they also wrote “Blame it on the Bossa Nova,” a monster hit for Eydie Gorme in the early days of rock and roll. They also wrote songs for the Crystals like “Uptown” (covered later by Bette Midler), “Only in America” for Jay and the Americans, “We Gotta Get Out of this Place” with the Animals, and “Just a Little Lovin’,” the song Dusty Springfield used to kick off “Dusty in Memphis.” Their contribution to the pop canon cannot be underestimated. Weil’s lyrics were urban poems set to Mann’s jazz-inflected melodies. They reek of romance and a nostalgic New York we yearn for even now.
Carole King via Instagram: “We lost the beautiful, brilliant lyricist Cynthia Weil Mann. The quartet of young songwriters in the image includes (left to right) her husband and cowriter, Barry Mann, Cynthia, my then-husband and cowriter, Gerry Goffin, and me at a BMI dinner in 1962. The four of us were close, caring friends despite our fierce competition to write the next hit for an artist with a #1 song. Sometimes we wrote in different combinations, e.g., Mann and Goffin “Who Put The Bomp?” and King and Weil “One To One.” Cynthia’s high professional standard made us all better songwriters. My favorite Cynthia lyric is, “Just a little lovin’ early in the mornin’ beats a cup of coffee for startin’ out the day.” If we’re lucky, we know this is true, but she wrote it—and then she rhymed “mornin’” with “yawnin'” in the next verse. May the legacy of lyrics by Cynthia Weil continue to speak to and for generations to come. Rest in peace with love and gratitude”
Neil Sedaka, also Insagram: “I am very saddened to hear about the passing of Cynthia Weil. We were very close during our time together at The Brill Building. It’s a great loss to American Pop Music, as she wrote some of the standards that will live on forever. My heart goes out to Barry and the family.
For Padma Lakshmi, the final course has been served at “Top Chef.”
After hosting the show for 20 seasons over the span of 17 years, Padma has said so long. She’s done. Stick a fork in her.
I give Padma a lot of credit. She doesn’t have to work. She was married to the world renown writer Salman Rushdie. Then she was involved with Adam Dell, of Dell Computers. They had a child together although at the time Padma was involved with billionaire buyout king Teddy Forstmann. He died from brain cancer but left her and Dell’s daughter a trust fund.
And still Padma went to work. What will she do next? She’s very rich and beautiful. When I first met her she’d written a cookbook for Harvey Weinstein’s publishing imprint. She’s published several more since then. The world is her oyster, so to speak!
This hurts.
Cynthia Weil has passed away at age 82. The legendary songwriter wrote dozens of classic hits with husband Barry Mann at the Brill Building during the time of Carole King, Neil Sedaka, and Neil Diamond. Weil and and Mann were featured characters in the King Broadway musical, “Beautiful.”
Mann and Weil as a team wrote the biggest hit of all time, the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.” From the 60s through just a couple of years ago, that record was the most played on radio ever. They also wrote the Righteous Brothers’ “You’re My Soul and Inspiration.”
The list of songs for the Ronettes and other Phil Spector-connected acts goes on and on. But their hits weren’t just in the 60s. They just kept coming, including BJ Thomas’ “Rock and Roll Lullaby” (1972), Quincy Jones’ “Just Once” (1981) and “Don’t Know Much,” a No. 2 smash cover by Ronstadt and Aaron Neville that earned a Song of the Year Grammy nomination.
They wrote “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” which was recently used in a long ad campaign for Volkswagen. This song, like all their others, always remained fresh and disarmingly modern. With Brenda Russell they wrote “None of Us Are Free,” in 1993, recorded first by Ray Charles, then in 2006 by Sam Moore and Sting
Weil’s daughter, Dr. Jenn Mann, said in a statement: “My mother, Cynthia Weil, was the greatest mother, grandmother and wife our family could ever ask for. She was my best friend, confidante and my partner in crime and an idol and trailblazer for women in music.”
The couple was married for 62 years. Condolences to Barry and his daughter, and all Cynthia’s friends and fans. You couldn’t have known a nicer person. God bless.
Back in the winter of 2006 I was in Los Angeles for the Oscars. Standing under the awning of the Beverly Hills Hotel, waiting for my rented Camry, Paris Hilton emerged from a white van. She played me her new album in my Camry, we sat there and listened. No one had heard it yet. The rest of the story is here.
Why am I bringing this up? She’s just released a remixed version of “Stars Are Blind” with Kim Petras. Now Paris is a married mom, speaking in her own voice, an advocate for abused kids. She was always smart and savvy.
But this is from back in the day. And it’s a great memory!
FROM MARCH 4, 2006**************************************************************
Exclusive: Saturday night, under the carport of the Beverly Hills Hotel. It’s 1:30 a.m., and a white luxury SUV pulls up. The passenger-side back door slides open, and a long leg, finished with a white high heel shoe, reaches down to the ground. Pan up: It belongs to Paris Hilton, in a white mini-dress, with a white fur stole around her shoulders and large pearls around her neck. She is blonde on blonde, dazzling, Marilyn Monroe reincarnated.
“Wait!” she announces as she steps on the pavement. “I forgot my CD!”
It’s her own CD, in fact, that she shows me, one she’s made with a variety of producers including Scott Storch and Dr. Dre.
Don’t be fooled: This CD is coming out whether you like it or not. “It’s scheduled for June,” she says, “on Warner Bros. Tom Whalley is really excited about it.”
That’s the same Warner Music oft-criticized in this column for not breaking new artists. I take it all back now. The company that once boasted a fabled roster of James Taylor, Neil Young, and Bonnie Raitt will release Paris’ debut in June. The track listing, on the CD she showed me, is as follows:
1.) Turn it Up 2.) Turn You On 3.) Stars Are Blind 4.) Jealousy 5.) Heartbeat 6.) Fightin’ Over Me featuring Fat Joe and Jadakiss 7.) Are You With It? 9.) Do You Think I’m Sexy? 9.) Screwed 10.) Not Leaving Without You
You will notice that Paris, always cognizant of history, includes a cover of a No. 1 hit by Rod Stewart, a longtime Warner artist, with “Do You Think I’m Sexy?” She will not win a Grammy or be nominated for one. Believe me, that is all beside the point.
Now here’s the thing about Paris: She is not the ditz you hope her to be. For one thing, she spoke to me in a very distinct, clear adult voice. There was nothing silly about her. “I talk in that baby talk voice when I’m on TV,” she said. “It’s a put on.”
Indeed, the whole Paris mystique is a put on — and one that’s earning her millions of dollars. She actually has kind of an ironic sense of humor. When I asked her what happened to fiancé Paris Latsis, she replied: “He wasn’t hot enough.” She concluded that the latest boyfriend, Stavros Niarchos, “is very hot.”
Me: “But really you’re not getting married or anything, are you?”
Her: “Are you crazy? I’m 25. No way.”
Me: “In fact, you don’t need these boyfriends do you? They’re just ornaments.”
Her: “That’s right.”
She has not-so-nice things to say about her ex-pal Nicole Richie. They’re probably printable, but hey — this isn’t the Star.
Suddenly, I am fascinated by Paris Hilton. She is living the American dream. She is P.T. Barnum, Marilyn Monroe and Donald Trump all rolled into one, thriving on every gossip item like they’re hits of oxygen.
I have nothing bad to say about Paris Hilton at all. We are underestimating this kid.
It was June 2nd, a week later than in Britain, when the Beatles released :”Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” in 1967.
It’s still the greatest and most influential album of all time, and the best complete Beatles album.
Plenty has been written by “Sgt. Pepper” and you think you probably know it all. But listen to it again. It’s as fresh, winning, and remarkable as ever.
Recently there was a lot of press about “Revolver” when it was re-released in a spiffy, updated version. Ye, “Revolver” was revolutionary. But “Pepper” was way beyond compare. It ushered in the Beatles’ unparalleled final, sophisticated “adult” chapter that would include The White Album, Abbey Road, Let it Be, “Hey Jude,” “Revolution,” and all the other adjunct pieces like “Yellow Submarine” and “Magical Mystery Tour.” This all occurred in a three year period! And “Sgt. Pepper” was the gateway.
There were no singles from “Sgt. Pepper,” but many of its songs lifted off into their own iconic worlds. “With a Little Help from My Friends” took on its own life thanks to Joe Cocker. Elton John has a massive hit 7 years later with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” “A Day in the Life” has gone to become the Beatles’ unofficial masterpiece (and listen to it, it gets better and deeper with every spin).
I have other favorite moments. Ringo’s drums on “Lovely Rita,” for one, and also what he does on “A Day in the Life” is sublime. The punk rock stylings of “Good Morning Good Morning” and the album closing refrain of the title track. “She’s Leaving Home,” which led to McCartney’s “Another Day.” The sing-a-longs of “Getting Better” and “When I’m Sixty Four.” (Vera, Chuck and Dave were made memorable names.)
Billy Shears lives on! “Sgt. Pepper” is our equivalent of Beethoven, Bach, or Mozart. Nothing has ever surpassed it. Happy birthday!
Sony has been not having a great 2023 so far.
With ten movies released, several have been out and out disasters, like the George Foreman bio and the Celine Dion thing, “Love Again.”
Even “The Machine” has needed repairs since no one knew what it was and still may not, actually.
Their “hits” include “The Pope’s Exorcist.” which has made $72 million, and “65,” which hasn’t even made $65 million.
So back to the tried and true. On Thursday night. “Spider Man: Across the Spiderverse” clocked in previews with a stunning $17 million. I told you yesterday the writing — or Peter Parker– was on the wall. “Spider Man” in all forms is a guaranteed hit.
Producer Amy Pascal used to run the studio until they forced her out during the Wikileaks nightmare. So she took Spidey and went into production for herself. It’s the best thing that ever happened to anyone. The first “Spiderverse” movie made $3.5 million in previews. “Across” looks like it took in almost FIVE times that number.
Good weekend coming? I’d say so.
PS Rain and cold tomorrow, Saturday, perfect weather for a big movie day, especially for parents looking to park kids somewhere.