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On Saturday night, “Wednesday” star Jenna Ortega hosted “SNL” with musical guest rock band The 1975.
“Wednesday” is such a big hit you’d think “SNL” ratings would have skyrocketed. So, go figure this out: the ratings were lower than the previous week and in a big decline from exactly one year ago.
Total viewers this past Saturday came to 4.243 million. And 985,000 of those people were in the key demo. Ortega is young, and so is her audience. So the surprise is that more of them didn’t tune in. Last year’s key demo was up over 1 million with 4.36 million total viewers. Huh? The host was “The Batman” star Zoe Kravitz and musical guest Rosalia.
Not only that: NFL star Travis Kelce’s show last week hit 4.5 million total eyes. So Ortega’s show fell short of that, as well.
I’m surprised. I thought the huge “Wednesday” audience would translate into really big numbers for “SNL.” So we all learned something from this episode. On to the next one!
Oscar winner Viola Davis lead the A list of celebs this weekend who showed up for GBK’s annual gift suite. Viola and husband Julius Tennon were among those who helped raise $60,000 for a variety of charities and walked away with some cool products. They also got chauffeured around in an all electric $300,000 SUV. It was fire engine red, to boot.
Some of the other stars who turned up were director Ruben Ostlund, actress Anika Noni Rose, Keith David, Stephen Root, Kevin Pollack, Adina Porter, Shea Whigham, Stephen Root, Anna Sophia Robb, and Harry Shum, Jr. And those are just the ones who agreed to let their names be included. A lot of other Oscar nominees showed up entre nous, as they say.
Gavin Keilly has really turned this into an event of events. This weekend he took over the entire lobby and all of the public spaces at the chic Kimpton La Peer Hotel (not far from Craig’s restaurant — smart) for his most glamorous grouping of all. Products ranged from jaw dropping jewelry from Stephen Silver in New York, to mouth watering El Cristiano Tequila (which I highly recommend– I joked with George Clooney about all the different Tequilas later that night).
I did score a pair of BADAZZ GLAZZ sunglasses By Joe Pesci for a friend who now loves them so much he won’t give them back! The California Caviar Company gave samples on crackers, which had to be washed down with delicious wine from Lorenzi Estate Vineyards & Winery. At that point I was so happily buzzed, I swear someone promised to ship me a POWER XL air fryer. (I see them on TV and have no idea what they are used for!)
Some other products included custom Higher Calling Bracelets, a Netvue bird feeder, handcrafted gifts by The Artisan Group. There were also incredible sandwiches from Ike’s (this is a Los Angeles gem with several shops around town). There was also a $2,000 Kahuna massage chair that I almost passed out in from all the pampering.
For the nominees, there were also World-class international vacations by Lush Africa Safaris, Rosewood Baha Mar and Sailrock Resort stole the show.
Philanthropy is important to GBK Brand Bar. At each event they partner with a variety of charities to help raise awareness, create celebrity partnerships, and give back to the community. This year was no exception with the inclusion of Childhelp, Educating Young Minds, and Rastegar Family Foundation on-site. GBK was also able to raise over $60,000 for these causes
The biggest surprise on Sunday night didn’t come from the winners of the Oscars. It came from the ratings.
There was a lot of worry that the season finale of “The Last of Us” on HBO would draw viewers away from the awards show. As it turned out, it was the other way around.
The Oscars had almost 19 million viewers in total, a big success in the comeback from pre-pandemic levels. The show was very well produced and hosted, and executed with real panache. For the time in recent memory, the Academy Awards were fun to watch.
Meanwhile, on HBO, the final episode of season 1 of “The Last of Us” scored just over 1 million viewers on the main channel. This was on a par with the last few episodes. There was no last minute surge, although HBO says another 7 million people watched on the unmonitored HBO Max, etc. But for those just watching TV and cable, “The Last of Us” reached a plateau. (I haven’t seen it yet, don’t spoil it for me.)
As a result of the head to head competition, the Oscars may have tamped down real time viewing of “The Last of Us.” Ain’t that a kick in the pants? You never know what’s going to happen around here! Of course, plenty of people will be catching up with the HBO series this week, and its return for a 2nd season maybe in 2024, will be huge.
WIF, Women In Film, Los Angeles, held their 16th annual kick off cocktail party at Neuehouse in Hollywood on Friday night. Co-hosted by Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, and WIF Board President Emerita Cathy Schulman, and noted screenwriter “CODA’S” Sian Heder, sixty five female nominees attended. Each nominee came up on stage and introduced themselves to the packed house in what turned out to be an emotional presentation.
Fourteen-time Oscar nominee Diane Warren got the biggest laugh when she quipped, “I’d like to thank the Academy.” (At the Oscars, Warren accompanied singer Sofia Carson on the piano for nominated song, “Applause.”)
“Elvis” Producer Gail Berman got huge applause when she touted Oscar nominee DP Mandy Walker. Mandy, who just garnered the Cinematographers award. There was a lot of hope she’d win the Oscar and be the first female cinematography winner, but she lost to James Friend of “All Quiet on the Western Front.”
Ruth E. Carter, looking ever so fashionable of course, also got a huge hand for her Best Costume Design for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” On Sunday she became the first Black woman to win two Oscars.
Other notables attending were Dakota Johnson, Lake Bell, Garcelle Beauvais, Oscar winning director (“Nomadland”) Chloe Zhao, producer Cassian Elwes and artist Susan Carter Hall, producer Ilene Kahn Power and husband manager/producer Derek Power, composer Lesley Barber, actress Anika Noni Rose, and many more. WIF is a vital force in Hollywood , fighting for parity and advancing the careers of women, and continues to be.
AVATAR Visual Effects Oscar winner Eric Saindon was very blue last night. I met him at the top of the stairs at the Dolby Theater with his wife and friends before the Academy Awards began. He told me he’d already been to see a doctor and discovered the pain in his side wasn’t James Cameron but a discovered kidney stone. Yet there he was! Since I’ve suffered from the same ailment and know how bad it can be I asked him, Eric, aren’t you in terrible discomfort? He replied in the affirmative. But you know, it’s the Oscars.
So after Saindon,
Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Saindon, and Daniel Barrett won their statues and made their acceptance speeches, the Percocet (or whatever it was) wore off. Saindon did not make the Governor’s Awards. He was rushed to the hospital where I hope he was lasered or whatever they do here in L.A. when an Oscar winner arrives with a little gold man in one hand for making people blue as he’s actually really turning that color! Get well soon, Eric. And congrats!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=78-YB9-U7Gs
Will Smith should take this to heart since he’s been banned from the Oscars for the next nine years. Last night, actor Nate Parker walked the red carpet with his wife and even attended the Governor’s Ball. Parker was not banned from anything. But when he was doing publicity for his film, “The Birth of a Nation,” back in 2016, it came out that he’d stood trial for allegedly raping a young woman in college. He was acquitted, but his friend — they each had sex with with the woman and claimed it was consensual — was convicted (which was later overturned). On top of that, years later, the woman committed suicide. Parker was “cancelled” immediately mostly because his response to these revelations lacked any contrition.
When the Parker story broke, all bets were off. Fox Searchlight
gave up on the movie and it disappeared. Parker did, too, only to resurface with a film called “Solitary” that bombed. Seven years after all this happened, Parker reappeared last night at the Oscars. I don’t know if he got his tickets through the Academy lottery, but he was photographed on the red carpet and chatted away with whoever spotted him. So Will Smith can take some solace in the fact that Hollywood has a short memory about scandals.
ACTOR PAUL SORVINO was a Hollywood and Broadway great who died last year. He was beloved. His daughter, Mira Sorvino, won an Oscar two decades ago for “Mighty Aphrodite.” So of course, he was left out of last night’s In Memoriam. What is wrong with this aspect of the Oscar show? Every year two or three people from the movies are omitted. This year, also, Stella Stevens wasn’t in the clips. Big Mistake. She and her son, Andrew, are/were real Hollywood people.
Mira wrote on Twitter today: “It is baffling beyond belief that my beloved father and many other amazing brilliant departed actors were left out. The Oscars forgot about Paul Sorvino, but the rest of us never will!!”
These mistakes are regrettable considering how nice the In Memoriam was last night. Lenny Kravitz was superior, and for once you could see all the names. One of them was my late friend, Amanda Mackey, a great casting director and an actual pal. Alas, I did not know she had passed away. May her memory be a blessing.
Initial numbers for last night’s Oscars were close to 19 million. That’s up from last year, and the biggest numbers of all awards shows this season. ABC says total viewers came to 18.7 mil, up 12% from last year.
The Academy Awards brought in three times the number of the Golden Globes from back in January, too.
The show was so well produced and moving, and funny, that there will surely be a lot of delayed viewing before the finals come in tomorrow.
Jimmy Kimmel should definitely return next year. He got high marks from everyone I spoke to during the show and afterwards at the sensational Governor’s Ball, where the actual “governors” — the boards of directors — were ecstatic with how things had gone.
It helped that most of the show’s participants rode the escalators to the big ballroom, where power players like “Top Gun” producer Jerry Bruckheimer and all the actors lined up at the dozen so Wolfgang Puck food stations for mouth watering dishes including mini flat “Oscars” of smoked salmon, and very high calorie desserts that will send all the guests to the gym this morning!
So it’s great news ratings-wise, as the Oscars make a comeback from the pandemic. Next year, presumably, Very Big Movies will be on the agenda, and even higher numbers!
You know that Elton John retired from touring last November. But he did not “retire” in any sense.
Last night Elton and David Furnish threw their annual Oscar gala dinner party etc and raised $9 million for AIDS research and funding.
Elton performed for the first time since his retirement, with singer-songwriter and actress Rina Sawayama. The video is below.
Tons of celebrities watched and gave standing ovations including the evening’s hosts, Eric McCormack and Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, plus Big Names like Smokey Robinson, Maren Morris, Fan Bingbing, Emma Watson, Wiz Khalifa, Heidi Klum, Dove Cameron, Hilary Duff, Brooke Shields, Lucien Laviscount, Noah Schnapp, Kesha, Rege Jean-Page, Saweetie, Stella Maxwell, Tyga, Sharon Osboure, Sophia Bush, Donatella Versace, Maggie Rogers, Jenna Dewan, Julianne Hough, Karen Pittman, Simona Tabasco, Michael Imperioli.
Unlike the Vanity Fair party across town, the Elton Party means something and does an enormous amount of good for the world, and you can feel it all night. The vibe is not about self-congratulation but continuing a worldwide effort to contribute to health and well being. What a difference!
Plus, all the dinner party guests — the major donors — got a pair of exclusive “Spotlight” sunglass frame from the Elton John Eyewear collection. And then the night ended with an electric performance by Rina Sawayama, who performed “Minor Feelings,“ “Hold The Girl,” and ‘This Hell.’” And then came the duet of Chosen Family” seen below.
Jimmy Kimmel hosted an actually enjoyable show that made light of Will Smith’s slap from last year but managed to showcase the upbeat side of Hollywood. The winners reflected the odd nature of post-pandemic film business in which strange movies like “Everyone Everywhere All at Once” and “The Whale” snatched victory from cinematic betters like “Tar,” “The Fabelmans,” “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “The Banshees of Inisherin.”
It was the year of nostalgic voting, where actors like Brendan Fraser and Jamie Lee Curtis elicited comeback sympathies from fans who grew up with them. And then were was Ke Huy Quan, whose own story of surviving Hollywood hit a nerve with every Academy voter, and Michelle Yeoh, who put in four decades and deserved a reward.
And then there was Netflix, which has spent millions over the last six or seven years but hasn’t come up with a Best Picture. This year they eked out Best Animated Feature and Best International Film, with a total of four statues going to “All Quiet on the Western Front.” But they were outplayed in the main categories.
What really made this year’s show: the musical performances. Lady Gaga’s last minute stripped down “Hold My Hand” was inspirational. David Byrne, Son Lux, and Stephanie Hsu brought avant garde genius to the proceedings. Diane Warren and Sofia Carson’s “Applause” was incrediby moving. Rihanna sang her heart out. The winner of Best Song, cast of “RRR,” lit up the Dolby Theater with “Naatu Naatu.”
The Oscars producers followed a path that’s turned up lately in awards shows. To streamline them and move it along, some presenters give two awards. This cuts down on introductions and people entering and exiting the stage. This works to the extent that it’s economical, but it also has a numbing effect. Some of the drama of opening the envelopes is lost, but maybe we can sacrifice it.
My only quibble with this year’s show is that other than Harrison Ford, the upper echelon of old Hollywood seems lost. I wish we’d see Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Shirley Maclaine, Cher, Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, and so on presenting awards. There’s an ever encroaching feeling that the era of the movie star is over. This lack of real authority bears out in photos from after parties like Vanity Fair’s, which is now loaded with TV and reality stars, models, and tabloid subjects.
Still, last night’s show was a success for the Academy, a huge step back on the road to making the Oscars relevant. More tomorrow from the Governor’s Ball, a fizzy shindig filled with hot gossip and great food!
Saturday night, Oscar weekend. Plenty of parties, some successful, others kind of meh.
The big show off was Armani on Rodeo Drive for their annual jam packed get together. This one had Michelle Yeoh as special guest, with her pals from “EEAAO” Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis, plus Harry Shum all in attendance.
Ke Huy Quan is the star of the season, isn’t he? Everyone loves him, he loves everyone, he’s still so excited and overwhelmed you can see the bubbles coming out of his ears! I asked him if, with all this new money and fame at age 53, has he bought anything? A new car? A house? “No!” he cried, “I’m really making sure I have no changes, just living as I always have. I haven’t even taken a new job. I just wanted to experience and remember everything. That’s why we take so many selfies. To have a record of what happened!”
Ke Huy’s wife, Echo, is a doll. She’s also smart: she did most of the translating on the “EEAAO” shoot. Their win tonight will be very satisfying. And yes, that’s a picture of us from the party. Ke is always smiling. (I look like his grandfather!)
Other Armani guests included Samuel L. Jackson and his Broadway director wife LaTanya Richardson, plus Petra Nemcova, super model Karolina Kurklova, “The Whale” star Brendan Fraser, “Creed” star Tessa Thompson, Allison Williams, Danny Ramirez of “Top Gun,” and Jet Li’s beautiful 22 year old daughter, Jane, who’s breaking into the acting world.
And no, there was no gift bag. Believe me, we asked. And even the security guards sported Armani jackets. I had second thoughts about trying to mug one of them on the way out1
Later last night, dining at Sunset Tower: George and Amal Clooney with Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber. No, George will not be at the Oscars tonight. He told me: “I only go when I’m nominated.” He’s got 1 win and many noms. The Gerbers are rooting for Austin Butler for Best Actor in “Elvis.” And let me tell you, Cindy Crawford still looks exactly like Cindy Crawford. She’s amazing. Amal Clooney could be a model herself. PS George indicated his favorite movie of the year was “The Banshees of Inisherin.” He has good taste!
How do you top those four? All of a sudden none other than Stevie Wonder sauntered in with a group of six including Epic Records prez Sylvia Rhone, the only woman who runs a record company in the music biz. So that’s what they call power dining in Hollywood!
Earlier in the afternoon: the famed GBK gift suite took over the whole lobby and first floor of the LaPeer Hotel. Viola Davis came by, chauffeured in a $300,000 electric SUV, and picked up some cool products. Inside, I met the great, great actor Keith David, who deserves an Oscar himself. He does have three Emmy Awards, so he’s no slouch– plus an Outer Critics Award. Not bad!
