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Mariah thinks it’s 2005 and self referential nonsense about being a diva is what her 50 year old fans want to hear.
So the first track of her new album is called “MI,” which rhymes with “me.”
Mariah is the Andrew Cuomo of pop music. She doesn’t understand the crowd has moved on.
Another track on “Here for It All” is called “Confetti and Champagne.”
On the posituve side theres a gospel song with The Clark Sisters which could be incredible. Fingers crossed.
Are fans excited? Mariah’s “lambs” are known for pushing her records, albeit briefly, up the charts. But news today of the song tiles didn’t affect Amazon sales, where “Here For it All” is number 423.
Compare the advance: the Beatles new box set, which retails for $117 and isn’t released until November 21st, is number 2.
Carey has an extraordinary voice that she’s squandered on these crappy songs. It worked when she and the audience were younger. But not now. She released two new singles this summer and they each flopped like flounders. She should have called the album “Been There, Done That.” But no one’s brave enough to speak up.
This is a brewing disaster. “Here for It All” is out on September 26th. A week later comes Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” which hasn’t started posting advance numbers yet. When it does, “Showgirl” will start at number 1.
Sony Pictures aka Columbia is having a very bad year, as you may have surmised.
Nothing has worked because none of it was good including “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Karate Kid: Legends.” So far they have a measly 5% of the market since January 1st.
And so they wait for “Spider Man” again.
In the meantime, Friday brings a bit of a bright light: Darren Aronofsky’s “Caught Stealing” starring the magnetic Austin Butler in a total breakout role.
Will this be the film that gives Sony some hope?
Aronofsky hasn’t had a film this good in a long time. “Caught Stealing” is part “Anora,” part “Romper Stomper.” It’s a violent punk comedy full of visual splendor. If you’re not too sensitive, this film is kind of a late summer relief.
It’s also got a big, eclectic cast. But other than Regina King and Matt Smith (in a hilarious turn), don’t get too attached to any of the characters. They come and go, but you’ll never forget them as played by Zoe Kravitz, Griffin Dunne, and Action Bronson.
Butler is who the movie is all about, and he carries it right til the end with aplomb. His Hank Thompson is a Lower East Side transplant from San Francisco, where he hoped to play for the baseball giants. But an unforeseen tragedy cuts that idea short, so now he’s in New York scraping by for a living.
Hank’s Cockney accented neighbor, Russ, sports a Mohawk and chains but also has a secret. He’s stashed away money that isn’t his — isn’t that always the case? He leaves Hank literally holding the bag, as well as a hissing cat who will soon exhibit nine lives. (Kravitz is Hank’s friend with benefits.)
Who’s comes looking for the money? Russian mobsters from Brooklyn and a pair of hilariously violent Hasidic criminals played by Liev Schreiber and Vincent D’Onofrio. As good as Butler is, Schreiber and D’Onofrio attempt to steal the movie out from underneath him with a lot of inside jokes as they speak Yiddish with their “bubbe” played by the miraculous Carol Kane.
Yes, there are a few surprise killings, but “Caught Stealing” is more than fun when it finally settles down. Aronofsky really captures the quirky East Village from before the advent of $5 million condos and insufferable yuppies. His send up of burgeoning techies via a neighbor who’s “designing websites” is very amusing.
But again, it’s all on Butler, who’s now back to speaking like himself and not Elvis Presley. The ladies love him, and guys can identify with a boozing loser who’s savvy enough to dig himself out of trouble. What more do you want?
Gloria Gaynor is known as the Queen of Disco. The gays love her. Her singular hit, “I Will Survive,” is their anthem.
So how did Gaynor, known for one song, get a Kennedy Center honor this year when so many deserving performers waited their turn?
According to a report by Meidas News, Gaynor has been a steadfast Republican donor for years. Reporter J.D. Wolf dug up her Federal Election Commission record and it’s quite surprising considering the Republican stance against gay marriage and equal rights.
Gaynor’s total donations come to at least $22,500. They’re small, and spread around GOP candidates. But her intent is clear. She went out of her way to support Republicans. Among her favorites: Josh Hawley, Mike Johnson, and WinRed, a GOP PAC that spreads the money around to right wing candidates.
She also doted on the Republican National Congressional Committee. On their website, a banner headline reads, in red: “Text VICTORY to 21818 to help DEFEND our conservative majority!”
It’s not like Gloria didn’t know what she was doing. She will survive.
Diane Sawyer’s interview with Bruce Willis’s wife has just hit Hulu.
I guess Emma Hemming Willis has also written a book about being a caregiver.
The biggest revelation: Bruce, who suffers from such bad dementia that it’s unclear he recognizes her, no longer lives with Heming and their two daughters. She tells Sawyer she’s bough a second home where Bruce is attended by aides.
That’s pretty shocking. Heming doesn’t say exactly where Bruce is, only that she and his daughters see him often. So the situation must be pretty dire if he can’t be under the same roof. (Just for contrast, I know an Alzheimer’s patient in New York living with his wife in a one bedroom apartment.)
The Diane Sawyer interview raises more questions than it answers. As I wrote three years ago, Bruce’s problems began in 2015 when he was replaced by Steve Carell in Woody Allen’s “Cafe Society” after a week because he couldn’t memorize his lines. He was getting ready for starring on Broadway in “Misery,” which he did, using an earpiece to have those lines read to him.
Sawyer doesn’t ask anything about Willis’s career. He was once the top box office star in the country. From “Moonlighting” through “Die Hard,” and “The Sixth Sense,” Willis was on top of Hollywood. He was famously married to another huge star, Demi Moore. He was prominently featured with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the launch of Planet Hollywood.
But around the time of his initial decline he started making ‘B’ movies, straight to video schlock in which he worked a day or so, and rarely had dialogue. The films were edited together to make it look like he was the star, but it was really his name being used to sell garbage.
It wasn’t like this column and other writers didn’t notice what was happening. But in the end, a whopping 19 of these movies were made over 7 years, not one of them with any value. It seemed like Bruce was being exploited and no one did anything to stop it. The last one, called “Hostage,” from 2023, got a 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Two of them had ratings of zero (0) and many had no reviews at all.
In reality, Willis didn’t make a decent film after “Moonrise Kingdom” in 2012. As late as 2019 he appeared featured in “Glass,” although most of the time his back to the camera and he’s seen in a cloak. It’s also clear that in 2019’s “Motherless Brooklyn,” he’s being used for marquee name value only.
Meantime, see below, Bruce made more and more strange talk show appearances in which he barely spoke, had to be coached by the host, or the whole thing had to be a pre-taped sketch using a stunt double. Believe me, everyone around him knew something was wrong.
So what is really going on here? And what happened to Stephen Eads, who was Bruce’s producing partner on at least 30 films and accompanied him everywhere he went like a minder? Didn’t he notice something was wrong?
As I wrote in the 2022 story, when I ran into Bruce backstage at a Steve Tyler concert in 2016, with Eads, he already seemed very confused and uncertain — and this was before “Misery.” In the summer of 2015, I also saw him at the East Hampton premiere of “Rock the Kasbah,” one of director Barry Levinson’s rare failures in which Willis seemed to be lost.
So what is really going on here? Sawyer doesn’t even scratch the surface, or seem to care. Better not to ask questions and just get the interview.
Michael Jackson’s eldest son, Prince, has announced his engagement.
He’s going to marry his girlfriend of eight years, Molly Schirmang.
Prince wrote on Instagram: “8 years down [infinity symbol to go. Molly and I have spent a lot of time together and made incredible memories. We’ve traveled the world, graduated and grown so much together. I’m excited for this next chapter in our lives as we continue to grow and make great memories. I love you babs”
Congrats to 28 year old Prince, who’s lived a fairly normal life considering his backstory. A college grad, he’s devoted his time to philanthropy and keeping his late father’s legacy alive. Like his sister, Paris, and brother Bigi, he seems like a nice kid. Michael did a good job with his children, as it turns out.
Very sweet: in the carousel of photos Prince posted, there’s a lovely one of he and Molly with Michael’s mother, Katharine.
You know what this all means, right? Michael Jackson’s going to have a grandchild at some point. Now we feel old!
Imagine this: the Kansas City Chiefs return to the Super Bowl one more time, and Taylor Swift is the musical act during halftime.
Blow your mind? Is there enough money in the world to cover this?
Today Taylor and Travis Kelce of the Chiefs announced their engagement right before football season begins and Taylor drops her next mega number 1 album October 3rd.
Ka boom!
The couple “broke” Instagram with 24 million likes apiece. Apiece. This is not normal, even for them. Taylor’s recent high was 11 million for the announcement of her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” Travis’ high for likes was 6 million when he and Taylor did their podcast.
So a total of 48 million likes in one day is a big, big deal. Their audience has spoken. If the Chiefs play well and Taylor’s album is enormous, the Super Bowl combo will blow apart all records.
Then get ready for the wedding next spring. It will be covered like something from the Royal Family. Can you imagine the red herrings for dates, places, etc. The huge tents to block paparazzi? The overall subterfuge? The guest list?
Stay tuned. Taylor and Travis are the story for 2026, certainly one to take the focus off of politics.
The stars were out in force last night at East Hampton’s Guild Hall for a monumental fundraiser.
Like most Upper West Siders, the stars want to stop the razing of the West Park Presbyterian Church on 86th Street and Broadway at this moment in our history could not be more apt. The historic church was where Joe Papp incubated his ideas about the public theater, where today community comes together to inspire young artists, playwrights, dancers, and actors like those on the stage.
And so they came to raise funds for the cause, with a staged reading of William Goldman’s Oscar winning screenplay for “All the President’s Men.”
Robert Downey Jr. and Ramy Youssef led this cast in the reading directed by John Benjamin Hickey and dedicated to Mark Brokaw. The group included Victor Garber as Deep Throat (now known as Mark Felt), and the Washington Post team led by Nathan Lane as Ben Bradlee, spearhead organizer Mark Ruffalo as Harry Rosenfeld, and Julianne Moore as Katherine Graham.
What can you say, really, in the face of so much talent? Downey, now an Oscar winner for “Oppenheimer” after years of playing Iron Man, was a sublime leader of an extraordinary pack.
The sold out audience at Guild Hall and actors on stage were treated to the presence of “All the President’s Men” legendary reporters Woodward and Bernstein, as well as CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Gywneth Paltrow was seen buzzing around but left quickly for Goopier things.
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were only 29 and 28, respectively, when they embarked on the unfolding of the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.
After the reading, the journalists who shook our world in 1972 spoke about how youth and naivete led them to make the mistakes and discoveries that led to the truth, important ingredients for a free press. Woodward said he still uses the same strategy of knocking on people’s doors to speak to them. If he leaves at 9, he may be home by 9:30 if a door is slammed in his face.
After they wrote the book, Robert Redford came calling. “Woodstein” — as they came to be known — hung up on him, as you do when Hollywood comes your way. But Redford insisted on making the film as a buddy movie. Two guys with opposite personalities working together to make something historic. His persistence paid off.
Alec Baldwin moderated the post Q&A. When he asked award winning actor Wendell Pierce why he got involved, the actor told his story of his New Orleans neighborhood being the worst flooded during Hurricane Katrina. This being the 20th anniversary of the ravaging storm, he remembered his effort in rebuilding his community, house by house.
Landmarked, the hulking brick church on West 86th St. with its stained glass, and period detail, should of course be defended from the developers who want to strip the space from its history to some commercial blah. All of these protections are threatened, said Mark Ruffalo, in an impassioned speech about why he has gathered an army of celebrities to fight against the crass cruelty of our current political moment. Nixon was bad, they concurred, but the social politics now are much worse.
Closing, Bob Woodward recounted the final words of Nixon resigning in a brief flash of self-reflection: remember, the hate inside you brings you down.
Lorne Michaels said he’d be culling his cast for the 51st season of “SNL.” He meant it.
Gone today is three year vet Devon Walker, who was fine but never broke out like Sarah Sherman or Marcello Hernandez. Two writers also exited.
Walker posted a notice to Instagram that didn’t indicate whether he left or was sent home. I’d guess the latter is true.
Michaels said recently there’d be more changes. We know Sherman and Hernandez will be ok. So will the rest of the main cast including Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, James Austin Johnson, Colin Jost, Michael Longfellow, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang. (Jost can’t leave. He’s paying off that ferry boat he bought with Pete Davidson.)
It’s the supporting players that will probably be switched out, like Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim, and Jane Wickline, who would be in trouble. Stay tuned..
They would have you believe Woody Allen went to the Moscow Film Festival and supports Vladimir Putin.
Allen did send a message of hope to Moscow Filmmakers and told them he’d “consider” making a movie there one day. Indeed, that won’t be happening. It was just nice to say. Woody turns 90 this fall. He’s not visiting an enemy war zone. The Post, as usual, made the whole thing into something it isn’t. Oy vey.
A source says: “He talked about his three trips to Russia and explained how if he does a movie about a country he has to write the script for that country specifically. Â He was kind but noncommittal.”
Woody sent me a message to deliver: “When it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, I believe strongly that Vladimir Putin is totally in the wrong. The war he has caused is appalling. But, whatever politicians have done, I don’t feel cutting off artistic conversations is ever a good way to help.”
He’s absolutely right. Moscow artists and filmmakers are suffering because of Putin. They were certainly thrilled to see a movie director as important as Woody sending them a message. Oh, the Post does it again.
