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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.
The 79 year old soap star died August 15th from lung cancer. He worked until he couldn’t, leaving “GEneral Hospital” in November 2024 after 45 years of playing superspy Robert Scorpio. Rogers taped a surprise final episode not long before he died, and it aired in June.
Now it turns out he also taped a farewell episode for “The Young and the Restless,” where he played a con man for many years. It airs tomorrow, Tuesday. This was an actor devoted to his fans. And what a nice way to wrap up a 50 year career.
Rogers’ long time “YR” castmate Jess Walton — who should be on the ratings plagued show a lot more — taped the scene with him and also a tribute that’s on Instagram now.
And yes, “The Young and the Restless” dropped below 3 million viewers in the most recent ratings. They spent a chunk of the summer doing a poor remake of “Knives Out: Glass Onion.” They killed off four characters and gave none of them funerals. It’s time for a head writer change.
Bon Jovi’s famous drummer, Tico Torres, has hit social media.
He’s posted a video on the Bon Jovi official accounts refuting rumors that he or the band have retired.
Not true, he says. “Musicians don’t retire. Especially me.”
Tico says in fact: “We’re still making music. We’re better than we’ve ever been.”
I believe him. Jon Bon Jovi has had vocal issues, certainly, but he can still record if not tour like before. I don’t know where these rumors begin.
No one expects a band of 60 year olds — other than Bruce or the Stones — to be on the road endlessly. Why would they? And Bon Jovi had a new record out last year called “Living Proof.”
I’m sure we’ll be seeing Bon Jovi in 2026. Meanwhile, no one hits those skins like Tico. He’s a monster.
Kanye West’s memcoin or bit coin, trading as YZY, is in a free fall.
In less than a week its value has dropped from $3.1 billion to under $600 million. And it’s falling fast.
If you invested money in YZY, it’s pretty much gone like Kanye’s career.
I told you last week that experts say Kanye and a small group of cronies cashed in at the beginning, leaving anyone else to hang in the wind.
This morning the value of YZY is $568 million.
The value of the coin is based on “Kanye’s relationships.” But he has none. Adidas and other fashion contracts were killed when his rampant antisemitism surfaced. He has no record contract, and his self-issued music is mostly ignored.
Kanye’s only been able to do shows in far flung places like Korea. No one in the US wants him or even Europe. His professed love of Hitler and Nazis has made it impossible for him to promote anything except ill will.
His next show is later this fall in Brazil.
What better place?
PS: Google AI — like the Robot on “Lost in Space” — tells me: “The YZY token is now a high-risk, volatile asset. The rapid drop in value serves as a cautionary tale about celebrity-driven crypto projects, where short-term hype often disappears quickly, leaving regular investors with significant losses.”
Michael Richards is going back to stand up comedy.
It’s been 19 years (in November) since his onstage scandal when he dropped the N word and caused an uproar that never ended.
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Last year, Richards attempted a comeback with a memoir called “Entrances and Exits.” His publicity tour started with promise, but then he turned to Fox News’s Jesse Watters for an interview and it all went south. The book was a huge flop.
The comedy tour, named for the book, is starting at a handful of West Coast clubs.
The irony of Richards’ downfall of course is that “Seinfeld” and his Kramer character live on in endless reruns around the world. Richards is wealthy from that run. But he’s had no career since then unlike Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Jason Alexander.
Richards apologized for his hideous outburst as soon as it happened, and again in the book. But the appearance on Fox News set him up in the worst light possible since Watters is an unrepentant right winger with very shocking and different beliefs than most “Seinfeld” fans.
It remains to be seen how Richards will be greeted on this tour, or at more dates especially in major cities. This does remind me of when Bill Cosby tried to make a comeback after his scandals and was met with intense curiosity and scorn.
Donald Trump has been spewing his bile all night on Truth Social.
His latest subjects: NBC and ABC News. He hates them. He says they should lose their licenses. He omits CBS – which he thinks he now owns — as well as house organ Fox News, plus CNN and MSNBC.
Bigger questions about Trump’s health have risen to main stories. Why does no White House reporter ask him on live TV what the makeup is on his right hand, what the bruises are on his left hand, and what’s going on with his ankles? Is he wearing all the different baseball caps to hide something on his head?
Anyway, he also told all Democrats to GO TO HELL in a different post, as he sends the National Guard into 19 states — or tries to — in an attempt to invoke martial law.
On Friday night I found myself in the charming, horsy village of Bedford, New York for a very special screening.
Tentatively titled, “Do You Remember?,” this 90 minute film probably will never be released for public consumption. Clearing the music rights would be unimaginably difficult– and expensive.
A little over three years ago, a version of the film was shown at music mogul Clive Davis’s 90th birthday party at Casa Cipriani in New York. Now a tighter version, with quite an emotional wallop, made it to the screen at the Bedford Playhouse, which not uncoincidentally is named for Davis, who lives nearby.
The film is the work of superstar music producer Mark Ronson, along with actor/producer Erich Bergen. It show cases Davis’s remarkable career in pop music by offering an aural and video jukebox of hits he made or was associated with over more than 50 years. (Ronson’s mixes, and segues, are really spectacular.)
One after another, starting with Columbia Records acts like Blood, Sweat Tears, Sly & the Family Stone, and Janis Joplin, Ronson ticks off hundreds of pop hits, wending the way through Davis’s creation of Arista Records in 1974 with Barry Manilow and Melissa Manchester, his resurrection of Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick, to the discovery of Whitney Houston, Santana’s Grammy winning revival, and the launch of Alicia Keys, among others.
Intermittently, we see Davis briefly at different times in the chronology — including a famous clip of him circa 1973 when he was so moved by the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen’s new song, “Blinded by the Light,” that he sent out a clip to the Columbia Records salesforce of himself reading them aloud.
The film is an astonishing walk down memory lane as the music speaks for itself. Some songs and performances are in whole, some are just nanoseconds. But did we forget that Davis also resurrected rock bands at Arista, including The Kinks and The Grateful Dead? That he was the guy who signed the original “American Idol” winners — like Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson — to contracts? It’s a little mindblowing when you see him, in a white tennis sweater, sitting in a field of hippies at the Monterey Pop Festival, jiving out to Janis Joplin. He signed her to Columbia right after that. And let’s not forget Patti Smith, who was as cutting edge as could be in 1974, and Davis cross pollinating her with Springsteen in 1978 for “Because the Night.”
There were a couple of Davis’s friends in the audience at the Playhouse including “Titanic” actor Billy Zane. But 95% of the people were local music fans who were disarmed by the film’s magnitude. I know I was. A Q&A followed with Bergen (whom you know from the “Jersey Boys” movie and “Madame Secretary” on TV) and Davis on stage. I think it was taped. The interview should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Maybe the whole film will be there one day on display. Davis — who is known among his fans for occasionally telling a long story — concisely explained the history of pop music during its heyday. But what does explain Davis’s run in the music industry? Maybe only Berry Gordy at Motown and Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic came even close.
There is no other record company president whose career has had such breath and depth. The stars all loved him and even when they disagreed with him — and came around later to thank him. That’s saying a lot. Stars who didn’t want to record songs that later became hits, who took advice they might not have embraced, are all here, documented, happily, in their appreciation.
One story David didn’t get to tell. It came up during the pandemic when he interviewed Springsteen for the charity fundraising Quarantunes Zoom calls. (I hope those interviews see the light of day soon.) Bruce actually brought it up — that Davis, visiting him at an early rehearsal, suggested Springsteen “not just stand here” on stage during his songs but “move around” a bit. Bruce, who’d already taken Davis’s advice to go home and write two hits for his debut album — they became “Blinded” and “Spirit in the Night” — took that advice, and is still running around arena and stadium stages to the awe of massive crowds.
PS Best line of the night. Bergen asked Davis if he always knew this is how it would all work out, if he always knew how to embrace his history as something momentous. Davis, unflinching, responded, “No. I’m Jewish! I fear the future.” Wow. But he barreled ahead, a lesson to us all.
The remixed, remastered Anthology CD box set is number 2. The vinyl version is number 8. The former sells for $118, The latter for $374. They’ll be released on November 21st.
What are these things? The 30 year Anthology 1, 2, and 3 are all spiffed up redone by Giles Martin and the Apple gang to sound as good as all the other Beatles reissues. They’ll be joined by Anthology 4, 13 tracks — all previously unheard versions of songs your mother should know.
There’s nothing actually new. No new songs. The last three tacked on Beatles songs — “Free as a Bird,” “Real Love,” and “Now and Then” — have been remixed and remastered by ELO’s Jeff Lynne. We can hear the updated “Free as Bird” now. It used to sound quite slow and sludgy, but now it shines like a new car. Frankly the best thing about it is Paul McCartney’s wistful humming at the end. It’s pure gold.
Interesting that Capitol put the advance sales up on amazon already. Taylor Swift’s new album comes out on October 3, but Republic has held back so far in advance of release. They’re building up for a big release.
The new mix is about 30 seconds shorter than the original. I thought when I heard it, it sounded faster. I think they picked up the pitch. Smart.
I don’t know what “K-Pop Demon Hunters” is and neither do you. It doesn’t matter.
All summer this animated movie has been at the top of the Netflix streaming chart.
At the same time, the soundtrack album has sold almost 900,000 copies via audio streaming. The five top singles from the album have individually sold around 1 million copies apiece from streaming. The album and the singles have dominated the Spotify and iTunes charts.
So is it a surprise that Netflix decided to put a ‘sing–a-long” version in theaters this weekend? The animated film is available on Netflix since June 20th. But into the theaters Netflix went on Friday and the result is an $18 million weekend.
Netflix never ever reports box office numbers but somehow (wink, wink) for the first time ever this number was indeed reported. So the streamer can claim to be number 1 at the box office, again, for the first time ever. There should be asterisk by “Demon Hunters” name because it’s a one shot deal. The real number 1 this weekend was “Weapons” with $15.6 million.
All this really says is that K-Pop remains a phenomenon. I do hope the various acts on the “Demon Hunters” soundtrack are well paid. Their success fueled the movies’. Netflix will no doubt be doing more K-Pop projects.
