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The Park City film festival set for later this month will be all virtual, no in person events or screenings. Luckily, yours truly already signed up for virtual tickets. Whew!
Apparently, the decision was made before the weekend and just announced now.
It makes sense. They want to avoid a super spreader, of course. Next year in Park City. Amen.
📢 Despite ambitious protocols, the Omicron variant with its unexpectedly high transmissibility rates is pushing the limits of health safety, travel and other infrastructures. Thus, #Sundance 2022’s in-person Utah elements will be moving online. More: https://t.co/orExAzKnEupic.twitter.com/Q93P8p5J9Z
I also told you a few days ago that the New York chapter of the Recording Academy had postponed their annual toast cocktail party set for January 10th.
Now comes the official word that the Grammys are being reset for– no date specified. This is the surprise since I thought they would definitely give a replacement time. But nope, nothing, it’s just in the wilderness. This has a lot to do with availability of the Staples Center, the progress in resolving COVID, and so on.
Official statement:
“After careful consideration and analysis with city and state officials, health and safety experts, the artist community and our many partners, the Recording Academy® and CBS have postponed the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards® Show. The health and safety of those in our music community, the live audience, and the hundreds of people who work tirelessly to produce our show remains our top priority. Given the uncertainty surrounding the Omicron variant, holding the show on January 31 simply contains too many risks. We look forward to celebrating Music’s Biggest Night® on a future date, which will be announced soon.”
The Janet Jackson documentary is set for January 28th on A&E and Lifetime. It looks pretty good considering I was expecting a big whitewash. Janet says she’s “guilty by association” with brother Michael, and her mother can’t even talk about him. I don’t know why Janet thinks that she’s guilty by association.
I see that Janet is depending on her brother, Randy, which may be why her career is so disheveled. In the trailer, Randy tells Janet that Justin Timberlake has contacted them about a Super Bowl re-do. As we know, Janet declined and Justin did the show again without her.
The film may also discuss Janet’s marriage to James DeBarge, and the rumor of their “secret love child.”
Omicron? It’s like a Blue Meanie. The Beatles are coming!
The Fab Four will release the “Let it Be” rooftop film, drawn from Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” extravaganza, to IMAX theaters next month.
But first they’ll stage a special screening on January 30th at IMAX with a Peter Jackson Q&A to follow.
That’s the 52nd anniversary of the rooftop concert being performed at 3 Savile Row in London over the Apple Records offices.
A global theatrical engagement of the 60-minute feature, “The Beatles: Get Back–The Rooftop Concert,” will then run February 11-13, 2022.
The bigger news is that the complete docuseries, “The Beatles: Get Back,” will also be available on Blu-ray and DVD in the U.S. on February 8, 2022. That’s what I want!
Now the only thing missing from this “Let it Be” anniversary enterprise is the re-release of the original Michael Lindsay Hogg movie in a proper fashion. And then the “Let it Be” celebrations will be complete.
And then what for the Beatles? Remixed “Revolver” and “Rubber Soul” will be down the line, I suppose. And then we just get to enjoy all this stuff for the rest of our natural lives.
There was rending of garments, murder of a popular character and many declarations on Sunday night’s episode of “Yellowstone.”
There were also a lot of viewers. The season 4 finale of Kevin Costner’s horse opera drew over 10 million viewers on cable. The Paramount Channel grabbed 9.3 million, and Country Music Television lured in another 960,000.
No other program on Sunday night on cable or broadcast TV came close to those numbers except for NFL football. “NCIS: Los Angeles” on CBS only had 5.5 million viewers, by comparison.
But “Yellowstone” is no “Dallas.” Costner’s show only has 10 episodes per season, less than half of what typical network series had back in the day. And the season itself is undefined. We may not see “Yellowstone” Season 5 until next fall or winter at the earliest.
Nature abhors a vacuum. If I were the Paramount channel, I’d rerun all of “Dallas” and “Knots Landing” right now to fill the void. The time is right even to reboot the latter (the former has already had its chance).
Meantime, “Yellowstone” has two spin offs already running with “1883” and “Mayor of Kingstown,” and more coming. It’s a whole business now for Costner and creator Taylor Sheridan.
All eyes will be on CBS and the Grammy Awards today. Should they stay or should they go on January 31st?
In Los Angeles, the COVID surge continues. I’ve been told that top talent is wary of packing into the Staples Center on the 31st, let alone the LA Convention Center on the 29th for Joni Mitchell’s Musicares Person of the Year dinner.
But moving the Grammy weekend isn’t easy. That would push the whole package including Clive Davis’s pre-Grammy dinner, to April or May. Anything is possible and so far no one seems to know what’s going to happen. I’m told even host Trevor Noah is clueless.
So stand by… the envelope with the answer will be opened any minute…
Joan Copeland was one of my favorite people I ran into over the years. The famed actress sister of legendary playwright Arthur Miller died today at her house out in Amagansett at age 99.
Joan was a pip. Flashback to the summer of 2013, Joan appeared in the lobby of the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. This was a good 45 minutes away from her house. We were all there for the opening night of “Irma Vep.” “Joan,” I asked, “how did you get here?” She looked at me like I was crazy. She said, “I drove, of course. It’s only 45 minutes! The roads were very clear.”
Joan Copeland appeared in 13 Broadway productions. She won a Drama Desk Award in 1981 starring in her brother’s play, “The American Clock.” Four years earlier she’d been nominated for a Drama Desk Award in “Pal Joey.” She served as Katharine Hepburn’s standby in “Coco,” as well.
On TV, Joan was a staple on Procter & Gamble soap operas like “Search for Tomorrow” (a five year run from 1967 to 72), “Love of Life,” “One Life to Live,” and “The Edge of Night.” She was also a regular on “Law & Order,” appearing in 8 different episodes. She also appeared in several movies, but she was a real New York actor — the kind that barely exists anymore — and split her time between the soaps and Broadway.
Condolences to her family, especially niece Rebecca Miller, who I know was very close to her. Joan was a talented, lovely lady, a connection to really classic New York theater, and she will be very much missed.
Lincoln Center Theater — an enigmatic deal to begin with — is closing its main play three weeks early.
Now “Flying Over Sunset” will shutter on January 16th, the same day as “Ain’t Too Proud” down on real Broadway.
“FOS” was a strange musical about old movie stars taking acid. Tony Yazbeck, Harry Hadon Patton, Carmen Cusack, and Michael Korie star, James Lapine wrote and directed it. I never saw it because Lincoln Center Theater ignores me, and I’ve managed to live without their shows. I guess I’ll miss this one, too.
Did you know Carmen Cusack is married to an actor on “Days of our Lives,” the NBC soap filmed in Los Angeles? His name is Paul Telfer. There’s some trivia.
There are plenty of tickets available for the rest of the run. Maybe I’ll nip over to the TKTS booth and get one. Or not.
Just Announced: FLYING OVER SUNSET will end its limited engagement run at Lincoln Center Theater on Sunday, January 16. Only two more weeks! pic.twitter.com/kikIsQKOja
I received a lot of messages today from fans of ABC’s soap, “General Hospital.” They were all: “General Hospital” killed off Luke Spencer.
No, they didn’t.
Anthony Geary, who played Luke Spencer for eons, retired and moved to Holland a few years ago. Then his long time scene partner, Jane Elliot, who plays Tracy Quartermaine, also “retired,” and they shipped her off to Holland, too.
But Elliot returns once a year, probably to keep her income up enough to get SAG AFTRA health benefits. They have to write her a story, and one that involves all the older cast members. So this time it was the “death” of absent Luke.
However: I looked at the tape. At the end of today’s show, the local villain, Victor Cassadine, indicated that he’d “neutralized” Luke, whatever that means. So Luke is alive. No one dies on soaps unless a body is produced, the death happens on screen, and even then resuscitation is always possible.
I go by the great movie parody, “Soapdish.” Whoopi Goldberg is the writer of the soap. She’s informed that Kevin Kline’s character is returning to the show after 20 years– even though he was decapitated when he left. Whoopi exclaims, “How am I supposed to write for a guy without a head!”
Easier than you think. (See the clip below.)
Good PR move by ABC Daytime. They got everyone talking about their show. And Anthony Geary, he’s at home in Holland, I suppose, arranging tulips, drinking beer, wearing wooden shoes, smoking pot, and laughing at everyone.
Now is the time for TV syndicators to think about Fall 2022. Which shows will end, which will survive, which will be born?
At stake right away is “The Drew Barrymore Show” slot at 9am on CBS. “Drew” is in its second season and has never risen above 500,000 average viewers per day.
“Drew” comes with a lot of baggage. Produced by CBS, the new talk show replaced “Hot Bench,” owned by Judge Judy. “Hot Bench” hovers between 1.4 and 1.7 million viewers per day. It is very popular. But CBS thought it would make more money putting Barrymore into the 9am slot vs. established powerhouse “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” which is owned by Disney and shown mostly on ABC stations at the same hour.
So CBS let go of “Hot Bench,” which angered Judge Judy so much that she shut down her own hit show after 25 years and moved to streaming on the IMDB channel (owned by Amazon, big money). All the “Judge Judy” shows running on television this season are reruns as CBS owns the whole library and will just keep playing it over and over. For new “Judge Judy,” you have to go to Roku or Google Chrome or Apple TV devices.
But look, “Hot Bench” — playing now on lesser local channels and at odd times– is still getting between 1.4 and 1.7 million viewers per day– roughly three times’ “Drew’s audience. And other talkers are coming in, with rumors of Jennifer Hudson aiming to do a “Kelly Clarkson” like move. (She’d be great.) Plus, Kelly is getting the bump up next fall after Ellen Degeneres exits the arena.
Will “Drew” make it a third season? Or will CBS the show the error of its ways and return “Hot Bench: to its home at 9am on their owned and operated channels? Everyone is awaiting this verdict.
