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Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin Lined Up for TWO Movies After “Grace and Frankie,” Unrelated to Netflix Hit

Roger Friedman
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Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin Lined Up for TWO Movies After “Grace and Frankie,” Unrelated to Netflix Hit

Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are so popular in their Netflix sitcom, they’re making not one but two movies when they wrap the 7th and final season this winter.

But here’s the twist: the movies have nothing to do with “Grace and Frankie.”

The first film is called “Moving On,” with Paul Weitz directing them with Malcolm McDowell and Richard Roundtree. Jane and Lily play old friends who reunite at a funeral and have take down an old mutual foe (McDowell) with the help of “Shaft.” Sounds great.

The other film for these dynamo actresses comes after “Moving On” and has an all star cast. But I’ve been sworn to secrecy for the time being. Trust me, it’s good.

Jane and Lily first collaborated, with Dolly Parton, on “Nine to Five” in 1982. They just keep rocking. PS You can watch the first four episodes of “Grace and Frankie,” season 7 right now on Netflix.

“Dear Evan Hansen” Takes in Just $800K On Preview Night, May Be 2nd Musical Disaster of Season

Roger Friedman
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“Dear Evan Hansen” Takes in Just $800K On Preview Night, May Be 2nd Musical Disaster of Season

So much hype about a season of movie musicals, but it’s not working out so far.

The movie version of the Tony Award winner “Dear Evan Hansen” opened in 2,700 theaters last night and was not met with enthusiasm.

The take was just $800,000, or just $296 per theater. Universal will be lucky to score $10 million for the weekend.

“Dear Evan Hansen” has received mixed to poor reviews, with most critics saying that the show’s glaring flaws are magnified on the movie screen. Evan was a hero on stage, but close up he seems like a creepy liar. It doesn’t help that Ben Platt just seems too old now to play the role.

All the performers are excellent, however. You can’t fault them, or the score. But this recipe apparently doesn’t always work when it’s cooked for a big number of diners.

This would not be the first Broadway musical with problems transferring to film. “In the Heights” was a bust last June after a lot of hype and high expectations.

But I’m holding out for Steven Spielberg’s updated “West Side Story” in December. I have a feeling this is our big Oscar winner for 2021. It doesn’t hurt that the original show is perfection, and Spielberg hasn’t messed with that.

NBC’s “Law & Order” Block Wins Thursday Night with a Great “SVU” Introducing a New Star Player

Roger Friedman
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NBC’s “Law & Order” Block Wins Thursday Night with a Great “SVU” Introducing a New Star Player

NBC took Thursday night with its three hour block of “Law & Order.” From 8 to 10pm, there was a 2 hour “SVU” special to launch the record breaking 23rd season, and a new “Organized Crime” with Chris Meloni at 10pm.

“SVU” scored a solid 5.55 million viewers in fast overnight ratings which will undoubtedly increase when all the ratings are compiled.

For a 23 year old show, “SVU” showed that anything old can be new again. The two hour story was one of the very best in the show’s history, with the story of a congressman who was accused of sexing it up with underage girls. Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson, who now runs the Special Victims Unit, and her two main lieutenants — Fin and Rollins aka Ice T and Kelli Giddish — seem re-charged with enthusiasm. In the case of the latter, it may be because Rollins is now having a secret romance with Carisi, the ADA played so well by Peter Scanavino.

The 2 hour special also featured some cast changes. Written out in these episodes were Jamie Gray Hyder and Demore Barnes, who joined the long list of Dick Wolf castoffs who were talented but written into corners. In their place, though, comes a new potential leading man in Octavia Pisano as Velasco, an undercover cop sent into SUV’s midst and quickly moves to the forefront. Pisano, 34, comes with a long resume but this would be his breakout as a prime time star. The writers certainly set him up that way, as Velasco– who goes by the moniker “Q” — got a very showy spotlight last night. We’ll be seeing a lot of him, I think, as the season proceeds.

“SVU” under executive producer Warren Leight remains eminently watchable. Hargitay’s performance is fresh and honest, and the show doesn’t get into silly soap opera plots like its ABC competition, “Grey’s Anatomy.” Plus, the “SVU” team cleverly wrote in Hargitay’s summer accident in which she broke her ankle and had to sit through a lot of the first hour.

“Organized Crime” came in with similar ratings to its spring tryout– 4.32 million. Chris Meloni has a big grey beard and looks like a biker. The show remains unfocused and kind of random. We see the Law, but where is the Order?

 

LIVE Right Now: Chaos at “The View” as 2 Hosts Test Positive for COVID and Leave Set, Kamala Harris Does Interview Off Stage

Roger Friedman
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LIVE Right Now: Chaos at “The View” as 2 Hosts Test Positive for COVID and Leave Set, Kamala Harris Does Interview Off Stage

Two co-hosts tested positive for COVID this morning live on the show and had to leave the set during the show.

Vice President Kamala Harris, set to the main guest, hasn’t arrived 45 minutes into the show.

Joy Behar is now taking questions from the audience!

Both Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro tested positive and had to leave the stage. Joy and Sarah Haines remain alone on the stage with no guest and nothing planned, so they’re reduced to taking questions from the audience. Of course, Joy could do the whole show herself.

Hostin and Navarro were each double vaxxed, so their cases are breakthrough. (Feel like going to the Governors Ball concert now?)

The result was Harris, who was supposed to do her first live in person interview on The View, had to do a shortened live piece from elsewhere in the ABC News complex.

Harris did get to announce her news, that broadband service was going to be made available more broadly across the country especially for students.

Keep refreshing!

Has “SNL” Hired Six New Players? Internet Rumors Rife with Names, So Someone’s Leaving The Show

Roger Friedman
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Has “SNL” Hired Six New Players? Internet Rumors Rife with Names, So Someone’s Leaving The Show

The internet is buzzing with rumors about “Saturday Night Live.”

According to a post on Reddit, three individual performers have been signed. Their names are Sarah Squirm, Aristotle Athiras, James Austin Johnson.

Giving some weight to the rumor is the news that “SNL” associate producer has suddenly followed these people on Instagram.

Also a possibility is the addition of a New York comedy trio called Please Don’t Destroy, three guys named Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy who look like they should be the band Weezer.

All of them seem like young, funny kids. But they are also all white, very white, not Black or Asian, and only one of them is a woman. So that might be an issue. But the show does have some star Black and Asian performers now in Chris Redd, Bowen Yang, Melissa Villasenor, and Ego Nwodim, not to mention MVP Kenan Thompson.

Looking at these proposed names, it’s possible that some of the current cast, who’ve been there for seven seasons, could be leaving. Names in the mix are Beck Bennett, Kyle Mooney, Mikey Day, and Alex Moffat.

There are also questions about returning leading ladies Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, and Aidy Bryant. Last year, Strong and Bryant were absent during the  first half of the season to do other projects. McKinnon and Strong went heavily into commercials because the pandemic limited movie production.

Complicating Kenan Thompson’s position is his NBC sitcom, “Kenan,” which was renewed for a second season. I have found it unwatchable but he did get an Emmy nomination for it.

One thing is clear: ratings after the election was over went downhill. “SNL” needs fresh blood, and fresh ideas. The NYC trio may turn out to be writers and “featured players,” not in the main cast.

So stand by. Some or all of this may pan out.

Sarah Squirm:

 

Here’s the Please Don’t Destroy trio:

 

“Sex and the City” Star Willie Garson Wrote a Book Before He Died, Says Friend Hilarie Burton

Roger Friedman
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“Sex and the City” Star Willie Garson Wrote a Book Before He Died, Says Friend Hilarie Burton

Hilarie Burton Morgan, actress and wife of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, was especially close to late “Sex and the City” actor Willie Garson. Garson died this week at age 57 after a year long battle with pancreatic cancer.

In an emotional post on Instagram, Burton wrote overnight that Garson, despite his illness, wrote a memoir and asked her to get it published. No word yet on whether she’s found an agent or a publisher. but it shouldn’t be too hard.

Burton says the book is a “love letter.” So everyone hoping for dirt about Hollywood co-stars, I doubt it will be there.

She wrote:

“We were together in 2019 while I was in the final edit of my book. He came to play on a movie I was producing…elevating the material, always. We talked a lot about memoir, this weird industry, our families. He’d been toying with an idea for a book. An accounting of his career as a character actor. As someone who benefited from hours of Willie’s stories over countless dinners, I loved this idea.

“So he did it. He wrote the book. And recently he asked if I’d help his family get it published for his son Nathen. It is a love letter to our industry, to storytelling and to the hundreds of people he worked with and made better over the decades.
To Willie’s family, especially @nathen_garson , …on my honor I will see it through. You have been so generous in sharing him with the rest of us. Love you.”

Paramount Changes Chiefs and “Clifford the Big Red Dog” Gets His Bite Back for a November Release

Roger Friedman
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Paramount Changes Chiefs and “Clifford the Big Red Dog” Gets His Bite Back for a November Release

You may recall the live action version of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” was supposed to a gala presentation at the Toronto Film Festival. It was set to open by Paramount right after that, on September 17th.

Then Paramount pulled the kid friendly film from their schedule and said it was because of COVID. They said they didn’t want to hurt kids. But they still released “PAW Patrol” for kids onAugust 20th, which has done pretty well. So nothing really made sense.

Well, then Viacom fired studio chief Jim Gianopolous and replaced him with Brian Robbins, who comes from the Nickelodeon division. Now “Clifford” is back on the schedule, for November 10th, in theaters and on Paramount Plus.

Is this the case of the tail wagging the dog? Obviously, Gianopolous didn’t like the film or was really nervous about kids getting COVID. Was that what made Paramount send him to the pound? Anyway, Robbins is pro-“Clifford,” and who isn’t? Time to get him out of the dog house and up on the screen!

Will we start to see more Paramount releases soon? Or this just a bone Robbins is throwing us? We’ll have to chew on that.

And let’s have a sense of humor about all this, kids. We don’t often get such golden (retriever) opportunities for puns!

 

Amy Schumer Posts Video Explaining Uterus Removal After Endometriosis Discovery: “I was so lucky to have a baby”

Roger Friedman
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Amy Schumer Posts Video Explaining Uterus Removal After Endometriosis Discovery: “I was so lucky to have a baby”

Amy Schumer has had her uterus removed after a diagnosis of endometriosis. The comedian/actress/activist posted a long video to Instagram tonight explaining her entire health situation, and it’s to be commended. She is very brave and incredibly candid.

The gist of the story is that she says she’s been in pain every month with her period for years. She has a child, son Gene, but she adds “how lucky” she was to have him when many women who suffer from endometriosis can’t. She married Martha’s Vineyard chef Chris Fischer in 2018.

In the video she thanks Tampax “for not firing me” and says she had to pass on a boxing movie because she was in too much pain to work. She thanks her doctors and nurses.

“It took me four decades to be diagnosed,” she says. adding that the endometriosis was in her ovaries. “I won’t have menopause,” she observes.

Schumer is in a movie coming soon, “The Humans,” based on the hit, award winning Broadway play. Here’s to a speedy recovery!

 

Dionne Warwick is Everywhere This Year, and She’s Referenced in “The Many Saints of Newark,” Too

Roger Friedman
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Dionne Warwick is Everywhere This Year, and She’s Referenced in “The Many Saints of Newark,” Too

Local girl makes good.

You know, Dionne Warwick is from Newark, New Jersey. And that’s where David Chase and Alan Taylor’s “Many Saints of Newark” takes place, set in 1968.

Well, all through the 60s Dionne’s dozen or more hits with Hal David and Burt Bacharach were on every radio, 24/7. (She’d be really rich today if there had been a performance royalty for singers. Alas, there wasn’t and still isn’t.)

So naturally a movie about Newark in the 60s would have to feature a Dionne Warwick song. And “Saints” does. It’s “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” first released in 1963. It most definitely would have been playing on local radio in 1968. In the movie, Giuseppina, played by Penelope Cruz lookalike Michaela de Rossi, hears the song on the radio and identifies with it. She says something to the effect that she wants to be like Dionne Warwick.

Why not? Dionne’s had quite a year in 2021. She became the mascot of Twitter, the Queen of her own domain. “Saturday Night Live” spoofed her. And a documentary about her just played at the Toronto Film Festival.

It’s unclear if there’s a physical soundtrack to “Saints,” but if you make a Spotify playlist, this record has to be on it.

PS Even though rock act after rock act has recorded or covered a Dionne hit, she is still not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She had a decade of hits with Bacharach and David, a decade with the Spinners, Bee Gees, etc, revived by Clive Davis through the 80s and into the 90s. Still a classic, sill performing at almost 81 years young. Kudos to Susan Jacobs, the great music supervisor, who included Dionne in the movie.

 

Box Office: Failure of “Tammy Faye” Follows Suit of All Small Movies This Fall Like “Flag Day,” “Blue Bayou”

Roger Friedman
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Box Office: Failure of “Tammy Faye” Follows Suit of All Small Movies This Fall Like “Flag Day,” “Blue Bayou”

Movie box office for late summer and fall has not been kind to small, indie movies, that kind that need adults over the age of 30.

DOA, it seems, is “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” which has made $853K in the last week at 450 theaters. Searchlight/Disney may increase the number of venues this weekend, but the party is over. Despite good reviews for star Jessica Chastain, the audience wasn’t interested.

But “Tammy Faye” wasn’t alone. Unless the film was a blockbuster sort of non film like Fast & Furious 9, or a Marvel movie like “Shang Chi,” the people who needed to come spend the bucks didn’t turn out for anything.

They weren’t motivated to see Sean Penn direct his daughter, Dylan, in “Flag Day.” The response to “Respect,” with Jennifer Hudson was $24 million all in on a $55 million film.

Focus Features has been particularly brave, releasing “Blue Bayou” and “The Card Counter” into a box office abyss. In the old days, those movies would have made lives in indie theaters and art houses. But their potential audiences have gotten used to watching Netflix, et al and not leaving the house. The result is minimal box office receipts.

So what will bring humans back to the theaters? MGM is hoping that the James Bond film, “No Time to Die,” will do the trick. They’ve sold a smattering of advanced tickets, waiting for reviews to break next week when the movie opens in London to kickstart a frenzy. You have to see a James Bond movie on a big screen. It’s no time to stay home!

 

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