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We’ve been waiting a year for Peter Jackson’s documentary about the making of the Beatles “Let it Be.” It’s set for the last week of August, a year and some months after the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ technical last release but second to last album.
In the meantime, Hulu has just announced they’re dropping their own Paul McCartney documentary series on July 16th. It kind of sets up the Beatles doc, no? I don’t think it undercuts it, but it’s curious that McCartney commissioned a doc, with Rick Rubin of all people, to precede the “Get Back” movie.
McCartney already had a documentary commissioned and almost made — it was filmed — with director Paul Haggis. But Haggis is now involved in a complicated rape accusation and trial (that I’m sorry, I don’t believe, I know it’s not PC, but it doesn’t fit his profile). The Haggis film was shelved, the footage wasn’t even used for the Rubin project. Hopefully one day we’ll see it.
I’m looking forward to this six part Rubin series called “3, 2, 1.” McCartney, like every genius, is quite complex. But he’s even more so. The range of his career will be studied for a long time. McCartney himself is not good at self-evaluation, although we will see his $100 autobiography this fall. I hope Rubin can get to the heart of it. Then of course, they could turn the camera on him. That’s another story!
John Mulaney sold all 9 of his new shows at New York’s City Winery in three hours. The demand was so high it almost collapsed the ticketing system.
But don’t worry, I can tell you exclusively there will be more shows there. Mulaney and City Winery have found a formula that works. And wait til capacity can be expanded!
Mulaney has turned chaos into creation, lemons into lemonade, scandal into socko business. Divorce, rehab, affairs, more rehab. What will be revealed next week? Mulaney will leak something juicy to Page Six, trust me. Most recently is the ex-wife’s rehab.
Next scandal? Custody fight over the French bulldog, Petunia. Stay tuned…
The Tony winning Broadway hit, “Dear Evan Hansen” is a movie, and it opens in theaters on September 24th. That’s around the same time the live stage show returns to Broadway. How will that work? Will the movie help the Broadway production? We’ll find out.
“Dear Evan Hansen” features its original star, Ben Platt, but replaces the two key female roles with Hollywood heavyweights Julianne Moore and Amy Adams. Marc Platt is the main producer, he’s Ben’s dad, and also produced “La La Land,” which also had music from Ben Pasek and Justin Paul. The key here is to have a short last name that starts with a P. (Putin doesn’t work!)
Amandla Stenberg, from “The Hate U Give,” is also featured.
Super model Naomi Campbell has a baby. She announced the news on Twitter. Congrats, Naomi! Naomi says “A beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother.” (The father and whole story are yet to be revealed.)
The 50 year podcaster extraordinaire will give that baby the most wonderful life. They’re going to have a great time. And wait til this kid is old enough to know who her mother is. Naomi is one of the great creations of the Universe, not only beautiful but free spirited, brilliant, and the original disrupter!
Mazel tov!
A beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother, So honoured to have this gentle soul in my life there are no words to describe the lifelong bond that I now share with you my angel. There is no greater love. pic.twitter.com/SYxfeh4yev
I just came back from seeing Zack Snyder’s terrific “Army of the Dead.” I’m not an expert on zombie films. This is one is a zombie-heist film. It runs almost two hours 20 minutes. The time flies by. Snyder’s pacing and characters are fun and fresh, the movie is funny (and a little violent). Think of “Ocean’s 8” with zombies. The cinematography — all done by Snyder– is award worthy. There’s a healthy dose of Wagner’s “Gotterdamerung” opera, too, which made me smile.
At the Paris Theater, where you must see “Army of the Dead” starting Friday– or wherever Netflix plays it because it deserves to be seen on a big screen, Snyder and his producer wife Deb, did a Q&A with TikTok influencer Grace Randolph after the press screening. We learned that the movie was too bawdy for Sheryl Crow. She wouldn’t let the Snyders use her song “Leaving Las Vegas” on the soundtrack, Big mistake, Sheryl. It would have been perfect.
The cast is top notch, loose as a goose and obviously enjoying themselves. It’s the opposite of Snyder’s DC Comic movies for Warner Bros which always feel constricted. Here the ebullience is organic. Even when zombies are trying to bite the non zombies and blood is spurting. Snyder treads a nice line between serious and camp.
The actors: Tig Notaro steals the show as a wise cracking helicopter pilot. Even the Snyders admitted to liking her character the best. But you will be impressed with everyone starting with Dave Bautista as the leader of a gang of would be thieves who are paid to break into the now-walled city of Las Vegas which has become infested with the walking dead. British actress Ella Purnell is sensational as his plucky daughter. I really liked Omari Hardwick as one of Bautista’s gang, and German actor/ director Matthias Schweighofer as Dieter, specialist safe cracker.
Schweighofer was such a hit that he immediately made a prequel to the film, which Netflix will release later this summer, about his character. It’s mostly in English but a little German and French. There’s also a Netflix animated series based on “Army of the Dead” coming this summer. Deb Snyder also told me they know exactly how they will make their sequel, even though I questioned how it might be done.
“Army of the Dead” follows Snyder’s 2004 “Dawn of the Dead,” which was inspired by George Romero’s classic 1978 film of the same name. But this could launch a whole new franchise for Netflix. The Snyders, who suffered a terrible personal loss in 2019, are in love with the execs there and happy to be done with DC/Warner Bros.
“Army of the Dead” starts Friday on Netflix and allegedly somewhere in theaters. If you can, see it there on the big screen. You will need a big box of popcorn.
John Mulaney is either stoking his gossip fire or doing goldmine business because of it.
Either, he sold City Winery last week. So this morning at 9am they’re putting on 9 more shows from May 23-31st. You have to buy the tickets on the City Winery website. My guess is they will sell out instantly beginning at 9am today.
I’m told there’s a chance Mulaney will do a couple more runs like this before the end of June.
Michael Dorf has worked magic at City Winery, opening a beautiful new venue for music, comedy, dining, and wining on the Hudson River at 16th St. It’s really the Miracle on the Hudson.
The new place is gorgeous. The stage repurposed in part from their old home on Varick Street, is generous to music artists. I had a grand time there a couple of weeks ago seeing Patti Smith in her trio.
Mulaney’s show is called “From Scratch.” But it’s anything if not calculated. I don’t know about the publicity, but the stuff that’s come out since he began his run there is extraordinary. First it was his divorce from wife Anna Marie Tendler after six years. Then it was news of his dating actress Olivia Munn. Yesterday someone leaked that Tendler was so shaken by Mulaney’s addictions, rehab, and the affair with Munn that she checked herself into rehab for depression. Can you blame her?
Mulaney went from sympathetic to suspect in ten seconds. He swapped his natty suits for a little boy’s polo shirt and jeans. I do feel like he’s gaming the audience, but what do I know? His fans are legion. He went from biting satirical observations to morose loner. I guess whatever works.
One joke Mulaney certainly can’t tell now: Take my wife, please.
As you’ve read today, AT&T is spinning off WarnerMedia into a new company and merging it with the Discovery Network. This means everything that isn’t Disney or Netflix or NBC Universal will now be one. HBOCNNWarnerBrosTNTTBS etc and DiscoveryHistorySmithsonianTLC and so on.
Who wins? Oprah Winfrey comes out of this looking pretty good. Last December 2020 she sold 95% of her OWN Network to Discovery for $36 million in stock. She kept 5% of the network and keeps running it herself. Not bad.
At the time, her Harpo Inc, which received the stock, declared it would sell half the shares it got. The total then was 1.34 million. They were likely sold but even if they weren’t, Oprah had a nice chunk of Discovery. Now she has a nice chunk of the new company.
(Just as a note, when Oprah got the stock it was selling around $25. In March it a high of $77. Today it’s at $35. If she sold at the high she could have made $51 million just from the remaining half. )
This means OWN is a cousin of all those companies that I mentioned above. Oprah also has a stake in CBS, where she does specials, like the royals, appears on “60 Minutes,” and on bff Gayle King’s “CBS This Morning.”
Plus Oprah is doing specials for Apple TV, like her mental health series with Prince Harry. On Saturday night, Oprah appeared on Clive Davis’s Zoom Gala and talked just about her friendship with Tina Turner.
In Marvel Studios’ “Black Widow,” Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger. Scarlett Johansson reprises her role as Natasha/Black Widow, Florence Pugh stars as Yelena, David Harbour portrays Alexei/The Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz is Melina. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, “Black Widow”—the first film in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—the action-packed spy thriller launches simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access in most Disney+ markets on July 9, 2021.
My fourteen year old self is reeling at the idea of 50th anniversary albums of 1971. This all happened a few minutes ago, and yet, we have traveled eons. In a few weeks I’ll be the same age as Paul McCartney’s famous song, “When I’m 64.” It seemed like such an old age in 1971.
But by 1971, “When I’m 64” was four years old from “Sgt. Pepper.” They were long years, those four years. The Beatles released a lifetime of classic albums songs between 1967 and 1970. And then it was over. “Let it Be” appeared a month after the “McCartney” album but was Paul kidding? Were the Beatles really over?
Well, they were really over on May 17, 1971. “Ram” dropped, setting “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” on a trip to number 1. The album went there, too. It was Paul’s opening statement that cinched it: “It’s okayyyyyy.” He was telling us that we would now move on without the Beatles, and it was going to be fine. But not before explaining what had happened in the year since “Let it Be” and “McCartney.”
You took your lucky break and broke it in two.
Now what can be done for you? You broke it in two.
Was he singing to John Lennon about aligning with lawyer Allen Klein and destroying the Beatles? Was he singing to Klein himself? In 1971 Klein and Yoko Ono were the villains. We didn’t know anything else. It wasn’t until 1990 that I could ask Paul about how the group really broke up. But I don’t think he himself understood it in 1971. All the Beatles were bruised from their divorce.
When I was fourteen, you listened to albums. You had to. The needle moved every so slowly to the middle of the turntable lightly revealing the notes hidden in the vinyl record. You held the album cover in your hands and stared at it. Sometimes there were lyrics, but most often not. I had to read in a record magazine that Uncle Albert needed a “berth” or he couldb’t get to sleep. What?
Some of the songs had a lot of idiomatic language, some were more straightforward. I loved “Heart of the Country.” It’s a perfect “Penny Lane” type Paul McCartney pop song. Even then, with my Cashbox subscription, I couldn’t figure out why “Heart of the Country” wasn’t the follow up single to Uncle Albert.” It would have been a smash! But you got the idea: Paul was too cool for a second single. (This was often a theme in the early 70s with many artists who wanted to be on the hip FM stations.)
“Ram” was the beginning of Paul threading theme music throughout his albums. In this case it was “Ram On.” I always loved that. It was a signal that these albums had a higher purpose, that they’d been thought through, and weren’t just pedestrian cuts.
“Dear Boy” brings more recriminations, and certainly seemed aimed at John Lennon. Is it about John leaving Cynthia for Yoko? Is it about John not respecting Paul? We debated that over and over. Then comes “Uncle Albert” and “Smile Away,” which just sounded like fun.
Flip over the record. I used to think, here’s your hit, “Heart of the Country,” Then Paul lets loose with “Monkberry Moon Delight,” which hit such a classic funk riff that I can’t hear the word “cantata” without humming the song under my breath.
“Eat at Home” is more fun, and it’s got a lot of Linda’s vocal harmony, clear a happy song about domestic life without all of us, you Beatles fans. “Long Haired Lady” is the Linda love song and it remains so catchy you could have predicted then that Paul would be churning out hooks within hooks for the next 50 years. The “Ram On” coda returns like the “Sgt. Pepper” redux before “A Day in the Life.”
The album closes with “Back Seat of My Car,” a saga about teens fooling around. But musically it’s the beginning of Paul’s suite songs, the ones that break into two or three pieces. “Uncle Albert” is also one. The solo McCartney catalog is full of these. Sometimes they’re woven as one, sometimes they’re medley. “Little Lamb Dragonfly” is the former, a trio of songs on “Memory Almost Full” on side 2 represents the latter (“Vintage Clothes/That Was Me/Feet on the Ground”). They’re McCartney cubist pastiches.
“Ram” has sustained me for the last 50 years, a thrilling concoction of whimsy and wistfulness that felt so composed from a farm, it was startling. Two days later, Marvin Gaye would do the same, but with topicality with “What’s Going On.” All spring and summer, there would just be more and more revelations, and we’d only recently absorbed “Sticky Fingers.” What a time!
Same week: Aretha Franklin’s “Live at Fillmore West.” I must have made my mom drive me to Korvette’s three times that week. It was a good thing school was almost over for the year! (For some reason “Live at Fillmore West” seems out of print. But it’s such a landmark, and a joy, order it used from amazon.)
McCartney went into a funk later that year, and “Wings Wild Life” was no day at the beach. Though I always liked “I Am Your Singer” and “Some People Never Know,” it seemed like Paul didn’t. The whole album has a dreary aspect, and “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” released as a separate single, is second only to “Silly Love Songs” as a nadir earwig.
It wouldn’t be until spring 1973 when Paul would decide he was going to be a rock star, and the hell with everyone else. “Red Rose Speedway” and “Live and Let Die” would change everything. But “Ram” was always the personal album, the one that reassured Beatles fans that it wasn’t all for naught.
Eric Clapton is doubling down on his insane stance over the lockdown and the vaccine. He’s against them both and said so in a song written by companion nut case Van Morrison called “Stand and Deliver.”
As of Friday, since December, few have been interested in what they have to say. “Stand and Deliver” has sold a total of 5,500 copies, half of which was from streaming.
Van’s album, available for a couple of weeks, called “Latest Record Project,” a double album, has sold a total 213 copies. Including streaming of singles, the number is 3,000. But that 213 is actual sales, which says a lot. (On top of that. Morrison is accused of anti-Semitism on the song “They Own the Media.”)
Eric, Van, no one wants to hear it. You’re wrecking what’s left of your careers.
In a letter to an Italian musician, which the music shared with Clapton’s permission, the famed guitarist said:
“I took the first jab of AZ and straight away had severe reactions which lasted ten days. I recovered eventually and was told it would be twelve weeks before the second one…
“About six weeks later I was offered and took the second AZ shot, but with a little more knowledge of the dangers. Needless to say the reactions were disastrous, my hands and feet were either frozen, numb or burning, and pretty much useless for two weeks, I feared I would never play again, (I suffer with peripheral neuropathy and should never have gone near the needle.) But the propaganda said the vaccine was safe for everyone…”
“I continue to tread the path of passive rebellion and try to tow the line in order to be able to actively love my family, but it’s hard to bite my tongue with what I now know,” Clapton wrote.
“Then I was directed to Van [Morrison]; that’s when I found my voice, and even though I was singing his words, they echoed in my heart,” Clapton wrote. “I recorded ‘Stand and Deliver’ in 2020, and was immediately regaled with contempt and scorn.”
So that’s how Clapton feels, and it would be dangerous if anyone was taking him seriously. They’re not.
