Shhh! Emily Blunt and her family are back, along with Cillian Murphy and Djimon Honsou in John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place II.”
Spoiler alert: the second part of this trilogy is excellent, very scary, and sets up the finale beautifully.
We last saw this film on March 8, 2020. Fourteen months later, here it comes to theaters on May 28th. It’s the best new film of 2021.
And oh yes, John’s character died in the first episode, but he’s still around. You’ll see.
Dr. Brenner is alive! In the teaser for “Stranger Things” season four, Matthew Modine is seen returning to the spooky series. Yay!
Brenner also seems to be holding Eleven, played by Millie Bobbie Brown, in a cell numbered 11. How did that happen? When last we saw the “Stranger Things” gang, all the supernatural stuff was resolved, everyone moved away from Hawkins. Brenner had already died at the end of Season 1. We’re very happy to see him back. (Is this a prequel? An alternate universe? A sequel? Who cares!)
In February we learned that David Harbour’s Jim Hopper was alive and held captive in a Russian work camp. Remember all those articles about Is he coming back? And we said, Yes, don’t be ridiculous? On TV no one dies. It’s not like real life. It’s all about contract negotiations. Ask Ellen Pompeo.
Wyatt Pike is the 20 year old kid from Utah who mysteriously left “American Idol” this season just before audience voting began.
He was considered a top choice for winner if he kept going. But he dropped out, citing personal reasons.
Now Pike has announced he’s landed a live gig on Staten Island in New York’s least glamorous borough, on June 6th.
Pike will perform at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, whatever that is, on June 6th. It seems like he’s opening for Julia Gargano,, a runner up from last year’s “American Idol,” who reportedly signed a deal with the “Idol” label, 19 Recordings. Gargano is from Staten Island.
I swear to you, I am not making this up. “American Idol” will have just concluded two weeks earlier, where Pike could have won the contest or finished in the top 3, and had a record contract and management. He would have been part of the “Idol” machine and perhaps had hit records.
But no, Snug Harbor was calling out to him. It’s like the opposite of “Working Girl.”
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera,” is returning to Broadway whether we like it or not.
The tourist trap musical, about a man and his chandelier, will reopen on October 22nd after 19 blissful months of silence.
It’s the longest running show on Broadway, more akin to a piece of Junior’s cheesecake than art. But it’s a big employment center, and Broadway needs that right now.
Luckily, the main character already wears a mask, so he’s covered when the show must adhere to COVID guidelines. If the audience members also wear masks, there will be mass confusion in the theater about who’s actually the star of the show.
The actor currently playing the Phantom is Ben Crawford, who was forced to take the name of the original Phantom, Tony winner Michael Crawford, by producer Cameron Mackintosh. It meant quicker edits on the merchandise.
Mackintosh must have some information about the return of Japanese tourists to the theater district, as they make up the bulk of “Phantom” audiences. Welcome back, everyone!
It’s always nice to be right.
I told you on April 27th that Oscar winner Adrien Brody had joined the cast of HBO’s “Succession.” He was spotted around Montauk that week and the Hamptons, shooting scenes for the popular series.
Now today HBO confirmed my scoop and every outlet picked it up like it was news.
Brody won the Oscar in 2003 for Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist.” Before that and after he’s worked steadily, appearing Wes Anderson films and lots of other good projects. I think “Succession” is his first American TV series. He’s been on “Peaky Blinders.”
Brody is also going to play Pat Riley in an HBO basketball miniseries coming up. “Succession” has another big guest star next season in Alexander Skarsgaard, who’s become a favorite at the cabler after making pulses race in “True Blood.” He won awards for “Big Little Lies” from HBO. He’s certainly found a home there!
Here today, gone tomorrow. That’s the theme of “Here Today,” starring and directed by our beloved Billy Crystal and co-written with the “SNL” genius Alan Zweibel. It’s a throwback movie with a lot of shmaltz and many parts to recommend it starting with Billy’s lovely performance and astonishingly real and poignant Tiffany Haddish.
Indeed, Tiffany — whose talents are still being discovered — sings, she plays a singer who’s very Macy Gray like and excellent. She also reassuringly sings Bob Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” over the credits.
What happens here are a lot of things. Billy’s character, Charlie, has onset dementia. He and Haddish’s Emma meet cute, and become fast friends. It’s kind of clear that her fondness for him will turn not into a romance, but she will become his caregiver down the line. Don’t worry, the movie ends before we get into anything grim.
Zweibel and Crystal have set the movie in a familiar venue, an “SNL” type show on a Comedy Channel type channel. So there’s a cast, producers, and sketches. Some of them work, some don’t and it doesn’t matter. We’re in a warm, familiar setting as a backdrop to Charlie’s slow deterioration.
Charlie is not only an Alan Zweibel type character at this fake “SNL” but he also has some movies and books under his belt. One of them starred Kevin Kline and Sharon Stone, directed by Barry Levinson, all of whom make welcome cameos in “Here Today.” So does Yitzhak Perlman, playing the violin. Zweibel also makes a cameo.
A lot of this you could have expected. Laura Benanti and Penn Badgley play Charlie’s kids, and they don’t get his relationship with Emma. Benanti also has a daughter getting Bat Mitvahed, played by the very engaging Asian American actress Audrey Hseih. They never explain that she’s adopted, which is a nice touch. She just ‘is,’ and she reads from the Torah capably.
There’s an audience that will kvell over “Here Today,” particularly in the much tighter first and second acts. The third act takes on water like the Titanic, I wish they’d thought it through more. And I wish we’d known a little more about Emma. The screenplay simply avoids developing her beyond Charlie’s world. But that might have brought in other issues. Luckily, Haddish just plays it and you go with her.
Look, Billy Crystal and Alan Zweibel are heroes to my generation, our Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. I’m happy to spend time with whatever they do, and “Here Today” is a left field gift.
I told you on May 1, 2015 why Andrew Garfield was let go from making more Spider Man movies. Here’s the link. Andrew is a fine actor who will win an Oscar one day. He’s already won a Tony. But he made a mistake with Sony chief Kaz Hirai, and that was it.
Now Garfield has confirmed he won’t be in the next Spider Man movie, “No Way Home.” Even though Tobey Maguire is somehow going to be in the Tom Holland film, Andrew will not. He said so on an MTV podcast.
“I would’ve gotten a call by now. That’s what I’m saying,” said the actor. “I don’t want to rule anything out,” said Garfield. “Maybe they are going to call me and say, ‘Hey, people want this. … maybe they are doing like a market research thing.”
It’s a tough one because even a villain from the second Garfield Spider Man movie, Electro, played by Jamie Foxx, will be in “No Way Home.” But Garfield’s Peter Parker is kaput, I’m afraid.
Do the people at “Jeopardy!” know what they’re doing?
With Anderson Cooper as host the week ending April 25th, the once venerated game show dropped another 7% and finished with just 5.1 million viewers.
That’s down a million viewers since Ken Jennings finished his guest run in February. With every guest host since then the ratings have slowly deteriorated. Cooper’s first week is the bottom so far, but his second one could be worse.
Tonight Bill Whitaker of “60 Minutes” takes over. Several more guest hosts will follow with LeVar Burton included. The fans have petitioned for him, but it’s unclear how bad things will be by then.
To be honest, syndicated ratings are down across the board in every category. The viewing audience may just be exhausted from being inside listening to all this stuff over and over. “Judge Judy” and “Hot Bench” are also suffering downturns. Ellen DeGeneres’s show is still at 900,000, and “Drew Barrymore” can’t do better than 500,000 viewers a day.
Welcome back, John Mulaney.
The beloved and hot comic is presently selling out five shows in a row, just announced, at NYC’s City Winery.
The shows are May 10-14th. Even as we speak, the City Winery online sales thingy is loaded. There’s a 17 minute wait at least to get through. In a short time, all the shows will be sold out.
And City Winery can sell back to capacity, thanks to Gov. Cuomo. When I was there recently, it was limited capacity.
Mulaney had a tough pandemic. After a bizarre appearance on Seth Meyers Late Show, Mulaney went off to rehab. He was in bad shape. Being stuck at home did him in. He took a job on the Late Show to give himself a purpose. But that kind drifted away over time.
Mulaney, who often works with his partner in crime, Nick Kroll, is hilarious and kind of a genius. It will be great to see him back on stage, and feeling healthy and ready for the post-pandemic world.
It does sound like this might the farewell tour for The Monkees. But of course I don’t believe anyone who says anything is Farewell. Ask The Who or Cher.
Anyway, after 55 years, Micky Dolenz and Mike Nesmith say they are going out on their farewell tour. Davy Jones and Peter Tork are in rock and roll heaven. There’s not much left. But the songs are still great, and the remaining guys are still very entertaining.
Funny that Nesmith only got with the program after Davy and Peter died. For decades he ignored the group when it was a touring trio.
The tour begins September 11 in Seattle and ends back where it all began in Los Angeles at The Greek Theater on November 14.
The group — sans Nesmith — had a hit reunion album called “Good Times” in 2016. The producer was Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne. Sadly, he died a year ago from COVID. They should dedicate this tour to his memory.