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Friday, January 12, 2007
Let’s Hug It Out
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Can you stand a little more “Sopranos” news?
Now that reruns are off to a roaring success on A&E (see earlier item), HBO has finally squealed about when we can expect to see new original episodes. Mark your calendars for Sunday, April 8. That’s when Tony and the gang will return at 9 p.m. for the second part of its sixth and final season. There’ll be nine episodes at all, with series godfather, er, creator David Chase writing and directing the finale.
“Entourage” also returns with new episodes on April 8. Airing immediately after “The Sopranos” at 10 p.m. on HBO, the sitcom revolves around rising movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), his three best buds and his beyond-high-strung agent Ari Gold (Emmy winner Jeremy Piven). There’ll be eight new episodes of “Entourage,” now in its third season. The good news is, it’s already been renewed for a fourth. Let’s hope Ari’s beleagured assistant “LLOYD!” (Rex Lee) has been signed to a longterm deal as well.
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Breakfast with Joan & Melissa
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The TV Guide Channel publicists shepherded three of us print schlubs for coffee Friday morning with Melissa and Joan Rivers to talk about awards season. Proud recipients of plastic surgery, both look a bit tight in the face but it’s not offputting because as journalists, we enjoy outspoken people and these two don’t mince words.
And since I’m not the fashion guy by any stretch of the imagination, we meandered through other topics.
I first asked Joan, after she popped a peppermint Altoid in her mouth, about the recent decision by the Globes and the Oscars to stop giving swag bags to presenters after the IRS cracked down on paying taxes for the freebies, often worth thousands of dollars, from vacation vouchers to designer handbags.
“I think the idea they give you gifts and have to pay taxes is insane,” Joan said. “Let the government not worry so much about us and go after the guys getting $82 million bonuses. Don’t worry somebody got a free watch.”
Will this affect presenters? “The presenters won’t be so generous next Christmas,” Rivers said, referencing the common act of “regifting.” And as correspondents on the red carpet, she said she has gotten the “leftovers” or the cheaper gift bags.
“Sometimes you get some drunk star that leaves their swag and I grab it!” Rivers said. “Oh, look! I got an Omega!” Her favorite swag? A pricey Chopard watch. How much is it worth? “I’ll let you know when I put it on eBay,” she cracked.
Then she dished: “Dinah Shore, may she rest in peace, used to give you gifts in Saks boxes that didn’t come from Saks. You have to give someone a gift they can return.”
But Joan has no compunction about regifting. Her only caveat: “I always make sure my initals are not on it so they think it’s new.”
Another scribe asked Melissa and Joan, “What’s your favorite awards show?”
Melissa said, “The Golden Globes. It’s a big party and it’s TV and movies together.”
“Even though it’s fake?” the reporter asked. (I’m guessing he’s implying some voting members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association harbor dubious qualifications.)
“Fake? Like the business isn’t?” Joan scoffed.
“So are my boobs. And it doesn’t bother any of my dates!” Melissa cracked.
Joan noted that “The Grammy’s are fabulous. A lot of them are there the first time. They’re so excited. My grandma knows I’m here!”
Is Joan forced to listen to the CDs of the likes of past nominees such as 50 Cent or Eminem?
“They send them to me. But my elevator man loves me. I give them away so fast!”
And we couldn’t leave Joan without her ragging on a big star. In this case, it was comic actor Will Ferrell. She said she was interviewing live on camera director Mike Nichols (“Closer,” “The Birdcage”) on the red carpet at one awards show and Ferrell came right up and started talking to Nichols, ignoring Joan. She called him on it right then and there.
“He may dress as an elf but he’s not stupid,” she said. “He’s on my baaad list.” Pause. “Unless he gives me an interview. Then God love him!”
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“‘Sopranos’ Rubs Out Ratings Marks”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A&E made viewers an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Wednesday night’s much-ballyhooed debut of “The Sopranos” outside the family — i.e. any network other than anything-goes HBO — paid off big time for ithe show and A&E. Episode No. 1 (entitled, cleverly enough, “The Sopranos”) of the 18-time Emmy-winning drama series attracted 4.3 million viewers. That’s the biggest audience ever for an “off-network” series premiere (translation: a series airing off its original network. Think: “Sex and the City” when it first jumped from HBO to TBS, “24” when it went to FX or “Law & Order” when its reruns left NBC for, well, everywhere).
This was a big gamble for everyone involved, starting with A&E, which paid a reported $2.5 million per episode for the rights to all episodes of the series that launched in 1999 on HBO and will supposedly wrap up its sixth and final season sometime this spring there (You never know with those wily “Sopranos.” They’re always coming and going at the oddest times). Also, since some (OK, lots) of the show’s more *&!#$!% graphic language and scenes had to be altered to conform to basic cable standards, there’d been some question about whether longtime viewers would come along to A&E and newcomers would find the show as appealing.
As Tony would say, “Whaddayou kiddin’ me?” Besides being the No. 1 show Wednesday for all ad-supported entertainment cable networks, “The Sopranos” bested A&E’s average 2006 primetime viewership by a whopping 291 percent. And, in what matters most to youth-obsessed ad buyers and sellers, it led all cable in the desirous 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54 age groups. In other words, everybody younger than Uncle Junior.
A&E is airing two episodes of “The Sopranos” chronologically Wednesdays at 9 p.m. The same episodes repeat the following Monday at 9 p.m.
NOTE: Since this item was posted, HBO announced the final nine new episodes of “The Sopranos” will start airing Sunday April 8. Check the item on this blog titled “Let’s Hug It Out” for more info on that and the return of “Entourage.” — The Serf
J. Lo easing back into the limelight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jennifer Lopez is no longer the “it” girl for the voracious tabloids, who currently feast on the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie and Britney Spears. Now that Lopez is a 30-something married woman, it’s much easier to stay out of the limelight.
“It was a choice,” said Lopez, who came to the Ritz Carlton in Pasadena before print media to talk about her executive producing role on the new MTV reality show “Dancelife” debuting Monday, January 15. “My life for me had become uncomfortable in the way it was affecting my personal life and the people in it.”
So she stopped going to the trendy hotspots where the papparazzi congregate. “If you want to be in those magazines, you can. And if you don’t, you don’t have to be. And so I chose to pull back a little bit, go a little bit underground.”
But she said she’s got a new album and two new films coming up so the “J. Lo” headlines will inevitably come back in force.
In “Dancelife,” cameras follow the paths of six dancers struggling to make it as professionals in the business, auditioning for acts such as Nelly Furtado, Omarion and Ashlee Simpson. Lopez appears only in the first episode and perhaps one other one.
Lopez feels for the dancers because she was one of them in her early years. “They are doing it because they love to dance… They’ll be starving. They will not have booked a gig for six months or a year and they will keep doing it. That’s one of the beautiful things about dancers.”
Interestingly, she and her hubby Marc Anthony don’t dance together. “We’re homebodies,” she said. Instead, she watches dancing on TV — both ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” and her preferable choice, Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Burnett on Rosie/Donald
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Since Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump have inexplicably stretched a barely one-day story into three weeks (and we the media are partly to blame), “Survivor”/”The Apprentice” creator Mark Burnett weighed in on this important issue Thursday at the Television Critics Association tour while promoting his executive producing role in this year’s MTV Movie Awards.
The somewhat dopey question from one critic: “Have you talked to him about any of this stuff or given him any direction on how he should comport himself?”
Burnett’s appropriate response: “That’s a great question. Have I given him any direction? You think he’d [expletive] listen to me?”
He said he’s friends with both O’Donnell and Trump: “I’m sitting back like everybody else, and it’s quiet today. I’m really kind of happy that it’s quiet.”
For now, Burnett’s taking this absurd brouhaha with bemusement. “This is not about me,” he noted. “When he starts taking me on, it will be horror. Right now, it’s bemusement!”
Boys to Man Band?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
VH1 has become the land where has-beens try to resurrect their careers (Flavor Flav anybody?), can’t can’t decide whether to call their latest project the cheesy “Man Band” moniker or the more noble “Band of Men.”
Either way, it’s a TV-created combination of four former boy band members: a man from the top of the food chain (‘N Sync’s Chris Kirkpatrick), another from an act nipping at ‘N Sync’s heels (98 Degrees’ Jeff Timmons), a third from a group that made 98 Degrees sound like the Beatles (LFO’s Rich Cronin) and a fourth from an act well forgotten since the days when Paula Abdul was known as a singer (Color Me Badd’s Bryan Adams). They’ll record some music in hopes of getting back in the spotlight.
Since their heydays, their fates have diverged. Based on clips shown to writers at the TV Critics Association tour in Pasadena Thursday, a bloated Kirkpatrick wiles away his days partying at his mansion. Adams, who is not the Canadian singer who sang “Heaven,” lugs around tires at his family business. Cronin was diagnosed with leukemia and has been in remission since he was treated with stem cell therapy.
Financially, Kirkpatrick said he felt “lucky” he ended up in a band that did so well and avoided the fate of MC Hammer, another 1990s-era star who overspent his “U Can’t Touch This” fortunes straight into bankruptcy protection. Timmons said he’s doing okay financially “but I didn’t exactly hit the jackpot.” Adams has the most reason to be bitter: “We sold over 12 million records. Where was our money? We never saw it.” At the same time, he said “I’m not ashamed to work a regular job.”
Ironically, Color Me Badd was recently mocked by a fellow boy band alum Justin Timberlake, a man who has truly transcended his roots. Timberlake on “Saturday Night Live” last month wore Color Me Badd-era facial hair and did dance moves that evoked the “I Wanna Sex You Up” era. The raunchy “Gift in a Box” parody has become an online sensation, amusing Adams. “I loved it,” he said. “I thought it was the most hilarious [expletive] I’ve seen in a long time.”
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