Day: February 7, 2019

In a self-posted essay on medium.com, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos alleged today that reps for National Enquirer owner American Media Inc. (AMI) had tried to extort and blackmail him with compromising photos of himself and g.f. Lauren Sanchez.

AMI basically threatened to publish lewd or suggestive photos of Bezos and Sanchez if the Washington Post, which Bezos owns, didn’t back away from an investigation over leaked text messages that resulted in his marriage going south.

Bezos revealed the contents of an email sent to AMI execs this afternoon (2.7).

Bezos included copies of back-and-forth emails. One is an especially incriminating email from Dylan Howard, Chief Content Officer of AMI, to attorney Marty Singer, who is repping Bezos and investigator Gavin de Becker.

Excerpt: “In the interests of expediting this situation, and with The Washington Post poised to publish unsubstantiated rumors of The National Enquirer’s initial report, I wanted to describe to you the photos obtained during our newsgathering,” Howard writes. And then Howard describes the contents of nine photos. Howard concludes by saying “it would give no editor pleasure to send this email…I hope common sense can prevail, and quickly.”

Berlinale jury member Juliette Binoche on Harvey Weinstein: “I almost want to say peace to his mind and heart, that’s all. I’m trying to put my feet in his shoes. He’s had enough, I think. A lot of people have expressed themselves. Now justice has to do its work. I never had problems with him, but I could see that he had problems. As a producer he was wonderful, most of the time. I think he was a great producer. That we shouldn’t forget, even though it’s been difficult for some directors and actors and especially actresses. I just want to say peace to his mind and let justice do what it needs to do.”

Harvey Weinstein allegedly did what he did and has to face the legal music. I’ve read the New Yorker and N.Y. Times articles about his alleged misdeeds, and I saw Untouchable during Sundance ’19. But just imagine if Binooche’s words, shared this morning at a Berlinale press conference, had been spoken by any guy from any aspect of the film industry. That guy would be roasting on a p.c. spit. He would be in such hot water on Twitter right now that he’d be envying Liam Neeson.

Yep — they’re just calling it plain old Shaft (Warner Bros., 6.14). Obviously a tongue-in-cheek, wise-ass meta comedy — directed by Tim Story, cowritten by Kenya Barris and Alex Barnow. Jessie T. Usher is playing a sensitive, wimp-ass son of Samuel L. Jackson‘s Shaft (who was last seen 19 years ago). Richard Roundtree‘s original Blaxploitation-era Shaft (i.e., Jackson’s uncle and Usher’s grandfather) is also along for the ride. Costarring Regina Hall, Alexandra Shipp, Luna Lauren Velez. Straight paycheck project. Who remembers Shaft in Africa?

Flashback: I met Pryor at a Comedy Store press event sometime in the mid to late ’90s, when he was in a wheelchair and a thin, frail remnant of his former self. Pryor had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986, and was confined to a wheelchair starting in ’93. We spoke for a few minutes but I could barely hear his voice. Mixed feelings, to say the least.

Just about every office-holding Democrat has called upon Virginia governor Ralph Northam to resign over a racist photo in his 1984 medical school yearbook, in which he apparently wore blackface. Then came an admission from Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring (who could become governor if Northam and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax ** resign) that he wore brown makeup and a wig to look like a rapper at a party in 1980, when he was a 19 year-old University of Virginia student.

Hollywood Elsewhere is not suggesting that these two should be cut any slack, but it seems fair to ask what form of SJW punishment has been visited upon Billy Crystal. I’m referring to Crystal having impersonated Sammy Davis Jr. in brownface in a 1986 HBO Special “Don’t Get Me Started” as well as, according to the Christian Science Monitor, during a bit on the 2012 Oscars? (Note: Crystal’s impression works because he can “do” Davis’s voice just so.)

Not to mention Robert Downey, Jr.‘s blackface performance in Tropic Thunder, which opened a little more than a decade ago.

What Northam and Herring did in the ’80s was obviously icky, but their main crime, it seems, was having been college students instead of professional entertainers. Because the culture wasn’t freaking out about blackface impersonations as recently as ten or even seven years ago.

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While reading this Bill McCuddy Twitter thread about Roma vs. Green Book, keep in mind that last year McCuddy said that Academy voters would never give the Best Picture Oscar to “aqua man” (aka Guillermo del Toro‘s The Shape of Water). Exact McCuddy quote: “I didn’t say it wouldn’t get nominated. [I said it] won’t win. Fantasy. LaLa Land.”