The "Dancing With the Stars" veteran posted a new video message Monday, updating his followers on what he's been seeing and experiencing in Ukraine.
"I'm going to try and make my way out. I'm going to start making my way towards the border. I have options. Just a little nervous but I think it's going to be alright. I know it's going to be okay," he said.
Chmerkovskiy said that if he stops posting for a little bit "don't worry."
The dance pro also said that he had been arrested but he didn't say why. He called it a "reality check."
A few hours later, Chmerkovskiy shared another update on Instagram, saying he had made it on a train, possibly going to Poland.
He is with several other adults and children in a small cabin, he said.
Chmerkovskiy immigrated to the United States from Ukraine with his family in the 1990s. He was working on the reality competition series "World of Dance UA" in Ukraine when the Russian invasion began last week, according to his representative.
Chmerkovskiy first began performing with the hit ABC dance competition series during Season 2 in 2005. He won the competition in 2014 and served as a guest judge in Season 21.
Maks Chmerkovskiy and Peta Murgatroyd in 2015.
Chmerovskiy married fellow "DWTS" professional Peta Murgatroyd in 2017. The two are the parents of a 5-year-old son, Shai.
Murgatroyd and the couple's son are not with him in Ukraine. She shared her gratitude on social media for the concern and support people have expressed for her family.
Maksim Chmerkovskiy is still trying to leave Ukraine.
The “Dancing With the Stars” alum posted a video to Instagram early Monday in which he told his followers that he was arrested in his home country amid Russia’s invasion and is figuring out how to get out.
“[There’s] a lot of fighting everywhere. Streets are crazy. At one point I got arrested. … But all good, promise,” he said in his nearly five-minute video.
“That was probably the least traumatizing moment in this whole thing as far as Ukraine is concerned, but for me, it was a reality check.”
Chmerkovskiy, 42, said he has “a lot to unpack” emotionally but is not in “a mental state right now to do so.”
“I’m just trying to stay focused,” he added.
Maksim Chmerkovskiy posted another video from Ukraine saying he was arrested.maksimc/Instgram; petamurgatroyd
The Ukrainian citizen also shared that he’s going to try to make his way to the border so he can cross over into Poland.
“I have options. My options are better than most people’s, unfortunately,” he admitted. “I’m a little nervous to be honest with you, but I think it’s going to be all right. Well, I know it’s going to be OK.”
He closed out his video by asking his viewers not to panic if he disappears on social media for a while because he is keeping in touch with his parents, brother and wife, Peta Murgatroyd.
Chmerkovskiy and his younger brother, Val Chmerkovskiy, who also competes on “DWTS,” were born in Odessa, Ukraine, and immigrated to the US with their family in 1994.
The former “DWTS” pro, who is married to Peta Murgatroyd, is trying to make it to Poland.maksimc/Instagram
Maksim has been living on and off in Kyiv for the past six months filming “World of Dance UA,” splitting his time between there and Los Angeles, where he lives with Murgatroyd, 35, and their 5-year-old son, Shai.
“There’s ALWAYS another way! WAR is NEVER an answer,” Maks captioned a previous video when the Russians first invaded.
“I will never be the same,” he continued in his caption. “This is stressful and I’m getting old feelings back, like I’ve done this before. This does feel like the way it was when and why we left in the 90s. Like my old PTSD I’ve finally fixed is coming back.”
The Ukraine invasion is costing Russia on the home front as well as in combat.
While Russian banking, sports, and news media have already been hit by sanctions, refusals on participation, and cyber warfare that’s taken down numerous sites, the entertainment business there is also starting to feel the effects.
More from Deadline
The Russians have already been banned from the Eurovision competition. Today, Green Day canceled a planned Moscow stadium show set for May 29 in Spartak Stadium. They join pop act AJR, which has cut its planned October show in Mosow.
Many Western artists have shows slated for Russia this year. They include Tricky, Bring Me the Horizon, Khalid, OneRepublic, Yungblud, Judas Priest, and OneRepublic, among others.
Leonid & Friends, a Russian band specializing in horn-driven covers of the group Chicago and others, has toured the US in clubs and theaters several times. It posted on Facebook its disappointment Friday on the Ukraine situation.
The conflict in Europe is also expected to impact film and television production in Eastern Europe and Russia in the coming months. Ukraine’s burgeoning film production business has obviously been derailed by the Russian invasion.
The fate of existing content is less certain and so far, appears to be largely unaffected by the Ukraine invasion.
Russia is the fourth-largest film market in the world, with an estimated 90 million tickets sold in 2020, according to Statista.com. Russia also distributed 66 films for distribution to foreign audiences in 2020, down from the 2019 total of 94 because of the pandemic.
So far, there has been no movement to ban imports of US films to Russia. This week, that nation’s moviegoers can watch the local premieres of the MGM/United Artist film Dog and the Liam Neeson thriller Blacklight.
Warner Bros. The Batman is still set for a March 2 premiere, two days before it opens in the US. Disney/Pixar’s Turning Red is also playing in Russian theaters.
Parmount is also is bringing its 50th anniversary re-release of The Godfather to Russia.
Last year, eight of the top 10 grossing films were from Hollywood, with Sony Pictures’“Venom: Let There Be Carnage the top title.
Many US television shows, including Game of Thrones and Once Upon a Time, have been on Russian television. Some streaming services are available in Russia. Netflix is popular, but its entire catalog is not available. Hulu and Disney+ can’t be accessed except with a VPN.
Article From & Read More ( Russia Music Tours Starting To See Cancellations, But Film, TV And Streaming Distribution Continuing For Now - Yahoo Entertainment )
https://ift.tt/6VNt3cv
Entertainment
Refresh for latest…: Sony’s Uncharted handily crossed the $200M mark globally this weekend, after adding $35M from 64 overseas markets and $23.3M domestically. The international box office cume is now $143M. Worldwide, the Tom Holland/Mark Wahlberg-starrer counts $226.4M.
Sony also boasts another milestone of sorts with another Holland-starrer as Spider-Man: No Way Home reached $1.85B worldwide to surpass the original 1997/1998 global run of Titanic ($1.84B, unadjusted).
While Uncharted held strongly, and other existing pictures also hit new milestones, it was generally a fairly quiet weekend at the international box office with no major newcomers and as anticipation is high for The Batman to begin next session. We also hear that moviegoing was off an average 25% in Russia versus last weekend, and, of course, cinemas are closed in Ukraine amid the ongoing crisis.
Uncharted was down just 35%. Notable key markets include leader the UK at $24.8M (-12%), France at $12.2M (-36%), Spain at $8.8M (-33%), Australia with $7.8M (-26%), and Germany at $6.7M (-23%).
In IMAX, Uncharted has grossed $15.7M worldwide, of which $8.7M is from overseas markets. The Reuben Fleischer-directed pic still has China and Netherlands ahead in March with Hong Kong in April.
Disney/20th Century Studios’ Death On The Nile crossed $100M global this weekend. The split is $32.8M domestic and $68.5M from 47 overseas markets for a running total of $101.3M.
The Kenneth Branagh-directed ensemble dipped by 43% in its holdovers, excluding China. Japan debuted this session with $1.5M in second place (53% above House Of Gucci). The overall offshore frame sleuthed to another $10.6M, holding the No. 2 spot in Italy, Spain and Australia, notably. It also remains the No. 3 film in Germany and Russia.
China dropped 77%, but is the lead market on DOTN with $8.9M, followed closely by the UK with $8.8M. Russia ($6.8M), France ($5.6M) and Italy ($5M) round out the Top 5.
In another benchmark, Universal/Illumination’s Sing 2 pirouetted past $200M internationally, now with a $200.3M offshore cume. This weekend in 66 markets, the charmer added $8.4M for a 21% drop. In the UK, it is expected to surpass the original later this week. The UK is the lead market at $39.3M, followed by France with $20M. The global total is $351.5M.
Turning back to Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, it added $7M to its already massive overseas haul. This was a 21% drop from last session and brings the offshore cume to $1.072B and global to $1.85B, as noted above.
The Top 5 markets to date are the UK ($127.3M), Mexico ($76.2M), France ($65.2M), Korea ($63.1M) and Australia ($67.9M).
In other offshore play, MGM/FilmNation’s Dog is enjoying a strong second weekend in the UK where it’s released by Entertainment Film Distributors. The running cume so far is $2.2M through Saturday with an update to come on Monday.
China’s The Battle At Lake Changjin II is now at RMB 3.84B ($608M) as it led the local chart. The IMAX total is $35M. Toho’s anime Jujutsu Kaisen Zero, which released in Japan in late December, has now grossed $6.7M from IMAX there, making it the format’s fourth biggest Japanese language movie of all time.
Article From & Read More ( ‘Uncharted’ Darts To $226M WW, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Tops ‘Titanic’s Original Global Run – International Box Office - Deadline )
https://ift.tt/G5UoVbQ
Entertainment
Sony’s Uncharted and United Artists’ Dog led a quiet weekend at the North American box office as the only new nationwide offering, Studio 666, flopped.
Uncharted, starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, earned an estimated $23.3 million from 4,275 theaters in its second weekend for an enviable domestic tally of $83.4 million.
The movie, based on the popular PlayStation game series from publisher Naughty Dog, has done far more business than expected thanks to younger males, the demo that has been the most likely to go to the movies despite the pandemic. Imax and premium large-format screens, the favorite haunt of younger consumers, account for a huge share of all ticket revenue.
Related Stories
The Channing Tatum starrer Dog also held well in its second outing, grossing $10.1 million from 3,827 locations for a 10-day domestic total of $30.9 million. The movie has done some of its best business in America’s heartland.
Dog is a passion project for Tatum, who co-directed the film alongside Magic Mike collaborator Reid Carolin.
Inspired by 2017’s HBO documentary War Dog: A Soldier’s Best Friend, the film follows Jackson Briggs, an Army Ranger desperate to see action again after getting sidelined by a brain injury that induces seizures. To get back into his commanding officer’s good graces, he accepts an assignment to drive Lulu, an Army dog who served in Afghanistan, some 1,500 miles in his lovingly restored ’84 Bronco so the canine, herself traumatized by her wartime experiences, can attend the funeral of her late handler.
Spider-Man: No Way Home, Death on the Nile and Jackass Forever rounded out the top five.
Elsewhere, Studio 666 only managed to come in No. 8 in its debut for Open Road and Briarcliff, grossing an estimated $1.6 million from 2,306 theaters.
The legendary Foo Fighters star in Studio 666, a haunted house comedy where band members Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett and Rami Jaffee fend off supernatural forces to record their 10th album.
Elsewhere, Paramount saw strong business for its 50th anniversary release of The Godfather, which grossed nearly $1 million from 156 theaters. Overseas, Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic movie pulled in $1.4 million from 14 markets for a weekend worldwide total of $2.3 million.
At the specialty box office, British director Joe Wright’s Cyrano made its official debut, grossing $1.4 million from 797 theaters for MGM and United Artists. Overseas, the music-infused take on the classic tale opened to $1 million from a handful of markets. The U.K. led with $500,000.
Cyrano also debuted in Russia as Hollywood studios grapple with whether to distribute their films in that country amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (The Godfather also played in Russia over the weekend.)
On a more positive note, the global box office is expected to light up next week with the release of Matt Reeves’ The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as the caped crusader. The superhero pic begins rolling out internationally midweek before opening officially in North America on Friday.
Article From & Read More ( Box Office: ‘Uncharted,’ ‘Dog’ Lead Quiet Weekend as ‘Studio 666’ Flops - Hollywood Reporter )
https://ift.tt/IDgpRrJ
Entertainment
Showtime’s Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber is just one of the many dramatizations of major Silicon Valley downfalls that have made headlines in recent years. But unlike Hulu’s adaptation of The Dropout or Apple’s forthcoming WeWork series, which both focus on the creators of services that have largely fallen out of the public’s favor, Super Pumped revolves around a product many people watching the series still use despite the high-profile scandals associated with it.
Adapted from Mike Isaac’s 2019 book of the same name, Super Pumped details former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meteoric rise to fame and eventual ousting from the company in 2017 amid rising concerns about sexual harassment in the workplace, deceiving drivers about wages, user privacy violations, and a cavalcade of other problems. Though these and other pieces of Uber’s history have already been unpacked through multiple years’ worth of reporting, Super Pumped presents them all as fresh puzzle pieces that fit together to form a picture depicting Kalanick as an embodiment of everything that can make unicorn founders as successful as they are reviled.
The idea that being an abrasive asshole (the show’s words) is key to making it in Silicon Valley is something Super Pumped’s Kalanick readily shares with most anyone who’ll talk to him as the series opens on at a time when Uber was already logging over 1 million rides a day. Despite Uber being well past its days of being a startup, Super Pumped’s Kalanick can’t pull himself out of that scrappy, upstart kind of mindset even as those closest to him, like his girlfriend Angie (Annie Chang) and his mother Bonnie (Elizabeth Shue), repeatedly remind him that he’s playing a different game at that point in his career. From Kalanick’s perspective, hustling is a founder’s default state of being, and anyone foolish enough to disagree with him is simply an annoyance destined for dismissal, both from his company and his life.
Super Pumped does not shine a light on the secrets of Kalanick’s success as much as it — similar to what The Dropout does with Elizabeth Holmes — illustrates how Kalanick and other figures like him are themselves products of an industry that loves self-aggrandizing mythmakers. Everything Kalanick does and all the airs he puts on are part of his plans to impress power players, like venture capitalist Bill Gurley (Kyle Chandler), who he knows hold the keys to unlocking doors to even greater levels of success. Wild as Kalanick’s plans often are, Uber co-founder Garrett Camp (Jon Bass), Uber’s former chief business officer Emil Michael (Babak Tafti), and Uber’s former head of strategy Austin Geidt (Kerry Bishé) willingly follow his lead because they believe in his process and understand his madness to be a part of it.
Of Kalanick’s many personal relationships, Super Pumped frames his with Gurley as being the most crucial to understanding Uber’s story even though Gurley’s influence over the company gradually begins to wane. The series details how the friction between the two men — small at first, but ever-growing — was a fixture within Uber that became emblematic of Kalanick’s larger approach to presenting himself and his application to hail ersatz cabs as the Second Coming. Because Super Pumped doesn’t presume that you know all of the ins and outs of Uber’s story, it attempts to lay them all out in painstaking detail like the book it’s based on, and it’s for this reason that the show often feels like a bit of a slog in its first few episodes.
Super Pumped knows that its scenes zooming in on the Uber team hammering out system bugs, and chasing stodgy venture capitalists’ money-lined skirts aren’t especially interesting in and of themselves. So, the show attempts to stylistically amp things up with a torrent of on-screen text, cutaway gags, and moments of bombastic narration from Quentin Tarantino of all people. That and a handful of moments in which people break the fourth wall make Super Pumped feel like it’s trying to be something akin to The Wolf of Wall Street.
Super Pumped’s prioritization of so-so style over substance wouldn’t be so much of an issue were it not for the very serious subject matter the show eventually gets around to focusing on. It’s when Super Pumped draws lines between points, like Gurley’s concerns about Uber’s spending, Kalanick’s desire to throw drug-field parties because they supposedly energize workers, and Uber’s gender imbalance within its ranks that the show feels like it’s found its voice. Uber’s problem, the show posits, wasn’t just that many of its male employees felt comfortable harassing their female colleagues, but that Kalanick and his right-hand people all enabled that sort of behavior under the auspices of trying to foster a very specific culture of sexist camaraderie within the company.
It’s not until Super Pumped has introduced all of its characters including Arianna Huffington (Uma Thurman) and Tim Cook (Hank Azaria) that the show properly kicks into gear because of the important roles they play in Kalanick’s fate as Uber’s CEO. By the time Super Pumped makes that shift, though, it’s already spent so much time hyperfocused on Kalanick’s paranoia and increasingly erratic behavior that one could easily assume the show doesn’t know how to wrap itself up succinctly.
It’s fair to say that Super Pumped, which is an anthology series, is a bit heavy on the backend in a way that makes this first season feel uneven more often than not, but the show may fare much better the next time around with its story about Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.
Super Pumped: The Fight for Uber hits Showtime on February 27th.
Kanye West devoted a lot of his now-deleted social media posts to antagonizing Kim Kardashian. From threatening her boyfriend Pete Davidson to bashing her parenting, the Chicago spitter gladly took his marital drama to Instagram. He now doesn’t want those posts used in their divorce case.
According to TMZ, West has filed legal documents to make his Instagram posts inadmissible at their next hearing where a judge will determine whether Kardashian’s single status will be declared. West and his lawyer’s argument is that Kardashian can’t prove that he was the one writing those defamatory posts.
“Kim claims she read something online allegedly by Kanye and characterizes the posts in her declaration as misinformation … Kim needed to offer the social media posts into evidence, and show that the posts were written by Kanye,” West’s lawyer wrote in legal documents.
The lawyer is also saying that their prenuptial could be invalid because prenups filed after 2001 are only valid if both of them agree to its conditions of if it is validated through trial in California.
His previous social media posts were like rallying cries to his fans to support him in badmouthing Kardashian and Davidson. In one of his initial posts, he claimed he was being kept away his Chicago West’s fourth birthday party.
“Y’all, I was just wishing my daughter a public happy birthday. I wasn’t allowed to know where her party was, there’s nothing legal that’s saying that this is the kind of game that’s being played,” he said in an Instagram video. “It’s the kind of thing that really has affected my health for the longest and I’m just not playing. I’m taking control of my narrative this year…I’m being the best father—the Ye version of a father—and I’m not finna let this happen…Chicago, happy birthday. I love you and I’m just putting this online because I need y’all’s support.”
When he didn’t agree with North West, 8, being on TikTok, he asked Instagram, “SINCE THIS IS MY FIRST DIVORCE I NEED TO KNOW WHAT I SHOULD DO ABOUT MY DAUGHTER BEING PUT ON TIK TOK AGAINST MY WILL ?”
The Donda rapper also slammed Kardashian after she responded to his constant social media attacks but only responded to her statement about her being the main provider.
“What do you mean by main provider? America saw you try to kidnap my daughter on her birthday by not providing the address,” he said. “You put security on me inside of the house to play with my son then accused me of stealing.. I had to take a drug test after Chicago’s party because you accused me of being on drugs. Tracy Romulus stop manipulating Kim to be this way.”
He most recently took credit for being the reason why Davidson deactivated his Instagram account.
“Ran Skete off the gram Tell your mother I changed your name for life,” he wrote.
Article From & Read More ( Kanye West Wants His Instagram Posts To Be Deemed Inadmissible At Divorce Hearing - Yahoo Lifestyle )
https://ift.tt/4ENzmHX
Entertainment
Tears for Fears are returning with their first new album in 18 years. The group is one of a number of veteran bands releasing fresh music after lengthy pauses.
When Tears for Fears released their album “Everybody Loves a Happy Ending” in 2004, the English pop duo’s future, or lack thereof, seemed clear.
“I thought that was the last hurrah,” the singer-guitarist Roland Orzabal said on a recent video call from a house he owns in Los Angeles. “I thought it was a beautiful way of putting a full-stop at the end of the sentence.”
Tears for Fears had experienced a remarkably successful run in the 1980s, highlighted by worldwide hits including “Shout,” “Head Over Heels,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and “Sowing the Seeds of Love.” The group had already endured a nasty breakup in the early ’90s, after which Orzabal carried on under the Tears for Fears banner while his erstwhile bandmate, the singer-guitarist Curt Smith, made solo albums, both to diminished returns, before they patched up their differences.
But in the music industry, there’s rarely a full-stop at the end of the sentence. While pop music is often a measure of the current moment, it has always been borne back ceaselessly into the past. Bands rarely break up; they go on hiatus. A successful career can outlive the performer that once powered it. Nothing, not even death, can stop the rumbling engine of commerce. Minting new hits and new stars is a gamble, but the past is the closest the music industry has to a sure thing.
For a time, Tears for Fears participated, somewhat ambivalently, in this nostalgia industrial complex, playing their hits on periodic tours of casinos and wineries and the summer festival circuit. But while the life of what the industry calls a heritage act was enriching, it wasn’t that engaging.
“We were getting a bit bored with it,” Smith said on a separate video call from his home in Southern California. “Us being a heritage act was never going to work because we need new material to keep us excited. Trying to find that new material was the hard part.”
This was the particular jumping-off point for the protracted odyssey that would eventually yield the band’s first album in 18 years, “The Tipping Point,” due Friday. But this tension between commerce and art is hardly unusual for any artist with a catalog of past hits. Reconciling it often takes time.
Tears for Fears released their most successful album, “Songs From the Big Chair,” in 1985.Brian Rasic/Getty Images
Tears for Fears is just one of a number of veteran acts that’s re-emerged as a recording entity in recent months after an extended period on the sidelines. Abba, Jethro Tull, Wet Wet Wet, the Temptations, the Boo Radleys and Men Without Hats all have also just released their first albums of new material in more than a decade, or are about to. For some, the pandemic likely played a role in their return. With touring shuttered for long stretches of the past two years, many artists were losing income. And with long stretches to sit around, songwriters, unsurprisingly, often write songs.
Eddie Roeser, the guitarist-singer for the Chicago alt-rock trio Urge Overkill, who released its first studio album in 11 years, “Oui,” on Feb. 11, said, “the only gateway to playing together and having fun is working on new things.” Urge scored modest hits in the 1990s with “Sister Havana” and a cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” but Roeser was wary of becoming “a greatest hits machine. Anybody who does music professionally dreads going up and playing the one song people came to the show for.”
In the 1980s, the English synth-pop duo Soft Cell often refused to play its biggest hit, “Tainted Love,” on tour. “We were so sick of it,” said David Ball, the group’s multi-instrumentalist. “Nostalgia Machine,” a song from “Happiness Not Included,” Soft Cell’s first album since 2002 (due in May), is a cheeky nod to the industry’s obsession with the past. “It’s really about the fact that everything is recycled and reused,” Ball said.
He and the singer Marc Almond originally reconnected at the behest of Universal Records, to discuss a Soft Cell boxed set the company was releasing in 2018. The pair agreed to perform what was then billed as a “final” show at London’s 02 Arena that year.
“I said to Marc, ‘Don’t say ‘final.’ Never put ‘final’ on anything,’” Ball said, laughing. “At that point, we didn’t foresee the pandemic. I think everybody had a lot of time to sit and contemplate, and he thought, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.’” The duo sent new tracks back and forth during Covid lockdowns in Britain, and made the entire album remotely.
Advances in home recording also aided the Doobie Brothers, who released “Liberté,” their first album of new songs in 11 years, in October. “To get the whole band in there, it used to take weeks or even a couple of months to do an album,” the singer-guitarist Tom Johnston said. Now, “we could have an album done in a week and a half.”
From left, the Doobie Brothers in the early 1970s: Patrick Simmons, Tiran Porter, John Hartman, Michael Hossack and Tom Johnston.Joan Chase
And the Doobies today, from left: Patrick Simmons, John McFee and Tom Johnston.Clay Patrick McBride
Tears for Fears began working on new material more than six years ago and said they were steered by their then manager, the industry veteran Gary Gersh, into teaming with professional songwriters for a series of writing sessions. “They’d come up with this backing track that sounded like classic Tears for Fears,” Smith said. “But we’ve done that already. By the end, it was kind of depressing.”
The pair powered through, and by 2016, had 12 finished tracks. They began negotiating with Universal, who already owned the rights to most of the band’s catalog, but the label suggested putting off releasing a new album and instead dropping a second greatest hits compilation — the first came out in 1992 — packaged with two new songs.
“Universal said, ‘The Greatest Hits will put you back in the limelight, then we’ll go with the album!’” Orzabal said. But after the hits package was released, there was no deal in place obligating Universal to release the new album, and it wasn’t picked up.
This created something of an existential crisis for the band. Orzabal wasn’t sure what to do with these new songs; Smith wanted nothing to do with them. “It all sounded like a bunch of vain attempts at a hit single,” Smith said. “I said, ‘If this is really what you want to do, you should, but I can’t be involved.’”
Before Orzabal could decide his next move, the rest of his life cratered. His then-wife, Caroline, died after a long, debilitating bout with alcoholism and depression. In the wake of her death, Orzabal struggled with his own mental health, and spent time in and out of hospitals and rehabs.
He wrote the new album’s title track about the harrowing experience of watching Caroline flit between life and death in a hospital bed. The song energized him, and a conversation was arranged with a record label to discuss releasing new Tears for Fears music. After the meeting, their manager quit.
“He emailed us afterwards and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” Orzabal said. “He said we were a heritage act and that was it, and there was no point in putting out any album.” (Gersh, who is now the president of global touring and talent at AEG Presents, declined to comment.)
“Us being a heritage act was never going to work because we need new material to keep us excited,” Smith said. “Trying to find that new material was the hard part.”Rob Verhorst/Redferns, via Getty Images
In purely business terms, it’s hard for a veteran act to justify spending time and budget writing, recording and releasing new songs when the money is in touring, merch, and getting your old hits in films, TV shows, commercials or even TikToks.
“Going into an album now is nothing like it used to be,” said the Doobies’ Johnston. “You don’t get the payback you used to. So, where it used to be, you’d do an album and tour to support the album, it’s now the other way around.”
For veteran artists, live shows are less likely to drive significant sales or streams of new music than they are to boost the artist’s back catalog. Tears for Fears lived through that while promoting “Everybody Loves a Happy Ending,” which was frustrating, but as Smith noted, “It’s still our income.” The band’s past commercial success provides the luxury to make decisions solely on artistic merit. “The hardest thing with managers for us is them wrapping their heads around the fact that we don’t care that much if we’re hugely successful,” he added.
Eventually, what cleared the path to a new album was returning to making music the way they had when they first met as teenagers. In early 2020, Orzabal and Smith got together and, with a pair of acoustic guitars, hashed out “No Small Thing,” the dramatic, swirling folk-rock epic that opens the new album.
“It was just the two of us, prepandemic, no team of songwriters, no interfering record company, no manager, no animosity,” Orzabal said. They revisited material from the earlier sessions, eventually reworking a handful of those songs for “The Tipping Point,” which will be released by Concord Records, an independent label.
“The best thing that happened to us,” Smith said, “was to be left alone.”
Article From & Read More ( What Happens When a ‘Heritage Act’ Wants More Than Playing the Hits? - The New York Times )
https://ift.tt/3e1lnVQ
Entertainment
"Unfortunately I tested positive for COVID and will be missing some days at work until my quarantine is over," said the caption to a photo of Kloots and her fellow co-hosts. "I am feeling completely normal now and feel very grateful for that."
Kloots noted that she is "vaccinated and boosted which is very much putting me at ease."
Fans rallied around Kloots and Cordero during his illness and after he died at the age of 41.
On Thursday, Kloots said she had not previously tested positive during the pandemic.
"I recently got back from a trip to Mexico where I tested negative before I left and before I flew home so this was [a] surprise this morning," she wrote.
Kloots said she would be using her time at home to try and potty train her and Cordero's young son, Elvis.
Two months after the death of Alicia Witt's parents, new details have emerged about their untimely passing.
Reports have confirmed that Robert Witt and Diane Witt died from the cold in their Massachusetts home. Specifically, the cause of death for both Robert, 87, and Diane, 75, was due to "probable cardiac dysrhythmia" stemming from exposure to the cold, according to death certificates obtained by The Telegram & Gazette. Additionally, Robert also had a "history of coronary artery disease, hypertension and multiple myeloma."
According to multiple reports, Alicia's parents were found deceased at their Worcester home on Dec. 20. "I reached out to a cousin who lives close to my parents to check on them," Alicia shared in a statement to E! News at the time. "Sadly, the outcome was unimaginable. I ask for some privacy at this time to grieve and to wrap my head around this turn of events, and this surreal loss."
Following the tragic discovery, a neighbor told The Telegram & Gazette that the couple rarely stepped out of their home, adding that other neighbors had offered to help the pair as their home fell into disrepair. But according to the neighbor, they politely declined.
Article From & Read More ( Kim Kardashian Reveals Kanye West's Instagram Drama Has Caused Her 'Emotional Distress' Amid Divorce - Access )
https://ift.tt/ip2rWaO
Entertainment
The star maestro, scheduled to lead three high-profile Vienna Philharmonic concerts this week, will not appear after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic announced on Thursday that the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, a friend and prominent supporter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, would no longer lead a series of concerts there this week amid growing international condemnation of Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mr. Gergiev, who had been slated to conduct the Philharmonic in three high-profile appearances at the hall beginning Friday evening, has come under growing scrutiny because of his support for Mr. Putin, whom he has known for three decades and has repeatedly defended.
No reason was cited for his removal from the programs. But the extraordinary last-minute decision to replace a star maestro apparently over his ties to Mr. Putin — just days after the Philharmonic’s chairman insisted that Gergiev would be appearing as an artist, not a politician — reflected the rapidly intensifying global uproar over the invasion.
While Mr. Gergiev has not spoken publicly about the unfolding attack, he has supported Mr. Putin’s past moves against Ukraine, and his appearance at Carnegie was expected to draw vocal protests. He was the target of similar demonstrations during previous appearances in New York amid criticism of Mr. Putin’s law banning “propaganda on nontraditional sexual relationships,” which was seen as an effort to suppress Russia’s gay rights movement, and his annexation of Crimea.
Carnegie and the Philharmonic also said that the Russian pianist Denis Matsuev, who had been scheduled to perform with Mr. Gergiev and the orchestra on Friday, would not appear. Mr. Matsuev is also an associate of Mr. Putin; in 2014, he expressed support for the annexation of Crimea.
Mr. Gergiev will be replaced for the three Carnegie concerts by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who on Monday leads a new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos” at the Metropolitan Opera, where he is music director. A replacement for Mr. Matsuev was not immediately announced.
Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic had defended Mr. Gergiev, but were under new pressure to reconsider after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday.Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
Both Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Philharmonic had previously defended Mr. Gergiev. But Mr. Putin’s declaration of the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine on Thursday placed new pressure on the hall and orchestra to reconsider.
Activists started a #CancelGergiev hashtag on Twitter and were circulating photos of Mr. Gergiev alongside Mr. Putin. The two have known each other since the early 1990s, when Mr. Putin was an official in St. Petersburg and Mr. Gergiev was beginning his tenure as the leader of the Kirov (later the Mariinsky) Theater there.
In 2012, Mr. Gergiev appeared in a television ad for Mr. Putin’s third presidential campaign. In 2014, he signed a petition hailing the annexation of Crimea, after Russia’s Ministry of Culture called leading artists and intellectuals to suggest they endorse the move. Mr. Gergiev was quoted at the time by a state-run newspaper as saying, “Ukraine for us is an essential part of our cultural space, in which we were brought up and in which we have lived until now.”
In 2016, Mr. Gergiev led a patriotic concert in the Syrian city of Palmyra, shortly after Russian airstrikes helped drive the Islamic State out of the city. On Russian television, the concert was spliced with videos of Islamic State atrocities, part of a propaganda effort to nurture pride in Russia’s military role abroad, including its support for the government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Mr. Putin was shown thanking the musicians by video link from his vacation home on the Black Sea.
In recent days Mr. Gergiev has also come under pressure in Europe, where he maintains a busy touring schedule. Officials in Milan said on Thursday that he should condemn the invasion or face the prospect of canceled engagements with the Teatro alla Scala, where he has been leading Tchaikovsky’s opera “Queen of Spades,” according to Italian media reports.
The Vienna Philharmonic said as recently as a few days ago that Mr. Gergiev was a gifted artist and would take the podium for the Carnegie dates. “He’s going as a performer, not a politician,” Daniel Froschauer, the orchestra’s chairman, said in an interview on Sunday with The New York Times.
Understand Russia’s Attack on Ukraine
Card 1 of 7
What is at the root of this invasion?Russia considers Ukraine within its natural sphere of influence, and it has grown unnerved at Ukraine’s closeness with the West and the prospect that the country might join NATO or the European Union. While Ukraine is part of neither, it receives financial and military aid from the United States and Europe.
Are these tensions just starting now?Antagonism between the two nations has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, after an uprising in Ukraine replaced their Russia-friendly president with a pro-Western government. Then, Russia annexed Crimea and inspired a separatist movement in the east. A cease-fire was negotiated in 2015, but fighting has continued.
What has Mr. Putin said about the attacks?Mr. Putin said he was acting after receiving a plea for assistance from the leaders of the Russian-backed separatist territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, citing the false accusation that Ukrainian forces had been carrying out ethnic cleansing there and arguing that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction.
How has Ukraine responded?On Feb. 23, Ukraine declared a 30-day state of emergency as cyberattacks knocked out government institutions. Following the beginning of the attacks, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, declared martial law. The foreign minister called the attacks “a full-scale invasion” and called on the world to “stop Putin.”
Clive Gillinson, Carnegie’s executive and artistic director, had also previously offered support for Mr. Gergiev, saying he should not be punished for expressing political views.
“Why should artists be the only people in the world who are not allowed to have political opinions?” Mr. Gillinson said in an interview with The Times in September. “My view is you only judge people on their artistry.”
Activists who had been planning to protest Mr. Gergiev’s appearances at Carnegie rejoiced at news of his withdrawal. “The arts have to be against aggression,” said Valentina Bardakova, a math and science teacher in New York who had been helping organize the protests.
Mr. Gergiev is scheduled to return to Carnegie in May to lead two performances with the Mariinsky Orchestra; it is unclear if those performances will take place as planned.
Mr. Gergiev has appeared frequently with the Vienna Philharmonic in recent months, in Austria and abroad. He recently tested positive for the coronavirus and was forced to cancel some performances, including one with the Philharmonic last week. He has since recovered and returned to conducting, including a performance of “Queen of Spades” in Milan on Wednesday evening.
Article From & Read More ( Valery Gergiev, a Putin Supporter, Will Not Conduct at Carnegie Hall - The New York Times )
https://ift.tt/nRyUCjE
Entertainment
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70554198/super_pumped_the_battle_for_uber_joseph_gordon_levitt_uma_thurman.0.jpeg)
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23272698/021722_super_pumped.png)
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23272699/great_new_trailer_for_super_pumped_the_battle_for_uber_starring_jospeh_gordon_levitt.jpeg)
