Hollywood Beltway

Saturday night: Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” –  is it a hit or a flop? Let’s put it this way. As a documentary, it’s on track to be the third-largest-grossing doc in history. It will finish this weekend in the $30 million-plus category. That puts it behind Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911″ and “Earth.” At No. 3, [...]

Friday night: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame show at Madison Square Garden ended at 11:30 p.m., two hours earlier than it did the previous night. Mick Jagger substituted for Eric Clapton’s missing star power. Annie Lennox and Lenny Kravitz joined Aretha Franklin onstage. Other acts included U2 and Metallica, Patti Smith, Lou Reed and [...]

Is Bruce Springsteen a man or a machine? Is he Superman? These are the questions that ran through my mind last night as Springsteen and his E Street Band literally picked up the six-hour Rock and Roll Hall of Fame anniversary show at Madison Square Garden and breathed life into it. The show, which started at [...]

It’s all how you spin it, right? Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” made $20 million worldwide opening on a Wednesday in October on the first night of the World Series. This is considered a tremendous success, not a disappointment. How it got labeled the latter is beyond me. If “This Is It” makes $70 million domestically through [...]

Live in-theater advertising at New York's Ziegfeld Theatre. They'll be back Friday night.

The L.A. Times is reporting that Sony has agreed with theater owners to hold off on releasing the DVD for the Michael Jackson concert documentary, This Is It, until after Christmas.  Sony Pictures desperately wanted to release the DVD of the Michael Jackson concert movie "This Is It" for the holiday shopping season, but [...]

What if there were ten slots open for Best Picture and not enough entries to fill them? It’s a distinct possibilty. From the poor reviews to the low boxoffice, it does seem, sadly, that Mira Nair’s “Amelia” is a scratch from Oscar consideration. With the movie may also go Hilary Swank’s chances at a third statue. [...]

How ironic. Michael Jackson is dead. But in “This Is It,” the filmed chronicle of rehearsals for shows that never happened, he finally gets his greatest wish granted: He’s a movie star (here’s THR’s review from Kirk Honeycutt). “This Is It” is quite extraordinary. If there was any doubt that Michael was in control of the [...]

Ben Stiller is going to bowling for dollars Thursday night. Stiller and wife Christine Taylor are co-hosting the annual Project ALS event at Lucky Strike lanes on the west side of Manhattan. Here are just some of the people will be cooling their palms over the little fans: Ben’s parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, my favorite [...]

In my favorite “Seinfeld” episode, titled “The Yadda Yadda” — an episode by the way that includes the famous “Yada Yada” — Jerry accuses dentist Dr. Whatley of converting to Judaism so he can tell his patients Jewish jokes. That’s why the same episode is alternately known as “The Anti-Dentite.” And so, too, Ashton Kutcher — who [...]