Kate Winslet's Oscar Dilemma
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Kate Winslet’s Oscar Dilemma | Beyonce: Is She 'Such a Farce?' | Hall & Oates Sue; '60 Minutes' Backwards; Breaking Bread; Motown M-I-A; Billboard Rips Us Off
Is Kate Winslet’s Oscar dilemma solved?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Few actresses have ever been in this position. Winslet, who has already received five Academy Award nominations, is about to unleash not one but two films that could result in more of the same.
But the idea of two lead performances ending in Best Actress nominations is impossible. The Academy doesn’t allow it. So what to do?
I am told that some kind of peace has been brokered. Winslet will be touted for Best Actress in "Revolutionary Road," directed by husband Sam Mendes ("American Beauty"), and Best Supporting Actress in "The Reader," from "Billy Elliott" and "The Hours" director Stephen Daldry. That should solve the problem, kind of.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}There are of course two different studios involved — Paramount for "Road" and Weinstein Company for "The Reader."
This should be interesting, too, because Weinstein Company already has a hot contender for Best Supporting Actress — Penelope Cruz’s extraordinary, scene stealing performance in Woody Allen’s "Vicki Cristina Barcelona."
And Paramount has its own Best Actress to promote — Cate Blanchett in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}At the same time, "Road" producer Scott Rudin also has Meryl Streep going for lead in "Doubt" and Amy Adams from the same movie. Yikes!
Either way, though, Winslet can’t go wrong. And a bunch of good movies, even if they all come at the same time, is always a good thing, especially after one of the dreariest years that anyone can remember.
Beyonce: Is She 'Such a Farce?'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Poor BC Jean. The 21 year old singer songwriter from San Diego is getting overlooked by Beyonce once again.
I told you a few weeks ago that BC wrote "If I Were a Boy" with producer Toby Gad only to see the song given to Beyonce for her new album.
BC Jean didn’t even know that Beyonce had recorded the song until someone called her who’d heard it. Tense negotiations followed, with BC getting a cash payment of $250,000 and promise that Beyonce would sing a duet with her own her own debut album.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}But I guess Beyonce or her managers or p.r. people aren’t so happy that they can’t claim "If I Were a Boy" as an original composition. The result is that no reference is made to BC Jean as author of the hit song on Beyonce’s website or her press materials.
Beyonce’s new album is called "I Am… Sasha Fierce." But one of my wags who heard this story over the weekend observed, "Maybe that translates to ‘I Am Such a Farce’."
Ouch! Harsh! But truly, how important is to Beyonce and her peeps to hide the authorship of this record? The young R&B diva has a great voice and is a knockout. There’s no requirement for also writing the songs. Diana Ross did just fine without ever taking credit for all her hits.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}We’re starting to hear some other songs from Beyonce’s "Sasha Fierce" collection. Another single is called "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" which also may have an authorship issue. On ASCAP’s website there are two entries for this song. One carries the byline of hit songwriter Thaddis Harrell, Jr., whose hits include Rihanna’s "Umbrella" and Usher’s "Moving Mountains." The other doesn’t.
Apparently Beyonce didn’t have an easy time finding material for "Sasha Fierce." There’s another controversy about the song, "Halo," written by Ryan Tedder. Some reports suggest that "Halo" was supposed to be for Leona Lewis, who had a hit with Tedder’s "Bleeding Love." But Tedder was convinced to give it to Beyonce.
Hall & Oates Sue; '60 Minutes' Backwards; Breaking Bread; Motown M-I-A; Billboard Rips Us Off
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Daryl Hall & John Oates have sued their music publisher, Warner/Chappell, for failing to protect their hit song, "Maneater." The duo says W/C, which is part of Warner M. Group, didn’t take action against an unidentified artist who appropriated "Maneater" in 2006. This sounds a lot like the situation between the estate of Curtis Mayfield and John Mayer over "Waiting for the World to Change." The Mayer hit Mayfield’s family felt, was similar to the classic hit, "People Get Ready." But I’m told that W/C declined to pursue an action against Mayer. Maybe now they will reconsider…
…Did you know that "60 Minutes" runs one way on TV and another on radio? Last night, the Ted Turner feature ran first on screen, last on radio. Weird if, like some of us, you were racing home to catch it on TV. Still, Scott Pelley’s piece on computer recycling was pretty interesting. It just didn’t have Jane Fonda in it!...
…Sighting: who knew Le Pain Quotidien in Greenwich Village was such a hot spot? Both Emmy winning actress Dana Delany ("Desperate Housewives") and famed director Brian De Palma were there Saturday morning, reading the paper, having coffee. But not with each other…Dana, sans makeup, hotter than ever, btw…
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}…Great new oral history of Motown in the new Vanity Fair, but a few voices are missing-in-action from the story. Among them Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson (wrote most of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s hits), Gladys Knight (who really discovered the Jackson 5 and sent them to Bobby Taylor), Claudette Robinson (ex Mrs. Smokey, member of the original Miracles), and Supremes founder Mary Wilson (whose bestselling memoirs tell the real Motown story)…Nice, though, that Suzanne dePasse got the credit she deserves…
…Thanks to music trade shill mag Billboard: they posted a "new" story on Friday, November 7 at 2:25 p.m. titled "Michael Jackson Eyeing London Run?" It was, alas, simply a rip off of our lead story from that very morning about Michael Jackson’s renewed offer from AEG Live to do 30 or so shows at London’s O2 Arena. Billboard’s Ray Waddell failed to credit this column for "his" idea. Funny, and sad, Ray. Pathetic, too. Tsk, tsk…