TMZ.com reports that British singing sensation Susan Boyle - to whom Britain's Got Talent's Piers Morgan should thank for his own increase in publicity that led to his new gig as the replacement for CNN's Larry King - walked away from being a guest singer on America's Got Talent because she was snubbed by "Walk On The Wild Side" singer / songwriter Lou Reed.
Lou Reed comes off as a meanie here. He reportedly is no fan of the very sensitive Ms. Boyle. So when he was approached for permission for Susan to sing one of his songs, he surprisingly said no.
When you think about it, since he gets paid for that, Lou Reed just took money out of his own pocket.
That's the height of meanness, when you dislike someone so much, you don't even give them permission to make money for you.
TMZ reports Susan Boyle went to LAX in tears. That's really sad for her and for Lou Reed. If Lou Reed's any kind of man, he'll apologize to Ms. Boyle.
Oakland, CA - This evening at about 4:55 PDT, and as this blogger was walking to Grand Avenue, there was far more than the usual level of traffic on Mac Arthur Blvd off the I-580 Freeway toward Grand Avenue.
It wasn't exactly clear what happened until, as I walked closer, it was obvious a large truck with a reddish brown bed was at the center of what appeared to be a giant four-car pile up.
What happened, according to the California Highway Patrol Officer I talked to, was that the truck's breaks went out and it slammed into what appeared to be a silver Honda. Apparently, the Honda was stopped, waiting for the light to change at the intersection of Mac Arthur and Grand near Lake Merritt. When the truck hit the car, it caused a chain reaction vehicle accident, with four cars slammed into each other.
Thankfully, though there were several injuries, no one was killed. Moreover, the car in front of the rest of the group was pushed to the side on impact, and not into Grand Avenue. Had that happened, even more cars may have been hit.
Piers Morgan, who's CNN's choice to take over for the retiring Larry King, and who will be on On The Air With Ryan Seacrest Thursday, is considered the mistake choice by some, and now is the focus of a stinging Vanity Fair blog post outlining six scandals that Morgan was reported to have been involved in.
Some of the accounts VF listed are fair game, but others are a bit of a reach. Still, Morgan's led an interesting life.
Vanity Fair's Juli Weiner blogs that as editor of The Mirror's business column, bought shares of stock in an electronics firm, then suggested its readers do so as well. Morgan, who was the boss of the writers of the column, also did so, but claimed he didn't know about the content of the column.
Then Morgan got into an on air brawl with Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, as both were guests on The BBC Show , Have I Got News For You. reportedly, the two don't like each other. Here's the video, where one YouTube commentator described Piers as a "twat of epic proportions:"
The Piers Morgan wrote a book that Weiner claims was a "scandalous" romp through his decade. It's called The Insider. But if Weiner checked, it was based on his column of the same name in The Daily Mail, and was more about celebrity encounters than anything Morgan allegedly did.
The rest of the Vanity Fair scadal list for Piers Morgan is little more than small accounts of conveluted assumptions of Morgan's alleged desire to get dirt on the guy he brawled with, Ian Hisop.
I'll save you the trip to Vanity Fair, as Juli blogs...
Moon-faced little midget: The Mirror, under Morgan’s stewardship, offered financial gains to anyone who would dish on “that moon-faced little midget,” an epithet for Hislop.
Tangerines, an obsession with: “The Hislop campaign has been going well, with all sorts of accusations ranging from a weird obsession with tangerines to a chronic piles problem that needed lasering ... I’m just doing it for fun. He is, after all, the editor of a piss-taking magazine and the presenter of a piss-taking TV show. Yet nobody dares take the piss out of him”—so read a 2002 entry in The Insider.
Tangerines, an apparently healthy relationship toward: The Telegraph reports that despite Morgan’s promises of rewards in exchange for information, he “couldn’t find any” scandalous rumors—fruit-related or otherwise—pertaining to Hislop.
Was all of that worth it? Vanity Fair Editor Graydon Carter must have it in for Piers, because all that stuff's a major reach at best.
While this blogger believed Ryan Seacrest was a better fit, having hosted the Larry King Show many times before, CNN's President John Klein's fallen in love with Morgan's performance...in Britain.
It turns out a number of blogs and websites are asking the same question about Piers Morgan: is he the right choice? MovieLine's Louis Virtel compared the selection of Piers Morgan to the hiring of Ellen Degeneres to be a judge on American Idol. The explanation was somewhat harsh:
Comparisons to Ellen DeGeneres’s cataclysmic American Idol stint come easy: Just as DeGeneres’s plucky diplomacy felt out of place on a cutthroat competition series, Morgan’s stuffy displeasure is a bad fit for a softball talk show. If we’re going to mix and match loose cannons and stodgy chatfests, I’d rather Wendy Williams join The McLaughlin Group or Courtney Love join the upcoming The Talk — then we’d get fireworks.
But Virtel's correct in observing that the style of The Larry King Show was more softball than hardball. If CNN's Klein wants more hardball, he may be messing with a formula that worked, even as it seems everything else at CNN was a ratings failure.
On that note, Babble.com asks if you will even watch Piers Morgan? And Ryan Christopher DeVault asked if it was a mistake.
I will leave out the idea that Klein may have got it right, but that's a strong may. The simple fact is Ryan Seacrest has greater name recognition in America than Piers Morgan does. That some people may not like his popcorn style is meaningless; Seacrest gets the interviews people want to hear and see.
Piers Morgan of America's Got Talent and Britain's Got Talent, who really became famous with the discovery of Susan Boyle on BOT, and his dinner date with Boyle, is the replacement for the retired Larry King on CNN.
On Twitter, American Idol Host Ryan Seacrest announced that he will talk with Piers for On Air With Ryan Seacrest that morning. Ryan tweeted:
I'll have Piers Morgan in studio tmrrw to talk about the new gig. First order of business? Getting him on Twitter! http://bit.ly/PiersCNN
about 3 hours ago via ÜberTwitter
Piers Morgan doesn't start his new CNN gig until January, which gives him enough time to build Twitter followers, and dump tweets that send bloggers to their keyboards.
I have to admit, I'm really surprised Ryan Seacrest isn't the replacement for Larry King. He seems more the natural choice than Morgan, no offense to Piers. But, as CNN President John Klein said, "Piers has made his name posing tough questions to public figures, holding them accountable for their words and deeds," but in Britain.
Meanwhile, for the present, On Air With Ryan Seacrest is on the radio Thursday morning, but the times and stations vary, so visit the website with a click here for your location.
Beverly Hills, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has announced the upcoming public exhibit called “Ingmar Bergman: Truth and Lies" for Thursday, February 16th at the AMPAS headquarters and run through December 12th and admission is free.
Organized by the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen, Berlin, in association with the Academy, the exhibition is a study in the career and personal life of the legendary Swedish director. Bergman received nine Oscar nominations and was presented with the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1970.
Bergman was famous for such films as 1982's Fanny and Alexander, which, along with his films The Virgin Spring, and Through a Glass Darkly, won Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film.
For the first major exhibit since Bergman's death in 2007, The Bergman Foundation has given "unprecedented access" to Bergman's personal papers. Now, we can see the the basis for the directors creative sprit. The Academy reports:
“Truth and Lies” will provide unique insights into Bergman’s film, theater work and personal life, with sections devoted to his early creative efforts, his ascent as an artist and his struggles with faith. The exhibition’s film projections and specially created montages will allow the visitor to delve into the full range of his work, from his earliest films to his major international successes. Original scripts, notebooks, film schedules, sketches, posters, photographs and other paper materials will be accompanied by items such as set models and costumes.
To go with the exhibit, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art Film Department and the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles are each presenting special film screening series. For tickets to LACMA screenings, visit http://www.lacma.org.
For tickets to Goethe-Institut screenings, visit http://www.goethe.de/losangeles or call the Goethe-Institut at (323) 525-3388.
Finally, and our standard note in this space, The Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills and is open Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and weekends, noon to 6 p.m. The gallery will be closed for the Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend (November 25 through 28).
For more information call (310) 247-3600 or visit www.oscars.org.
