Nate Bloom blogs about this week's Jews in the News.

 

Rudolph is Harris, Again; a Children's Movie, a Game Show, a Police Show, & Chalamet Mania  (featuring $35Mil for 90 seconds of Work)

 

MAYA RUDOLPH, 52, has agreed to appear as Vice-President Kamala Harris on “SNL” for all of 2024. Rudolph played Harris in many SNL skits that aired during the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump and during the 2020 presidential campaign. Most thought her depiction was very funny without being mean (you can view the skits on Youtube).

 The 50th season of SNL premieres on Sept. 28, 2024, No word yet if Martin Short, who played DOUG EMHOFF,  Harris’s Jewish husband in a 2020 skit, will reprise this role.

LORNE MICHAELS, the SNL creator and “still” its producer, has asked Steve Martin to play Tim Walz, the VP candidate. As I write this, Martin hasn’t said “yes” or “no”.

Opening in theaters on Aug. 16 is “Ryan’s World, The Movie: Titan Universe Adventure”. It is a Japanese-American live action/animated film based on Ryan’s World, a hit Youtube channel series. The Ryan’s World series, and the movie, are primarily for children and teens.

Here’s the premise: twin sisters Emma and Kate get sucked into a mystical comic book. Ryan, their older brother, jumps in after them. What follows is a lot of adventures (some dangerous). Eventually, Ryan navigates the Titan Universe and he brings everyone home.

ALBIE HECHT is making his debut as a film director with this film.  Hecht is 71, an uncommon age for freshman directors. But he has tons of relevant experience. Here’s just part of it: from 1997-2003 Hecht oversaw the development and approval of every series and film on Nickelodeon.

More recently, he has been the head of a company that has created many Youtube channels for young people. He's overseen 50 series (including “Ryan's World”) for these channels (which has over 100 million subscribers). 

This year, the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” has been “re-booted”. Now two pairs of two celebrities compete to win the game and earn a one-million-dollar prize for their favorite charity. On August 21, BRAD GARRETT, 64, and Ray Romano (former stars of “Everybody Loves Raymond”) vie with the team of comedian NATASHA LEGGERO, 50, and actor Jason Ritter (John’s son) for the million-dollar prize (ABC, 8PM).

“Homicide: Life on the Street” was an NBC series that ran from 1993-1998. The Boston Globe noted: “It added grit, wit, and a dose of realism to the network police procedural.”

For decades, a dispute about the rights to the show’s music prevented any “encore” showings. That dispute finally ended and all seven seasons will begin streaming on Peacock on Aug. 19.

“Homicide” was based on reporting by DAVID SIMON, then a Baltimore newspaper writer. Simon, now 64, went on to create and write the hit HBO series “The Wire.” His wife, Laure Lippman, 65 (who had a Jewish grandfather), was also a Baltimore news reporter and her novel, “Lady in the Lake”, is now an Apple+ series of the same name. It stars NATALIE PORTMAN.  

The large Homicide cast included  YAPHET KOTTO  (1938-2021) and RICHARD BELZER (1944-2023). Kotto played police lieutenant Giradello. He was an African American Jew. Belzer played police detective John Munch (a Jewish cop). After “Homicide”, Belzer played Munch in 15 seasons of “Law and Order: SVU”.

The trailer for “A Complete Unknown”, a bio-pic about Bob Dylan, was released a couple of weeks ago. The film, which covers Dylan from 1961-65, will open in December. TIMOTHEE CHALAMET, who plays Dylan, sang part of the famous Dylan song, "A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall”, in the trailer.

Like most critics, I thought Chalamet did as good as anyone has done imitating Dylan’s singing voice. Also, some very good make-up was done on Chalamet. He looks more like Dylan than Chalamet “really” is—but the make-up is subtle, not something weird like Bradley Cooper’s “Bernstein nose” in “Maestro”.

A few weeks ago, it was reported that Chalamet, 27, was in final negotiations to play MARTY REISMAN (1930-2012), a top professional ping pong player, in a film entitled “Marty Supreme”. JOSH SAFDIE, 40, co-wrote the film and he is set to direct.

More Chalamet news: he was the central subject of a long article in the Telegraph, a Brit paper (Aug. 2). Right now, top fashion companies have a lot more money to spend on advertising than movie studios. They are hiring top directors to direct “mini-movie” slick ads and they are hiring top actors to appear in these ads. Chalamet was just paid $35M (!) to appear in a 90 second Chanel “mini-movie” ad directed by Martin Scorsese. The Telegraph says $35M was more than all the fees, combined, that Chalamet has received for his film roles.