Joe Scalante live from Hollywood. If by Hollywood you mean Burbank across the street
from a Wiener Schnitzel that serves beer. This is two hours of the business,
end of show business. We do it every Sunday here on KiB eleven
fifty on your AM dial. Sam the engineer is with me. How are
you, Sam? Sam? This is a show business. Did you see
any movies this week? I actually got caught up on a movie that I've
been dying to see for the last I don't know, eight months or so,
and that was Cocaine Bear. So I feel like I've checked one off
the list for me. I felt very good about that. Well, all
right, every American needs to see Cocaine Bear, That's all I got to
say. At least. Yeah, yeah, Now that that movie I very
quickly became fond of. And you're uh, your microphones down is different because
you made the awful mistake of testing yourself for COVID. Yeah, hey,
it happens. I have kids. They sent letters home. I don't care
how many kids you have. My medical advice has never test yourself for COVID.
And I am not licensed to practice in California. Medicine of any kind.
So don't take my advice. But that's that's my advice. I was
tested once for COVID and they didn't even give me my results. They didn't
send them to me. I had a call back to the place ago,
where's my results? I don't know. And then two days later it was
for a concert, you know, during the big lockdowns and then the concert.
You have to have this thing or you can't. No, no results.
So I went to the concert anyway. It was. It was to
perform at the concert, and I had a feeling it would be like this.
I knew I didn't have COVID, but they make you get this dumb
test, and I go to the concert, and I knew it would happen.
I get there at two in the afternoon for sound checks. Who's there
got two in the afternoon? Is there a guy checking for documents for COVID
tests? No, there's two, you know, Mexican janitors. That's it.
And I go backstage and I sit there until someone gives me a wristband
and then you're done. And I never took another test a COVID test as
long as I lived. And I'm still here alive. Today. If you're
sick, stay away from people. Yeah, so that's my that's my show
bus advice. This is a show busy advice show. If you're sick,
stay away from people, which is precisely why we're doing the show like this.
Okay, uh, I didn't I didn't do my stop watching time.
So I'm not exactly sure what what our timing is right now. I think
we got about five minutes. Yeah, I think I think you're right.
I just pushed it now. So I have to be a kind of your
co engineer today because you're so fragile with your diseases. I'm delicate, all
right. So you saw cocaine bear good for you. Let's see what's going
on in the box office. Nothing lured me to the theaters this week,
except for early in the week. I did see the movie The Hill,
directed by a first time director. I think he's first time director. This
guy was trying to make this movie for ten years. Celentano is his name.
And you know, I think if you like feel good christiany movies,
you're gonna love this movie. My sister loved it. It's if you don't
like feel good Christian movies, I would skip it, but if you want
to, you know, so there's not that much out in there. It's
to see right now. So if you're going to the movies, you might
want to see the Hill. Dennis Quaid does a does a very good job
as a preacher. But it's kind of like I would say, it's a
kind of Christian movie. It's you know, it's baseball. The kid is
a it's an amazing story. He's crippled, he's got braces on his legs,
and he ends up in the major leagues, actually got the major leagues.
He ends up playing professional ball, but in the minors. But but
the kid couldn't even walk, and his family was too strict. They were
Evangelicals. I think it's a bit sure, you'll call him. They're too
strict, and he somehow got to play baseball. Anyway, it's a dirt
poor. They used to eat twinkies for dinner. I think cornbread for dinner.
Cat food. I heard from the director's wife. Actually I was able
to talk to her and she said, the true story is the family eight
cat food. They were dirt poor. So that's always interesting, but it
is Actually if you don't like Christianity, I think you might like this movie
because it doesn't paint Christianity in a very attractive light, you know, and
I know a lot of people. I have a lot of colleagues in the
music business that hate Christianity. They just hate it. They're obsessed with it,
and they they might like this because the dad's too strict and he's not
really a good example of of Christian morality played out because there's no understanding,
there's no listening to the kid, and then the kid makes it anyway.
So I don't know, I take that back. He said, if you'd
like christianny movies, you might like The Hill. Basically, Sam, I'm
telling you that The Hill has something for everybody. But it's a it's it's
another one of those movies that they you know, that could never get made
years ago, and now, like Sound of Freedom, expect more of these,
uh positive christiany movies. Although the Sound of Freedom wasn't positive was it
was a it was a thriller about investigating h what do you call them,
kitty fiddlers? I think it's okay that can make disparaging terms for child millsters.
So that's the that's the disparaging term for the week. Kitty Fiddlers.
We don't like them. Number one at the box office, Sam the None
two. Mm hmm. That didn't drag me in there. Yeah, that
doesn't sound like something I would go out. My wife's not going to see
anything has to do with the Devil, so I'd have to see that by
myself, and there could be some sacrilege there. I don't know, so
I'm staying away from it. The Equalizer three. If I didn't see the
Equalizer one or two, do I want to see three? Not really,
So I didn't go my big fat Greek wedding three. Ouch, but it's
number three. I didn't even know that was even in production, right,
Yeah, it's out, and I'm sure you know, if you like these
Greek wedding movies, you're gonna love it. I'm sure my wife will like
that. Barbie is number five still and hanging in their blue beetle. Number
six is pulling in sixty three million. Grand Thereismo. I'd say that's the
best movie of the new movies to come out after the Barbeheimer period. Go
see Grand Thereismo if you haven't seen it. And Oppenheimer's still in the top
ten. Teenage Mutant Binja Turtle and some morally offensive but probably funny movie called
Bottoms is number ten. Strays is hanging in there number tied for number ten,
I think, or just below it. But Strays. I gotta tell
you, if you're like A, like A, if you like foul language
and you think animals are funny, you're gonna like that movie when it comes
on as a streamer. It's kind of falling out of theaters right now.
But if you don't care about foul language, I would go see Strays.
If you like Will Ferrell, it's Will Farrell at his best. So let's
take a break, Sam, and then when we come back, we'll do
a little bit more. I got a lot of celebrities behaving badly today.
It's the peak of celebrity celebrities behaving badly season. And we'll get to that
and more on Joe Scalante Live from Hollywood. We are back, Joe Escalante
Live from Hollywood at the business end of show business. We gone through the
top ten in the box office. I didn't see a lot, but let's
go to my letter box, Sam and see what I did see that I
log in the letter box app that people should have some of my listeners have
the letterboxed app and I thank them for doing that. It's kind of fun.
We see what each other are watching and what and I'll like, you
know, my nephews get to see what I'm watching, and then they tell
their mom and my sister and like, hey, Joe Savis movie, why
can't I It's kind of fun. Not a lot for me in the in
this in this world, I started. This is the version of binging for
me. I went back and started watching the nine hour movie Human Condition again.
Oh that's yeah, the Japanese movie. Yes, even better on the
second time around, because you know, you miss a lot subtitles, and
when you start the nine hour movie the Human Condition, you really don't know
where it's going or what or what or what their what their angle is,
and so you don't know what to pay attention to. And so the second
time around and the Human Condition love it. It's on hard to find movie,
you know, just nine hours, but it's in three parts and it's
on the Criterion channel, and that is Part one is called No Greater Love.
I watched that. It's about a guy who is kind of an intellectual
in Japan, so he's a little bit of a lefty in Japan and Japan's
war at the times during it's like nineteen forty one or forty three or something
like that there. I think it's forty three, the wars being it seems
it's being executed by you know, right wingers in Japan and there, you
know, Japan first, and we're gonna go and and get the evil,
the White devils, and we're going to subjugate the Chinese. And this guy's
like kind of an anti war figure. I would like, what what's this
moral about? I don't like it. So, but he's gonna have to
go on the service, but he so he opts. Instead, he gets
a job supervising a mining operation in like in China that in you know,
uh dominated land that they have that that that Japanese has just taken over.
And so he doesn't have to go fight if he supervises this mine. I
mean, we're a weird premise for a movie. Maybe normal to Japanese people,
but for us, like that was a thing. So he goes to
to supervise the mine and he brings his wife and you know, they're starting
their life and they're so happy he doesn't have to fight in the war,
and then it just starts getting worse and worse, and pretty soon they're just
importing Chinese prisoners to do the mining for him. And then with Chinese,
you've got Chinese free Chinese people that are just working, you know, under
pretty bad conditions. And then you then they don't have enough of them,
so they start taking captured Chinese prison war prisoners and using them for minors.
So now this guy is supervising pretty much supervising like a concentration camp almost and
that and that's his job, and he doesn't like it, and so he's
always clashing with the hardcore right winger Japanese bellicose war hawks. So anyways,
I don't know. I think I just painted a great picture of a great
movie that you should see. I gave it five stars, five stars on
letterbox, to have very few five star movies. But that's one, and
then number Then there's part two and part three, and then you get to
go to parties and say, what are you guys watching? Later, I'm
watching a nine hour Japanese film, And then you know, that gets the
conversation going, that's what you're into, Okay, So what else did I
do? Let's go to the news, Sam I got some TV news directly
affects your host. Fox News fires veteran executive John Finley for violating company rules.
This is the guy who bought my first TV show I ever sold,
Monsters across America. Actually not the first TV show. I show. I
sold one in like a year, two thousand to a digital network. This
is a streamer, Fox Nation. John Finley was running and he started it.
And then that was a big news yesterday that he had been terminated for
violent violating policies. And they don't really give a lot of what he violated.
But and I'm not going to tell you he bought my show. I
can't complain. And so there's some shake ups going at Fox, you know,
left and right. I was kind of rumors that I heard a rumor
the other day that Elon Musk might buy the Fox News Channel. Interesting should
have bought that rather than buy Twitter? No kidding show, Yeah, because
there would there would be nobody at Fox News that would that would hate him
when everyone at Twitter, like you know, most of the Twitter people don't
like him. If he would have bought Fox News Channel, the people that
watch Fox News would go, oh yeah, I like this guy and then
and then it gets like one point nine billion in revenue every year. It's
a it's a it just prints money. I don't know if where if he
has any money left, but if he wanted to do that, that that
would be what kind of a where would that put him? Do you think
like as far as like right now, people are like, well, he's
kind of powerful. He owns Twitter. What if you on Twitter and Fox
News Channel, Sam, what would what do you think that would do to
his profile in the world. People already thought his acquisition of Twitter catered more
towards right wing leaning people, so this would fall right in line with that.
Only difference is this move if he bought Fox would be profitable. Yes,
yes, profitable. You do have the problem of Cabo disintegration and less
and less people every year having cable where Fox News is mostly watched. But
that's why they have Fox Nation is too, so they have a hedge to
migrate their news services. And I'm not speaking on any personal knowledge. I'm
just saying that's what I you know, I would I would think they you
know, they built that and now they have it. So then when cable
is when they when nobody has cable, which I don't think would ever happen
because this is you know, there's always going to be old people when when
when very few people have cable, most people watch stuff from streaming services,
they got a streamer. Yeah, I think he would be he would be
like maybe like Rupert Murdoch is today, who owns the Washington know, the
Washington you know, he owns the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal
and Fox News channel, And he'd be like that. And I think,
you know, uh, Rupert Murdoch is very very very old. The company's
run by his son, Lachlan Murdoch, who is seems to be a rather
conservative religious individual. But I think that, I mean, they built this
thing to make money. They didn't build it to change the world or influence
politics. In my opinion, they saw half the country was not being serviced
and they made this company and they made a bunch of money. And that's
why it gets attacked from the right too. Sam Like the people from the
right they're always saying, I'm never watching Fox News again because they are not
conservative enough for me. And Fox News. Those people, I mean,
the people I know, they're in the higher ups, they're just like Hey,
look, you know what we're just. We're servicing shareholders and we are
trying to make money, trying to stay in business in a tough advertising market.
We're not here to do everything that every right winger thinks we should do.
We're here to make money. And that's why they bizarrely got rid of
Tucker Carlson because they thought, well, I can make more money without Tucker
Carlsson. To me, that was a money thing. They think they can
make more money and maybe even set up to be sold. Like if you
want to buy a network that has Tucker Carlson on it when he's so controversial.
What if you can buy a network that Tucker Carlson is not on,
but Jesse Watters, the guy they got to replace him. He's in there
instead, and he is not controversially controversial at all. You can have you
know, major advertisers are you know, are not boycotting him. That's what
I don't think it's fair what they did to Tucker Carlson, but you know
they did. They it turns out to be a money making move. All
right, let's take a break and we'll come back with more. Joe's Goalante
Live from Hollywood Joe Scalante Live from Hollywood. We are back. We do
this every Sunday from five to seven a KiB the business end of show business,
and we are continuing with that. And Sam, did you know this
is more show business? Did you know that the UFC and the WWE are
merging. Yes, yes, I heard about that. They struck a deal
with each other. I heard about this story. It seems strange to me.
I mean, UFC is owned by Endeavor, which is basically the production
arm of William Morris Agency. Uh so, Okay, so they merge with
ww E and WWE may or may not be having problems or whatever and that,
but that's wrestling. That's like theatrical wrestling WWE right and w and UFC
is actual fighting. That is real correct, quote unquote real. This is
a strange pairing. I mean it seems like if I'm a boxer or a
fighter in WWE in UFC, I don't want to be I don't want to
be connected to WWE. But I don't know the mindset of these people,
and their mindset is probably different from when they start their career. Tell about,
you know, halfway through the career, when they have pugilistic dementia.
So I don't even know why I'm talking about it. Sam, Okay?
Uh, Sam, did you die? Does your COVID get that? Bad?
Sam is gone? Poor Sam? Sam zea r I P. We
will miss him. Oh he left and he came back. Oh like now
and now I've got him back. Hey Sam, are you still there now?
Hy Sam? You went away? Yeah, I'm back now. Okay,
we had a nice We thought you were dead and I mourned your loss,
and now you're back. Okay. So I'm done with w w E
and h UFC because I don't really care. I don't watch either of them.
I like old fashioned boxing and occasional lucha libre and you know, if
I'm drunk, maybe I'll wander into a cock fight in Tijuana for a few
minutes. See. I like boxing more than anything. I've never been that
big of a UFC fan, but I understand why people like it. But
the way that the fights are promoted between USC and WW and just wrestling in
general are very similar, so I could see where there could be some symbiosis
between the two. Yeah, I just wouldn't. I wouldn't would be.
I wouldn't want it. If I was like, you know, getting punched
in the head for real to be identified, you know, be associated with
people who you know, learn how to fall, you know, or get
hit by a chair without getting that hurt, although we know they get hurt.
I get it, So I don't care. But let's get into the
celebrities behaving badly, Sam, because they are behaving badly and some of them
are being punished. The big story this week to me, did you hear
how many years they sentenced beloved television star Danny Masterson too, after he was
convicted of two rapes that were like, you know, twenty years ago.
Not that it makes it any less serious. Did you hear thirty years?
Is that shock you, Sam? No, shocks me. You're on mute
by the way. Oh I'm sorry about that. Yeah. What shocks me
more than anything is the fact that he's more or less getting more of a
sentence than Cosby ever did. Right, that's right, Right had a Even
though the rules were broken for the Cosmy thing, his sentence should have been
through the roof. Competively speaking, that said, I'm okay with him getting
thirty years. I'm not complaining one bit. Yeah, I'm I'm I just
like there to be some kind of fairness in the justice system. Call me
crazy, but also I think you have to take into into when sentencing,
take into consideration that there's these are stories with no traditional like no forensic evidence.
They are compelling testimony from two women, Whicheverdentley evidently so compelling and so
believable that the jury was like, even though this is twenty years ago,
I believe these women, these women are telling the truth. And so they
so, okay, fine, they if they believe beyond a reasonable doubt that
these women are telling the truth, they must convict him. But the maximum
sentence from it just seems out of line with so many other sentences that we
see coming down, and so that that was it's just a little chilling to
me. And I knew Danny Masterson, right, I know him. I
mean he was at the eight D one oh three one radio station when I
was there. So it's like, you know, it's a little harder to
imagine someone you know that you thought was super cool and you went to parties
with and now he's going to be in prison for thirty years. It's just
you know, not fifteen years concurrently, thirty years in prison for Danny Masterson.
It's hard to for me to to to to grasp, but also hard
to imagine what it was like for these women to get raped and then,
as many people believe, have it covered up by their religion. They were,
they were all scientologists and when they they and I think that plays into
it with the jury because there's a lot of people that don't like scientologists,
so they want to get back at them too. And when they hear maybe
the scientologists we're protecting Downy Masterson and making these women pipe down, you know,
they want to They want to send a message there too. So I
know you're a scientologist, Sam, so I don't want to. I want
to try to break Yeah, No, I avoid that. I'm avoiding any
mention of that organization as much as possible. I want to stay on their
good side and on their anonymous list. Yeah, the anonymous list. I
just do. I give everybody a break on their religion, you know,
because oh, Catholics are persecuted, Scientologists persecuted, and people, you know,
get into it. They like it. I mean I don't, Yeah,
I don't. I don't have a beef with them. I like what
they do to the buildings in Hollywood. You they like, buy a really
old historical buildings and then they don't tear them down. They just kind of
leave him. Now, I don't know what's going on inside. Maybe I
wouldn't like it, but I like that they leave the buildings that way.
Here's what I don't like, Sam, the backlash against Ashton Kutcher and Mila
Kunis. I don't know how to pronounce her name. You got it right,
Goodness for sending letters to character, letters to the court for Danny Masterson.
Now, Danny Masterson during the sentencing, He's gonna ask everybody he knows
to write a letter to tell the judge, Hey, this guy is not
a threat to society and he has a good side to reduce it so that
everybody deserves that from their friends who know them in a different way, you
know. And and so they did that, and then they got out a
backlash, okay, and just trolls on the internet that they gave him the
backlash. Who cares about those people? But why does why do Ashton,
Kutcher and Kohness, Why do they feel they have to apologize to these trolls?
Just that's your friend, you stand by your friend, and you say
whatever good thing you can say, and that's the system, and that's you
know, brotherly love. And then you do not apologize for that because you're
apologizing to people that will never ever ever forgive you or give you a fair
break if they're if they're already complaining about that. But these people panic and
announces. So that's that's that was pretty gross to me. The apology.
I'm sick of a I'm now I'm offended by the apology, and I want
an apology for that apology. What do you think about the apology before I
am? I feel like it's what they had to do for public relations purposes.
The smell weakness in these people. Sam, you're still afraid of the
scientologists gonna get Come on, they're gonna come and get you. I am
afraid of so many different organizations coming to get me. And you have no
idea for multiple reasons, for multiple unexplainable reasons. All right, let's take
a break and Sam can change his name and his identity and his address and
we'll reap back on Joe'scalante Live from Hollywood. We are back Joe Escalante Live
from Hollywood. If by Hollywood, you mean, this is the business end
of show business. We do it every Sunday from five to seven here on
KiB for all you Hollywood types like Sam. Here Sam, I got more
people, more Hollywood types that are behaving badly. And this week, for
some reason, out of left field, Rolling Stone reported some like anonymous people
who said Jimmy Fallon is a bad boss and it's a toxic work place.
It's hard to believe because he's seems like the nicest guy on TV. But
people do have tantrums, you know, especially when they're at the top like
he is. He's a pure talent. I don't buy it, really,
I could. I could see how. You know, it's a tough place.
Here's what Here's here's what I think is going on. Working in TV
and the pressure of putting on a live show several nights a week is makes
people yell at each other. And when I worked in production as a junior
person at HBO, I started at I. I started at doing music videos
and then I got a job at HBO doing working for the Ice TV and
Ice TV series Ice T. They never got aired because they punished him for
a cop killer record. But I was yelled that all the time, you're
always getting yelled at people. In me, I would be in tears.
And one time I was driving a bunch of production people back and forth from
the set to the shuttle area or whatever, and they were so mean.
I slammed on the brake so I could injure all of them, and that
got through to it. But that was the way it was. You want
to work in production, you're gonna get abused. And then over time people
started pointing out, hey, you can't do that to people, and so
there's less of it. But when there's remnants, now you have snowflakes coming
out and going. People were rude to me. It was a toxic environment.
You know what you should You had no idea what I went through.
So part of me is like, you know, suck it up, kid,
and then but so you know, I'm not there. I don't know
what it's like. But for Rolling Stone to print this story of anonymous people,
it's kind of a hatchet job against Jimmy Fallon that I don't think it
deserves, and it doesn't make Rolling Stone look good. Like when I look
at this, I got because one more thing, why don't even read Rolling
Stone? Why would why would have read a magazine that did that. I
think the people behind the Duke Lacrosse scandal as well, remember that. I
remember that. I'm not sure if they were I think I think I think
the entire media was behind that at some point. But I mean, you're
you're working a show almost every day and you're the host of it, and
you have to have a standard that you know you have to meet when you're
doing a national show like that, So I can understand him having moments of
frustration and stuff. At the same time, You've got a lot of people
putting you in that position and making you look good, and you got to
go out of your way for them and be and be mindful of the fact
that they're human too. That's true, one percent true. I'm I'm I
am one hundred percent behind getting rid of the of the the toxic bullying that
will go on in TV and film production. But I'm also one hundred percent
behind the scorn against the Rolling Stone for this kind of journalism which isn't necessary.
And it was anonymous and harmed a lot of people, and it was
them that did the Duke Lacrosse case where they just exploited a phony rape accusation
and ruined a lot of people and ruined their own advertising. They cost their
own magazine millions of dollars. So I don't know their land. So I
don't believe. I don't. I just don't. I don't believe any of
this Jimmy Fallon stuff, and I don't watch Jimmy Fallon, but I don't
believe it. I refused to believe. I refused to take it seriously because
it did come from the Rolling Stone, and they're they're a failed journalistic entity,
proven and it's anonymous, and it's hurtful and attacks people. So nan
ornee orner right. I can nan or knee Ornier every once in a while.
So there I did it. Also can forgot to push push my stop
watch. So I don't know how long this segment's going now that I'm the
engineer here. We got four more minutes, four more minutes? Wow,
you save the day? Okay, I got let's talk a little bit about
the strike. Strike's going on so long there's no end in sight, and
I haven't come down on either side. As a producer or as a writer
actor. I do belong to the Screen Actor's Guild, but at this point
I gotta tell you, Sam, I think if someone wants to listen to
me, it's time for the Writer's Guild to go to the the producers and
hammer out a deal in a day and take the DGA deal. The DGA
agreed on a deal, take that deal and get back to work. And
there there. I've read through the stuff that the that the that the producers
have offered that it's more money and more of everything that they want it.
It's not where they want to be. But what you have to be careful
is if you get to where you want to be and you really stick it
to those production companies and studios, you really stick it to them. The
problem is this, It's obvious right now, there's like six hundred shows in
production, or there was like before COVID or whatever. All they're gonna do
is knock it down to three hundred shows in production. So if you say
I got to have ten riders on these shows at all times, they'll go
and if that's the rule and that's a lot, they'll say, okay,
well instead of ordering a six hundred, we're going to order three hundred all
the studios combined. So you can't really get everything you want because they don't
have to make these shows, and they can very nobly say, oh,
we're cutting back on the show. Thank you. Okay, you win,
you get all your things, but we're cutting back on these shows. We're
canceling three hundred shows this year and this will be collectively all the studios and
they can do that. So since we know they can do that, and
since these deals are only three years, Sam, if you if you make
a deal, you live with it for three years. This is not a
long time. It's not going to change the industry. There's no AI technology
that's going to come up in the next three years. It's going to destroy
the industry. And I did read the AI offers and they were reasonable that
the studios were offering. So I would say, so my opinion is now,
after like you know, going through it and listening all the time to
everything and both sides, is take the DGA signed a deal, Go take
that deal and get back to work. There I said, it's sham.
A lot of people would agree with you just because they want to go back
to work, but not until at least the writers, and the writers just
need to get what they're do is at this point. Yeah, but that
you just said a platitude that's not going to do anything. No, I
agree, get their due, but you also have to remember everything that I
say is going to mean nothing. True. We did, we we we
have learned that. So what is their do? We do not know,
but we do know that the streamers and the networks can just half the production
that they do if you get your way. So if you get your way,
and if you get all those things, I want ten riders in the
room at all times. For you know, however many weeks you're demanding,
they have the power to just order half as many shows. So you got
to just go and baby steps and keep the production going and keep the machine
ordering more and more shows, and more and more shows that get sold.
Are more and more shows sold by screenwriters that are now the showrunners and have
now sold a show, rather than everybody working on a ten person writing staff
and not really learning anything and not really adding any you know, they're there.
Those aren't their ideas they're putting down on paper. Those are other people's
ideas. They're just you know, they're working for better to have six hundred
shows. And the way to preserve that is not to go too far at
the end of this one, and we'll leave you with just taste of the
greatest song ever written. It's always more. To make sure you check out
a podcast Radar on