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popentertainment-interviews · 1 year

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Jeremy Jordan and Timothy Scott Bogart

People Out There Spinning Music Into Gold

by Jay S. Jacobs

There are lots of people whose name you probably don’t know who are responsible for much of the music which has made up the soundtrack of your life. People like Neil Bogart.

Neil Bogart started as a singer himself, but he did most of his moving and shaking behind the scenes in the music biz. First of all he was an exec at Cameo/Parkway Records, then he played a huge part of Buddah Records, working with the likes of Gladys Knight and the Pips and Bill Withers.

However, his real masterpiece was when he started his own record label – and against all odds, despite huge debts and substance abuse issues, he turned Casablanca Records and Filmworks into the biggest independent label of the 1970s. Bogart fought radio disinterest and bad breaks and eventually turned slow-burning acts like Donna Summer, KISS, Parliament/Funkadelic and The Village People into multi-platinum hitmakers.

He eventually sold Casablanca to Polygram for an eight-figure sum and soon started another company, Boardwalk Records, for which he signed Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and also Harry Chapin for his last album. However, by then Bogart had been diagnosed with cancer, dying in 1982 at the extremely young age of 39.

It was an only-in-America type of success story, full of drugs, sex, rock, money, organized crime, dancing and tragedy. Bogart’s son Tim, who was just a boy when his father died, has been trying to get a film going showing his father’s dramatic life behind the scenes in the star-making process for decades. Now, finally, that movie has been created with Spinning Gold.

Playing the exuberant musical exec is Jeremy Jordan, star of stage (Newsies, Bonnie & Clyde, American Son) and small screen (TV’s Supergirl and Smash).

In voiceover during the film, his character of Neil Bogart acknowledges that while you may know who KISS and Donna Summer were, you probably have no clue who Neil Bogart was.

So, Jeremy Jordan, did you know who he was before getting the role?

“No,” Jordan laughed during a recent Zoom call. “Of course I didn't. No offense, Tim, but no, I didn't know who he was.”

“I don’t take offense,” Bogart replied, good-naturedly.

“I'm a music lover as much as anybody else,” Jordan continued. “But I never delved into who was the big record producer in the 60s and 70s. Of course I knew the music and the artists, but no, I knew nothing about Neil or Casablanca, or any of that. It was all new and exciting and wild to me when I when I heard about it.”

Which is, of course, the whole point. Tim Bogart has been wanting to make sure his father got his due, both as an artist and as a businessman. He lived an incredibly dramatic, tragically short life. Now, Bogart is able to somewhat remedy the fact that most people are not familiar with his accomplishments. He loves the fact that finally, hopefully, his dad will get credit for all the amazing things he did in such a short time.

“It's extraordinary,” Bogart explained. “And it's extraordinary for so many reasons. Certainly, as the son who feels like here's this incredibly consequential character who I do think got lost to history, to some degree. Even though the music that he created, and so much of the business ideas that he created, still very much thrive today. So as a son, for sure. But I also just always thought it was an incredibly important story about dreamers and how important it is to persevere.”

Perseverance is something that the younger Bogart knows about. After all, he has been trying to get Spinning Gold made since the 1990s. At one point it looked like it would happen with Justin Timberlake playing his father, but that never happened due to Timberlake’s busy musical schedule. The delay did work out in a positive way, too, because at this point in time, and doing it as an independent – just like his dad did with music – Bogart was able to direct the film as well.

“Getting that story out, as well, as is just as moving for me,” Bogart said. “I do think this is a great parallel in the perseverance and the dream I had in making it.”

Making it, of course, meant immersing themselves in the whole sex, drugs and rock and roll vibe of the 1970s music world.

“It's sex, drugs, and rock and roll and the character says that,” Bogart acknowledges. “But it was the ‘70s, which meant there was sex before it was deadly. Drugs, everyone was doing them, and it wasn't as dark. And rock'n'roll for sure. So I never looked at sex, drugs and rock and roll as a negative, even though so many pieces of the ‘70s tended to couch it as a negative or cautionary tale. I saw it as just an extraordinary time coming out of the ‘60s, this expressive moment in the ‘70s. I actually thought it was an extraordinarily cool time, even though I was really young. I wish I was a little bit older to experience it.”

Bogart and Jordan started to laugh. “What did they give you when you were six?” Jordan asked.

“Let me tell you, it was a lot of contact highs growing up,” Bogart said, still laughing.

Jordan turned a bit more serious. “Yeah, it's totally foreign to me, of course,” he acknowledged. “I'm not a big partier or anything like that. But it was really exciting to just dip my toe into that world. There was always a cigarette, or always pot, or always a drink. Every scene somebody is just medicating, or indulging, or anything. It was just normal back then.”

Yes, it certainly was a different time.

“It's kind of wild how quickly and vastly that changes,” Jordan said. “At least optically, I’m not saying that people don't still do that. But, not at work. You're not supposed to do it at work.”

Another thing that Neil Bogart says during the voiceover of the film is that everything in the movie is true, even the parts which weren’t. Which is a great bit of mythmaking. However, were there any parts which Jordan felt that should be true, even if they were a bit hard to believe?

“What do I most hope was true?” Jordan asked. “I believe that there are kernels of truth in all of them. One of my favorite things about the film, and the way it was all put together, is that you're not really sure if you're getting the full story. But you're having a great time while doing it.”

Neil Bogart was all about having a great time.

“That was kind of Neil's vibe,” Jordan continued. “He just wanted to make you dance and wanted to entertain. He was a showman. That's what we're doing with this movie, finding the most fun way to tell these stories. What's great is that there's always little winks that go throughout the film. He's got this flash paper that goes off. To me, that's always an indication that maybe what you're seeing is not really the reality.”

Reality. What a concept.

“Then by the end, he's painting his own [reality],” Jordan says. “He's writing his own ending, and it is really kind of beautiful and magical and different in that way. We don't feel tied to ultra reality, and this is the exact perfect way that this happened. It doesn't have to be [real] because it was sex, drugs, rock and roll. It was the journey as opposed to the actual truth of it all.”

#Jeremy Jordan #Timothy Scott Bogart #2023 #Actor Interviews #Director Interviews #Spinning Gold #Jay S. Jacobs

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floorman3 · 1 year

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Spinning Gold Review- A Competently Made and Acted Musical Biopic

I’ve seen a lot of films that deal with the record industry and or singers and bands. This genre has had a lot of hits over the years, no pun intended. Spinning Gold is a new story about the record industry I haven’t heard before even though those involved and the record label name is named after my favorite film Casablanca, and its star Humphrey Bogart. Casablanca Records and Neil Bogart changed…

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#Casey Likes #Dan Fogler #Jason Derulo #Jason Isaacs #Jay Pharoah #Jeremy Jordan #Ledisi #Michelle Monaghan #Peyton List #Spinning Gold #Tayla Parx #Timothy Scott Bogart #Vincent Pastore #Wix Khalifa

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greensparty · 1 year

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Movie Reviews - Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues / Spinning Gold

This week I got to review two music-themed movies:

Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues

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Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954-1990) was a guitar legend. I mean it. He elevated blues and rock with his extraordinary guitar playing in unbelievable ways. I became aware of him in the late 80s as a teen. On August 27, 1990 he died at age 35 in a helicopter accident following a performance at a blues festival. At that point and time, I was taking guitar lessons and my instructor talked about SRV quite a bit. I watched the MTV News special following his passing and began to get into his music. His 1983 debut Texas Flood and his Greatest Hits compilation are among my faves. In 2004 while visiting Austin, TX I actually saw the SRV monument.

me with the SRV statue in Austin, TX in 2004

In 2019 when I interviewed biographer Alan Paul about his SRV bio Texas Flood, something we discussed is that SRV’s music does not sound dated at all. It is from the 80s but there’s a timelessness to his music. SRV’s older brother Jimmie Vaughan is quite an impressive guitarist as well. I first became aware of him in The Fabulous Thunderbirds (”Tuff Enuff” was featured in tons of movie soundtracks, too many to namecheck here) and I even included his solo album Baby, Please Come Home in my Best Albums of 2019 list. TX-based director (and former editor of the TX music publication Buddy Magazine) Kirby Warnock has directed a doc on both Vaughan brothers Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues, which was recently released on VOD platforms.

The doc shows the Vaughan brothers humble beginnings and their early interest in guitar and both of their musical trajectories. It doesn’t shy away from talking about their struggles with addiction and getting sober. It also goes deep into the music itself. Or course it also sadly gets into SRV’s untimely death just before the release of The Vaughan Brothers only album Family Style (pretty good album BTW). Featured interviewees include Jimmie Vaughan as well as Eric Clapton, Nile Rodgers, Jackson Browne, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top and various Vaughan relatives and experts.

I’m a fan of SRV and while I’m not expert on Jimmie Vaughan, I have a deep respect for him. Therefore I was fully on board with this doc. At times it does veer into For Fans Only territory and Warnock does seem like more of a fan than a filmmaker at times (i.e., he narrates and at one point he recounts his own experience being at the concert being shown) - but stay with it. The doc has some amazing archival footage and it makes the point of why both brothers are guitar legends who deserve their place in the pantheon of music history.

For info on Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan: Brothers in Blues: https://brothersinbluesdoc.com/

3.5 out of 5 stars

Spinning Gold

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Neil Bogart (1943-1982) was the founder of Casablanca Records, which turns 50 this year. The label was ground zero for so much 70s music: Kiss, Donna Summer, Parliament, The Village People and many more. Just a few weeks ago, I scored a vinyl copy of Kiss’s Alive II and there was the Casablanca logo in the center of the vinyl! Brooklyn native Neil Bogart founded the label and he thought big and gambled even bigger. Neil’s son Timothy Scott Bogart has directed, written and produced a big music biopic about his father with Spinning Gold, which opened this weekend. The idea of someone directing a film about their father kind of reminded me of Baadasssss!, Mario Van Peebles’ biopic about his father Melvin.

Jeremy Jordan plays Neil Bogart, who came from humble beginnings and with his trusty music-loving executives began a record label, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers. The first few years they were in debt. But he had a passion for music and believed in the artists years before the public caught on. While the label was in the red, he gambled even bigger. All this while having a wife and kids (and an extra-marital affair).

The real Neil Bogart (center) with Kiss in 1973

I went into this movie a fan of many of the artists, so I was never bored with the movie itself. But I need to say: this is the argument for a limited series instead of a movie. As a stand-alone movie this felt like so much was shoehorned in and condensed. As a limited series, it could unfold over multiple episodes and say more over a longer period of time, much like the new Amazon Prime Video series Daisy Jones & The Six, also about the music industry in the 70s. The film has loads of tropes of music biopics, i.e. that moment when a musician comes up with a song that will one day be a classic and it blows away everyone in the room (that happens a few times in this film). We got pieces of Kiss’s story, pieces of Donna Summer, pieces of George Clinton - but not enough pieces to put it all together and be bigger than the sum of their parts. I will say this - I really liked a some of the supporting characters and seeing comic actors like Jay Pharaoh, Michael Ian Black, and Chris Redd do more than their usual comedic roles. Jordan is not bad as Neil Bogart, but I couldn’t help but think about Justin Timberlake in the role as he was attached to this over a decade ago. Fans of Kiss (or Kiss Army Members) are likely to be let down by the group getting reduced to a small supporting role in the film. Overall, movies about record labels are hard to get right, but this one swings high...even if it doesn’t always land on gold.

For info on Spinning Gold: https://www.spinninggold.movie/

2.5 out of 5 stars

#Movie Reviews #jimmie and stevie ray vaughan: brothers in blues #jimmie vaughan #Stevie Ray Vaughan #kirby warnock #documentary #music documentary #spinning gold #casablanca records #neil bogart #timothy scott bogart #kiss #donna summer #film geek #music nerd

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gravesdiggers · 1 year

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Were you wondering what Rupert was filming in Italy recently?

Well, wonder no more!

Verona is a pop Romeo & Juliet musical, starring Clara Rugaard, Jamie Ward, Rebel Wilson, Rupert Everett, Jason Isaacs and Derek Jacobi.

It "will be the first film in a original pop musical trilogy based around the real-life 1301 story that inspired Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. A wide theatrical release this Christmas is being planned."

Yep, you read it right - musical!

So excited for this!

#Rupert Graves #Verona #Rupert Everett #Jason Isaacs #Derek Jacobi #Silver Fox Saturday

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filmnoirfoundation · 8 months

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ASK EDDIE - August 24 2023

FNF prez Eddie Muller responds to film noir fan questions fielded by the Foundation's Director of Communications Anne Hockens. In this episode, we discuss the recent changes at TCM, Eddie’s memories of Robert Osborne, the new Philip Marlowe book, The Second Murder, Poker Face and its inspiration Columbo, female investigators in film noir, and more. We wind up the show with a new game, “Femme Fatale or Not?”. On the cat front, Charlotte is a diva and Emily won’t come out of her trailer.

Want your question answered in a future episode? We solicit questions from our email subscribers in our monthly newsletters. Sign up for free at https://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/signup.html

Everyone who signs up on our email list and contributes $20 or more to the Film Noir Foundation receives the digital version of NOIR CITY Magazine for a year. Donate here: https://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/contribute.html

This weekend’s questions:

1. I am wondering if there's a way to find out which movies screened at the first NOIR CITY. I'm also wondering when you first started distributing those spectacular programs.

Jeannin

2. Would you address the recent cutbacks and layoffs at TCM that are affecting NOIR ALLEY.

Andrew

3. I would love to know about your relationship with Robert Osborne.

Stacy

4. The estate of Raymond Chandler hired Scottish crime fiction writer Denise Mina to pen a new Philip Phillip Philip Marlowe novel, THE SECOND MURDERER was released in August. Have you read it and if so, what did you think? What do you think in general of the practice of having contemporary authors pen reboots based on other writers' classic detective characters? Are there any examples of this that you think are particularly well-done--OR that you think egregiously miss the mark?

Kathleen

5. Have either of you seen the new TV series POKER FACE? It’s not a whodunit. It’s a howcatchem. It’s been said it’s a homage to the old COLUMBO series. Were you two fans of COLUMBO. Was Peter Falk ever in a noir movie?

Alan, San Anselmo, CA

6. Would love to see THE ENFORCER, 1952, starring Bogart presented on NOIR ALLEY sometime soon. I wonder about the film’s backstory. What parts of the film really portrayed the "Murder Inc.", if any?

Victor

7. Since becoming interested in film noir, I have seen several films with Richard Basehart. Did he ever talk about his career in noir films? I saw Basehart live on stage in the late 1970’s playing Macbeth at a theatre near Philadelphia. Did any other “noir” actors perform Shakespeare on stage?

Ed, Washington, D.C.

8. What do you think of Roger Corman's 1962 film THE INTRUDER? And do you consider it to be noir? Doug, Silver Spring, MD

9. I was curious to hear Eddie's opinion on directors William Dieterle, Delmer Daves, Anthony Mann, Robert Wise, Jean Negulesco and which of their film noirs are worth watching.

Jeff from Montreal

10. I was intrigued by the plot of Joseph Pevney’s UNDERCOVER GIRL (1950) because it centers on a policewoman working. I couldn’t find UNDERCOVER GIRL anywhere- to stream or buy.

My question is two-fold. How rare is this type of character in film noir? And why can I not find this film (and other films like this)?

Kellee, Kansas

11. Was The movie PUBLIC ENEMY recut? I ask because Jean Harlow's role is so short and feels like it was recut. I know that the Hayes code had just come into effect so that adds to my suspicion.

David

12. Anne and Eddie: How many emails do you each get each day connected with movies? Is it overwhelming?

Alan

13. Does Eddie or Anne have a favorite or memorable tagline associated with a noir film? Also, is it Tizzie with an "ie" or Tizzy with a "y"? Inquiring minds need to know.

Timothy, Schenectady NY

14. I’d like to propose a new game: ‘Femme Fatale or Not?’ And start off with one tough (or maybe off the wall) example:

PITFALL (1948) (dir. André De Toth) - Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott) is not a femme fatale in this film but Sue Forbes (Jane Wyatt) is. I’ll stop here and see what you and Anne think (about the concept and my interpretation of Wyatt’s character.

Dave in Pie Creek, Queensland

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popentertainmentmusic · 1 year

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SPINNING GOLD (2023)

Starring Jeremy Jordan, Wiz Khalifa, Jason Isaacs, Jason Derulo, Jay Pharoah, Michelle Monaghan, Dan Fogler, Sebastian Maniscalco, Winslow Fegley, Ledisi, Sam Harris, Caylee Cowan, Chris Redd, James Wolk, Tayla Parx, Lyndsy Fonseca, Peyton List, Pink Sweats, Casey Likes, Alex Gaskarth, Michael Ian Black and Vincent Pastore.

Screenplay by Timothy Scott Bogart.

Directed by Timothy Scott Bogart.

Distributed by Hero Entertainment. 137 minutes. Rated R.

Neil Bogart was a larger-than-life legend in the music business, even if very few people other than music nerds like me still have a clue who he was.

Bogart ran Casablanca Record and Filmworks, which after a very rocky start became the most successful independent record label of the 1970s. Bogart worked with and/or discovered such acts as KISS, Donna Summer, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Bill Withers, The Village People, Parliament/Funkadelic and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. He worked hard, lived hard, partied hard. He ran up monumental debts and threw legendary parties. He ran afoul of music biz execs and the mob. All of that before dying way too young at 39 of cancer.

It's a fascinating, under-explored story about the highs and the lows of the music business in its glory days. Bogart’s son Tim has long felt that it was important to tell his dad’s story and has been working to get his dad’s story on film since the 1990s. (Early on, Justin Timberlake was in talks to portray Bogart, although eventually he had to drop out because his musical schedule was packed, and he could not fit it in.)

Now, finally, after decades of waiting, Tim Bogart has gotten his father’s life story onscreen. He did it in a way that his own dad would appreciate – going the independent route and taking on the tough work (screenwriting and directing) himself, and basically willing it into existence.

“Getting that story out… is… moving for me,” Bogart told me in a recent interview. “I do think this is a great parallel in the perseverance and the dream I had in making it.”

Bogart has captured a fascinating look back at the wild west days of the old music world, sex, drugs and rock & roll back when it was safe and normal. Like many recent music biopics, Spinning Gold is a mix of hard reality and fanciful romanticization. Sometimes it feels like a serious gangster drama of the 1970s, at other times a jukebox musical with some damn good music provided by current singers playing the legends of days past.

While most of the celeb singers have the voices to pull off the roles, they mostly look almost nothing like the performers they are playing, such as Donna Summer, Gladys Knight and Bill Withers. Also, a personal note to Wiz Khalifa, in 1976 almost no one had nose piercings, not even someone as wild and funky and willfully out there as George Clinton. So you may want to take those things out when portraying a real-life character from another era.

However, I suppose this is not supposed to be a tribute act. The song is the thing, and mostly the re-recordings of legendary hits of the 1970s work surprisingly well.

Holding it all together – the ringleader of the film portraying the ringleader of Casablanca – is Broadway and TV star Jeremy Jordan (Newsies, Little Shop of Horrors, Supergirl) who can access both Bogart’s showmanship and hard-nosed determination. It’s a fascinating bit of myth-building.

“That was kind of Neil's vibe,” Jordan told me in that same interview. “He just wanted to make you dance and wanted to entertain. He was a showman.

“He's writing his own ending, and it is really kind of beautiful and magical and different in that way,” Jordan continued. “We don't feel tied to ultra reality, and this is the exact perfect way that this happened. It doesn't have to be [real] because it was sex, drugs, rock and roll. It was the journey as opposed to the actual truth of it all.”

You could say that about the 1970s in general.

Spinning Gold is spinning some fascinating tales of life on the periphery of superstardom and the high you reach by going all in and creating some genre-defining art. Plus, it’s got a great beat, and you can dance to it. What more can you ask?

Jay S. Jacobs

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#Spinning Gold #2023 #Music Review #Jeremy Jordan #Jay S. Jacobs

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popentertainment-moviereviews · 1 year

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