The Materialist and Final Word on Harvey Weinstein

So let's get to it the box office. This show is actually recorded prior to the weekend. But the predictions for the weekend, let's see if they came true. We got twenty eight years later from Sony. This one's expected to be number one highly anticipated horror sequel from Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, and predictions generally ranged in the forty to fifty million range for the opening weekend. And you know, horror sequels with a strong pedigree like this

one does, they can often overperform. So maybe it did. Maybe you didn't. What about L e O L E oh from Disney Pixar it's an original animated film also debuting this weekend, and Pixar is seeing mixed results with original content lately so compared to the sequels, so we'll see how it does. Predictions are like twenty five million

to thirty five million. That Disney has a problem because they have so much IP in their vaults and it's so easy to just make another version of something, make a live action version of The Lion King, make a live action Leelo and Stitch and the original stuff. If they don't do well, then someone says, hey, stop you who at the last meeting said we should do something original. You You're fired. Stock went down five percent? You know, do you want to be that guy? No? So you say, okay,

what have we got? Swis Family Robinson's Let's do it? And I know people who work there and they have quit because they just they they find their lack of creativity in the constant reimagining of IP rather than coming up with something new. But you know what, I think there's things you could come up with that are new but are old. Let's take a movie like Song of the Self band all over the world because of the joyful slaves that play a big part in the movie.

If you've ever seen this, you know what I'm talking about. They're pretty joyful and they sing some amazing songs. And at some point people said, uh, that's not a good look. You know, Uh, let's not depict them slaves as happy. We don't want to whitewash it. So they just got rid of the movie. What you could reimagine that movie and you could just say, in a world where where white people are slaves, and uh, I don't know, that's what That's all I got. So maybe I'll feed it

into my Google Gemini and see what comes out. Let's see the Song of the South. What about song of the Middle East? Now I see, Now I'm things just starting to trigger. I was in Egypt last year, and uh, you know that, you know how people tell you that, you know, you know, actually there are more slaves today and then there were during the Civil War on the earth. That's how they talked to Okay, I don't know if that's true or not, and uh, it's probably different degrees

of slavery. But then there's countries in the Middle East that people tell me slavery is either legal or at least just not prosecuted, and then I was in Egypt, and then I was staying at the Four Seasons Nile. And if you ever get a chance to stay at the Four Seasons on the Nile, you gotta do it. It's exactly what you think would be. It's insane. So four Seasons at the Nile. I'm down at the pool. There's like wealthy Arab families. Clearly slaves. Clearly slaves are

taking care of their kids. And I mean they're not even allowed to sit on chairs. One was allowed to sit on a nice chest. And when I say clearly they are slaves, I'm like, I'm absolutely twenty percent certain that these are slaves. I don't know. They say, there's all these slaves. I'm looking at them right in front of me. And then they busted it out into song and I stopped him. I threw him all into the pool.

I said, that's offensive. Do not be happy, do not What was that song you were just singing, ma'am zippity doo doo. Never sing that again. Okay, don't make me come back here. Okay. I don't know how we got on that tangent, but back to the box office, yeah, Ilio, I don't know. Maybe it'll do well. How to Train Your Dragon Stronghold over from last weekend probably be doing big business this weekend. And this is a live action adaptation that had a strong opening last weekend, and it's

you know, competition, isn't that great? It's gonna be big again. Leelo and Stitch still probably do eight to ten million this weekend. Mission Impossible, unlike the episode that we put out last week, which we called Listen Impossible, the Final Reckoning still be floating around The Materialists. Now this one will probably bump up a little bit. Is this the wait? Is this the yeah? This is the first weekend of

The Materialist because I saw at a preview. Now, I sat at a preview, so last weekend it did something, but I start at a preview before that, and then this weekend there and estimating five to seven million. What do you need to know about The Materialists? It's kind of an exciting movie. I was happy I saw it. I could have seen Mission Impossible or Lelo and Stitch, and then I just took a left turn and said

I'm gonna go see this. It's directed by Selene's Song and you might remember her from the film Past Lives, which was critically acclaimed, Oscar nominated, and this is her sophomore effort, and I got to say, it's even better the Past Lives. Now. I don't know if you remember Past Lives. It was basically a really deep kind of movie about these two kids, Nora and High Song, and they're super tight growing up in Korea. But then Nora's

family dips to America. Fast forward like twenty years, and they reconnect online and eventually meet up in New York. They you know, check out each other's lives, and then what happens. I mean, it was a while since I've seen it, but Nora, who's actually married. Now that's a problem, and it's all about, Hey, these old you know, connections stick with you even if you've moved on, and then you contemplate the different lives you could have lived. Who

hasn't done that. I contemplate that all the time, and I always come back to wow, I think I better off. So anyway, so back to the Materialists, materialist movie, I recommend it. She goes see it. Star studied cast if you call Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal as star studied, pretty star study, but Pedro Pascal is in every movie. Have you noticed. You go see a movie, he's in the trailers and you come out and he's in another poster. So here's a plot. Lucy is a

successful matchmaker in New York City. She doesn't make a lot of money herself, but she's only doing high end relationships and you know it, they're all transactional to her. It's a merger of assets and lifestyles. But her own romantic life gets complicated when she finds herself torn between two very different men. Harry, who embodies her materialistic philosophy with his wealth and stability. And of course there's John, her ex with whom she shares a deep emotional history

but lacks financial security. He's like, you know, a waiter slash caterer. He's a waiterer. The film explores the tension between love and money. I mean, this is an old theme, but she does it really well, asking whether a genuine connection can survive in a world where material concerns heavily influenced. Romantic choices delves into the math of modern love. She's always doing math. It's just just do the math. Is

this a match or not? And a key plot point involves Lucy's disillusionment with her job after a client she matched experiences with some other guy had a very negative outcome, and then she questions her cynical view of relationships and this influences where she's going to end up in the end of the movie. And it has an amazing other plot twist of what she what she finds. There's mister Wright and then there's mister Cool. Now mister Wright has

a secret too, of course he does. Nobody's a ten out of a ten, but at first she thinks he's a ten out of a ten and his secret is. So I just love that this was a plot point in a movie, his secret, And you got to see the movie of I know what his secret is? What is Pedro Pascal's secret? What nobody could be that perfect? What's wrong with him? You would never guess it in a million years, although there are some hints dropped along the way in the film. All Right, we're going to

take a break and come back. I'll talk a little bit more about this movie and some others and some other business on Joe Escalante Live from Hollywood. Joe Escalante Live from Hollywood. We are back, coming to you from New York City this weekend and next weekend. Coming to you from Utah, Salt Lake City at the X Games. Live from the X Games. How do you like that? Okay, we get around, We're all over the place. Let's go back to The Materialist. Did you see it during the break?

Did you push pause on your podcast? Go see it and then come back. That would have been a good idea too, but now it's too late. Okay. So another thing about this movie. It's from A twenty four, so obviously it's art house, you know, art house that push the boundaries. Now people are calling it a rom com, but there's no jokes. Okay, rom drama, I don't know. And most people like it. They call it, you know,

smart and witty and honest. But I'll tell you this is it's another movie that where like a lot of these movies, like I was listening to the podcast of Brett Easton Ellis the other day and he's talking to another writer and they were discussing how they can't they don't want to write stories that take place in a world with cell phones, so they write stories from the eighties or earlier because a cell phone complicates everything, Like

you have some drama. You have some conflict, but you could you just call use the phone, look up Google anything. Characters can't get lost in these movies about today's people because of Google maps. So people just don't want to write in that world this movie. I like many movies, they instead of the phone, the phone is there. But what is not there is religion. And I usually come from the view of Catholicism. Now, if these people were Catholic, they couldn't do any of this stuff. They wouldn't be

obsessed with premarital sex. They wouldn't be living together and trying people out to see if they're a good match, and be sleeping with each other to see if they're compatible. They wouldn't be doing any of that. They'd be saving themselves and they would have a spiritual connection. Then when they would make this solemn religious problem promise to God and the just unbreakable and they would never break it. So the matchmaker be out. I mean, you could have

a matchmaker. I think is a big role for a matchmaker. Of course in religions, like in the movie what is that Fiddler on the roof? Is that the matchmaker? One? Yeah? Matchmaker or is it gental I didn't see ental suf Fiddler on the roof. Yeah, matchmaker. So it can be done. But you have to assume that all these people have no religion. They're pagans, or they're atheists or Satanists or what.

I don't know what they are, but they're they're worshiping material goods, which you can have Catholic people that are very materialistic. There's a lot of rich religious people. There's the whole what do you call that prosperity ministry. Yeah, those people are materialistic. They believe in like speaking things into existence and what do they call it, positive confession,

speaking things into existence? And financial giving, making money so you can give more, and this is the key to unlocking God's blessings of wealth and health in this life, in this life. So that does exist. I guess you could, but in this movie it doesn't work. If anyone's got I have so many movies I watching them on I could solve this problem. This movie be over. I could be on the freeway. If I just converted these people instantly into Catholics, all their problems will be solved. But

that's not the world we live in. We don't want to see only films about cell phones, worlds with cell phone without without cell phones, and we don't want to see only movies where everybody's capfulic I get it. Okay, what if you wanted to see The Materialists? It's into theaters right now, So of course I recommend always go to the theaters because one day you'll wake up and there will be no theaters and you will feel like you didn't do enough to support them. So it makes

you go get over whatever phobias you have. I don't want to sit in a room with a bunch of people. I just watch it at home on my big TV. Get over it. Go see The Materialists where you're like, where can you see it? I think it's coming to HBO. If you're a loser, you can wait, and but that's not until around October. So you got to go to the theater. Yes you do, because A twenty four doesn't play around. There's a long time between now and in October.

Right next up on the Big Show, P Diddy, I know we're sick of it, but what's he I'm just going to give you a recap. This might wrap up, this might have wrapped up on Friday, but what do we got? We got Here's what happened this week. Jurors were shown explicit freak off of it. If you don't know what a freak off is, it's a drug fueled

sexual encounter central to the prosecution's case. They showed him for the first time on Monday and Tuesday, and they've had previously only been seen as still images or heard as audio. But they got to see actual videos of freak offs because all freae COFs are filmed. A special agent testified about evidence related to these freak COFs, including tax flight records and hotel bills, and did He's legal

team has indicated that he is unlikely to testify. Oh, so the big man is not going to take the stand. M probably a wise move. I think a wise move because I think it's going to be hard to prove all their charges and a lot of stuff is going to be not guilty. Maybe he'll get charged on something, but not. I don't think he's but he has a chance to just do very little time or maybe none

at all. The Judge I issued a stern warning this week to both the prosecution and Evince about information after information about a sealed proceeding allegedly leaked to the media and he threatened criminal contempt for future violations. That's about it for P Diddy, But it might have been the prosecution may have rested its case. Okay, Now what happens when the prosecution rests its case. Other then the defense

comes up and they make their case. So let's go with Uh, we'll find out, you know, we'll find out next week. How about the Justin Baldini case. I know you're sick of that and you don't like it, and I don't talk about it a lot because it's just like lame. So here's what's new though. You know how Blake Lively sued Justin Baldini for all the stuff you ruined me, you sexually harassed me, all this stuff, and

then Baldini filed the countersuit. He su Blake Lively and her husband for allegedly attempting to destroy his reputation and career. Handy sue the New York Times sort of defamation related to articles about the onset conflict, but it got dismissed, so his arguments were rejected by the court. Wow, so now he's just defending a big, expensive lawsuit. But his lot he was like suing her for like four hundred million dollars. It's just like, what are you doing? Where

does that number come from? So now just the broader underlying dispute about sexual harassment and hostile workplace environment, this kind of stuff still ongoing. All right, let's take a break and come back with more. I got some Disney news, I got some you never know what I got up my sleeve kind of news after this. Joe Scalante Live from Hollywood. Joe Scalante Live from Hollywood. If by Hollywood need a burbank. This is two hours of the business end of show business. We do it every Sunday on

KiB eleven to fifteen your AM dial. And there's a podcast version. They turn the show into a podcast miraculously, and then you get it on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, all right, let's go to a Supreme Court case on intellectual property. Can you imagine this week? June seventeenth, the US Supreme Court officially rejected a bid to revive the copyright claim against Ed Sheeran over his twenty fourteen hit song Thinking Out Loud.

This decision brings an end to the decade long legal battle. This is a sub total bum out. Poor guy. The villain here is a company called Structured Asset Sales, which holds copyright into st interests in Marvin Gay's Let's Get It On, And they alleged that Cheeran copied the melody, harmonies and rhythm of this Marvin Gate nineteen seventy three classic.

Now you can see how since here this is the family and Marvin Gay family has sold the rights to this song to a bunch of fill in the ranks, and they are suing everybody inside because of the terrible decision that was made years ago, claiming that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thick, Robin Thick or it's this kid. Yeah, Robin think his dad is Alan. His dad's from my generation. Alan think he was famous. So Robin think Pharrell Williams said that they stole the song from Marvin Gay and

they didn't. And I'll I'll go over it again. The copyrighted material that was protected something. If you copyright something, it's protected. What was partet in that case was the copyright. The copyright had sheet music in it, and the judge let the jury hear the finished recording with piles and piles and piles and piles of unprotected material on it, and then the protected material that's in the copyright is

the only thing the should been played. They should have had a string cortet come out there and play that protected version and then we compare that to the melodies and the expressions in the Robin Thick Farrell Williams song. But instead they compared something that is where like the final version of the Marvin gay song. So they could go take the final versions and say, oh, okay, you stole that. Well, it's just you know, they're inspired by that.

And then they did what everybody else does, listen to a song, get inspired a bit. They'd like the feel of this song, and that jury said, well, you can't take the feel. Oh my gosh, yeah you can. You can take the feel. So in this case, the same company comes after. Maybe it's after that that the Marvin Gaye family sold it to these people, but I don't know.

So these people are running around suing people since they got a bad decision, and finally a court said no, you're not getting another bad decision, and then went to the Supreme Court and they said, yeah, you're not getting a bad decision. Go away. So that's why I call them the villains. Whoever this company has structured asset sales. Yeah,

he already won the case in twenty twenty three. So Supreme Court confirms the lower court it's findings in favor of she Ran and saying that these similarities were mere common musical building blocks. So go pound sand. And this goes back to something I always say is do we want to live in a world where these musicians are afraid to create because some terrible jury instructions were given in the Robin Thick Pharrell Marvin Gay case. No, it's

not the world you want to live. You want people to be taking genres and being influenced by it and taking it to the next level. You can't pick apart their work and sue them for taking chances and being

creative and pushing boundaries and saluting the original artists. It's like if you took that Marvin Gay song that they used r any of these songs, you could reverse engineer the lawsuit to find who that person took their influences from and wake that person up out of the grave and get their estate together and sue the plaintiff in the new lawsuit So do we want to live in this world where that's how artists are shackled? I don't think we do. Okay, let's go to the phones. Just kidding,

taping this, Okay? Anyway, what's going on in the Harvey Weinstein trial. I knew that's what you were going to ask, and you did, and I have it for you. You know, as you know, he had some of his charges thrown out, and he had a retrial, he had a new trial. Good news for Harvey. A lot of good news in this trial. Doesn't mean he's not going to die in prison,

which I believe he is. But a jury in New York reached a split verdict in his retrial, and he was found guilty on just one count of criminal of a criminal sexual act in the first degree related to the accusations by Miriam Hayley. Now, let's let's remind everybody who Miriam Haley is, because this is the big one, the one that two times he was convicted of a sexual act in the first degree. Miriam Haley was a production assistant briefly worked on Project Runway, the show that

was actually produced by the Weinstein Company. Now, production assistant is the lowest level person on a set the most vulnerable, if you will. Often they are very good looking young girls that are like this girl's hot. She doesn't have any skills, but to be a production assistant, you don't need any skills, and you end up just kind of fitting in. Wherever you excel, you either get fired or someone notices that you're good at something, and you know,

and just concentrate on whatever skills you have. She's in the Weinstein world. She testified that she was seeking professional opportunities in the industry and viewed Weinstein as a guy could help her, and she described a series of interactions with him that were sometimes professional and polite, but other times inappropriate and suggestive. So he's kind of grooming her

and he pushed the boundaries. She maintained that she was never interested in sexual or romantic relationship with him, only impressional, only professional advancement. Okay, she's allowed to do that. She testified that in July of two thousand and six, remember this is you know, years ago, Weinstein invited her to his Manhattan apartment, where she expected to be him to be professional and have a friendly meeting, and during the meeting,

he lunged at her to kiss her. She said no, thanks, but then he forcibly grabbed her and pushed her into the bedroom. Once in the bedroom, he pinned her down and performed oral sex on her against her will, despite her pleas to stop, saying no, no, no, it's not

going to happen. Okay, So she feels humiliated afterwards. Then she says she did not immediately report the assault to the police and continue to have contact with Weinstein for some time afterwards, even sending cordial emails, signed lots of love and seeking professional favors. So yeah, she's milking it. That hurts her testimony, but she ultimately prevailed in this claim.

She explained that her continued contact was because she was trying to and this is in quotes, navigate the whole situation. So that's her excuse. I'm trying to navigate the whole situation, okay. She wanted to preserve any potential professional opportunities and cope with the trauma by suppressing a lot of things. She also testified about another sexual encounter a few weeks later at a hotel that she described as unwanted but which she didn't physically resist. Basically had sex with them and

then she felt stupid. She said she did it. She agreed to it because she felt stupid for having agreed to meet him. You know, maybe she was afraid. Okay, but you know what, We're gonna explore this att flirt further since this is, you know, almost done kind of. But first we shall go to traffic. Joe Scalante live from Hollywood.

memory lane with that one. Who is Kaja Sokolaw? Now, if you remember, Kaja Sokola is the Polish born former model and aspiring actress who became an accuser in the Harvey Weinstein sex crimes original trial, and she was just used in that trial as an example of prior bad acts, and she wasn't a it wasn't a separate charge. But in the retrial, looks like she became a new charge. And if you remember and which which he was, he was found not guilty of Okay, So what did she say.

It's pretty much the same old stuff. She met Weinstein in two thousand and two. That's why it was so long ago. It wasn't really a part of the original claim. When she was about sixteen years old, she was on a modeling trip to New York and she met him and was invited to his apartment to discuss her acting career, but once there, she was told to take off her clothes and rub his naughty bits. She described feeling scared, confused. If you want to be an actress, that's what actors

do in films, you should get used to it. That's what she said that he said, so not guilty, And a juror actually spoke out and said they didn't find her credible because of her continuing relationship and just her testimony, and she said she couldn't come to terms with the alleged abuse at the time, you know, and so she you know, they found diary entries. She didn't talk about this, like it wasn't that big a deal. She didn't even

talk about her her diary. But she said she couldn't trying to like just kind of rewrite her life and career and her career choices. Now, the jury also couldn't reach a verdict in a third case brought by a woman named Jessica Man. Now, let's go down memory lane and remember who Jessica Man is. Jessica Man was an aspiring actress and cosmetologist in her late twenties when she met Harvey Weinstein around twenty twelve or twenty thirteen in LA.

Like the other accusers, she testified that Weinstein initially showed interest in her career, leading her to believe that he could help her. She described a complex and often degrading relationship that lasted about five years. So this guy, I mean, he was accused of sexually assaulting these women who he thought, I mean, I think he's a perv and he shouldn't

do this, and he was married. On top of all this, that he was these girls had him believe at least that they they thought they were getting something out of it. So I believe that he didn't think he was raping them. He's just disgusting, you know. He just thinks, ah, this is you know, I'm gonna help him, and this is how it works in Hollywood. So and again, she said it alternated between him being charming and being like aggressive and abusive. She called him a doctor Jekylo and mister Hyde.

And the word no was a trigger. How do you like that one? Whoever came up to that one should get a bonus? No was a trigger, Ladies and gentleman of the jury, She said no, and then it was on. So the core accusation of Jessica Mand's case revolved around an incident at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan in March of twenty thirteen. I cannot tell you which hotel it is, but there were two trees involved. Okay, you get it. She testified that she was in New York with a

friend who was supposed to meet Weinstein for breakfast. Instead, she found him checking into the hotel. Can you imagine Harvey Weinstein checking into a hotel with two trees involved? My camp? But he did it because he's a perf. She said he became angry with him with her and told her he demanded she come up to his room, and of course she went up to the room, tried to leave, he grabbed her, demanded she undressed. She recounted a moment there where she just gave up due to

the aggression and her fear. And there's what she said, He raped her. This is Jessica, man, This one didn't stick. This is where they found the erection inducing syringe in the bathroom, or she said she found it. You gotta take pictures of stuff like that. That's what I see. But anyway, this is all I mean. It's hard to judge these people. She also testified about a previous instant before that in La where he forced himself on her

during their first private meeting in a hotel room. This guy loves hotel rooms, and then he invited her up there of course to you know, talk about careers. She said that one was a real battle, but despite these assaults, she still maintained a relationship. Said she was trying to buy time. She believed that maintaining contact might take the pain away or create a path for her career. This just shows you how hard it is to be an

actress and to be in the entertainment industry. So I don't know anyway, I know you're wondering, how often does this happen to your host? Almost never? But I did have one situation where a film was offered to me to direct. All I had to do was bad stuff and that film was never made. Just leave it there, okay, Now, okay, So these these Jessica man Kaja Sokola and and Miriam Haley, those things, those are the three charges, the main ones.

Miriam Haley, this one sticks. And then okay, so what's going on with the guy?

he's still serving time for the other one. So he's dying. He's dying in prison. That's all we can say. Even though he's appealing that California thing. Actually, he could win his appeal in the California one and you could feel this and you could be set free. Is it gonna happen? Probably not. Am I gonna talk about this ever again? Probably not. Okay, thank you for indulging me for me. I just want I wanted to get the party straight too, and so in this report I was able to get

the parties straight again. Okay, I got one more thing for you. Kind of interesting. There's a liquid death beverage coming out that has evidently contains DNA of Ozzy Osbourne in it, so recent marketing initiative featuring a some juice from his DNA. Just I mean, what does DNA taste like anyway? Are you gonna notice it? Probably not? Is it poisonous? I hope not, But it's open to peculiar discussion on the intersection of like celebrity branding and future

bio legal considerations that we never thought would happen. Ten limit edition Infinite Ozzie iced tea cans were sold, each containing purportedly trace amounts of mister Osborne saliva, DNA, so Ozzy spit. The explicit premise of the campaign was to future potential was for future potential fans to clone mister Osborne,

should technology and federal law permit. While human reproductive cloning from such samples remains outside current scientific capability and is widely prohibited or restricted by existing state law and international laws, this promotion raises interesting hypotheticals, you know, regarding the ownership and the intended use of genetic material in a commercial context. And let's just be glad nobody's proposed yet to clone

share in Osbourne. All right, that does it for this one, And I now leave you with a taste of the greatest song ever written.