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Here comes Rhymin’ Simon — again.

After having retired from touring in 2018 due to hearing loss, Paul Simon is hitting the road for a four-month North American tour of intimate venues starting April 4 in New Orleans and running through August 3 in Seattle.

The jaunt, dubbed A Quiet Celebration, will hit 20 cities over 55 dates, with stops at Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the Beacon in New York City and the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. See the full itinerary below.

The trek will support his Grammy-nominated 2023 album Seven Psalms but will feature tracks from throughout his solo career and Simon & Garfunkel days.

Simon, 83, is a Rock Hall of Famer and 16-time Grammy winner, who shared the record for most Album of the Year Grammys until Taylor Swift broke it with her fourth last year. He has six gold, four platinum and two multiplatinum solo albums, led by 1986’s 5 million seller Graceland, which was...

The Bob Dylan song choices Timothée Chalamet picked for his “Saturday Night Live” musical appearance were… well, completely unknown to most of the viewing audience. The actor’s dip into more obscure choices delighted many Dylanologists who tuned in, even as his picks defied expectations that he would recreate songs he performed as Dylan in “A Complete Unknown,” which turned out to be the furthest thing from his mind.

In his opening monolog as host, Chalamet signaled that viewers would be surprised by the choices during his musical segment. “You might not know the Bob Dylan songs I’m performing, but they’re my personal favorites,” he told the audience. “I’m so grateful ‘Saturday Night Live’ is still doing weird stuff like this 50 years in. They’re either really nice for letting me do this or incredibly mean and this is all a big prank.”

In an unbilled cameo,...

Jules Feiffer, a Pultizer Prize-winning cartoonist and author who also wrote the screenplay for films, including Carnal Knowledge and Popeye, died Jan. 17 of congestive heart failure at his home in upstate New York. He was 95. His wife, Jz Holden, confirmed his death to the Washington Post.

Feiffer’s long career began at the age of 17 when he became assistant to cartoonist Will Eisner, working with Eisner on his comic strips, including The Spirit. In 1956, he joined The Village Voice as a staff cartoonist where he produced the weekly comic strip “Feiffer” for more than 40 years, until 1997. The comic strip ran in The Village Voice from 1956 until 2000, and was syndicated to more than 100 newspapers.

His entree into the film business came in 1961, with the Oscar-winning animated short Munro, based on his story about a child who is drafted.

He went on to write what became his best-known screenplay for the Mike Nichols...

Jules Feiffer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who also wrote occasionally for the stage and screen, including Mike Nichols’ film “Carnal Knowledge” and Robert Altman’s “Popeye,” died on Jan. 17 at his home in upstate New York. He was 95. Feiffer’s wife confirmed to the Washington Post that he died of congestive heart failure.

Feiffer was a cartoonist with the Village Voice for more than 40 years until 1997.

His first connection with the film business came with the Oscar-winning 1961 animated short “Munro,” based on Feiffer’s story — a parable about the mindless military mentality in which the title character, a 4-year-old, is drafted.

Feiffer adapted his own play “Little Murders,” a dark satire about life in New York that had been briefly staged on Broadway in 1967, for the 1971 film of that name directed by Alan Arkin and starring Elliott Gould. Roger Ebert gave the movie four out of four stars and said,...

Jules Feiffer, the provocative satirist, cartoonist, playwright and 1960s counterculturist who wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’ classic Carnal Knowledge and Robert Altman’s Popeye, has died. He was 95.

A Pulitzer Prize winner, Feiffer died Jan. 17 at his home in Upstate New York of congestive heart failure, his wife, Jz Holden, told The Washington Post.

The Bronx native joined such luminaries as Samuel Beckett, Sam Shepard, John Lennon and Robert Benton in contributing material to the bawdy 1969 Broadway musical revue Oh! Calcutta!, and he earned a Tony nomination for best play in 1976 for Knock, Knock. Starring Judd Hirsch, it was “a wild spree of jokes, pratfalls, word games, collapsing scenery, falling bodies and burlesque sight gags,” according to The New York Times.

In 1967, his original comedy Little Murders made its Broadway bow with a cast that included Barbara Cook, Elliott Gould and David Steinberg, and Feiffer wrote the screenplay for...

Barbra Streisand celebrated Richard Perry’s “uncanny ability to pick the hits” in a tribute to the late producer, who died this week at the age of 82.

Streisand worked with Perry on two albums, Stoney End and Barbra Joan Streisand, both of which came out in 1971. As Streisand noted in her tribute, it was Perry who “encouraged [her] to record contemporary songs” after building her career largely on standards. And the two records they made contained several successful singles, none more so than Streisand’s version of the Laura Nyro-penned “Stoney End,...

As we’ve witnessed with such visionaries as Phil Spector and Sam Phillips, pop record producers can have hugely impactful moments that define an era — but then, as styles and technology evolve around them, never quite regain their footing. Richard Perry, who died Dec. 24 at 82, wasn’t the household name that Spector or George Martin were, but the longevity of his career, especially from the Sixties into the Eighties, was its own type of legacy: Perry left behind a body of work that can now be seen as a roadmap...

Richard Perry, a hitmaking record producer with a flair for both standards and contemporary sounds whose many successes included Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” Rod Stewart’s “The Great American Songbook” series and a Ringo Starr album featuring all four Beatles, died Tuesday. He was 82.

Perry, a recipient of a Grammys Trustee Award in 2015, died at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering cardiac arrest, friend Daphna Kastner said.

“He maximized his time here,” said Kastner, who called him a “father friend” and said he was godfather to her son. “He was generous, fun, sweet and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweeter without him here. But it’s a little bit sweeter in heaven.”

Perry was a onetime drummer, oboist and doo-wop singer who proved at home with a wide variety of musical styles, the rare producer to have No. 1 hits on the pop,...

Richard Perry, a music producer behind hits like Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” has died. He was 82.

The record producer died on Tuesday in Los Angeles after suffering cardiac arrest.

Daphna Kastner, a friend of Perry, told AP she referred to him as a “father friend, adding, “He maximized his time here. He was generous, fun, sweet and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweeter without him here. But it’s a little bit sweeter in heaven.”

Perry made a big name in the 1970s, producing for the likes of Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Art Garfunkel, Carly Simon, and Ringo Starr. In the late 1970s, he started his own Planet Records label and signed acts like The Cretones, Pointer Sisters, and Billy Thermal, among many others. He sold the label to RCA Records in 1983.

TMZ reports that according to Perry’s personal assistant,...

Richard Perry has passed away.

The famous record producer died in the very early morning hours of Christmas Eve (December 24), his longtime personal assistant Ben McCarthy told TMZ. He was 82 years old.

Richard had reportedly been fighting Parkinson’s disease and wasn’t able to verbally communicate. Ben shared that visited him for a few hours about a month ago and Richard was in high spirits.

The record producer made a big name for himself in the 1970s, producing songs and albums for the likes of Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Art Garfunkel, Carly Simon, and Ringo Starr.

He started his own label, Planet Records in the late 70s, signing acts like The Cretones, Pointer Sisters, Billy Thermal and more, before the label was purchased by RCA Records in 1983.

In more recent times, Richard had a public relationship with actress Jane Fonda, who he dated from 2009 until they broke up in 2017 after eight years together.

One neat thing about the original "Frasier" series was that it had some major guest stars we never actually got to see. In fact, it had a ton of major guest stars we never got to see. Dr. Crane's Kacl talk radio show provided the perfect opportunity to land some of the greatest guests in TV history without having to worry about getting the celebrities into the studio — although Linda Hamilton actually doubled up as a caller and an in-person guest on "Frasier." Everyone from Christopher Reeve to Carrie Fisher called the good doctor for advice over the course of the show's 11 seasons, and it wasn't just actors.

"Frasier" also played host to the voices of musicians Eddie Van Halen and Art Garfunkel, as well as tennis star John McEnroe. While the show never struggled to get big-name actors in the flesh, these "hidden" cameos made for an undeniably cool...

Ten years ago, in a move he quickly grew to regret, Art Garfunkel had an imaginary conversation with Paul Simon while speaking to a reporter for U.K. newspaper The Telegraph. They hadn’t played together in five years at this point, and his frustrations were boiling over. “How can you walk away from this lucky place on top of the world, Paul?” Garfunkel asked. “What’s going on with you, you idiot? How could you let that go, jerk?”

The reporter asked if Simon had a Napoleonic complex, and...

Art Garfunkel revealed that he cried at a recent reunion lunch with his former musical partner Paul Simon.

Garfunkel told The Times newspaper that the duo – responsible for hits including The Sound of Silence and Bridge Over Troubled Water – had not met for many years after falling out. He revealed:

“I looked at Paul and said, ‘What happened? Why haven’t we seen each other?’ Paul mentioned an old interview where I said some stuff. I cried when he told me how much I had hurt him. Looking back, I guess I wanted to shake up the nice guy image of Simon & Garfunkel. Y’know what? I was a fool!”

And he said the pair had made plans to meet again:

“Will Paul bring his guitar? Who knows. For me, it was about wanting to make amends before it’s too late. It felt like we were back in a wonderful place.

About 70 years ago, Art Garfunkel formed his first musical duo when he noticed he blended voices nicely with an elementary school friend named Paul. He formed his second one several decades later when he discovered a similar chemistry with his eldest son, Art Garfunkel Jr. After years of performing together on concert stages all across the globe, they released their debut LP last week Father and Son. They’ve dubbed themselves “Garfunkel and Garfunkel.”

Right now, Garfunkel and Garfunkel are sitting in a conference room at New York City’s Pierre Hotel,...

Welcome to our weekly rundown of the best new music — featuring big singles, key tracks from our favorite albums, and more. This week, Karol G and her fellow Colombian stars pay tribute to their homeland, Zach Bryan wants to take the high road even if he can’t find it, and Griff shares a hypnotic tune for the post-club haze. Plus, new music from Flo, State Champs, and Julia Michaels.

Karol G, Feid, Dfzm feat. Ovy On The Drums, J Balvin, Maluma, Ryan Castro, Bless, “+57” (YouTube)

Zach Bryan, “High Road” (YouTube)

Griff,...

One neat aspect of the original "Frasier" series is that it featured a bunch of bonafide Hollywood legends as guest stars we never actually got to see. While many renowned actors showed up in the physical — from Michael Keaton to Linda Hamilton — many more only lent their voice to the beloved sitcom, calling into Frasier's Kacl talk radio show for some advice from the good doctor. In fact, before she appeared on the show's fourth season as Molly, a potential love interest for Frasier who quickly gets away, Linda Hamilton herself called into Dr. Crane's radio show in the pilot episode, voicing the character of Claire, a woman struggling to get over her ex-boyfriend.

Over the course of 11 seasons, many more prestigious guest stars called Frasier for advice. Kevin Bacon, Mary Tyler Moore, Carrie Fisher, Billy Crystal, Macaulay Culkin, Helen Mirren, and Bill Paxton are just some examples. But it wasn't just actors.

It’s been nearly a decade and a half since Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel performed at the American Film Institute’s tribute to Mike Nichols in Los Angeles. The time in between then has been marked with Garfunkel’s four-year struggle to regain his voice after being diagnosed with vocal cord paresis, followed by a delayed Simon & Garfunkel North American tour that never materialized and Garfunkel’s public denouncement of his former bandmate.

However, their long-standing feud has seemed to reach a healing point. Speaking with The Sun, Garfunkel...

There was so much to love about "Frasier." Leaving aside the fact that star Kelsey Grammer seemed born to play the fussy titular doctor, or that he was surrounded by one of the finest ensembles in TV history, "Frasier" also attracted a dazzling array of guest stars, many of whom we never actually got to see. That's because dozens of guests merely provided their voices to Frasier's call-in talk radio show. These were big name stars, too, with everyone from Helen Mirren to Billy Crystal contacting Frasier for life advice. It wasn't just actors, either. "Frasier" played host to Art Garfunkel, Stephen King, and tennis legend John McEnroe, making for what is surely one of the most impressive lists of guest stars for any TV show (and even rivaling "The Simpsons" for the sheer amount of celebrities that agreed to appear).

Another example of how the show managed to transcend...

From his era-defining work with Art Garfunkel to the sometimes problematic legacy of 80s hit Graceland, Alex Gibney’s documentary strikes a pure and personal note

Alex Gibney’s docu-celebration of Paul Simon unfolds over an epic three-and-a-half hours, but he persuades you that this is exactly how much time was needed. There is something very involving and very personal here: something to do with the slight, pure line of Simon’s unmistakable vocal presence, vulnerable and even fragile, perhaps, but also insistent and durable. Simon is of course the genius songwriter from New York whose speaking voice, to my ear, sounds increasingly like that of Woody Allen. Gibney’s camera joins Simon – a grandfatherly but spry figure – as he works on his latest choral album Seven Psalms, then flashes back to his earliest years with Art Garfunkel, and brings us up to the present.

Simon says the sensational harmonies...

One of the country’s most prolific musicians, Paul Simon was born on October 13, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Queens, New York City. His love for music and gift for songwriting began at a young age, and he has enjoyed a varied career for over six decades.

Simon’s first successes came as one-half of a duo formed with his childhood friend, Art Garfunkel. Their debut album in 1964, “Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.,” flopped. However, the counterculture movement of the 1960s was just beginning, and before long, the duo’s folk/rock blend would become the anthem for that generation, and “The Sound of Silence” became their first hit.

Fueled by Simon’s masterful storytelling, their unique sound and contributions to the 1967 film “The Graduate,” Simon and Garfunkel became two of the most successful and notable musicians of the time. In 1970, the two released their fifth and final studio album,...

Exclusive: Wayfarer Studios is adapting for the big screen, the 2020 inspirational memoir by Sanford “Sandy” D. Greenberg, Hello Darkness My Old Friend: How Daring Dreams and Unyielding Friendship Turned One Man’s Blindness Into an Extraordinary Vision for Life.

The project reteams the studio with scribe and producer, Tony Spiridakis, who wrote the recent indie feature Ezra starring Robert De Niro and Bobby Cannavale. Spiridakis will adapt and serve as EP.

The news comes just as Wayfarer Studios is about to open the Aug. 9 Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively romance drama, It Ends With Us, based on the Colleen Hoover novel, via Sony.

The film focuses on Greenberg’s early life growing up in an impoverished Jewish household in Buffalo, NY, his formative years at Columbia University and the incredible challenges that made up his extraordinary life. While at school, he strikes up an instant friendship with Art Garfunkel, and the two...

The new Netflix true crime docuseries Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam chronicles the filthy antics of Lou Pearlman, the man behind the creation of the 90s boy band craze. Pearlman was responsible for some of the decade’s biggest acts, including the Backstreet Boys, *Nsync, and O-Town, which produced stars such as Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, and Aaron Carter.

In Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam, one of the now-adult boy band members credits Pearlman for creating a cultural touchstone in music history. However, this is not why many feel he should charged with crimes against humanity. Pearlman was behind the worst Ponzi scheme in American history.

Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam (2024) | Image via Netflix SUGGESTEDFresh Out of Jail and Straight Onto Fortnite as Justin Timberlake Hits Fortnite Festival Netflix’s Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam Review and Synopsis

Netflix’s Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam...

Actress Shelley Duvall has died. Duvall rose to fame in the 1970s as cinema’s new darling and muse to Director Robert Altman who cast her in many of his films.

Her first role was in Altman’s Brewster McCloud followed by McCabe & Mrs. Miller; Thieves Like Us; Three Women; Nashville and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson.

She would go on to work with Woody Allen in Annie Hall and star in her most famous role as Wendy Torrance alongside Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film The Shining.

Related: Shelley Duvall Dies: ‘The Shining’, ‘Nashville’ Actor Was 75

Shelley was consistent in working in television as well as children’s shows hosting Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories; Adventures from the Book of Virtues and the cult Disney movie, Mother Goose Rock’n’ Rhyme where she portrayed Little Bo Beep. The film was a unique take...

Becoming an adult means realizing that Charles Grodin is a comedic genius, and not merely a cranky old sourpuss who hates adorable St. Bernards.

The late actor/comedian/writer’s knack for postmodern hijinks was evident in many of his late-night talk show appearances, such as when he brought his attorney with him to Late Night with David Letterman, out of concerns that the host had committed libel against him.

But the best example of Grodin turning a standard guest spot into a high-concept comedic bit occurred when he hosted Saturday Night Live for the first and only time.

Grodin’s 1977 episode began with Gilda Radner, John Belushi and Garrett Morris behind the scenes, getting ready for the show, and complaining that “this Chuck Grodin guy” had missed most of the rehearsals. ”He doesn’t smoke dope, he’s just not one of us,” Belushi argued.

When Grodin delivered his monologue shortly thereafter,...

Anthea Sylbert, an Oscar-nominated costume designer who worked on some of the signature films of the late 1960s and 1970s, including “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Carnal Knowledge,” “Chinatown,” “Shampoo,” “Julia” and “King Kong,” and a producer later in her career on a number of films starring Goldie Hawn, has died. She was 84.

Her death was confirmed by Robert Romanus, her stepson.

Sylbert, subject of a forthcoming documentary by Sakis Lalas titled “Anthea Sylbert: My Life in 3 Acts,” also served as an executive at United Artists and Warner Bros., at a time when there were few women in the C-suites of Hollywood. She also worked repeatedly with director Mike Nichols, both onscreen and onstage, and was Oscar-nominated for her costuming on period films “Chinatown” (1974) and “Julia” (1977).

Assessing Sylbert’s work on “Chinatown,” GlamAmor, a website dedicated to the history of fashion in film, said in 2012: “Sylbert crafted clothes for Faye Dunaway that...

Joe Flaherty, the actor, writer and comedian known for his roles on the Canadian sketch comedy series “Second City Television” and “Freaks and Geeks,” died on Monday. He was 82.

Flaherty’s daughter, Gudrun, confirmed the news to Variety in a statement through the Comedic Artists Alliance, which had previously raised funds for Flaherty to obtain a 24-hour care provider.

“After a brief illness, he left us yesterday, and since then, I’ve been struggling to come to terms with this immense loss,” Gudrun said. “Dad was an extraordinary man, known for his boundless heart and an unwavering passion for movies from the ’40s and ’50s. His insights into the golden age of cinema didn’t just shape his professional life; they were also a source of endless fascination for me. In these last few months, as he faced his health challenges, we had the precious opportunity to watch many of...

In a new two-part documentary for MGM+, legendary musician Paul Simon reflects on his career, including details behind the breakup and falling out with his long-time musical partner, Art Garfunkel. “We were really best friends up until Bridge over Troubled Water,” Simon said (per People) in Part 1 of the doc, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, which premiered on Sunday, March 17. “[Afterwards], it didn’t have the harmony of the friendship… that was broken.” The popular multi-time Grammy-winning folk duo grew up as high school friends in Forest Hills, New York, and rose to fame in the 1960s, recording countless hit singles and best-selling albums. However, by the late ’60s, the pair began drifting apart and officially broke up the band in 1970. Simon said Garkunfel’s transition into acting put a strain on their relationship, particularly when the former accepted a role in the movie Catch-22. “Artie said, ‘Yeah,...

In a keynote conversation Tuesday at Copenhagen’s leading international documentary festival Cph:dox, Academy Award winning filmmaker and producer Alex Gibney talked honestly about the winding road of making it in the documentary world, the creative process, and the lessons of life, partly learned from singer-songwriter Paul Simon.

The inspirational talk at the baroque Kunsthal Charlottenborg exhibition space, with moderator Thom Powers, Toronto Film Festival programmer, was a prelude to the festival’s screening of Gibney’s two-part doc “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon,” which debuted on MGM+ March 17.

“What I learned from Paul was that when he wrote ‘The Sound of Silence,’ he sat alone and words came to him; creativity started to flow, and just like Bob Dylan with ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ [the song] suddenly fit and he felt like a conduit.”

Gibney said letting free associations take over, having an unguarded curiosity and generosity were some...

In January 2019, Paul Simon awoke from a dream. Some voice in his head had informed him, deep within his Rem cycle, that he was going to work on a project called “Seven Psalms.” The singer-songwriter behind “The Sound of Silence,” “A Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” “Love Me Like a Rock,” and several dozen other songs that have likely been part of the soundtrack of your life, willingly or unwillingly, had effectively been retired for several years. Music-wise, he had nothing on deck except for this lovely little riff he’d...

For documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, what made “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” different from other music docs he has helmed was “being up close and personal for that creative process. I’m a nut for those movies where you see how baseballs are made, how tennis balls are made. This was like how rock and roll is made with Paul Simon. It’s like, wow.” Gibney and Simon discussed the MGM+ documentary series with moderator Stephen Colbert after its New York City premiere at the DGA Theater on March 13.

“In Restless Dreams” tells the story of Paul Simon’s life and career while also documenting the creation of the singer-songwriter’s latest album, “Seven Psalms,” in the midst of sudden hearing loss in one ear. “That’s come back to enough of a degree that I am comfortable singing and playing guitar and playing a few other instruments,...

I’m trying to decrease my usage of “good” and “bad” when discussing art. They are lazy shortcuts that distill creativity into the simplest qualitative assessments as if art is worth boiling down to a pure binary outlook. It’s why whenever any movie is widely labeled “good,” I can’t help but approach it with some increased skepticism. Conversely, “bad” movies always pique my interest, and I’m more likely to look deeper for their successful elements than what I find from the consensus.

This is the case with Boxing Helena, a film brutally derided in that repellant way critics love when they taste blood in the water. The directing and feature writing debut of Jennifer Lynch, Boxing Helena was savaged across the board and overshadowed by legal battles involving major stars who dropped out of the Helena role. With the film never making the leap from DVD and no official digital release available,...

Ben Lanzarone, the composer, arranger, musical director and pianist who wrote music for such shows as Dynasty, Happy Days, Mr. Belvedere and The Tracey Ullman Show, has died. He was 85.

Lanzarone died Friday in his Los Angeles home of lung cancer, his family announced.

The Brooklyn native toured with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Art Garfunkel, Mary Travers, Anthony Newley, Petula Clark, Lainie Kazan and Mason Williams and for Broadway served as the musical director on the original 1972-1980 production of Grease and arranger on 1972’s Via Galactica and 1975’s Truckload.

His long association with TV producers Aaron Spelling and Douglas S. Cramer resulted in scores for Dynasty, The Colbys, The Love Boat, Vega$, Matt Houston and Hotel.

And for production companies led by Thomas Miller, Edward Milkis and/or Bob Boyett, he came up with music for episodes of Happy Days (including the one in 1977 when Henry Winkler’s...

Composer Ben Lanzarone, whose work was featured in television shows such as “Happy Days,” “The Love Boat” and “Dynasty,” died of lung cancer in Los Angeles on Feb. 16. He was 85.

Lanzarone received ASCAP’s “Most Performed Composer Award” for his work composing television scores. He wrote for episodes of “The Tracy Ullman Show,” “The Jay Leno Comedy Hour” and” Mr. Belvedere.” In association with Aaron Spelling and Doug Cramer, he composed many scores for “Dynasty,” “The Love Boat,” “Vegas,” “Matt Houston,” “The Colbys” and “Hotel.” In addition, he wrote the music for numerous episodes of “Happy Days,” “Laverne and Shirley” and “Mork and Mindy.”

Also an arranger, musical director and pianist, Lanzarone became a force in popular music when he began associating with Bob Crewe and Charles Fox. Lanzarone’s album “In Classic Form” came as a result of their collaboration, showing off his talent as a classical and jazz pianist.

Over an impressive 11 years, every season of "Frasier" boasted some top-notch guest stars. The beloved sitcom, which recently returned for a revival show that was neither disappointing nor remarkable, featured everyone from Patrick Stewart to Michael Keaton and almost the entire cast of "Cheers" — the show on which Frasier Crane himself debuted.

But there were also a ton of major guest appearances that we never got to see. Dr. Crane famously ran a call-in talk radio show on Seattle's Kacl station, where he would dole out life advice to embattled residents of the Emerald City, many of whom were big-time celebrities. At one point Macaulay Culkin called Frasier's show as a self-conscious 43-year-old man who was concerned about his youthful voice. Then there was the time Helen Mirren sought Dr. Crane's advice about her kleptomania. But that's just the beginning of the sitcom's extensive list of unseen guest stars. In fact,...

"Frasier" had a bevy of guest stars throughout its original eleven-season run, but you might not recognize some of them on first watch. That's because many of the most famous actors to appear on the beloved sitcom did so in voice only, calling into psychologist Frasier Crane's (Kelsey Grammer) Seattle radio show for all manner of life advice. Casting a celebrity who viewers never actually see felt like a new gimmick when the series first premiered, and it's frankly still a rarity now.

In an oral history of the series published by Vanity Fair in 2018, series co-creators Peter Casey and David Lee, casting director Jeff Greenberg, and director Jimmy Burrows talked about how the call-in guest stars idea originated, who showed up on the other end of the line, and which celebrities turned "Frasier" down. "Early on, someone suggested getting guest voices," Casey recalled. "Kelsey agreed, as long as they weren't goofy calls.

Wind gusts quivered the tree limbs, rainfall ricocheted off the roads, and in an instant, power cut off at the old Opera House on Elm Street in Camden, Maine, scuttling screenings there at the Camden International Film Festival.

With that mid-September atmospheric outburst, Hurricane Lee did in the scheduled U.S. premiere of Alex Gibney’s new film In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon. Now, the honor of hosting the American debut goes to the Hamptons International Film Festival this Friday, where the documentary screens as the festival Centerpiece (Simon will appear in person there for a conversation moderated by Rolling Stone’s David Fear). On Sunday, the film plays across the pond at the BFI London Film Festival.

Alex Gibney at the Deadline Portrait Studio at TIFF 2023.

During what was supposed to be Gibney’s Camden premiere, I stopped by the hotel where the filmmaker was staying...

The first thing to say about Alex Gibney’s “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” is that it’s three-and-a-half hours long. Normally I wouldn’t lead with that daunting fact, especially since the film is mostly marvelous: a documentary that every Paul Simon fan on earth should want to see and experience. But will they?

I raise the issue only because “In Restless Dreams” has come into the Toronto Film Festival without a distributor, and let’s just be honest: The 209-minute running time, when you hear about it, doesn’t exactly sound…user-friendly. Gibney, of course, is one of the renaissance masters of contemporary documentary, a filmmaker of staggering skill and eclecticism. On occasion, he sprinkles in a music doc, which is clearly a labor of love for him. If you’ve never seen “Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown,” it’s sensational. And Gibney...

Paul Simon may not yet have come to terms with the hearing loss in his left ear, but he is “beginning to.” The 81-year-old singer-songwriter talked about his ailment and ability to continue performing at a post-screening Q&a for In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday.

In the panel discussion alongside documentary director Alex Gibney, Simon told the audience “I haven’t accepted it entirely, but I’m beginning to,” when asked about his hearing loss.

“I play the guitar every day,...

At first, the title of Alex Gibney’s “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon” seems as if it could be a warning about the director’s approach in this supersized documentary. The film, its title seems to be saying, is about the music of Simon, not the life or the loves or the times of Simon. But it turns out that the music is a gateway to all those other things in this three-and-a-half hour film that covers most of what you’d want to know about the seminal singer-songwriter.

Partly, that’s because Gibney’s jumping off point is Simon’s new album, “Seven Psalms,” an uncommonly personal and soul-searching work for the man who’s been writing songs for seven decades. A half-hour meditation on faith and mortality that came to Simon in a dream and was written during a time when he’d begun to...

In his latest documentary “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon,” Alex Gibney explores the singer-songwriter’s six-decade career. The Oscar winning director also captures Simon creating his latest album, “Seven Psalms,” which he made while losing hearing in his left ear. Although Gibney is mostly recognized for his rigorously researched investigative exposes, he is also skilled in creating portraits of cultural icons like Simon. In the 209-minute docu Gibney relies on Simon as well as signifigant figures in his life including wife Edie Brickell, Lorne Michaels and Art Garfunkel, who can be heard via archival footage, to tell his story.

In 2019 Gibney premiered his Mikhail Khodorkovsky documentary “Citizen K” at TIFF. “In Restless Dreams” will debut at TIFF on Sept. 10. Gibney is seeking distribution for the film.

Did you have final cut on this docu?

Yes. That was the arrangement we made going into it. I felt good about that.

“People used to say I had my finger on the pulse,” Paul Simon tells Alex Gibney early in his artfully composed documentary, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon. “I just have my finger out there and the pulse is running under it.” Either way, few people have had as central a role in American pop music and culture as Simon. Gibney, best-known for exposes including The Inventor, about Elizabeth Holmes’ tech-company fraud, and Going Clear, on Scientology, turns out to be the ideal director to explore Simon’s long, varied run.

Simon invited Gibney into his home studio in Wimberly, Texas, where the cameras watch him tinker with the sound on his latest album, Seven Psalms (released in May) and talk about his career, inspirations, aging and what the loss of hearing in his left ear has meant. With that album as an anchor, the film mostly flashes back and forth in time,...

Long before Live Nation, Clear Channel, Ticketmaster, Stubhub, service fees, gold-circle seats, and anything that even resembles the live music industry as we know it today, there was Ron Delsener. The 87-year-old concert promoter has been booking shows in New York City going all the way back to the summer of 1964, when he brought the Beatles to Forest Hills Tennis Stadium for two nights. (Tickets were $5.50 plus a 45-cent federal tax.)

In the decades that followed, Delsener grew into the undisputed live music kingpin of New York, booking thousands upon...

This article contains spoilers for season 6 of Black Mirror.

The long-awaited return of Black Mirror has finally arrived, and with it a soundtrack of songs as varied as the stories this show tells. Season 6 features the return of an Irma Thomas classic, a Muse song known for its ties to the best baseball scene in cinema, Art Garfunkel’s emotional Watership Down tune, and so many others.

Here are all of the songs featured throughout this season of Black Mirror:

Episode 1 – Joan is Awful “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)” – Irma Thomas

The Irma Thomas song “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)” has become a sort of easter egg in Black Mirror, with the song appearing at least once per season. In the first episode of season six “Joan is Awful,” the song can be heard playing when Joan (Annie Murphy) first walks into the...

This article contains spoilers for the Black Mirror episode “Demon 79.”

Black Mirror Season 6 Episode 5

Here’s another dubiously happy ending to add to Black Mirror’s growing pile: Girl summons demon, girl fails to commit the required number of human sacrifices to avert the apocalypse, demon asks her to spend eternity with him cast into a matterless void, girl says she’ll give it a go.

A matterless void, as protagonist Nida (Anjana Vasan) dryly notes, isn’t a million miles away from the life she was leading at the start of “Demon 79”, which was co-written by Charlie Brooker with new exec producer, Ms. Marvel and Loki’s Bisha K. Ali.

A young Anglo-Indian woman living alone in a drab flat, working a thankless department store job and having to wordlessly absorb the drip-drip-drip of ambient racism in 1979 Britain, Nida’s world didn’t have much to recommend it.

Enter: Satanic minion Gaap.

You don’t have to be friends with the people you make music with – but it helps not to be enemies.

The annals of music history are filled with instances of bandmates whose relationships turned sour, from Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to Morrissey and Johnny Marr.

In one of modern music’s bitterest feuds, former Pink Floyd members Roger Waters and David Gilmour have spent years exchanging vitriolic words in the press. This week, Polly Samson, ex-Pink Floyd lyricist and wife of David Gilmour, made unsubstantiated allegations against Waters online.

Waters wrote on a social media account that he was “aware of the incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him on Twitter by Polly Samson which he refutes entirely”, and said he is “currently taking advice as to his position”.

Of course, plenty of great music has been made by people who were at personal loggerheads – just ask Fleetwood Mac.

Brooks Arthur, the Grammy-winning record producer, engineer and music supervisor behind films such as “The Karate Kid,” died on Oct. 9. He was 86.

Arthur was a highly respected producer who engineered hits such as Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl,” on which he sang backup. He reached the high point of his producing career with Janis Ian’s Grammy-winning 1975 debut album “Between the Lines,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.

Throughout his career, Arthur worked with artists including the Grateful Dead, Art Garfunkel, Burt Bacharach, Dusty Springfield, Liza Minnelli and Peggy Lee, and he gathered 20 Grammy nominations — including three wins — as well as an Oscar nod for “Glory of Love” from “The Karate Kid II.”

Arthur began a 29-year relationship with Adam Sandler after producing his Grammy-nominated comedy hit “The Chanukah Song.” He went on to produce all of Sandler’s comedy albums...

On paper, the prominent use of sensitive American singer-songwriter music from the 1970s and ‘80s in a modern Norwegian romantic comedy might seem rather incongruous, if not downright anachronistic. But five decades on from some of their biggest successes, Art Garfunkel, Todd Rundgren, Harry Nilsson and Christopher Cross are back on the big screen helping soundtrack Danish/Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s acclaimed “The Worst Person in the World,” which is nominated for best original screenplay and best international feature film at the upcoming Academy Awards.

Co-written by Trier and longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt, “Worst Person” has already won best foreign language film from the New York Film Critics Circle and garnered Renate Reinsve the best actress award at Cannes. The movie follows Reinsve’s Julie as she navigates the restless transition from her 20s into her 30s, spanning two long-term relationships that conjure tough existential questions about love, fidelity,...

This review was first published on July 9, 2021, after it screened at Cannes 2021.

Norwegian director Joachim Trier continues his series of films about young Oslonians with the charming romantic drama “The Worst Person in the World,” which premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film is about the life and loves of a restless 30-year-old woman named Julie — and in the lead role, Renate Reinsve delivers a standout performance. Her Julie is funny and skittishly unsure of herself as she begins a relationship with an established and admired comic book artist, Aksel. He is played by Anders Danielsen Lie, the lead in Trier’s previous Oslo films, “Reprise” and “Oslo, August 31st,” which brings a Richard Linklaterish theme of time and connection to this loose trilogy of people adrift in the city.

But this is Trier’s most appealing and marketable film yet, casting Oslo in a gorgeous light...

With a new Grammy ceremony coming on January 31, a few records are poised to be broken. Here are four artists looking to make a splash and cement themselves even more in Grammy history than they already are.

SEE2022 Grammy predictions: R&b album races include tough match-up between H.E.R., Jon Batiste, and Jazmine Sullivan Tony Bennett

This pop standards legend has a couple of records he could break due to his multiple nominations for his Lady Gaga collaboration album, “Love For Sale.” If Bennett wins any category come January, he will become the second oldest person to ever win a Grammy, at 95 years and 181 days. The current record is held by Pinetop Perkins, who won nearing 98-years-old. Furthermore, if Bennett wins one (or both) of his general field nominations, he will be the oldest person ever to win a general field award. He’s already the oldest person ever to be nominated in those categories.

Paul Simon is looking back on his life and career.

In Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon, out Tuesday from Pushkin Industries, Simon sits down with Malcolm Gladwell and Gladwell’s friend and co-writer, New York Times journalist Bruce Headlam to discuss a myriad of topics. The trio recorded over a series of 30 hours of conversation in which they reflected on the musician’s life and career including childhood stories and working with collaborator Art Garfunkel.

The audiobook, recorded in Simon’s own backyard studio, also features commentary about Simon’s songwriting alongside archival audio footage and never-before-heard live studio versions and original recordings of hits including ...