Shine A Light NYC Premiere
Rush & Molloy column, New York Daily News March 28: Nobody turns down a chance to schmooze with the Rolling Stones. Leo DiCaprio, Val Kilmer, Gina Gershon, Kelly Lynch, Brett Ratner and Jonathan Demme are a few of the celebs expected at Sunday's New York premiere of "Shine a Light," Martin Scorsese's concert portrait of the rock deities. The Ziegfeld opening is sure to be a riotous media circus. But as the film shows, the most powerful people can turn into blubbering groupies upon meeting Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Charlie Watts. That includes Bill and Hillary Clinton. "The Rolling Stones are waiting for you!" Hillary scolds her husband in the movie - goading him to hurry up to his backstage audience with the band, which played his 60th birthday fund-raiser in 2006 at the Beacon Theatre. The former President tells the Stones, "I have all these people in their 60s calling, begging me for tickets." After bantering with the Clintons, the Stones are told their "meet and greet" is far from over." "The President has 30 friends," a producer tells a disbelieving Watts. After shaking hands with one big contributor after another, Richards quips, "I'm Bushed!" The full-throttle movie is just as interesting for what's left out. At the actual show, Jagger told the crowd, "I'd like to welcome President Clinton - and I see she's brought her husband!" The line got a big laugh at the concert, but Scorsese has cut it, perhaps in light of Hillary's plummeting primary fortunes. "I don't know why the Clinton bit's in the movie," Watts confided to The Times of London the other day. "That was a bit dull for me, because they weren't really rock 'n' roll people." But aside from meeting them, Watts added, the film's "not boring." Indeed, as Richards said in the same interview, the movie shows how "Charlie, Ronnie and I a safety net for Mick. Sometimes ... he's got the beat totally wrong ... Mick can screw up any song. Seriously, though ... I wonder what I'd do without him!
"We did almost split up. But then Mick got wise and did as he was told!"
Rush & Molloy column, New York Daily News March 28: Nobody turns down a chance to schmooze with the Rolling Stones. Leo DiCaprio, Val Kilmer, Gina Gershon, Kelly Lynch, Brett Ratner and Jonathan Demme are a few of the celebs expected at Sunday's New York premiere of "Shine a Light," Martin Scorsese's concert portrait of the rock deities. The Ziegfeld opening is sure to be a riotous media circus. But as the film shows, the most powerful people can turn into blubbering groupies upon meeting Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Charlie Watts. That includes Bill and Hillary Clinton. "The Rolling Stones are waiting for you!" Hillary scolds her husband in the movie - goading him to hurry up to his backstage audience with the band, which played his 60th birthday fund-raiser in 2006 at the Beacon Theatre. The former President tells the Stones, "I have all these people in their 60s calling, begging me for tickets." After bantering with the Clintons, the Stones are told their "meet and greet" is far from over." "The President has 30 friends," a producer tells a disbelieving Watts. After shaking hands with one big contributor after another, Richards quips, "I'm Bushed!" The full-throttle movie is just as interesting for what's left out. At the actual show, Jagger told the crowd, "I'd like to welcome President Clinton - and I see she's brought her husband!" The line got a big laugh at the concert, but Scorsese has cut it, perhaps in light of Hillary's plummeting primary fortunes. "I don't know why the Clinton bit's in the movie," Watts confided to The Times of London the other day. "That was a bit dull for me, because they weren't really rock 'n' roll people." But aside from meeting them, Watts added, the film's "not boring." Indeed, as Richards said in the same interview, the movie shows how "Charlie, Ronnie and I