Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
Amazon teams
up with Megan
Thee Stallion to promote Prime Day
NEW YORK | Amazon is partnering with hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion to boost sales for its 10th annual Prime Day discount event.
On Tuesday, the rapper unveiled a new original song called “It’s Prime Day.” An accompanying music video shows her purchasing a pink dog collar, fake eyelashes and other items from Amazon.
The online retailer’s two-day discount bonanza is set to take place on July 16-17 this year. It will come after a four-day sales event hosted by Walmart, which said Monday it plans to offer its “largest deals” ever between July 8 and July 11.
Amazon’s discounts are open to Prime members who pay $14.99 per month, or $139 per year, for access to deals and other perks, such as free shipping.
The company doesn’t disclose how much revenue it pulls in from such events. But it has been hosting more of them in recent years to attract consumers dealing with rising credit costs and high — but easing — inflation.
Amazon held an October event for Prime members in the last two years to kick off the holiday shopping season. In March, the company — which has faced more competition from low-cost retailers Shein and Temu — held its first-ever spring sales event for all shoppers.
Amazon said Prime members in two dozen countries will participate in July’s discount event, which will also mark the start of the back-to-school shopping season for the company. Historically, Prime discounts have attracted shoppers to items offered on Amazon’s site.
The company says Megan Thee Stallion’s Prime song, a bonus track from her forthcoming album “MEGAN,” will be available for fans listening only on Amazon Music. It also said it would offer early deals on items from the rapper’s new tour merchandise collection.
Lily Gladstone, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, 485 others invited to film academy
Actors Lily Gladstone, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Catherine O’Hara and filmmakers Cord Jefferson, Boots Riley and “RRR” director S.S. Rajamouli are among the lucky few who have been invited to join the film academy.
In total 487 artists, including actors, directors, costume designers, publicists and executives received invitations this year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Tuesday. Those who accept will be able to vote in the Oscars race.
Should all invited in the 2024 class say yes, the academy will have 9,934 voting members and the makeup would be 35% women, 20% from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities and 20% international.
The invitees include 19 Oscar-winners, like best documentary recipient Mstyslav Chernov (“20 Days in Mariupol”) and “Anatomy of a Fall” filmmaker Justine Triet, as well as 71 nominees including Sandra Hüller, “The Color Purple’s” Danielle Brooks, “Past Lives” filmmaker Celine Song and “Oppenheimer” production designer Ruth De Jong.
Jefferson, who wrote and directed “American Fiction,” was among eight individuals invited to join multiple branches. In his case, it was directing and writing, and like his peers he’ll have to choose which branch to join. Song and Triet have to make the same decision.
“We are thrilled to welcome this year’s class of new members to the academy,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang in a statement. “These remarkably talented artists and professionals from around the world have made a significant impact on our filmmaking community.”
Other actors invited include Jessica Alba, Greta Lee and her “Past Lives” co-star Teo Yoo, Tia Carrere and Stephanie Beatriz. Those asked to join the directors branch include Alice Diop, Lila Avilés, Fede Álvarez, A.V. Rockwell, Emma Seligman and David Yates.
Among the executive branch invitees are Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League and Kim Yutani, the Sundance Film Festival’s programming director.
The 97th Academy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on March 2.
Gena Rowlands has Alzheimer’s, her son Nick Cassavetes says
NEW YORK | The celebrated actor and honorary Academy Award recipient Gena Rowlands is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, her son, the filmmaker Nick Cassavetes, has revealed.
Cassavetes, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly published Tuesday, said Rowlands has had Alzheimer’s for five years. In the 2004 film “The Notebook,” Cassavetes directed his mother, who played the older version of the character played by Rachel McAdams, as a woman with dementia.
“We spent a lot of time talking about Alzheimer’s and wanting to be authentic with it, and now, for the last five years, she’s had Alzheimer’s,” Cassavetes said. “She’s in full dementia. And it’s so crazy — we lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”
A representative for Rowlands confirmed that Cassavetes “speaks for the family.”
Rowlands, who received an honorary Oscar in 2015, made 10 films with her husband, John Cassavetes, including 1974’s “A Woman Under the Influence” and 1980’s “Gloria.” She was Oscar nominated for both performances. She also won four Emmy awards. Her last credited performance was the 2014 comedy “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks.”
Rowlands’s mother, actor Lady Rowlands, also had Alzheimer’s. During the making of “The Notebook,” Gena Rowlands said she channeled her mother.
“I went through that with my mother, and if Nick hadn’t directed the film, I don’t think I would have gone for it — it’s just too hard,” Rowlands told O magazine in 2004. “It was a tough but wonderful movie.”
Lyles and Snoop help NBC post best track trials ratings in 12 years
EUGENE, Ore. | The combination of Noah Lyles, Snoop Dogg and 16-year-old Quincy Wilson running for a spot in the Olympics lifted NBC to its largest audience for the U.S. track trials since 2012, according to Nielsen.
Viewership for the Sunday night presentation of the trials peaked at 5.7 million viewers at around the time Lyles was stepping on the track for his victory in the 100-meter final.
On Saturday night, the show highlighted by Sha’Carri Richardson’s victory in the 100 averaged 4.1 million viewers, which marked a 41% increase over the same Saturday night for the 2021 trials.
Richardson won on that night as well, but her name recognition has grown since she was stripped of that title after a positive test for marijuana.
NBC has brought Snoop Dogg into the mix for its Olympic coverage, and he has provided some entertaining moments at the trials, including when he met Lyles before Sunday night’s race and handed him a briefcase holding the sprinter’s red track suit and Yu-Gi-Oh! trading cards.
Snoop also ran a 200 (in 34.44 seconds) with the help of NBC analyst Ato Boldon and former national champion Wallace Spearmon.
—From AP reports
