Entertainment
Two of music’s most powerful executives maxed out donations to Spencer Pratt
According to data from the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, Pratt’s supporters include two members of the record industry’s most powerful family who have donated the maximum amount allowed by law.
Los Angeles’ music industry, in recent years, has generally supported progressive causes. But as the primaries for the city’s mayoral race and California‘s governorship wrapped up Tuesday, some music executives and performers have supported and donated large amounts to Spencer Pratt, the right-leaning activist and reality TV star running for mayor.
According to data from the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, Pratt’s supporters include two members of the record industry’s most powerful family who donated the maximum amount allowed by law.
Pratt is a registered Republican whose heated rhetoric about homeless “zombies” and AI-created advertisements have rankled progressives and delighted conservatives. He has received support from President Trump, who told reporters that “I’d like to see him do well. He’s a character. I don’t know him, I assume he probably supports me… I heard he’s a big MAGA person.”
In response, Pratt told TMZ that “Everybody wants me to succeed because L.A. is the most important city in the country. The only support I need is from moms that wanna feel safe in Los Angeles. I’m laser-focused on that.”
Universal Music Group is home to some of music’s most outspoken progressives, including Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish, whose brother and collaborator Finneas O’Connell donated $250 to the progressive mayoral candidate Nithya Raman on May 6.
Earlier this year, UMG’s chairman and chief executive Lucian Grainge presented Rodrigo with the company’s Universal Music Group x REVERB Amplifier Award, which advocates for “social and environmental nonprofit campaigns through the cultural power of music,” according to a release.
On May 9, Grainge (listed as a resident of Pacific Palisades, where Pratt lost his home in the 2025 fires) maxed out with an $1,800 donation to Pratt’s campaign, as previously reported in The Times. A representative for UMG did not immediately return a request for comment on Grainge’s donation.
He’s not the only Pratt donor in the family.
Grainge’s son Elliot ascended through the record industry with his 10k Projects label, and now heads UMG’s competitor Atlantic Records. Vocal progressives like Cardi B, the Marías and Charli XCX are some of the label’s most high-profile acts.
On May 8, Elliot Grainge also gave $1,800 to Pratt‘s campaign. A representative for Atlantic did not immediately return a request for comment.
Last month, the record producer and composing titan David Foster and his wife, singer Katharine McPhee, performed at a fundraiser for Pratt where they crooned a version of Tina Turner’s hit “The Best” to the mayoral hopeful. “Spencer, you’re simply the best. Better than all the rest. Better than Karen Bass and Nithya Raman,” McPhee sang.
At Warner Music, Gabz Landman, the senior vice president for A&R at Warner Chappell, its powerful music publishing wing, who has worked with Dua Lipa, Laufey and Amy Allen, gave $105.24 to Pratt on Feb. 4. Through a Warner Music representative, Landman said the donation was for merchandise given to a friend, and was not intended as support for Pratt’s campaign.
The superstar EDM producer and DJ Kaskade has left supportive messages on Pratt’s social media, commenting on one of the candidate’s posts that “At this point, who is buying in to Bass’s fairytale narrative?! I am still shocked she hasn’t resigned!” The DJ and producer Diplo also left a supportive comment — a prayer-hands emoji and “please” — on one of Pratt’s social media posts. Records do not show any personal donations to Pratt’s campaign from either artist.
Public records do not show any donations to Pratt’s campaign from live-industry executives atop firms like Live Nation, AEG or Goldenvoice.
Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s June 6, 1986, and we’re off to see Invaders from Mars, Raw Deal, and SpaceCamp.
Invaders from Mars
While everyone complains about how there are no original ideas in today’s films, welcome to the same issue in 1986.
12-year-old David Gardner dreams of space, and after staying up to watch a meteor shower, he sees what he believes is a UFO landing over the hill behind his house. The next morning his dad goes to investigate, but comes back not acting like himself. It seems the Martians have come to town and they’re going to start taking over the world by controlling one person at a time. With the help of his teacher, David starts to fight back and hopefully drive the Martians off the planet.
Other than some very goofy looking designs for the Martians, the film was a bit of fun, I felt. It certainly didn’t break any new ground, but I also definitely didn’t hate it. Throw it on for a mindless watch.
Where to watch: Available to stream.
Raw Deal
Even for a Schwarzenegger movie, this one was pretty bad.
Mark Kaminski (Schwarzenegger), was thrown out of the FBI on trumped up charges, but when his old boss, FBI Agent Harry Shannon, (Darren McGavin) finds his son killed while protecting a mafia informant, there’s only one man he trusts. Kaminski goes undercover in the mafia and tries to bring it down from the inside, ending up in a lengthy shootout with all of the members of two different mafia families.
I’m not sure how a movie with such a basic plot can be this boring, but it somehow succeeds. Not once was I engaged with the story. The only saving grace was I would watch McGavin in anything.
Where to watch: Available to stream.
SpaceCamp
Apparently, we’re all going to try to forget this movie existed.
When a group of teens attends Space Camp, they find themselves in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sit inside a Space Shuttle while it’s on the launch pad. Following an ‘accident’ orchestrated by a friendly robot, they end up having to launch with their adult supervisor and trying to find their way back home with limited resources.
As of this writing (June 6, 2026), this film is out of print physically, not streaming (legally), and is not available for digital purchase. YOU may be able to find it on a TUBE somewhere, however, if you look around.
Honestly, I kind of enjoyed it. It’s silly, but it pretty much knew what it was. Lets put it this way, I enjoyed it more than Raw Deal.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on June 6, 2026, with Invaders From Mars, Raw Deal, and SpaceCamp.
Start sending out “Smoke Signals.” Phoebe Bridgers finally announced her upcoming phone-free arena tour, and it includes two spooky nights in the Los Angeles area.
Bridgers shared details about the Lost Tour on Friday morning, following a sold-out concert the previous night at Madison Square Garden in New York City and a series of secret pop-up shows across the United States.
The tour will kick off in Indianapolis in September and cap off the North American run with back-to-back shows at Inglewood’s Intuit Dome on Oct. 30 and 31, fitting dates for the skeleton suit-wearing singer-songwriter. A European leg will follow in November.
All tickets for Bridgers’ surprise acoustic show at Madison Square Garden were sold for $20 or under, and proceeds were donated to the Community Justice Exchange’s Immigration Bond Freedom Fund, which provides bail support to ICE detainees. For the Lost Tour, Bridgers will donate $1 from every ticket sold for North American concerts to RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization and operator of the National Sexual Assault Hotline.
A phone ban was also instituted at the MSG show and Bridgers’ previous pop-up sets, with attendees storing their devices in Yondr bags, which physically lock using magnets. The same policy will be in effect throughout the upcoming tour.
At the Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, guests may not need their phones at all to access tickets or purchase concessions, since the arena is equipped with “GameFace ID” facial recognition technology.
The Lost Tour is Bridgers’ first full-band solo tour since Reunion Tour, in support of her 2020 album “Punisher,” wrapped in April 2023, though she has since toured as a member of the supergroup Boygenius. Her debut album with Boygenius, “The Record,” was released in 2023.
Though she debuted eight new songs at Thursday’s MSG show, she has yet to announce a new album.
Singer-songwriter Alex G will provide support on the tour’s North American leg, including the Inglewood dates, while former Black Country, New Road frontman Isaac Wood will support in Europe. The tour’s eerie imagery was created in collaboration with fine art photographer Gregory Crewdson.
In an effort to get tickets in the hands of fans, rather than scalpers or bots, there will be two days of presales before the general sale. Fans can register from now until midnight Sunday for lottery access to the Day 1 presale taking place Tuesday. There will be another presale Wednesday. Tickets go on sale to the general public June 12.
Bridgers last played in L.A. as part of a secret show at all-ages venue the Smell in February 2024, where Boygenius announced its hiatus.
In addition to touring, Bridgers has a role in the upcoming A24 feature “Primetime,” directed by Lance Oppenheim, which hits theaters in September.
Bridgers, who grew up in Pasadena and attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, told The Times in 2022 that her music taste was shaped in part by her upbringing in L.A., where she attended massive music festivals and local Día de los Muertos celebrations alike.
“I learned that there can be fun in the darkness,” she said.
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: June 5th, 2026 / 09:01 PM
CHUM movie poster | ©2026 IFC
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Alice Eve, Eric Michael Cole, Elle Haymond, Sarah Siadat, Johnny Gaffney, Lisa Yaro, Jim Klock, Vince Jolivette, Stephen Oliver
Writers: Jonathan Zuck and Joe Leone, story by Dick Grunert and Ryan R. Johnson and James Kondelik
Director: Jonathan Zuck
Distributor: IFC
Release Date: June 5, 2026
CHUM is the latest entry in the shark-obsessed-psycho-with-a-boat subgenre. It also meshes, perhaps coincidentally, with the 2024 sharks-but-no-psycho-ruin-a-Mediterranean-destination-wedding SOMETHING IN THE WATER.
Our narrator is Roy (Jim Klock) who, in the opening sequence, loses his wife to an enormous Great White in the sea off Malta. He begins by saying in voiceover, “You took her from me.” This is followed by a monologue about how much Roy loves his wife and includes the line, “Her scream lost in the roar of the sea.”
There isn’t anything particularly wrong with the line, except that we see the whole incident and then some – CHUM is very gore-friendly in all its shark attacks – and the woman is already underwater when the attack occurs. There’s no scream.
So, are we supposed to think that Roy’s imagination is playing tricks, or that director Jonathan Zuck and his co-writer Joe Leone, working from a story by Dick Grunert and Ryan R. Johnson and James Kondelik, aren’t paying close attention to what they’re doing?
Roy says he spent his life on the ocean, but “when you took her, I learned something new.”
Then we cut to a wedding banquet, where proud father Reginald (Stephen Oliver) is toasting his daughter the bride Tina (Alice Eve) and her groom Tom (Eric Michael Cole). Also in attendance are Tina’s irritable younger sister Sadie (Elle Haymond), bridesmaids Rachinda (Sarah Siadat) and Britney (Lisa Yaro), and Eric’s bro-ish best man Rick (Johnny Gaffney).
It’s a beautiful setting and a good-looking group, but it doesn’t take long for us to realize this union may not last. Tina and Tom have had a bitter fight about something that they seem unable to resolve. Tom winds up sleeping on the beach near the tide line, while Tina passes out on their hotel room bed in her wedding gown.
The nature of the dispute turns out to be one of the best aspects of CHUM. It’s real, it’s not the clichés that we too often get about onscreen marital disputes, and it’s wholly plausible that the timing is such that the couple haven’t had to confront it earlier.
Unaware of trouble in paradise, Rick has arranged a boat outing for the wedding party (sans Dad). Tina and Tom don’t want to go, but Rick guilts them into it – renting the boat for the day cost him a fortune.
The proprietor of The Tipsy Mermaid, Captain Mackey (Vince Jolivette), welcomes the six passengers aboard. He assures shark-averse Britney that there have never been attacks in these waters.
This again makes us wonder what’s happening on a meta level. We can see that The Tipsy Mermaid is out by the same coastline that we saw in the opening, so we know there’s been at least one shark attack here. Is Captain Mackey uninformed or lying?
A little later, we see that the microphone on the communications panel is severed. Our minds leap toward sabotage, but – spoiler alert – no, it’s just shoddy upkeep on The Tipsy Mermaid.
In reality (and easy to Google for Mackey or anyone in the group to who knew they’d be going out to sea that day), while they are rare, there have been shark attacks off Malta.
Furthermore, Tom, who is meant to be an expert on these matters, asserts that Great Whites are strangers to these waters, but are being driven north by climate change. It’s laudable that CHUM makes climate change part of the plot (and not just because of where the shark is), but again, there is a whole actual (albeit declining) subspecies of Great Whites in the Mediterranean.
We’re trying to figure out how all this will link up with Roy and what he’s learned, and we get to that, although perhaps not the way we expect, which is another CHUM asset.
Except for when the shark needs to interact with humans and/or vessels, the animal looks realistic, like footage of a genuine Great White. We also get a variety of fish in the underwater shots, which is a nice touch.
But there are the common-to-the-subgenre tropes of the shark looking way too big every time she breaches and eating way too much. Also, sharks do not growl.
One key aspect of this subgenre is how intrigued we are by the human villain. Here, the link between motivation and action doesn’t stack up well against that of comparable characters (e.g., Quint in JAWS or Bruce Tucker in DANGEROUS ANIMALS).
As these kinds of movies go, CHUM is moderately diverting, but it’s easy to see where it could have been better.
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