Madonna’s on a roll

This is what celebrity gossip columnist Liz Smith has to say about what’s next from Madonna – singer, performer, director:

Madonna just wrapped filming her video with Justin Timberlake, “4 Minutes to Save the World.” This will be the first single off Madonna’s next (and last) studio album for Warner Records. Mrs. Guy Ritchie and young Mr. Timberlake are said to have raised the roof and scorched the earth with their mutual writhings.

She looks great, despite the British tabs obsession with capturing terrible photos of her. By this point, I’m sure Madonna has succumbed to surgical “procedures.” But as she once told me, “Sure, I think about it, like everybody else. But I won’t be holding a news conference when it happens!” (She is prettier and softer-looking in person. The camera does not always flatter her overexercised sinews.)

Advance word on her album is excellent. Forbes magazine has named her “the richest woman in music.” She is declared, “washed up” every three years. But never underestimate the power of a woman who transformed popular culture by proclaiming she was “Like a Virgin”, back in 1984.

And what, you ask, will this remarkable icon be doing upon the epoch of her 50th birthday in August? She’ll most likely be out on the road, touring, taking in another 200 million, give or a take a mil. Sure, she’s a settled married woman with three kids and a satisfying spiritual life. But as Stephen Sondheim wrote and as she belted it out in “Dick Tracy,” “Nothing’s better than more! More! More!”

Arriving soon is Madonna’s directorial debut, a film called “Filth and Wisdom.” It’s quirky, funny, off-putting, annoying, compelling, awkward and assured. I was distracted with the knowledge that Madonna had directed and cowritten. As with her acting, the mere knowledge of her affects our reaction. But she got vivid performances out of a cast of unknowns, and though there’s some sordid carrying on, the sex is mostly comic. (“It’s ironic,” Madonna always says, when explaining away controversies.) And the movie turns out sentimental, with an upbeat conclusion – the legendary provocateur is a middle-class Michigan girl, after all. It’s not perfect – Madonna the director tries to tell too many stories – but it shows real promise.

From Buffalonews.com.