With spring gently settling on the East Coast, I feel once again I’ve emerged from a confining cocoon of my own making. I don’t like cold, I don’t like snow, I don’t like winter sports. For me, everything goes decidedly downhill (no pun intended) after New Year’s. But now, I’m renewed. I raise my face to the sun, and movie … More Details
Though my own hit rate on Oscar predictions was just a bit over fifty percent, I was still smiling at the end credits. Coming off last year’s debacle hosted by zombie-like James Franco and the impossibly chirpy Anne Hathaway, it was gratifying to see the Academy finally pull off a halfway decent telecast. Beyond the return of recurring host Billy … More Details
No doubt: it’s been a very good year for both these stars. And much as I admire Jean Dujardin’s sublime performance in The Artist, my hunch is that the industry will favor one of its own on Oscar night. So who will it be — George or Brad? I’m saving my prediction for a later Oscar piece, but for now … More Details
Brett Ratner’s recent anti-gay slur wasn’t the first thing he said that sounded just plain stupid. Did anyone notice his quote in the recent puff piece about him in the New York Times (“Forget the Art House; He’s Making Blockbusters,” 10/30/11)? Ratner, all ready to foist the lame Tower Heist on an unsuspecting mass audience, made this dubious claim: “It’s … More Details
George C. Scott, gone twelve years now, would have turned 84 today. What an actor. I was just old enough to go see Patton when it opened in 1970. In that indelible opening scene in front of the American flag where the general addresses his troops, I recall my jaw dropped open. Viewed on that enormous screen, never before had … More Details
This was the not the first title I had in mind for this piece. But when I dug into Clint Eastwood’s life and career, it seemed particularly apt – and not even close to an overstatement. Just consider this: Over a career spanning over half a century, he’s been involved in over ninety film productions, and directed thirty films. Having … More Details
When Christian Bale won his Oscar for “The Fighter” (2010), I was hardly surprised, but nor was I elated. And I had to ask myself why. This now hugely successful movie star is prodigiously talented, blazing with intensity and intelligence- not to mention killer good looks. Still- with apologies to all the self-proclaimed “Baleheads” out there, on an emotional level … More Details
Well, it’s certainly evident the Oscar show organizers wanted to do something really different this time around. In a year when a movie about the past was competing against a movie very much about the present for top prize, the producers were clearly trying to bridge old and young, the traditional with the tweeters, you might say. Problem was, their … More Details
“The King’s Speech” is bound to be nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars, and though I don’t think it has much chance of winning (my hunch is the top prize will go to “The Social Network”), I fervently hope ‘Speech” does prevail. Rather than go into the reasoning behind my predictions- a futile exercise since the ways of … More Details
On the first of this month, actress Olivia de Havilland turned 94 in Paris. For some time, she has held the distinction of being the last surviving principal cast member of the storied film “Gone With The Wind”. Meanwhile, younger sister Joan Fontaine also survives at 93, living comfortably in Carmel, California. What is exceedingly strange and more than a little sad is that the sisters have been estranged for many years, the result of an intense sibling rivalry which has never dissipated.
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