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It took a special child actor to get Oscar nominated for playing someone named Skippy, but back in the 30s Cooper’s stardom rivaled that of his co-star in The Champ, Wallace Beery (above). Later he became a pretty decent grownup actor (TV’s Studio One in the 50s, Superman as Perry White) and a respected director. Always…
Continue readingA Canadian looker whose best roles came early; he probably killed his own career by turning down the role of Joe Buck (Jon Voight won an Oscar nomination for the role) in Midnight Cowboy. Retrospect: See They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, a career peak not only for Sarrazin, but for Jane Fonda, Susannah York and…
Continue readingSerpico was the first Sidney Lumet film I saw in a movie theater. It was also the first film to make me cry. The scene that got me was the one towards the end where the title character (in an Al Pacino peak) lies in a hospital bed, a bullet hole in face, the result…
Continue readingAngels Fall. Burn This. Balm in Gilead. The Fifth of July. Redwood Curtain. Lanford Wilson wrote these and more; when I saw them back in the 80s I felt privy to what seemed a golden age of theater. To experience his plays is to witness the theater at its most human, but also its most…
Continue readingRead the late Mel Gussow’s glowing obit in the NY Times. And the Los Angeles Times. RIP, Liz…
Continue readingCrazy for Hugh: Any tunesmith who wrote The Trolley Song, The Boy Next Door and, enduringly, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, could die happy. Retrospect: Check this link to hear Garland sing The Trolley Song in Meet Me In St. Louis. RIP, mister…
Continue readingToo young to die, but old enough to have accumulated a mixed bag of celluloid work. Retrospect: Pass up the disposable Bride Wars and Letters to Juliet (though Vanessa Redgrave and Amanda Seyfried are both charming in it). Opt instead for Tadpole, his vinegary May-December wanna-be romance, and the Winick-produced, Altmanesque Personal Velocity with Kyra…
Continue readingWith MM in the delightfully daft Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)–she called it her favorite film. RIP.
Continue readingRetrospect: Check out Shearing’s collaborations with Mel Torme, or my favorite, The Swingin’s Mutual, the 1960 stunner with Nancy Wilson. Retrospect: The Producers, yeah, sure, but don’t forget Mars in Woody Allen’s Radio Days and Shadows and Fog–and what a crackup in What’s Up Doc?. A nonpareil in movie musicals until the Hollywood Blacklist killed…
Continue readingChoose your Hornet… Superheroes are not clowns. They don’t do pratfalls, lack technological savvy, or otherwise behave like assholes. It took a franchise like Christopher Nolan’s to usher in a new era of the comic-book-hero-made-flesh, and to give guys like us (who lapped up the TV serial-versions) grown-up editions compelling enough to rival, and surpass,…
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