Bob Newhart has died. He wouldn’t want people to be anything other than low-key about it… perhaps a deadpan quip. And 94 years is a great run for a person. Maybe not for an elf, mind you, but remember he was management. Still, I’m quite bummed, and I’m hardly alone. You can read obituaries and appreciations from CinemaBlend has a good rundown of where you can see and hear some of his work. And the…
My post earlier this week about the Paramount sale reminded me of one of the annoying aspects of the streaming era: that films and shows can go missing This isn’t a new phenomenon. Even before the succession of VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray (not to forget the attempts of Betamax, LaserDisc, and HD DVD), prints of films and TV shows could be hard to find. But if a longstanding truth of the way to make…
Roger Corman, the producer of close to 500 feature films and the director of over 50, has died at the age of 98. You can read obituaries and appreciations about his career from: A common theme amongst the pieces is not only how prodigious his filmography is, but how various films within it represent “the break” for a nontrivial amount of filmmakers from directors like Francis Ford Coppola to Martin Scorsese to James Cameron as…
As mentioned the other week, Star Trek: Discovery has begun its final season. One of the highlights of the series for me has been the character of Saru, played by Doug Jones. There are a lot of actors whose mere presence bodes well for a production, but Doug Jones is one who historically has done so with his physical presence. In fact, one one level, he’s harder to spot than Gary Oldman, because while Gary…
While I was covering the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes last year, an obvious question for a follow-up was what the future of Hollywood would be. While there’s certainly been a lot of pieces since the end of the strikes, one of the conversations I found that touched on this was with Adam Conover on his Factually podcast. It’s from August of last year, arguably during the height of the strikes. I actually linked to it…
With films and film history very much on the mind from my post earlier this week, I was delighted to stumble (pratfall?) across this list from Vulture about the 100 Fights that Shaped Action Cinema. The work of multiple writers (and presumed cinemaniacs), this list goes back to the earliest moving pictures to the present day (it came out earlier this month). I not only appreciate it for its exhaustive scope, I’m very thankful that…
Earlier this week, I did a post about the what we’ve gained in the public domain as of January 1st, “Public Domain Day” becoming something I post on. Thinking of annual posts, I meant to do this last month, so here goes: TCM does a great montage of folks we’ve lost in the previous year (see examples from 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019 for the most recent entries). This time around, I decided to do…
Having done villains last week, let’s take a look at heroes. Okay, James Bond is something of an anti-hero as established from the get-go in that “you’ve had your six” moment in Dr. No. But still, he is working for Queen and Country as well as saving the world (sometimes as a sad clown). This is a fun overview of how James Bond has changed with the times that Fandom released just before No Time…
Going from studio villains from earlier this week to the villains writers concoct for studios, I stumbled across this article by Tom Smyth for Vox about villians in Disney films… or the recent lack thereof. I have to admit, villains are very much on my mind of late as I try and and finish writing season 3 of my space opera, Rogue Tyger. The season includes the introduction of a “big bad” villain only hinted…
I am still following accounts of the Writers’ Strike, which looks like it’ll be a long one, but while you can continue to check out information, like the Strike Diaries from the Hollywood Reporter, for today, I wanted to just post about film, specifically a great example where writing, performance, and fight choreography comes together beautifully. I’m talking about the climactic duel in the 1956 comedy The Court Jester. I love the duel because, as…