Every so often, I link to an article by Libertarian congressguy Ron Paul, if only because he comes at current issues from a POV that is neither Zombie Democrat nor Mindless Republican. Here, he makes the argument that the war in Iraq has been a spectacular failure. I don't necessarily agree but I think a […]
Frank Rich discusses the "Culture of Death" that is now passing itself off as a "Culture of Life." […]
Here's a newspaper obit for Gene Hazelton. From it, we learn his real name was Wesley Hazelton Sr., that he was born in Fresno on June 3, 1919 and that he died on Wednesday. Services are next Tuesday in San Diego. […]
Sorry to report the recent passing (I don't know precisely when) of the great cartoonist, Gene Hazelton, whose career stretched from Fantasia to Flintstones. Gene was born in 1919 and by his teenage years, he was a good enough cartoonist to get a job assisting Jimmy Hatlo on the popular newspaper panel, They'll Do It […]
The great choreographer, Onna White, has died at age 83. She won an Oscar for her fine (and much-imitated) work in the movie, Oliver, and probably deserved them for Bye Bye Birdie, Mame, 1776 and The Music Man. She was also the choreographer of the last three of these when they first appeared on Broadway, […]
Hey, if you get a chance to catch this week's installment of Real Time with Bill Maher, catch this week's installment of Real Time with Bill Maher. It reruns a number of times on HBO, and it has two good interviews — one with former New York governor Mario Cuomo and another with former Pentagon […]
Here's a silly article — silly because it's way premature — discussing who might be asked to host the Academy Awards next year. But hey, I'm in a silly mood tonight so I'll join in. The names mentioned in the article are Chris Rock, Billy Crystal, Mike Myers, Ellen DeGeneres, Robin Williams, David Letterman, Jay […]
A review of the new Li'l Abner DVD, my copy of which has not arrived. Thanks to Earl Baucom, who called it to my attention. […]
This is for those of you who are watching the dusty reruns of The Name's the Same on GSN. The episode that ran this morning was the one from August 1, 1955 with guest star Hoagy Carmichael. I assume tomorrow's will be the August 8 episode, which had Chico Marx on it. It's not a […]
Gary Sassaman reports on the Will Eisner Memorial held today in New York. Wish I could have been there. […]
Dale Messick, creator of the long-running newspaper strip Brenda Starr has died, a few days before what would have been her 99th birthday. As I mentioned here, her strip "was drawn with great energy and humor, and the writing stands up far better than many strips of its era." It is also worth noting that […]
I attended the premiere last week of Frank Miller's Sin City with a certain amount of trepidation…which was replaced by a lot of relief when I found myself liking it. Frank's a friend of mine, and I have occasionally gone to a premiere or early screening of a friend's movie and thought that the featured […]
The battle between the east and west wings of the Writers Guild of America has gotten nastier, as such battles tend to do. For background on this, you might want to click here but maybe a quick summary will suffice. The large WGAw and the smaller WGAe are quarreling over the enforcement of some old […]
This morning at breakfast, I ran into veteran comedy writer Arnie Kogen, who worked for a time on The Dean Martin Show. Arnie left before they got to the roast episodes I mentioned here but I figured he'd probably know who the writer was whose initials, "GB," appeared on that script excerpt I posted. He […]
Several of you have written me to express disappointment in the recent Laurel & Hardy fest on Turner Classic Movies. Films started at odd times and some of the prints were not up to the usual TCM standards. I am told that the folks there are well aware of the problems and they're already working […]