I awoke this morning to the news that — and I quote from the AP story — "…America's spy agencies were 'dead wrong' in most of their judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the war and that the United States knows 'disturbingly little' about the threats posed by many of the nation's most […]
Guess I'm on a kick of recalling near-defunct restaurant chains. I was thinking today about Piece O' Pizza, a string of eateries that once decorated the Southern California landscape…an amazing reach considering the awfulness of their signature product. Do you like pizza where the crust tastes like matzo, the toppings have the thickness of carbon […]
I wasn't going to discuss the Terri Schiavo case any more, largely on the grounds that everyone's sick of it, and the amount of disinformation on the Internet has reached critical mass. But Andrew Sullivan has what seems to me an incisive article on what it all means to the future of the Republican Party. […]
Well, as you may remember, I mentioned the other day here that the chain of Love's Barbecue Restaurants seemed to be down to one in Chula Vista and one in Lakewood (both in California) and the one in Jakarta, Indonesia. I am now informed that the Lakewood one recently closed and I'm guessing that since […]
It no longer exists but Once Upon a Time, there was an institution of learning known as the Hollywood Professional School. It graduated hundreds of students who went on to become well-known performers including — this is a random, very-partial list — Barbara Parkins, Lance Kerwin, Melanie Griffith, Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal, Peggy Lipton, […]
Commencing April 1, Turner Classic Movies is offering a month of terrific comedy classics, many of them rarely seen. Here's the entire schedule and as you can see, Friday is Laurel and Hardy Day and next Monday belongs to Charley Chase and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. That's just for starters. It's really an outstanding month for […]
Ever since I posted about the upcoming DVD releases of The Yogi Bear Show and The Huckleberry Hound Show, I've received a slew of e-mails from folks asking me if this or that classic series will be coming out on DVD. The answer to that question is that darn near everything will be coming out […]
Over at the fine Cartoon Brew site, Amid Amidi has put up what he calls his monthly "things-could-be-so-much-better" post. This one waxes longingly for the days when Leon Schlesinger ran the Warner Brothers cartoon operation. Here's an excerpt… Schlesinger recognized talent. He had the good sense of hiring Avery away from Walter Lantz. And then […]
I almost didn't attend the premiere last night of Frank Miller's Sin City, the new movie based on the graphic novel of the same name by the same guy. I like Frank and I like his comic book. What I don't like is violence and bloodshed in my movies, and a faithful adaptation promised to […]
Those of you interested in the squabble between the Writers Guilds East and West, which I discussed here, might like to read an article by Walter Bernstein [Los Angeles Times, they make you register]. Bernstein is a fine screenwriter — he wrote The Front, chronicling a tumultuous era in his own life — and a […]
Several times here, I've complained about the term "support the troops," as in the accusation, "You're not supporting the troops." I think that charge is usually a bunch of emotion-loaded hooey…but there are those out there who literally are not supporting our fighting men and women. They include those who have cut back on pay, […]
As I explained in an article that's no longer posted on this site, I am/was a big fan of a chain of almost-defunct barbecue restaurants called Love's. There used to be a lot of them, at least throughout California, and we're now down to just three, one of which is in Jakarta, Indonesia. I like […]
If anything positive comes out of the Terri Schiavo case, it may be that it's prompting a vast amount of Americans to draw up Living Wills or other documents that will specify what they want done with their bodies when they can no longer decide. I was amused to see my pal Daniel Frank say, […]
Here's a question from Rick Mohr… I was just wondering something. Is it just me, or have Jay Leno's monologues become meaner as of late? Calling people stupid and idiots, making fat jokes, and attacking Robert Blake and Michael Jackson in what are to me, very mean spirited jokes, not social commentary. Do you think […]
The weekend late night Saturday Night Live reruns have begun jumping around from season to season again. Last week, they had one with Charlton Heston from the 1993-1994 season. This weekend, they hop back to the tenth season, which was the one with Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Christopher Guest and (briefly) Harry Shearer. The scheduled […]