The Oscars are being held tomorrow. I can understand why a lot of people might not want to watch them: the self-satisfied political posturing, the paucity of good movies, the windy acceptance speeches, and the sleaziness of what passes for … Continue reading →
Obsession may be a necessary but not sufficient requirement for success in the arts (and perhaps even elsewhere). I know quite a few people who later became famous—some a little famous, some more famous. Having known these people in childhood … Continue reading →
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers generated more human happiness than many do-gooders. In the comments to the YouTube videos of their dance routines, you can find many people (some of them, I assume, young people) lamenting the death of this … Continue reading →
Who was Astaire’s best partner? Fred Astaire himself was unique, and as a solo performer in his genre he was unsurpassed. Period. It wasn’t just that he could choreograph routine after routine and bring freshness to each one. It wasn’t … Continue reading →
First, the “speech” part. Apparently some remarks by Meryl Streep about Donald Trump have caught fire on social media, and everyone is weighing in pro and con. Well, maybe I should turn in my blogging badge, because I find I … Continue reading →
…one day after the death of her daughter, Carrie Fisher. Carrie Fisher’s death came as a shock because she had not been ill until experiencing cardiac arrest during a flight, and at 60 she was still relatively young. Afterwards, on … Continue reading →
What a name she had: Tallulah Bankhead. What a voice she had. Even among the many dramatic and flamboyant personalities who used to populate Hollywood and the theater in the 30s and 40s, Bankhead was more unpredictable than most as … Continue reading →
This from Ann Althouse made me chuckle: “Both campaigns live in fear of one thing: the last seven days of the election being a referendum on why they stink.” Said Mike Murphy (the Republican strategist) on “Meet the Press”… And … Continue reading →
This story could be turned into a movie. It already seems like a movie in terms of the distance, and the timing of the rescue: A sharpshooter killed a top ISIS executioner and three other jihadists with a single bullet … Continue reading →
It’s such a corny joke, but such a good one. I never tire of these things, and it’s because Sellers delivers the lines with such outraged dignity:
Continue reading →The FBI has announced the discovery of 15,000 heretofore undisclosed Hillary Clinton emails from her tenure as Secretary of State. That’s a lot; half again as many as the 30,000 to which Clinton has previously owned up: The documents were … Continue reading →
I dunno. But it’s got one. I saw the 1959 movie in a movie theater in Manhattan when it first came out. The place was so packed that we had to sit very very close up, which turned out to … Continue reading →