Sue Grafton was my favorite mystery writer. She wrote the popular alphabet detective series of Kinsey Milhone. Grafton died several years ago before she could complete the alphabet, but she got close. In the years since, I’ve continue to enjoy the series of David Baldacci (although I missed the Camel Club), Lee Child’s Jack Reacher … More Stephanie Plum: Bounty Hunter
George Segal passed away this year. A working actor right up to the end, Segal had a relatively brief tenure as a leading man, but managed to find featured roles long after many leading men faded from memory. I wrote this blog about Segal and Elliott Gould, two actors who did not seem to take … More Remembering George Segal
Back in the late 1950s through the late 1970s, Walt Disney Productions employed many of the same actors and crew on many films. Sometimes you saw the same characters on screen, like Professor Brainard and his Flubber, or young Dexter Riley at Medfield College, the ruthless businessman Alonzo Hawk or Merlin Jones in several films. … More Familiar Disney Film Actors and Crew
Life, distilled down to its essence is: Love and pain and everything in between. Stated differently, Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing, which happens to be a film title from when dinosaurs lived in the neighborhood, or at least when bell-bottom trousers were fashionable. T-Rex did not wear them, those small arms could … More Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing
Favorite episodes and character changes. It is not unusual for television series to evolve over a long run. Frequently this happens with cast changes, insisted tinkering by networks, and characters that grow or actors that redefine their characters. As I mentioned in Part 1, this evolution happened with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Seven seasons … More The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Part 2)
Where do I start? This intelligent situation-comedy ran for seven years and gathered an armful of awards. This was really a character-comedy because the shows were written around the ensemble cast. Mary Tyler Moore sprang to stardom as Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show, which ran for five seasons. Moore had a film … More The Mary Tyler Moore Show (part one)
Deadpan. Dry sense of humor. Obtuse. Passive-aggressive. Sharp-witted. He was all of these things. With Charles Grodin, you never quite knew if he was serious or kidding, or both. His expression and tone were the same, so you were not sure if it was put-on or he was offended about something. He brought this style … More Charles Grodin
I am going to present you two stacks of DVDs (no Blu-ray disks mixed in). You are going on a trip and these are the only entertainment you will have. No TV, cable or internet. Which one would you choose? No trading between stacks. Stack 1 Roman Holiday (1953) – Reporter Gregory Peck and Princess … More DVDs: Which Stack?
In four decades, Tim Allen has appeared in two long-running television series and a slew of films. Allen has a lot of fans, deservedly so. Home Improvement, until the later seasons, and three of his films (not counting the Toy Story films) are the best of his work. When he was trying to be edgy, … More Tim Allen: 3 Films
As an eight-year old boy traveling from Europe to America with his younger brother, Mike Nichols would grow up to more than live the American Dream. He became a Tony and Oscar winning director, and Grammy recipient for his comedy records. Nichols had the kind of life that an immigrant boy could only imagine in … More Mike Nichols
You must be logged in to post a comment.