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Jeopardy! has itself a new champion after Wednesday night (May 29), but it came at the expense of another contestant who fell into the trap of a “brutal” Daily Double clue. On Wednesday’s episode, one-day champion Abby Mann, a digital scholarship librarian from Normal, Illinois, returned to the Alex Trebek Stage to take on Adriana Harmeyer, an archivist from West Lafayette, Indiana, and Brian O’Shea, a gifted specialist & teacher from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The game started pretty tight in the Jeopardy round, with the scores relatively close heading into Double Jeopardy. Mann led with $4,800, O’Shea followed closely with $4,600, and Harmeyer trailed with $3,800. Things changed in Double Jeopardy, especially thanks to the two Daily Doubles. Harmeyer landed the first Daily Double, bumping up her total by $4,000 and giving her a solid lead. Meanwhile, O’Shea found the second Daily Double but ended up losing $6,000 after falling for some tricky wording. Under the “White House Weddings” category,...

The Wednesday May 29 episode of Jeopardy! featured an exciting contest between Brian O’Shea, a gifted specialist and teacher from Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Adriana Harmeyer, an archivist from West Lafayette, Indiana; and Abby Mann, a digital scholarship librarian from Normal, Illinois. Entering the game, Abby already had a one-day champion status under her belt with […]

Jeopardy! Wednesday May 29, 2024, Recap, Winner and Final Answer...

A Jeopardy four-day champ’s reign is over after a big final bet didn’t pay off. The player bet so highly, he ended his fifth game with just $1. Playing in the May 28, 2024 game was returning champ Amar Kakirde, a graduate student from Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey, with a total winnings of $55,899; Abby Mann, a digital scholarship librarian from Normal, Illinois; and Steve Miller, a retired medical transcriptionist from Eugene, Oregon. Miller staged an impressive comeback throughout the game, bringing himself back from -200 at the first break to a first-place lead heading into Final Jeopardy. This was made possible in part by two successful Daily Double answers, but just like Kakirde, Miller was foiled by a risky wager in the final round. Mann was in third place for most of the game, but she proved to have made the best bet of the night when gambling only $3,000 on the “European Scientists” Final Jeopardy clue.

In the Tuesday May 28 episode of Jeopardy!, three contestants brought their A-game to the table. Steve Miller, a retired medical transcriptionist from Eugene, Oregon, Abby Mann, a digital scholarship librarian from Normal, Illinois, and Amar Kakirde, a four-day champion graduate student from Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey, all vied for the top spot. Amar entered […]

Jeopardy! Tuesday May 28, 2024, Recap, Winner and Final Answer...

Development continues on a feature film adaptation of the CBS cop TV series  "Kojak" starring actor Vin Diesel, who produces with Samantha Vincent for One Race Films:

The original "Kojak" TV series was created by Oscar winner Abby Mann, as a gritty police procedural, focusing on institutionalized prejudice and civil rights of suspects and witnesses, starring actor Telly Savalas ("The Dirty Dozen") as New York City 'Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak'.

The series aired October 24, 1973 to March 18, 1978.

"...'Lieutenant Theodore ('Theo') Kojak (Savalas) is a dapper, New York City policeman, fond of 'Tootsie Roll Pops' and using the catchphrase, 'Who loves ya, baby?'.

"Stubborn and tenacious in his investigation of crimes, he also displays a dark, cynical wit and a tendency to bend the rules if it brings a criminal to justice..."

Click the images to enlarge...

Who loves ya, baby? A half century ago now — on October 24, 1973 — Kojak debuted on CBS, with the late Telly Savalas playing the tough-guy NYPD detective TV Guide Magazine once named the 18th greatest television character in the history of the medium. To celebrate Kojak’s 50th anniversary, here are 10 fascinating facts about the cop drama. 1. It started with a TV movie based on real-life murders. TV writer Abby Mann introduced Savalas’ Kojak — spelled “Kojack” at the time — in the 1973 CBS movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders. That movie was inspired by Justice in the Back Room, Sewyn Raab’s book about the Wylie-Hoffert murders. In both the real-life case and the TV movie, a Black teen was falsely accused of the murder of two white women. The real case — in which George Whitmore Jr. was convicted for killings he didn’t commit — ended up a factor in the Supreme Court ruling that...

Die Hard is an unquestioned action masterpiece. Thanks to revelatory performances by both Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, plus John McTiernan’s assured direction, Die Hard still has the power to awe and entertain even decades after its release. Few can say the same about the sequels, but what about the Die Hard prequel, The Detective?

Oh, you’ve never heard of a Die Hard prequel? Well, that could be because the 1968 Frank Sinatra vehicle The Detective is based on the 1966 novel by the same name, written by Roderick Thorp. And in 1979, Thorp published a sequel to The Detective called Nothing Lasts Forever, in which criminals led by a man called Gruber take control of a Los Angeles high-rise during a company party. Gruber even holds hostage the family member of a hero cop who must go rogue upstairs if he is going to thwart the terrorists. Also it’s Christmas time.

Writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade ("Skyfall") continue updating the CBS TV series "Kojak" as a feature film for Universal, starring actor Vin Diesel, who will also co-produce with Samantha Vincent for One Race Films.

The original "Kojak" TV series was created by Oscar winner Abby Mann, as a gritty police procedural, focusing on institutionalized prejudice and civil rights of suspects and witnesses, starring actor Telly Savalas ("The Dirty Dozen") as New York City 'Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak'.

The series aired October 24, 1973 to March 18, 1978.

"...'Lieutenant Theodore ('Theo') Kojak (Savalas) is a dapper, New York City policeman, fond of 'Tootsie Roll Pops' and using the catchphrase, 'Who loves ya, baby?'.

"Stubborn and tenacious in his investigation of crimes, he also displays a dark, cynical wit and a tendency to bend the rules if it brings a criminal to justice..."

Click the images to enlarge...

Writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade ("Skyfall") will update the CBS TV series "Kojak" as a feature film for Universal, starring actor Vin Diesel, who will also co-produce with Samantha Vincent for One Race Films.

The original "Kojak" TV series was created by Oscar winner Abby Mann, as a gritty police procedural, focusing on institutionalized prejudice and civil rights of suspects and witnesses, starring actor Telly Savalas ("The Dirty Dozen") as New York City 'Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak'.

The series aired October 24, 1973 to March 18, 1978.

"...'Lieutenant Theodore ('Theo') Kojak (Savalas) is a dapper, New York City policeman, fond of 'Tootsie Roll Pops' and using the catchphrase, 'Who loves ya, baby?'.

"Stubborn and tenacious in his investigation of crimes, he also displays a dark, cynical wit and a tendency to bend the rules if it brings a criminal to justice..."

Click the images to enlarge...

Everything old is new again. Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed remake of “West Side Story” has garnered seven Oscar nominations. That haul is impressive but pales next to that of the 1961 original which reaped a whopping 11 bids. Not surprisingly, it was the big winner at the 34th annual Oscars. These took place at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on April 9, 1962 with Bob Hope hosting.

The Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins adaptation of the Leonard Bernstein–Stephen Sondheim landmark Broadway musical waltzed away with 10 wins including Best Picture, Director (shared for the first time) and for supporting players Rita Moreno and George Chakiris.

Robbins also received an honorary Oscar that night for his “brilliant achievement in the art of choreography on film.” Ironically, Robbins had received his walking papers from his directing duties 45 days into production. Wise told me in a 2002 L.A. Times interview that the production was behind schedule and over-budget.

This article marks Part 1 of the Gold Derby series reflecting on films that contended for the Big Five Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted). With “A Star Is Born” this year on the cusp of joining this exclusive group of Oscar favorites, join us as we look back at the 43 extraordinary pictures that earned Academy Awards nominations in each of the Big Five categories beginning with the eight that were shut out of these top races.

At the 31st Academy Awards ceremony, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958) was well-positioned for Oscar glory. Critically acclaimed and commercially successful, the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play was up in six categories, including the Big Five, plus Best Cinematography.

Instead of emerging victorious, however, the film found itself steamrolled over. It would lose Best Picture and Best Director (Richard Brooks) to the musical “Gigi” and its filmmaker,...

April 4 marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In a banner story, Variety said the national grieving was profound and the entertainment industry’s reaction was unprecedented: “But then, King was more than just an individual; he was a symbol of civil-rights equality to all men of good will.”

King’s death was on a Thursday, and President Johnson declared Sunday as a national day of mourning. ABC carried live coverage on Monday, April 8, of the march in Memphis, the city in which King was killed. It aired a primetime special on Dr. King that evening, and also featured live coverage of the funeral from Atlanta April 9. But according to Variety, the other networks reported no primetime program changes.

King’s death set off violent protests in multiple cities. Variety’s Army Archerd reported that Audrey Hepburn had flown to L.A. for the Academy Awards,...

Secure one major book with a serious subject, sign up a wagonload of stars (including a legend or two) and make sure every cookie-cutter character repeatedly explains themselves to the camera in close-up. That formula worked well for Stanley Kramer in 1965; his film hasn’t much of a reputation but the cast is gold. A bright new transfer makes the picture look very good.

Ship of Fools

Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1965 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 149 min. / Street Date March 9, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Lee Marvin, Oskar Werner, Elizabeth Ashley, George Segal, José Greco, Michael Dunn, Charles Korvin, Heinz Rühmann, Lilia Skala, Barbara Luna, Alf Kjellin, Werner Klemperer,

Gila Golan, Kaaren Verne.

Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo

Film Editor: Robert C. Jones

Special visual effects: John Burke, Farciot Edouart, Albert Whitlock

Original Music: Ernest Gold

Written by Abby Mann from the novel by Katherine Anne Porter

Produced and directed by Stanley...

Apologies, gentle Judy fans. While I intended to bring you the usual dose of morning Garland sunshine, I failed in meeting either the requirement for sunshine or the morning deadline. In this case, however, that’s probably for the best. Considering the subject of this film, it is probably better that you have a cup of coffee and a bite to eat before you sit down to watch it. This week, I’m breaking with tradition slightly. While Judy Garland does not sing any numbers in Judgment at Nuremberg, this is a performance and a movie that must be seen.

The Movie: Judgment at Nuremberg (UA, 1961)

The Writer: Abby Mann (screenplay)

The Cast: Maximilian Schell, Burt Lancaster, Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Richard Widmark, Judy Garland, directed by Stanley Kramer

The Story: When Stanley Kramer decided to adapt Abby Mann’s dramatization of the Nuremberg trials, Judy Garland was not his first choice for Irene Hoffman,...

Director Gordon Douglas is one of many prolific filmmakers who seemed to fall short of auteur recognition despite considerable iconic items lodged within a vast filmography. Starting out in Hollywood as a child actor, he was directing shorts throughout the 1930s and began developing a resume of B-grade features, the most notable from this period being the 1954 sci-fi classic Them!, one of several genre items capitalizing on nuclear warfare fears. The 1960s found Douglas evolving freely with the times, churning out some racy Carroll Baker numbers (including in a biopic of Jean Harlow), the James Bond knock-off In Like Flint (1967), and a trio of Frank Sinatra vehicles. In between directing Sinatra in a pair of movies where the crooner plays Miami Pi Tony Rome, Douglas concocted something much more provocative, a seedy, lurid neo-noir titled The Detective (1968). One of several oft-referenced titles detailed in Vito Russo’s The Celluloid Closet,...

Frank Sinatra shines in a story of police corruption that tries to say it like it is -- or like it was in 1968, just before the ratings system came in.  The well-intentioned, suspenseful story is burdened by odd censor choices,  Sinatra's conservative self-image, and rudely retrograde attitudes toward gays. In a sparkling new transfer with Jerry Goldsmith's jazzy score isolated on its own track. The Detective Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 114 min. / Ship Date December 8, 2015 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick, Ralph Meeker, Jacqueline Bisset, William Windom, Al Freeman Jr., Tony Musante, Lloyd Bochner, Robert Duvall, Horace McMahon Cinematography Joseph F. Biroc Art Direction William J. Creber, Jack Martin Smith Film Editor Robert L. Simpson Original Music Jerry Goldsmith Written by Abby Mann from a novel by Roderick Thorpe Produced by Aaron Rosenberg Directed by Gordon Douglas

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

Though it’s a famously compromised vision, to be sure, director John Cassavetes’ third film, A Child is Waiting, represents an important cinematic juncture. Meant to highlight society’s cruelty exacted upon handicapped children via behind-the-scenes details of a new cutting edge school run by an objective physician, the film’s noble ambitions were unfortunately marred by creative forces in disagreement.

After the fallout of his experiences with studio filmmaking, Cassavetes wouldn’t return until 1968 with the landmark Faces, and thus begin building a filmography earning him the moniker ‘father of independent cinema.’ And yet, there’s a scarred, dignified beauty about this troubled motion picture, perhaps as easily identifiable as the warring schools of thought amongst its main protagonists in the film.

A box office failure, it received a cool critical reception, disowned by its director after he was fired in post-production by producer Stanley Kramer. It’s unavoidable...

Quentin Tarantino got slammed in many quarters this week for some of his candid remarks to Bret Easton Ellis in a recent New York Times interview. Tarantino wrote me via Facebook to clarify one point: he never saw Ava DuVernay's "Selma." His note (edited slightly for typos) is below: Dear Anne, I'm writing you to pass on that the quote from the NY Times piece about "Selma" is wrong. I never saw "Selma." If you look at the article, it was Bret who was talking about "Selma," not me. I did say the line "it deserved a Emmy," but when I said it, it was more like a question.  Which basically meant, "it's like a TV movie?" Which Bret and myself being from the same TV generation, was not only understood, but there was no slam intended. Both Bret and myself come from the seventies and eighties when there...

Another forgotten gem from the mid-1970s receiving a new Blu-ray treatment is 1975’s Report to the Commissioner, a textured police procedural examining changing social mores and the generalized internal corruptions we’re used to in these scenarios, resulting in tragic circumstances thanks to the sincere ignorance of its protagonist. Yaphet Kotto, a regular supporting player in a number of Blaxploitation features from the decade, is a standout as a weary, sympathetic detective numbed by the machinations of law enforcement. It’s a greatly overlooked title of the era, featuring a variety of recognizable names in early roles as street hoods, and based on a novel by James Mills (The Panic in Needle Park, 1971), adapted for the screen by Abby Mann (Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961) and Ernest Tidyman (Shaft; The French Connection, both 1971). Though its narrative is, at times, a bit rough around the edges, this deliberately paced thriller features rich characterizations and excellent chase sequences.

By Alex Simon

By the mid-1960s, the notorious Hayes Code, the censorship standards begun in the 1930s, had begun to fall away. Films like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Bonnie & Clyde, The Graduate and In the Heat of the Night started pushing the envelope in terms of “adult” content portrayed on-screen. With the advent of the MPAA rating system in November, 1968 a new era of freedom was ushered in. Filmmakers could frankly portray sex, violence, profanity and formerly taboo subject matters. While the aforementioned films are all iconic in stature, one of the key films that pushed the rating system into being is now largely forgotten.

Roderick Thorp’s 1966 novel The Detective became an instant best-seller, a mammoth (600 pages), unflinching look at Joe Leland, a weary veteran cop who finds his legal and personal mettle tested while investigating the brutal murder of a wealthy, gay department store heir.

'Selma' movie review: Politically salient in the early 21st century and 'beautiful in all the ways of cinema' (photo: David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. in 'Selma') The title of director Ava DuVernay's historical drama Selma tells us what the film is about, while implying what it isn't about. In other words, Selma is not about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- wonderfully played by British actor David Oyelowo -- even though the reverend is the film's gravitational center and its emotional weight accrues to him. Just like what took place in Selma, Alabama, back in 1965. In fact, Oyelowo's presence is as transfixing as that of the young Ben Kingsley in his transformative interpretation of Gandhi in Sir Richard Attenborough's 1982 titular classic about one of Dr. King's inspirational figures. Unlike Gandhi, however, Selma is a single canvas on which a few months in Dr.

Maximilian Schell dead at 83: Best Actor Oscar winner for ‘Judgment at Nuremberg’ (photo: Maximilian Schell ca. 1960) Actor and filmmaker Maximilian Schell, best known for his Oscar-winning performance as the defense attorney in Stanley Kramer’s 1961 political drama Judgment at Nuremberg died at a hospital in Innsbruck, Austria, on February 1, 2014. According to his agent, Patricia Baumbauer, Schell died overnight following a "sudden and serious illness." Maximilian Schell was 83. Born on December 8, 1930, in Vienna, Maximilian Schell was the younger brother of future actor Carl Schell and Maria Schell, who would become an international film star in the 1950s (The Last Bridge, Gervaise, The Hanging Tree). Immy Schell, who would be featured in several television and film productions from the mid-’50s to the early ’90s, was born in 1935. Following Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, Schell’s parents, Swiss playwright Hermann Ferdinand Schell and Austrian stage actress Margarete Schell Noé,...

‘Gilda,’ ‘Pulp Fiction’: 2013 National Film Registry movies (photo: Rita Hayworth in ‘Gilda’) See previous post: “‘Mary Poppins’ in National Film Registry: Good Timing for Disney’s ‘Saving Mr. Banks.’” Billy Woodberry’s UCLA thesis film Bless Their Little Hearts (1984). Stanton Kaye’s Brandy in the Wilderness (1969). The Film Group’s Cicero March (1966), about a Civil Rights march in an all-white Chicago suburb. Norbert A. Myles’ Daughter of Dawn (1920), with Hunting Horse, Oscar Yellow Wolf, Esther Labarre. Bill Morrison’s Decasia (2002), featuring decomposing archival footage. Alfred E. Green’s Ella Cinders (1926), with Colleen Moore, Lloyd Hughes, Vera Lewis. Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet (1956), with Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Robby the Robot. Charles Vidor’s Gilda (1946), with Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready. John and Faith Hubley’s Oscar-winning animated short The Hole (1962). Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), with Best Actor Oscar winner Maximilian Schell,...

Action star Vin Diesel remained busy prepping his adaptation of the popular TV cop drama Kojak with Skyfall co-writers Neal Purvis and Robert adapting the series created by Abby Mann. Empire reported that Diesel brought headlines to the project when he publicly expressed his desire to land two-time Oscar winner Ang Lee (Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain) to helm the movie based on TV’s tough New York cop Lt. Theo Kojak, brought to life by Telly Savalas.

It may be guilty of a little make-believe, but Stanley Kramer's masterpiece does justice to the real-life Nazi judges' trial

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Director: Stanley Kramer

Entertainment grade: B+

History grade: A

The Nuremberg trials were a series of military tribunals carried out by Allied forces against military and administrative officials and private contractors of Nazi Germany. They took place between 1945 and 1949.

Justice

It's 1948, and American judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) arrives in Nuremberg. "Hitler is gone, Goebbels is gone, Goering is gone – committed suicide before they could hang him," he says. "Now we're down to the business of judging the doctors, businessmen and judges. Some people think they shouldn't be judged at all." The most attention-grabbing of the Nuremberg trials was that of the major war criminals in 1945-46. This film is about the judges' trial, which actually took place over the course of 1947. The date has been changed for a reason.

According to internet reports writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade ("Skyfall") will update the CBS TV series "Kojak" as a feature film for Universal, starring actor Vin Diesel, who will also co-produce with Samantha Vincent for One Race Films.

The original "Kojak" TV series, created by Oscar winning writer Abby Mann, as a gritty police procedural, with a subtext focusing on institutionalized prejudice and the civil rights of suspects and witnesses, starred actor Telly Savalas as New York City Police Department 'Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak'.

The series aired October 24, 1973 to March 18, 1978 :

"...'Lieutenant Theodore 'Theo') Kojak (Savalas) is a dapper, New York City policeman, fond of 'Tootsie Roll Pops' and using the catchphrase, 'Who loves ya, baby?'.

"Stubborn and tenacious in his investigation of crimes, he also displays a dark, cynical wit and a tendency to bend the rules if it brought a criminal to justice..."

Click the...

Kojak starring Fast & Furious, Riddick's Vin Diesel, has picked up Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, writers of current 007 movie Skyfall, reports Deadline. Diesel will play the cop played in the series by Telly Savalas, which ran from 1972-1978 and was created by Abby Mann. The show was set in the Eleventh Precinct of the New York City Police Department and followed the tough, and incorruptible Lieutenant Theodore ("Theo") Kojak. The character loved Tootsie Roll Pops and oftentimes used the catchphrase "Who loves ya, baby?" The stubborn character also had a a tendency to bend the rules to bring a criminal to justice.

Kojak starring Fast & Furious, Riddick's Vin Diesel, has picked up Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, writers of current 007 movie Skyfall, reports Deadline. Diesel will play the cop played in the series by Telly Savalas, which ran from 1972-1978 and was created by Abby Mann. The show was set in the Eleventh Precinct of the New York City Police Department and followed the tough, and incorruptible Lieutenant Theodore ("Theo") Kojak. The character loved Tootsie Roll Pops and oftentimes used the catchphrase "Who loves ya, baby?" The stubborn character also had a a tendency to bend the rules to bring a criminal to justice.

As happened for so many other genres, the 1960s/1970s saw a tremendous creative expansion in crime and cop thrillers. The old Hollywood moguls had died off or retired, most of the major studios were bleeding red ink, attendance had gone off a cliff since the end of Ww II, and a new breed of young, creatively adventurous production executives had been tasked with trying to save their business by coming up with movies which could hook a new, young, cinema-literate audience.

It also happened to be one of the most socially turbulent times in American history. Even before the American public grew restive over the growing disaster in Vietnam, the social fabric was unraveling with self-examination and doubt. The Cold War; a certain inner emptiness that went with a period of great material prosperity; once invisible fault lines on matters of race and gender discrimination beginning to crack – all...

Beverly Hills, CA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will screen “Judgment at Nuremberg,” in honor of the film’s 50th anniversary, on Tuesday, October 11, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Hosted by television and radio personality Larry King, the evening will feature an onstage discussion with Oscar®-winning actor Maximilian Schell; Oscar-winning documentarian Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and Mrs. Karen Sharpe Kramer, widow of Stanley Kramer, the film’s producer and director. Video messages from journalist Tom Brokaw, actor Alec Baldwin (who appeared in the “Nuremberg” TV miniseries) and “Judgment at Nuremberg” co-star William Shatner also will be presented.

Today, more than 60 years after the Nuremberg Trials, war tribunals and international criminal courts still dominate human rights discussions. In the Best Picture-nominated “Judgment at Nuremberg” (1961), producer-director Kramer created . only 14 years after the historical...

Claudia Cardinale, Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, The Leopard Burt Lancaster is Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" featured star today, August 25. TCM is presenting 11 Burt Lancaster movies, including two premieres: The Leopard and Scorpio. [Burt Lancaster Movie Schedule.] A powerful but hammy leading man who developed into a first-rate mature actor-star in movies such as Luchino Visconti's Conversation Piece and Louis Malle's Atlantic City, Lancaster had a long, eclectic, and prestigious career both in Hollywood and abroad. Imagine Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, James Stewart, Clark Gable, or John Wayne working with Visconti and Malle, not to mention Bernardo Bertolucci (Novecento / 1900), John Cassavetes (A Child Is Waiting), and Bill Forsyth (Local Hero). TCM is now showing Cassavetes' A Child Is Waiting (1963), quite possibly the director's most accessible — i.e., commercial — effort. Produced by Stanley Kramer, a filmmaker with a strong (at times overly so) sense of (liberal) social commitment, and directed by...

DVD Playhouse June 2011

By

Allen Gardner

Kiss Me Deadly (Criterion) Robert Aldrich’s 1955 reinvention of the film noir detective story is one of cinema’s great genre mash-ups: part hardboiled noir; part cold war paranoid thriller; and part science- fiction. Ralph Meeker plays Mickey Spillane’s fascist detective Mike Hammer as a narcissistic simian thug, a sadist who would rather smash a suspect’s fingers than make love to the bevvy of beautiful dames that cross his path. In fact, the only time you see a smile cross Meeker’s sneering mug is when he’s doling out pain, with a vengeance. When a terrified young woman (Cloris Leachman, film debut) literally crossed Hammer’s path one night, and later turns up dead, he vows to get to the bottom of her brutal demise. One of the most influential films ever made, and perhaps the most-cited film by the architects...

It's been more than 30 years since Abby Mann's Emmy-winning miniseries King, so it's about time someone made a feature biopic about Martin Luther King Jr., right? That someone just so happens to be Steven Spielberg, who will produce such a film for DreamWorks, along with Oscar-winning screenwriter Suzanne de Passe (Lady Sings the Blues) and her Humpty Dumpty co-producer Madison Jones. Though Mlk has appeared as a character in many films since his assassination in 1968, this is apparently the first to be approved by King's estate, meaning it will have access to all of the civil rights leader's intellectual property. Obviously this is going to be one heck of an Oscar-baited biopic, and Spielberg will have to find just the right person to play Mlk. In the past he's been portrayed by actors including James Earl Jones, Paul Winfield, LeVar Burton, Robert Guillaume, Courtney B. Vance, Jeffrey Wright,...

Make this blog item your home page for the rest of Oscar day. Tom O'Neil and Paul Sheehan are blogging live continuously all day. Keep hitting "refresh" for constant updates about what's happening at the Kodak Theatre.

9:06 p.m. — As with all of the past seven Oscars held at the Kodak Theater, the Governors Ball takes place in the adjoining Grand Ballroom which is 25,090 square feet. The menu for the Governors Ball was created by Wolfgang Puck for the fifteenth consecutive year. He promises the return of old favorites like tuna tartare in sesame miso cones and Maine lobster as well as, of course, caviar. And pastry chef Sherry Yard will once more be creating her gold-dusted chocolate Oscars as consolation prizes for those who didn’t get one of the real ones. Music will be spun by Kcrw radio host Jason Bentley who will alternate with The Impulse...

For me, the only part of the Oscars worth watching every year is their tribute video, highlighting those in the movie industry that passed away in the previous year. It always puts a lump in my throat and often surprises me due to the passing of people I hadn’t heard about. And with the actors who were popular decades ago, it gives me a sense of melancholy nostalgia.

TCM (Turner Classic Movies) has put together their version of a tribute video which you can watch below, and it gave me the same feelings I just mentioned (I wasn’t aware they do one every year). It’s a beautiful video and very classy. They did miss a couple of people which I mention below.

I would suggest you watch the video before moving on to the list of names below it. It includes actors, directors, composers, screenwriters, animators, etc.

Oscar-winning screenwriter and Kojak creator Abby Mann has died. He was 80.

Mann died of heart failure at his home in Beverly Hills, California, on Tuesday.

The Philadelphia-born writer started his career working on TV shows, but shot to fame in 1961 when he scooped an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Judgement at Nurenberg - which starred Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster.

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Mann went on to score multiple Emmy Awards including one for The Marcus-Nelson Murders in 1973 - the film created the character of Theo Kojak and its TV spin off became one of the most successful cop shows of the 1970s. He was also one of the main writers on the 2005 Kojak remake, which saw actor Ving Rhames take over the leading role which was made famous by Telly Savalas.

Mann is survived by his wife, Myra, and a son.