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“No one seems to love or understand me. Oh what hard luck stories they all hand me”

Melvin And Howard screens Friday, June 16th at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). This is the third film in their ‘Tribute to Jonathan Demme’ The movie starts at 8:00pm.

Paul Le Mat is an average Joe named Melvin E. Dummar in Melvin And Howard (1980) an effective combination of drama and comedy from director Jonathan Demme. Melvin often finds it difficult to make ends meet, no matter what line of work he’s in. Then, one day, it seems as if his luck might change. A stranger leaves on his desk a will proclaiming Melvin to be one of 16 heirs to the fortune of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. Once upon a time, Melvin had given a lift to an aged, decrepit looking individual (Jason Robards) who claimed to be Hughes. The...

The comedian and actor recalls fun, kindness – and Uncle Monty's brief return – in tribute to Griffiths, who has died aged 65

The first time I met Richard Griffiths I was standing in the vast space of rehearsal room 2 at the National Theatre and about to begin my first day as a History Boy. I'd never done a play before. I was standing by the tea and coffee station, clutching my script and hoping my northern accent was up to scratch when Richard walked over. "Don't look so frightened," he said with the broadest smile. "The scary days working here are when you get your first payslip."

He popped a custard cream into his mouth and walked off. Neither of us knew that day what the play was going to become or quite how much time we as a company were about to spend together. We'd all signed up to do 75 shows...

(Source)

Happy 67th birthday to an entertainer who has spent decades proving that she's not only immensely talented, but resilient, refreshingly weird, and one of a kind. Seriously, who compares to Liza Minnelli? Her career has a hit a couple of bumps, but those are interspersed nicely between her (ahem) four Tony wins, thrillingly strange film choices, bizarre marriages, and eleven album releases. Today, on Liza-with-a-z's 67th birthday, enjoy a smattering of clips featuring her talents, outrageousness, and some of the most definitive chutzpah of our time.

(I've arranged them chronologically for your convenience.)

1. Let her enchant you with that mother of hers.

2. Watch as the What's My Line? panel takes approximately 15 seconds to identify that voice.

3. Her first amazing acting scene: the phone call from her first Oscar-nominated role in 1969's The Sterile Cuckoo

4. My favorite musical sequence (from any movie) ever: Cabaret's "Money." Liza and Joel Work for those Oscars.

New York (AP) — Paul McCartney will debut the songs from his new album "Kisses on the Bottom" in a free live streaming performance on iTunes. The performance takes place at 10 p.m. Est Thursday from Capitol Studios in Los Angeles where much of the new album was recorded. "Kisses on the Bottom" features McCartney's interpretation of several beloved standards like "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," ''Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive" and "Bye Bye Blackbird," and has two new songs, "My Valentine" with Eric Clapton and "Only Our Hearts" with Stevie Wonder. The former Beatle recorded the album...

Photo courtesy of Josh Madson

I was fortunate enough to spend some time interviewing Connor Jessup, who plays Ben Mason on the new TNT hit Falling Skies. We caught up about becoming an actor and what being on the show has been like for him.

This young, up and coming star, Connor Jessup is one of the stars of the hit sci fi show, “Falling Skies” produced by Steven Spielberg. The show follows a group of survivors and civilians in the aftermath of a terrifying alien attack. The story picks up 6 months after the attack on humanity with the remaining humans fighting to survive. Jessup’s character is one of the only people to be kidnapped by the aliens. With brilliant acting and natural talent, Jessup is making a name for himself as one the hottest stars to hit our televisions.

Boomtron: I’ve been watching Falling Skies, which is fantastic,...

Lumet with his honorary Oscar. Shockingly, he never won a competitive Academy Award.

By Lee Pfeiffer

Yesterday the family of the late legendary film director Sidney Lumet, in association with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, hosted a tribute to Lumet at Alice Tulley Hall. Cinema Retro contributing writer Doug Gerbino and I arrived at Lincoln Center not knowing exactly what the program would consist of. However, as we are both great admirers of Lumet's work, we could not pass up the invitation to attend. The tribute turned out to be one of the most extraordinary film-related events we had ever witnessed. An extraordinary number of diverse talents contributed their personal memories of working with Lumet through often hilarious anecdotes. Screenwriter Walter Bernstein said Lumet saved his career by hiring him to write TV productions even though he was blacklisted at the time. Christopher Walken recalled how Lumet gently guided...

Vibrant dancer, singer and actor – a leading light of the Lindsay Kemp Company and striking presence in films by Derek Jarman

Jack Birkett, who has died aged 75, was a performer with the Lindsay Kemp Company, whose stylised theatrical language permitted him to blend ferocity with camp comedy, tragedy with menace, and lyricism with grotesqueness. The company's emotionally intense fusion of dance, theatre, mime and spectacle took Jack around the world on a wave of popularity from the 1960s to the 1980s.

In 1966 Jack began to lose his sight. Through painstaking determination, he mentally charted many stages and backstages and despite the cuts and bruises from mishaps, he refused to ever be tentative in his roles. After he had become entirely blind, he grew more extreme in his performances and his persona. His change of name to The Incredible Orlando mirrored this transformation.

Jack was born into a working-class family in Leeds.

American Gong, the Kill Rock Stars debut of indie mainstay Quasi, is soaked in the same solution of Pacific Northwest mellow and bratty braininess that saturates the work that drummer Janet Weiss and bassist Joanna Bolme did with Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks. Their stomping rhythmic interplay is, if anything, even more front and center here, where it anchors Sam Coomes’ spiraling guitar heroics before letting the whole thing gel into fuzzed-out Malkmus-ian jams on “Bye Bye Blackbird” or blown-out, lazy afternoon noodling on “Little White Horse.” The standout track, “Repulsion,” is a caffeine pill taken on an empty stomach ...

The Public Enemies soundtrack. …Before you ask, hip-hop legends Public Enemy do not feature.

So the soundtrack is half blues/jazz, half Elliot Goldenthal’s score, and opens with contemporary bluesman Otis Taylor’s fantastic cover of “Ten Million Slaves” (as heard in the trailer). Also of note are the new version of classic jazz track “Bye, Bye, Blackbird” sung by Diana Krall and a good bit of Baptist music at track 12.

Elliot Goldenthal scored Heat for Michael Mann, the only other time they’ve worked together. It’s fitting as this is another great crime saga. Here Goldenthal uses a large scale orchestral approach to capture the high style of 30s Chicago and the sense of gloom that came out of the Great Depression. To be honest, his work is a bit too downbeat for me but overall the Public Enemies soundtrack feels fresh by nature of the era...

Johnny Depp brings John Dillinger back, but not entirely alive.

Johnny Depp in "Public Enemies"

Photo: Universal Studios

John Dillinger's reign as America's most-wanted bank robber (or one of them) only spanned 10 months — from the fall of 1933, when he pulled his first such heist, to the summer of 1934, when federal agents shot him down in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater. Still, Dillinger has proved to be a durable celebrity desperado. Along with such fellow bank-job specialists as Clyde Barrow, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson (all of whom came to a bloody end the same year Dillinger did), he continues to embody the "public enemy" years of the Great Depression, when heartland gangsters became figures of public fascination by smiting the hated banks and repeatedly eluding the little-loved coppers who pursued them.

Dillinger's brief career has been the subject of several films. The latest is director Michael Mann's "Public Enemies,...