Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid? Dead Men Walking? Weekend at Clementes? D.O.A.?

So, you’re a grave digger.  Your assignment:  Dig up the grave of a one of your patrons so it can be extended so that the deceased man’s recently departed wife can be tossed in there to keep the guy company whether he wants her there or not.  For all we know, she may have been an old nag who sent him to an early grave.

So an uncle and a niece show up, you dig the old guy up, and they decide that since they are having this family reunion anyway, why not make it the photo-op of a lifetime?  Not all of us have that opportunity, so I say, go for it.

From The New York Daily News expressing their own faux outrage:

A Spanish gravedigger has been suspended after a creepy picture of him posing with an exhumed corpse went viral.

The cemetery worker reportedly dug up the body of a man who'd died 23 years ago so his recently deceased wife could be added to the family tomb. But when he opened the crypt he discovered that the man's body had become mummified and was still practically intact.

Rather than break up the body so another corpse could fit into the same space straight away, he decided to contact members of the deceased man's family.

His nephew and niece arrived — and the woman took a photograph of her dead relative standing next to the digger and her living relation.

The niece is then believed to have sent the snap to another family member via messaging service WhatsApp. It then quickly spread and was posted on several different social media sites, reports The Local.

What do I think?  I think it’s perfectly genuine and those who are expressing outrage should just take it elsewhere.  I mean, can one really be horrified over an actual dead corpse after watching live walking zombies on The Walking Dead for the past four years? 

If it was any old Tom, Dick, or Harry, off the street you might have a point.  But since it was the relatives, why not have your Kodak moment even though the once largest maker of film and cameras is deader than your departed uncle.  It’s almost poetic.  And share your joy with the world, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or in this case, What’s App?  You now have a Christmas Card insert for all of eternity.

You’ve also made your uncle more famous than he ever was or hoped to be when he had a heartbeat, so why not let him hang around for a while and enjoy all the cool gadgets we didn’t have when he keeled over two decades ago? 

I mean, sit him on the couch and let him watch that 70 inch flat screen while you play your blu-ray copy of Weekend At Bernie’s you have in your library and he’ll feel right at home.  Not only that, when you do watch The Walking Dead, you’ll have your own movie prop right there with you.

And hey, maybe you can get him booked on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon?  He’d be the perfect guest considering how dead that show has been since Fallon took over.

As for myself, if twenty-three years after I’m gone, some relative wants to dig me up and post my picture on a billboard or whatever, that’s fine with me.  If they are still having that family reunion thingy back there every summer, you can take me along and we’ll have a meet and greet.  Let’s Party.

What is my favorite Robin Williams film? The World According to Garp.

Robin Williams starred in some really good films over the years, offering up some wonderful performances.   But he also starred in many middle of the road films, and had his share of clunkers as well.

But even watching a movie like RV, I always felt that Williams gave it a 100 per cent effort regardless of the material he was working with.  Sometimes he was able to rise above it, sometimes not.

I’ve been asked several times over the past few days what my favorite Robin Williams film is and after considering all of his films that I have enjoyed, I always came back to the one I still find the most fascinating.  That would be The World According to Garp. 

I don't know why but this film often seems to be overlooked when talking about Robin William’s resume.  The rating for it at the IMDB is 7.2, and that's certainly nothing to sneeze at.  But what perplexes me is the attitude that Warner, who owns the rights seems to have towards it. 

Yes, you’ll repeatedly hear about Dead Poet’s Society, Mrs. Doubtfire or his academy award winning turn in Goodwill Hunting but seldom do people mention Garp these days.  It seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle, and there’s no reason for a film this well acted and this well made to be left for dead.

 

I had the film in my Netflix queue for well over a year in the number one spot.  It was on very long wait in the "expected availability" during that time and never budged or nudged upward to even just “long wait”.  Netflix should start a new category and call it "You'll Get it When Hell Freezes Over."  And checking now, I see it is no longer available and if you know anything at all about Netflix, that’s the end of that.

Warner, has relegated the film to it’s Burn On Demand DVD-R program which is sort of like the shit end of the DVD Stick.  When they do that, seeing a movie get a decent blu-ray release is practically nil. But, it’s better than nothing.

But Garp should have a blu-ray release with all the trimmings. If you've never seen it or read the book, there's a lot going on here.  So much so I wouldn't even begin to run through the plot with you but if you want to know just look up the synopsis on the internet where I'm sure you'll find it.  The film was released in 1982, and it came after the disastrous Robert Altman version of Popeye (which currently has no DVD release).  And the failure of Popeye has more to do with Altman’s insistence on doing his artsy fartsy shtick than anything Williams did.  The film was an incoherent clumsy bore.  (Caveat: Ebert gave Popeye *** 1/2 stars, but I don’t see it). But I’ll leave that criticism for another day.


Ebert gave Garp three stars and you can read his review here.  But those that have read Irving’s book and seen the film are just as likely to come away with a completely different interpretation.  The movie is a discovery of the unexpected, at times uplifting, but tragedy is always lurking around the corner. As  Ebert puts it, “Garp is bleak, but it has something to say.”

In some ways, the events of Garp do mirror the image we have of Robin Williams.  He has a strong will to overcome, but he cannot ignore the bleakness of humanity that surrounds and engulfs him.  Garp believes that life has much to offer, but when one tragic event leads to another, it’s as if he’s beating his head against the wall.  But he never succumbs to the cruel jokes played by destiny.

 

Could you imagine if this movie had been given a commentary track with Williams, Lithgow, and Glenn Close?  Lithgow was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Award as transsexual ex-football player Roberta Muldoon.  And Glenn Close was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Award as Garp’s mother, Jenny Fields. 

But Warner please take note:  As I write, every single one of Williams films on blu-ray is now on back order from Amazon.  This film deserves to be yanked out of the forgotten pile and placed front and center. Many people believe that Good Morning, Vietnam was his first good film. A few Altman devotees believe it was Popeye.   It’s too bad that Garp came immediately after Popeye, and five years and a few other forgettably bad films before his shining moment as Adrian Cronauer.  This terrific film has just been lost in the shuffle.
You can purchase the DVD-R either through the Warner Archives Store where I got mine just a few weeks ago when they were having a sale or through Amazon.  But it's the same DVD-R disc.

Or, you can buy it digitally through Amazon for $7.88 so if you have a way to view it that way, that might be your best bet since it's HD.

There comes a moment just as the funeral of Garp’s grandfather (Hume Cronyn whom along with Jessica Tandy as the Grandmother are terrific in small roles) is ending, and immediately before we transition from the years of Young Garp (wonderfully played by James McCall) to the adult Garp played by Williams.  And in a way, besides summing up Irving’s Garp, it may have foretold Williams own life.

Young Garp (to his mother Jenny Fields):  Now you don’t have a father either.
Jenny: I know.  Everybody dies.  My parents died.  Your Father died.  Everybody dies.  I’m going to die too.  So will you.  The thing is to have a life before we die.  It can be a real adventure, having a life.

On the outside, Williams always seemed to be living the adventure, bringing joy and touching the lives of so many.  But it was never enough to placate those demons that haunted him throughout his life.  And because of that, the world will forever be a sadder place.  Because as Jenny said, everybody dies.  Sometimes, way too soon.

Remembering Annette: October 22, 1942 – April 8, 2013

When I made this post regarding the passing of Annette Funicello, I promised I would have more to write regarding her life and my own personal feelings about it.  It took me a lot longer than I thought to write this, because I decided to write up a review of one of her films to post with it, something I couldn’t do for Roger Ebert.  I’ll be posting that review later.

Some celebrity deaths sadden me more than others.  That was the case with Roger Ebert.  When Annette Funicello passed away just four days after Ebert, it was the second celebrity death within a week that deeply saddened me.

Annette hadn’t made a feature film since 1986, but yet I felt as if she had never left us.  She made many appearances as herself, on news shows and talk shows in the years that followed in an effort to bring awareness to the disease that inflicted her and was slowly disabling her.  That disease was Multiple Sclerosis. 

I kind of felt a kinship to her.  I was once diagnosed as possibly having that MS.  It’s a diagnoses that has never been actually confirmed, or refuted.  And that’s the problem with MS.  It’s not easily detected in its initial stages, and much of the time it is extremely difficult to pinpoint.  Those who have the disease often go years without realizing they have it because the severity of MS is inconsistent.  Annette’s bout with M.S. was one of a worst case scenario.

But that’s not the only reason her death affected me more than say Jonathan Winters who also passed away recently.  If you were a child in the fifties and sixties, and a teen in the mid sixties to the early seventies, you grew up with Annette.

The Mickey Mouse Club is one of my earliest and strongest television memories.  I can even remember my sisters trying to convince me to give it up on certain days so that they could watch the Gold Cup Matinee late afternoon movie on one of the other two channels we were blessed with.  Most of the time they would lie to me about who was in the movie they were wanting to watch by naming every one of the super hero and cartoon characters I worshipped.    A couple of times it worked, but I soon caught on to the game and then it didn’t.  I wasn’t a complete dunce, even at five and six years old.

The Mouse Club eventually disappeared, was rerun a couple of times then appeared for a while on the Disney Channel when it first made it’s debut on cable.  The show may have become dated, but I never have outgrown it.   When the Disney Channel became just another one of 500 commercial channels in the vast cable wasteland, that was the end of not only the original Mouse Club, but many of the other catalogue films from Disney’s vast TV Library sent to the vault to probably suffer a slow death from indifference.  No room for a classic Disney channel, but we do get Disney XD, Tune Disney, and Disney Jr.  Whooppee!   

There was a reason why Annette’s star shone brighter than those of the other Mousketeers who were all talented in their own way.  What attracted you to Annette was this aura of friendliness that made you just flat out like her.  She was the original Italian Santa Claus.  She was just brimming with wholesome goodness.

You may have never met her, but you just knew there wasn’t a mean bone in this girl’s body.  Annette was the gal you wanted to be your sister instead of the ones you got stuck with.  No offense to my siblings, but that’s just the way it was.

She was super photogenic, and could act, but she was  often better than the material she was given to work with.  She was good in Spin and Marty, but in her own serial Annette, she and the whole cast were hampered by a really crappy script.  I’m not talking about the storyline either.  That worked.  But those poor kids were saddled with some of the weeniest stilted dialogue ever forced upon anybody, let alone teenagers of any decade.  Uncle Walt should have known better. 


But when you’re a kid, you didn’t care about that stuff.  Probably not even the acting.  I mean, this was Annette, and she had her own serial, and that’s all that mattered.


When she guest starred on Make Room For Daddy (aka The Danny Thomas Show) as Gina Minelli and on Zorro as Anita Campillo, you made an extra effort to seek those shows out just because it was Annette.  In Make Room For Daddy, it was her first real attempt at straight comedy, and she did it beautifully.  Likewise, she was able to slightly extend her dramatic legs in her appearances on Zorro which she appeared in twice as two different characters.  When she did The Horsemasters for World  of Disney, you watched it and watched it again when they would rerun it.

I never was a big fan of the Beach Party Movies.   I guess I just expected more from my movies then what those offered.  But since they were a big part of Annette’s career, I revisited Beach Party and will offer up my take on that sooner rather than later.  Probably the worst thing about the Beach Party films, is that they put the nail in the coffin of the younger actors involved of ever being given a chance to do more theatrically.  Which is quite a shame.

I just recently caught up with  Fireball 500 and Thunder Alley.  Both were better films than the Beach Party movies, and given the chance, Annette was able to prove that she could handle a dramatic role.  But by that time, nobody was paying attention, wholesomeness was a thing of the past,  and after havin made bookoo bucks for American International Pictures, Annette was cast aside.   She was relegated from that point on to mostly guest star roles on TV series.  She deserved better.

I watched her do a rare dramatic story on The Love Boat recently, a show that was known more for it’s comedy then drama.  It reminded  me of the fact that she was a lot more talented actress than some were willing to give her credit for.  I don’t know if she minded that fact.  If Annette did, she never appeared to, but you would have to ask those who actually knew her.  Actress Shelley Fabares, who met Annette while doing a small part in her Mouse Club serial, remained her lifelong friend, and says Annette was the real deal.

I do know one thing, choosy mothers may have chosen Jif, but Annette used Skippy and that was good enough for most of us.

But her sense of humor about herself was always apparent.  She never shied away from poking fun at her image or herself.  She had fun with it when she did an episode of Growing Pains in which she played an overzealous Goody Two-shoes Uptight Repressed Teacher.  After that, both Frankie and Annette returned to the big screen to star in and co-produce the film Back to the Beach, a very under-appreciate, misunderstood satirical film that was much better than it was given credit for at the time and has now become a cult classic. 

Somebody uploaded it to YouTube, so it’s there now (as of 5-12-2013) but undoubtedly not for long which is why I don’t link to it.  I linked to the Zorro video up against my better judgment and you can find the rest of the episode on YouTube as well.  It would be well worth your time to hurry and seek out Back to the Beach along with the Zorro episode and any others you can find.  Other than that, it’s $9.99 to buy the instant viewing at Amazon (you own it unless or until the license is revoked), or you pay a fortune for the now out of print disc.  I chose the 9.99 option.

But the Annette/Frankie comeback was short lived.  It was during the filming of Back to the Beach and while doing a follow up tour with Frankie Avalon that she was diagnosed with M.S.  Three years later she would go public with the disease in an attempt to bring more awareness to MS and to help raise funds through the Annette Funicello Research Funds For Neurological Diseases.  So on top of all her other attributes, you can add bravery to the list.

Maybe I’m too old and cynical, but I doubt if today’s young audiences would ever understand the allure of someone like Annette Funicello.  I can think of no 21st Century equivalent that connects to their audience on a personal level or has a relationship with their fans in the same way. 

Many of the things Annette did early in her career are getting harder to find.  Much of the fault of that lies with the Disney Studios and current ownership, who are sticklers for copyright adherence while at the same time leaving many of their catalog titles in the vault they claim to be so fond of to waste away since there doesn’t seem to be enough profit in these films and shows for them to bother with any longer.   If you can’t mass market them to today’s kids, why market them at all is the new Disney philosophy.

I was hoping they would be part of their deal with Netflix, but that hasn’t happened either.   But that’s a topic for later discussion and I’ll leave it  for now except that it would be a crime if the early works of an icon such as Annette Funicello are left to wither on the vine.

I hope someday those who didn’t grow up with Mickey Mouse Club or saw her in the Beach Films, will take the time to understand who she was, and why she had such a lasting impact on so many of us who grew up in that era.   I only wish I could revisit her early work myself at some point, but I’m not getting any younger and when you get to be my age, you’re not in a demographic that really matters to corporate suits.

Disney placed an obituary for Annette up on this page in which they list her accomplishments.  Maybe now would be the time to do something more than just pay her lip service.  Release her World of Disney films from your library, donate the proceeds to the charity she left behind would be a start.  And yes, Merlin Jones, Shaggy Dog, and Monkey’s Uncle are all readily available, but all have also been given shabby DVD treatment as has become par for the course when it comes to Disney and their catalog titles.

The video below is a a look at Annette through the years in film and television, along with a few publicity shots and a few personal pictures.    About 95 per cent of the stills come from my own personal DVD collection, the rest come from the web.  It runs about nine minutes, but I hope you’ll watch and if perhaps get a small sampling of who she was and what she gave to so many.  The world was a better place with Annette Funicello, but it is a sadder place without her.
(Best viewed at full screen)

Remembrances of Annette by eazyguy1952

Annette Funicello passes away at age 70

From Hollywood Reporter:

Annette Funicello, a Disney Mouseketeer on TV's The Mickey Mouse Club who went on to fame by co-starring in several beach movies with Frankie Avalon in the 1960s, has died. She was 70.

Funicello, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1987 and became a spokeswoman for treatment of the disease, died Monday at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, the Walt Disney Co. announced.

Although single-names were not in vogue at the time, her popularity was so wide and her personality so familiar that she was “Annette.” No last name needed.

The quintessence of innocence, mixed with dark good looks and beguiling charm, she was a male ideal and a female role model. Wholesome in the best sense, Funicello was drive-ins, sock hops, beach parties and malted milks -- the personification of an innocent era.

I grew up with Annette having been around during her Mouse Club years, the Disney Films, and the Beach Party movies. I had always hoped to write about some of her films, and will still do so I'm sure. Annette (you seldom used her last name. She was always Annette to us.) was one of the great icons of the 50's and 60's, and her long struggle with M.S. is finally over. I'll have more to say about Annette later.

Frankie Avalon who was her lifelong friend and starred with her in the Bikini Beach movies was interviewed by TMZ.

Frankie Avalon on Annette Funicello's Death: I'm Devastated - Watch More Celebrity Videos or Subscribe

Opening scenes of Beach Blanket Bingo, with Annette, Frankie Avalone, and a cast of many.

Roger Ebert 1942 - 2013

I have been a fan of film criticism ever since I checked out Rex Reed’s book, Big Screen, Little Screen, from the local Library years ago.   It was entertainingly irreverent and sarcastic, but the idea that someone could make a living watching movies and TV shows then writing about it had never crossed my mind.    English Teachers, Literature Teachers, and even one Psychology Teacher, often told me I had a knack for story telling.  I just needed to be more polished.    

In my junior year,  I was told by a guidance counselor that the creative writing class wasn’t for someone like me, and my dreams of putting pen to paper and coming up with any kind of worthy prose that someone would actually want to read were squashed. And no, this particular misguided counselor had no way of knowing whether I had any real talent buried inside of my over active imagination that could be harnessed and projected out through my magic typing fingers.  

In case you’re wondering what she meant by “someone like me,”  see any John Hughes movie that takes place in, near, or during high school for reference.  Yes, teachers can sometimes be as shitty as the students.   

Fast forward to the mid seventies.  Roger Ebert & Gene Siskel, rival critics from the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune respectively begin appearing in a monthly show on the local Chicago PBS station, WTTW.  The program becomes popular enough that it moves to a bi-weekly format, and is aired on PBS Stations around the country.  By 1979, it was appearing weekly on stations all over the United States and quickly became the highest rated entertainment show in the history of PBS.

I was lucky enough to discover the show early on, when it always ended with Spot the Wonder Dog making an appearance for the Dog of the Week segment.  I became an instant fan of both critics.  And the dog as well.  But I always preferred Ebert.  He seemed more like the average guy you would go see a film with, and then argue it’s merits or lack of over a brew at the local tavern.  For some reason, when I enjoyed a film that the two critics loved, I felt as if my opinion was validated.  But if there was a film I liked that they panned, I didn’t feel as if my reasoning was any less valuable than theirs.  But I did watch, listen, and learn as to why Gene and especially Roger, offered the criticisms that they did.  And what I learned was that there was many more different layers in the process of movie making then I had realized.

 

It was no longer whether I just liked the movie or not.  It was now, what did I like about it?  The acting?  The Cinematography?  The Costume Design?  The Craftsmanship of a Director choreographing the film so that all of these elements combined in perfect harmony?  On the opposite end of the equation, were the actors giving it their best effort to overcome the crappy dialogue of a miserable screen play?  What decisions did the director make that were just bad choices all the way around?  Is the score pleasing to the ear and does it enhance the film?   Or did you just want to mute the damn thing?  Or is everybody going through the motions just to make a quick buck.

Yet, I never had a chance to actually read an Ebert or Siskel written review until the late nineties, when the internet finally began to unfurl itself to the masses.  We didn’t get the Chicago Newspapers delivered to the town that I lived in.  It was Ebert whose reviews I read for the most part probably because he took to the internet like a duck takes to water.

And what you saw on TV was pretty much what you read in print, with the caveat that the written reviews were more in depth, but could often be just as sarcastic, funny, witty, or totally serious in their absolute praise.  It became a weekly ritual to find Ebert’s reviews on Friday before heading to the theater.  A bad review didn’t necessarily keep me away from many films, but a good review could often convince me to view a film I might not have bothered with.

When Siskel passed away, Richard Roeper took over for him.  I like Roeper, but I had spent so many years with Roger and Gene, that it just wasn’t the same.  And when Ebert became ill and had to leave the program, my interest in it waned.  But I still went to Roger’s web page, hoping he would be back writing about the latest film offerings. 

Eventually he did return.  And in the process having lost his voice, Roger adapted new ways to communicate with his millions of fans through his blog, through his constant twitter presence, and through his many books.   And whether it was a result of having to deal with his many illnesses or not, he seemed to become closer and more accessible to his millions of fans on the internet and off.  

But when it came to what was on the screen, Ebert believed in the purity of cinema.  He often wrote about some of the new film technologies he didn’t particularly care for.  I don’t think he ever came to terms with the 3D process.  He viewed it as gimmicky, and there were less than a handful of films that he thought made proper use of the technique.  These included Avatar, and the recent Life of Pi. 

Ebert hated the conversion of celluloid to digital projection in the theaters.  But I think he finally grew to accept that it was the future and there was no stopping it.  Or maybe he was simply lamenting the fact that the day would come when the world of cinema he knew so well and had loved his entire life would no longer exist at all in the manner he and so many of us had become accustomed to.

It was in 2003 that my old urge to write resurfaced after lying dormant for over thirty years.   I had read many “reviews” on the IMDB, and decided I could do that as well.  My initial offerings weren’t more than a couple of paragraphs, three at the most.  (And I’m sure there are those who wish they still were)  When I mention those early reviews, I often refer to them as a P.O.S.  That’s because for the most part they are.  But at the urging of a few people I had met on the Titanic message boards, I began to expand my horizons.  I did my best to improve.  As you can tell, it’s constantly a work in progress.

Not long after that, politics got in the way.  I was on the old AOL, and 2004 being an election year, I decided I could no longer stand the George W. Bush admiration society campaign of misinformation any longer.  So movie reviews gave way to politics, and in November of that year, I was designated as the Democratic Blog Page of the Month out of thousands.  There was, a Republican Counterpart.  In the end, it may have been an award that had little meaning for anyone but myself.  But I can’t tell you the joy and surprise I felt for just having been acknowledged for the first time.

Eventually I would get back to the movies.  And I enjoyed doing it so much I started a separate movie review blog.  Clyde’s Stuff was generally used for other entertainment features and politics.  A strange mix if there ever was one.  And except for my writings concerning American Idol in 2005 and 2006 which set my blog aflame, my reviews of movies old and new attracted the most traffic.

I think what I also learned from Roger Ebert was to not only  be myself,  but to do my utmost to be entertaining while being as informative as I could.  Say what you think, but don’t act like some know it all talking down to others.  You have to love what you are doing when it comes to writing.  Chances are you won’t make a dime.  You do it for the enjoyment of it, and if someone happens by and likes what you’ve done or responds to it, then that’s just icing on the cake.

Roger loved the movies, and loved to write.   I do as well.  I  followed him for over thirty years, and in his last blog entry, I had a very uneasy feeling about how things were really going.  During the entire period of his illness, Ebert always tried to put the best face on what at times must have seemed like insurmountable obstacles while experiencing excruciating pain.  And last Thursday, when I came home from work and logged onto The Huffington Post, the news couldn’t have been more any worse.  Ebert, had passed away.  I felt like I had lost a best friend.  I was devastated.  I don’t think there has been the death of any celebrity that had affected me as much as this one did.

There weren’t too many days that I spent on the internet that I didn’t check to see if Roger had a new column, or some new reviews.  Or if he tweeted something he found particularly compelling on the chance that you might be interested in it as well.  Chances were pretty good that you would be.  I always was.  There was something comforting for me about just knowing Roger was there and that anything he had to say would be infinitely more worthwhile than the thousands of words I’ve typed out in this entire blog.

I had commented on his blog several times.  The last time was in one of his most widely responded to essays asking his audience what was the movie that they really hated, hated, hated.   I offered up Norbit, a movie I examined in depth on this blog, and went so far as to use a brief passage from that article in my response.  But other than that, I made no real attempt to ever contact him in person.  Now I wish I had.  Now it is too late.

I’m not sure what I would have written.  Maybe just writing and letting him know how much admiration I had for him not only as a writer, but his importance to me as a person because he believed in the philosophy that it was more important to do your best to make others happy.  From a political standpoint and a humanitarian standpoint, we were on the exact same page.  And he never tried to hide it, often writing lengthy essays such as this recent passage on climate change and this one written in January on gun legislation where he had a sense of hope, and then this later one, where his outlook had turned bleak.  I understand this as well.  Having written about politics off and on for the past nine years, I’m not sure that too much has really changed for the better in this country.  And most days, I swear I’ll never write another word.  But the hypocrisy in the never ending selfish philosophy of much of the world boils inside you until you have to let it out regardless of how frustrating it may be in the end.  Just as I sense Roger’s frustration when writing about a young girl who died needlessly in Harsh Park.

There are some people who hated Roger Ebert.  They hated him because he dared to give a thumbs down to some inconsequential piece of film tripe that they may have revered.  To them, it didn’t matter why.  But this is the same type of narrow minded earthlings who hated Roger politically, because he was often derisive of their inability to grasp the simple equation that their fellow man’s well being should be given the highest priority, and not lining the pockets of Corporate USA.  It is their loss, for they’ll never really understand nor did they experience all that he had to give.  

Monday, April 8th, will be Roger’s Memorial service.  It is open to the public on a first come basis.  And that’s a good thing.  Because for Ebert, other than the movies themself and the love of his life, Chaz, it was his millions of followers that meant more to him than anything.  But he wouldn’t want tears.  He had lived life to the fullest, and relished every minute of it.  He had given all he had to give.  He would want us to continue to do so as well.

He loved his fans every bit as much as we loved him.  As far as I’m concerned, the balcony will never close.  Goodbye, Roger.  We’ll miss you. 


 

Charles Durning 1923 - 2012

If you read my reviews of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and Home for the Holidays (1995), I had nothing but praise for Charles Durning.  Durning was one of those supporting actors who could raise a movie up just by the fact that he was in it.  Durning’s dance steps in Whorehouse was the  highlight of that film, and he practically stole the show in Home for the Holidays as the father who was trying to not only cope with the changes in the world around him, but with his dysfunctional family as well.   Even as the villain trying to convince Kermit to become a spokes-frog for his chain of frog leg restaurants, you couldn’t help but love the guy.  And can you really picture anybody else wooing a cross dressing Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and have it not come off as over the top silliness?

It didn’t matter if Durning was in a bad movie or a good one, he always gave his best effort, even when the material he was working with was nothing more than a quickie made for TV feature.  He was a class act and I’ll miss him.

From the Washington Post:

Although he portrayed everyone from blustery public officials to comic foils to put-upon everymen, Durning may be best remembered by movie audiences for his Oscar-nominated, over-the-top role as a comically corrupt governor in 1982’s “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”

Many critics marveled that such a heavyset man could be so nimble in the film’s show-stopping song-and-dance number, not realizing Durning had been a dance instructor early in his career. Indeed, he had met his first wife, Carol, when both worked at a dance studio.

The year after “Best Little Whorehouse,” Durning received another Oscar nomination, for his portrayal of a bumbling Nazi officer in Mel Brooks’ ”To Be or Not to Be.” He was also nominated for a Golden Globe as the harried police lieutenant in 1975’s “Dog Day Afternoon.”

He won a Golden Globe as best supporting TV actor in 1991 for his portrayal of John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald in the TV film “The Kennedys of Massachusetts” and a Tony in 1990 as Big Daddy in the Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

Here’s a link to a pretty good short Charles Durning story.

Jack Klugman 1922 - 2012

I’m going to be honest here.  I saw many episodes of The Odd Couple, the TV series Klugman starred in with Tony Randall based on Neil Simon’s broadway play, but it was never must see television for me.  There’s probably more episodes I didn’t see then those that I did.  And if you asked me about any of them today I’d be hard pressed to give you a synopsis of any of them.  The Odd Couple  is not available for streaming on either Netflix or Amazon, so if I were to revisit the show now, it would mean either buying it outright or renting the discs of all five seasons one by one.  What I have discovered is that watching a series that ran many years by renting the discs is slow going.  Once I get into a series, I like to be able to watch  it at my leisure.  I became a huge fan of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer and How I Met Your Mother because only because I was able to do this.  There’s just so many vintage shows I can afford to buy, and with most of them going to burn on demand at premium prices, collecting has become an expensive undertaking.

As for Quincy M.E., it is available for streaming on Netflix and has been in my queue for quite a while now so maybe I’ll make an effort to give it a try. 

But what I do remember about Jack Klugman is that he starred in four episodes of what I consider one of the top ten televison series of all time, The Twilight Zone.  Twilight Zone is one of those classic series that I do own in it’s entirety.  But even if I didn’t own them, I would still remember the Klugman episodes, which showcased how good of an actor he was even in the early sixties.   Each episode he starred in was some of the best of the series, and it’s hard to choose the best among the four.  These are my recommendations for essential Jack Klugman and I don’t think you can go wrong with these. The episodes are as follows:

1.  A Passage for Trumpet (1960) – Available for Streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Musician Joey Crown is down on his luck. A recovered alcoholic, he can't find work because no one trusts him. Broke, he hocks his trumpet but then steps in front of truck which knocks him onto the sidewalk. He awakens in a strange world where no one can see him and he presumes he's died. He eventually bumps into someone who can in fact see him, a fellow horn player who tells him that it's still within Joey's power to decide on life or death.

2.  A Game of Pool  (1961) – Available for Streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Jesse Cardiff is a frustrated pool player. He's very good at his game but his frustration comes from the fact that no matter how well he plays or how often he wins, onlookers always conclude that he's not as good as the late, great James Howard "Fats" Brown. He says he would give anything to have had the chance to play Fats and his wish comes true when the man himself suddenly appears. They agree to a game but Fats warns his eager opponent that winning has its consequences as well.

3.  Death Ship (1963) – Not available for Streaming on Netflix or Amazon Prime.

The Space Cruiser E-89 is on a mission to investigate new worlds and determine if they are suitable for colonization by Earth. The mission of the three man crew, composed of Captain Paul Ross, Lt. Ted Mason and Lt. Mike Carter, has been routine. But while investigating an apparently uninhabited world, Mason spots a metallic gleam in the landscape and conjectures that this might be a sign of alien life. The Cruiser prepares to land next to the mysterious object.  After landing, the men are astonished to find the wreckage of a ship exactly like their own.  This episode is part of Season Four.  None of the episodes from this season are available for streaming.

4.  In Praise of Pip (1963) – Available for Streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

In the early 1960's, small-time bookie Max Phillips (Jack Klugman) hates his life. His only pride is his son, Pip, then serving in the U.S. Armed Forces in Vietnam. When a young bettor uses company funds to bet with Max, then loses everything, Max returns his money, angering Max's bosses.

These are my recommendations for essential Jack Klugman and I don’t think you can go wrong with these.  You can read the TV Guide obituary here or watch the embedded video.