I Don’t Know Jack
But I do know it’s his birthday.
Happy 75, Jack Nicholson!
Dig your movies and your court side seats.
I’ve like seen almost every movie Jack has made, including all the bad ones and frankly — he’s made some real stinkers along the way.
We’re not going to talk about those.
Here’s my top ten favorite Jack movies:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
It’s hard to pick a favorite. At least four of these on any given day could be a favorite for different reasons. Jack has a knack for playing the flawed and complicated character — Batman’s Joker, Fonda’s sidekick George Hansen in Easy rider, R.P. McMurphy in the Cuckoo’s nest, or the L.A. PI, Jake Gittes, in Chinatown.
Love him or hate him, you have to admit, Jack is a Hollywood icon.
What about your top-ten Jack list? Let me know below.
Read MoreMovie Characters
There’s a phenomenon that happens when pop-culture collides with history. Characters of our past take on the persona of the performer who played them on screen.
A great example is Vil Kilmer‘s Doc Holiday in the movie Tombstone. I’ve seen pictures of the 19th century Doc Holiday so I know what the guy is supposed to look at. But when I hear Doc Holiday, I see Vil Kilmer.
I’m confident Moses looked nothing like Charlton Heston, but there you are. If you think about it, even the cartoon Moses in the animated feature, The Prince of Egypt, favored Heston. (Coincidently the voice of Moses was Vil Kilmer.) Ben Kingsley played Moses in the 1995 TV movie of the same name, but it is the Heston portrayal that will stand the test of time.
Some other stand out character portrayals are:
Helen Mirren – Queen Elizabeth II
Phillip Seymour Hoffman – Truman Capote
Robert Downey Jr. – Charlie Chapman
Tom Hulce – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Faye Dunaway – Joan Crawford
James Stewart – Charles Lindbergh
There are many more but I can tell you when I think of any one of these people I usually see the actor who portrayed them.
One of the best is whenever I think of Julia Child, I can only see Dan Aykroyd doing Julia “I seem to have cut myself” Child. And when I think of Richard Nixon, I don’t see Anthony Hopkins, I see Dan Aykroyd doing Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon. And when I think of Sgt. Joe Friday, I don’t think of Jack Webb, I can only see Dan Aykroyd as Sgt. Joe Friday.
Come to think of it, Dan Aykroyd sort of reminds me of Beldar Conehead. It’s a small universe when you look at it like that.
Beldar Conehead
Long live Beldar Conehead!
Read MoreThe Oscars
It’s that time again — The Oscars.
In an odd quirk of the calendar I have a double dose of guilty pleasure this Sunday — The Daytona 500 in the afternoon and The Oscars at night, horsepower and starpower, Red Bull and Red Carpet. Does life get any better?
Only if Mark Martin wins the 500 and someone streaks the Oscars.
Read MoreWhitney Houston -1963-2012
On the eve of music’s biggest stage, the 54th Grammy Awards, emergency medical personnel were called to Whitney Houston‘s fourth floor hotel room at approximately 3:40 pm. The team was unsuccessful with resuscitation and at 3:55 Pacific time, the legendary performer was pronounced dead.
Houston was an American singer, actress, producer, and model, cited as the most-awarded female act of all time. Her resume includes two Emmies, six Grammies, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among a total of 415 career awards as of 2010. Houston is one of the world’s best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 170 million albums, singles and videos worldwide.
Inspired by prominent soul singers in her family, including her mother Cissy Houston, cousins Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick, and godmother Aretha Franklin, Houston began singing with New Jersey church’s junior gospel choir at age 11.
Ken Erhlich, executive producer of the 54th Grammy Awards announced that Jennifer Hudson and Chaka Khan would perform a tribute to Houston at the February 12 awards.
Read MoreDon Cornelius – 1936-2012
LOS ANGELES — It is being reported that around 4:00 this morning LA Police were called to the Sherman Oaks home of Soul Train creator, Don Cornelius where they found Cornelius near death from a gunshot. He was pronounced dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at 4:56 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Unofficial sources within LAPD are calling his death a suicide by an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Cornelius was the creative force behind the long running syndicated series, Soul Train. He was the host and producer from the launch on August 17, 1970 to stepping away from his hosting duties in 1993. He continued to be a moving force behind the show until 2006 when the show ended its long run and remains the longest running syndicated program in television history. Wheel of Fortune would have to run through the 2017 season. Soul Train aired 1,117 episodes across the years.
The program, patterned very much after Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, was a springboard for many successful soul groups and artists of the era. Artists to perform on Soul Train include, Michael and LaToya Jackson, Chuck Berry, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Lenny Kravitz and many others. (For complete list of Soul Train guests go HERE.)
Sundance and the 99%
Last Thursday kicked off this year’s Sundance Film Festival in the playground of the rich and famous – Park City, Utah. I think they misplaced my invitation. Did you get yours?
To listen to founder Robert Redford, his vision has always been for an event catering to the 99% crowd.
“We show stories of what people in America are really dealing with, and really living with, against a consequence of having a government that’s let them down,” Redford said. “People can come and say, ‘God, at least we’re seeing how people are really living in America, and what they’re up against.’ We square away on the 99 percent.”
I don’t know too many ninety-nine percenters with condos in Sundance. Don’t get me wrong. I like Redford. He’s always been a favorite of mine. I just don’t believe the rich and famous can truly see the issues facing the 99% he is talking about. I don’t think it’s possible to see through Hollywood eyes and have an emotional comprehension of a single mother in America flipping burgers at McDonalds to make ends meet. You can’t truly appreciate middle class poverty until you’ve scrapped for every penny in the house just to buy groceries – beanie weenies and milk.
If you look at the Sundance Sponsor list it reads like a who’s who of the 1% — Starbucks, Accura, Chase-Sapphire, Bing and GE, to name a few. Now there’s a list of companies with our well-being at the center of their mission statement.
Oh and then there’s the celebrities who line up at corporate tents to get their swag from said corporate sponsors. Anyone of them could walk into any Apple store and buy 1,000 iPads to give to local schools, but there they are in line to get a free one.
And in a twist of irony, contrary to Redford’s vision, a group calling themselves ‘Occupy Sundance’ are camped out in Park City. They point out that of 11,700 films submitted this year, only 180 were accepted — roughly 1 percent. The Occupy Sundance organizers recognize that that volume of films could not make festival screening at Sundance. They are there to represent the 99% that didn’t make the cut.
“Robert Redford may think Sundance reflects ‘the 99 percent,’ but while his heart is in the right place, I’m not sure he can even begin to fathom how hard it is for an average person to gain access to his elite world,” said Los Angeles-based pop culture and entertainment expert Jenn Hoffman. “It’s true that independent filmmakers still have a chance at securing funding through the festival, but even the so-called indie studios still are looking for ‘names’ to star in even the smallest films and are scouting for new movies they think will bring them the largest financial gain.
“The price of a plane ticket to Utah is more expensive than what most aspiring filmmakers can afford in this economy,” she added. “Let alone all cost of all the marketing, networking dinners and social climbing events it can take to get a movie made.
“While it was once a small little festival centered around movie screenings, the Sundance film festival is now more synonymous with gifting suites, corporate sponsored parties and free swag for the already wealthy members of Hollywood’s elite,” Hoffman says. “I dare any of the celebrities attending these parties to sit with the Occupiers on a freezing cold night or to donate their free gifts to members of Occupy Sundance.”
Read More
Member of:
