’70s and ’80s sitcom colossus Norman Lear, that liberally attuned conceptualist, creator, producer and satiric savant (All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons) has passed at age 101. Full respect and salutations…no one will ever forget that pork pie hat, and all that churned and geysered under … Read more
“I think…I want to believe that the American people are holding up Donald Trump as they might their middle finger…because they’re badly served by the Establishment.” — Norman Lear to Jeanne Wolf, recorded or at least sent today.
Over the last couple of months HE has been observing that the DEI/pro-trans/equity-over-meritocracy/identity-crazed wokies have fled into the forest. In a 3.20.25 N.Y. Times piece titled “Snow White and the Seven Kajillion Controversies,” Brooks Barnes suggests why. “[On the Snow White front], Disney hoped that prominent voices on the left would step up to deliver … Read more
…if a semblance of All In The Family could return as a present-tense social-issues Hulu series, except Archie could be…well, a bit like myself…sensible liberal older guy, perhaps an editor & founder of an online publication or web business of some kind, grappling with the pressures of HR woke terror in the workplace, clashing with … Read more
Now that Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided To Go For It (Roadside, 6.18) is finally about to open, here’s a re-post of my 2.1.21 review (i.e., “Moreno’s Life Was No Bed of Roses“): The life and career of the dynamic Rita Moreno is given a proud upward spin in Mariem Pérez Riera‘s Rita … Read more
Posted on 2.1.21: The tone of Mariem Pérez Riera‘s Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It is very “go, Rita… we love and cherish you”, etc. Which is great — it’s what every positive-minded doc about a long-haul, never-say-die actress should be like. But it also plays the victim card over … Read more
The life and career of the dynamic Rita Moreno is given a proud upward spin in Mariem Pérez Riera‘s Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It. It streamed last Friday (1.29) at the Sundance Film Festival, and the tone of it is very “go, Rita… we love and cherish you”, etc. … Read more
Yesterday The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg seemed to draw an analogy between Tuesday’s Emmy nominations, which ignored many performances by well-known movie stars, and a February ’18 Vulture assessment of certain Academy nomination preferences by the “New Academy Kidz.” It would seem, in other words, that changes within the TV Academy (new members, new rules, … Read more
The chilling effect of the James Gunn Disney assassination (early-Obama-era tweets can detonate your present-day career) and the ScarJo Rub & Tug thing (cisgender actors cannot play transgender characters) have been kicked around by Deadline‘s Mike Fleming and Peter Bart. Fleming: “[Industry execs] fear this desire to please loud special interest groups, given a bullhorn … Read more
Savannah’s Lucas theatre, site of Sunday’s “Docs to Watch” panel. BWR publicist Steven Wilson, a good and gracious fellow. Sunday’s “Docs to Watch” panel, moderated by THR‘s Scott Feinberg, included Kief Davidson (The Ivory Game), Ezra Edelman (OJ: Made in America), Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady (Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You), Adam Irving (Off … Read more
“Tribute documentaries about famous folk tend to be fairly similar, especially if the subjects are still living. They mainly say that the celebrity is a pretty darn wonderful person — modest but brilliant, witty, accomplished as all get out, rich, fascinating, compassionate, loves his/her life, good with kids, pets dogs. “Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing‘s … Read more
Tribute documentaries about famous folk tend to be fairly similar, especially if the subjects are still living. They mainly say that the celebrity is a pretty darn wonderful person — modest but brilliant, witty, accomplished as all get out, fascinating, rich, extremely compassionate, loves his/her life, good with kids, pets dogs. Rachel Grady and Heidi … Read more