Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Ted Rall: Obama's Katrina: Resign Now, Mr. President
British Petroleum isn't dithering. Yes, it's been five weeks since the most devastating oil spill in U.S. history. But it's probably impossible to fix.
Daniel Gross: Will Europe Take America Down? (slate.com)
You should-and shouldn't-worry about the Greek debt crisis.
Terry Savage: Dollar, Euro No Match for the Glitter of Gold (creators.com)
It isn't working. They can throw all the euros - and dollars - they want at the Greek financial situation. But the markets won't believe it. The euro is heading straight down toward parity with the U.S. dollar.
TOM PETRUNO: Just saying 'no' to stocks (latimes.com)
Financial planner Janet Briaud knows full well her industry's standard lines about the stock market.
Lionel Rolfe: Tales of an Extraordinary Madman (randomlengthsnews.com)
IN 1972, when I saw fellow Los Angeles Free Press writer Charles Bukowski's book in the window of a bookstore in West Hampstead in London, my first reaction was one of jealousy The book was called 'Notes of a Dirty Old Man,' the same title as his column in the paper.
L. Kent Wolgamott: To Sharon Jones, It's Not Retro (expressmilwaukee.com)
You can call Sharon Jones the hardest-working woman in show business. You can call her a stage sensation. Just don't call her "retro."
Roger Ebert: Answer Man
Q. Is there the slightest possibility that SATC2 is actually satirizing the shallow absurdity of its protagonists, but a large fraction of its audience has not realized that they are the target of its mockery? I suspect that the cast is also not in on the joke. If not, I may have to abandon my last shred of hope for the multiplex-going public.
Cosmo Landesman: A law unto himself (timesonline.co.uk)
Like the corrupt cop at the heart of his latest film, Werner Herzog isn't afraid to rip up the rulebook.
Susan King: "Classic Hollywood: 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying'" (latimes.com)
Rarely does one describe a 79-year-old man as "boyish" (and actually mean it), but the phrase fits Robert Morse like a comfortable pair of shoes. His hair may be gray, but the impish personality, young countenance and modified Beatles haircut still remain ...
Roger Ebert: Review of 'LETTERS TO JULIET' (PG; 3 stars)
I know "Letters to Juliet" is a soppy melodrama, and I don't mind in the least. I know the ending is preordained from the setup. I know the characters are broad and comforting stereotypes. In this case, I simply don't care. Sometimes we have personal reasons for responding to a film.
Roger Ebert: Review of 'Walkabout' (1971; A Great Movie)
Is "Walkabout" only about what it seems to be about? Is it a parable about noble savages and the crushed spirits of city dwellers? That's what the film's surface seems to suggest, but I think it's also about something deeper and more elusive: The mystery of communication.
Jeremy Irons: prophet of doom (guardian.co.uk)
The Dungeons & Dragons star has spoken. In short, we're all going to die.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Remake (Mistake?)' Edition
Is CBS seriously taking on a remake? Hawaii 5-0 Remake?
Apparently so. According to the Hollywood Reporter,
CBS has the rights to the original show which aired from 1968 to 1980, and CSI: NY writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci will be taking a stab at developing the show and writing the pilot.
And so it goes...
Are there any TV series that you'd like to see resurrected with a 'Remake'?
Send your response to
wrote:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Link from RJ
Colossal K Cooling Tower Crashes
Hi there
A possible link for you, perhaps... Thanks for taking a look!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Yowee - it got hot, fast.
Ends 18 Years With Leno
Kevin Eubanks
It's a wrap for "Tonight Show" bandleader Kevin Eubanks after 18 years backing up host Jay Leno.
Eubanks, whose duties included comic sidekick to Leno as well as guitarist, had been aboard since Leno took over NBC's "Tonight" in 1992. Eubanks became musical director when Branford Marsalis left in 1995.
The 52-year-old Eubanks joined Leno last fall for the short-lived "The Jay Leno Show" in prime time, then came back to "Tonight" when Leno reclaimed the show from Conan O'Brien in March. O'Brien left NBC rather than move "Tonight" to a later slot to make room for Leno in late night.
Exiting with Eubanks will be the other five members of the Tonight Show Band. They include vocalist and percussionist Vicki Randle, keyboardist Gerry Etkins, bass guitarist Derrick "Dock" Murdock, saxophonist Ralph Moore and drummer Marvin "Smitty" Smith.
He will be replaced by former "American Idol" music director Rickey Minor, who arrives with his own troupe June 7.
Kevin Eubanks
Kids Told Linkletter
Some Of The Darndest Things
Quotes from Art Linkletter's best-seller "Kids Say the Darndest Things." Linkletter is the questioner.
___
Have you ever been in love?
No, but I've been in like.
___
Any brothers or sisters?
No.
Would you like some?
Sure, I'm lonesome.
What does your mother say when you ask for one?
She just groans.
___
What did your mommy tell you not to say?
My mother told me not to tell any of the family secrets, like the time she dyed her hair blonde and it came out purple.
___
Did you see Santa this year?
See him? I fixed him a bourbon and water.
Some Of The Darndest Things
Comic Auction
Tintin
Devotees of the Tintin comic books flocked Saturday to a special sale in Paris of drawings and sculptures of the intrepid boy reporter, and objects left by his creator the Belgian author Herge.
The sale brought in 1.08 million euros (1.39 million dollars).
The Tintin adventures were written and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983 by Georges Prosper Remi, whose pen name Herge is the French pronunciation of his initials reversed, RG.
The highlight of the auction was an original two-page spread of the 1939 comic "King Ottokar's Sceptre", which sold for 243,750 euros, a record for this particular work, according to organisers the Piasa auction house.
Tintin
ABC Not Rescuing
"Ghost Whisperer"
"Ghost Whisperer," the Jennifer Love Hewitt supernatural drama that was surprisingly axed by CBS last week, will not cross over to ABC.
"After five wonderful seasons and over 100 episodes, we are disappointed to announce 'Ghost Whisperer' will not be returning for a sixth season," executive producers Kim Moses and Ian Sander said in a statement Thursday.
ABC, whose studio sibling co-produced "Ghost Whisperer" with CBS, had expressed an interest in "Ghost Whisperer," which consistently won its Friday-night time period.
"Ghost Whisperer"
President: Pardons And Releases Gay Couple
Malawi
Malawi's president on Saturday pardoned and ordered the release of a gay couple sentenced to 14 years in prison, but said that homosexuality remains illegal in this conservative southern African nation.
Activists were searching for a safe house for the couple, fearing they could be attacked upon release.
Malawi has faced international condemnation for the conviction and harsh sentencing of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza. President Bingu wa Mutharika announced the pardon, saying it was on "humanitarian grounds only," during a press conference with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Lilongwe, the capital.
Earlier in the week, the top U.N. AIDS official and the head of an international donor organization met Mutharika in Malawi and expressed concern that criminalizing homosexuality would keep a vulnerable group from seeking HIV/AIDS counseling and treatment.
Malawi
BP's Other Oopsie
Alaska Pipeline
The operator of the trans-Alaska pipeline system said late Friday it has restarted the 800-mile line idled after a contained spill this week.
The pipeline was shut down for 79 hours and 40 minutes, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. spokeswoman Michelle Egan said. That's its longest shutdown in at least a decade, surpassing the more than 66 hours it was down in November 2002 due to an earthquake.
The line from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez has been down since Tuesday, when Alyeska said a power failure during a planned shutdown allowed about 5,000 barrels of oil to spill into a containment area at Pump Station 9, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks.
The system is owned by a consortium of companies. The largest, with a nearly 47 percent stake, is BP Pipelines (Alaska) Inc. Its parent company, BP PLC, has been dealing with the massive oil slick that resulted when a rig it leased in the Gulf of Mexico exploded last month. BP's work in Alaska has drawn attention since 2006 when 200,000 gallons of oil spilled at Prudhoe Bay.
Alaska Pipeline
Man Crosses With Helium Balloons
English Channel
In a goofy yet mesmerizing stunt, an American adventurer crossed the English Channel on Friday carried by a bundle of helium balloons, ending a quiet and serene flight by touching down in a French cabbage patch.
Jonathan Trappe, 36, of Raleigh, North Carolina, was strapped in a specially equipped chair below a bright cluster of balloons when he lifted off early Friday from Kent, in southeast England.
However, the channel crossing wasn't a matter of just grabbing a few balloons. Trappe says on his website that he made a scouting trip in March and gained clearance from French and British aviation authorities and from customs and immigration offices on both sides.
His equipment list didn't stop at balloons and a chair, but included an aircraft transponder, oxygen system, aircraft radios, emergency locator beacon, in-flight satellite tracking and a radio tracker.
English Channel
Cruising Returns
Van Nuys Blvd
As tricked-out old cars rumbled past on Van Nuys Boulevard, Reid Stolz still had trouble believing what he'd done.
This was not just any crowded six-lane urban thoroughfare but the storied street immortalized in the 1970s film "Van Nuys Blvd." and in folk tales as the place where cruising may have begun.
But much has changed here in the land of cars since then. The cruisers left long ago, driven away by police. In the years since, they and their gas-guzzling cars were replaced by the big worries of global warming and $3-a-gallon gasoline.
Today, just as the decades-old American love affair with cruising seemed to be ebbing, the 52-year-old mechanic is all but single-handedly bringing it back to Van Nuys, giving thousands of car lovers a place again to transform it into a rolling ode to the 20th century.
Van Nuys Blvd
Divers Explore Sunken Ruins
Cleopatra's Palace
Plunging into the waters off Alexandria Tuesday, divers explored the submerged ruins of a palace and temple complex from which Cleopatra ruled, swimming over heaps of limestone blocks hammered into the sea by earthquakes and tsunamis more than 1,600 years ago.
The international team is painstakingly excavating one of the richest underwater archaeological sites in the world and retrieving stunning artifacts from the last dynasty to rule over ancient Egypt before the Roman Empire annexed it in 30 B.C.
Using advanced technology, the team is surveying ancient Alexandria's Royal Quarters, encased deep below the harbor sediment, and confirming the accuracy of descriptions of the city left by Greek geographers and historians more than 2,000 years ago.
Since the early 1990s, the topographical surveys have allowed the team, led by French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio, to conquer the harbor's extremely poor visibility and excavate below the seabed. They are discovering everything from coins and everyday objects to colossal granite statues of Egypt's rulers and sunken temples dedicated to their gods.
Cleopatra's Palace
In Memory
Judy Lynn
Country recording artist Judy Lynn Kelly has died in Indiana at the age of 74.
Relative Kay Kelly Cook says Kelly died Wednesday at her home in Jeffersonville after suffering congestive heart failure.
Kelly was born in Boise, Idaho, and got her big break in her teens when she was hired to fill in for Jean Shepard during a touring show of performers from the Grand Ole Opry. In 1952, she was part of a show with Gene Autry.
She performed under the name Judy Lynn.
In 1980, she retired from show business and became a minister.
Judy Lynn
In Memory
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper died Saturday at his home in the Los Angeles beach community of Venice, surrounded by family and friends, family friend Alex Hitz said. Hopper's manager announced in October 2009 that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The success of "Easy Rider," and the spectacular failure of his next film, "The Last Movie," fit the pattern for the talented but sometimes uncontrollable actor-director, who also had parts in such favorites as "Apocalypse Now" and "Hoosiers." He was a two-time Academy Award nominee, and in March 2010, was honored with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
After a promising start that included roles in two James Dean films, Hopper's acting career had languished as he developed a reputation for throwing tantrums and abusing alcohol and drugs. On the set of "True Grit," Hopper so angered John Wayne that the star reportedly chased Hopper with a loaded gun.
He married five times and led a dramatic life right to the end. In January 2010, Hopper filed to end his 14-year marriage to Victoria Hopper, who stated in court filings that the actor was seeking to cut her out of her inheritance, a claim Hopper denied.
Peter Fonda produced "Easy Rider" and Hopper directed it for a meager $380,000. It went on to gross $40 million worldwide, a substantial sum for its time. The film caught on despite tension between Hopper and Fonda and between Hopper and the original choice for Jack Nicholson's part, Rip Torn, who quit after a bitter argument with the director.
Its success prompted studio heads to schedule a new kind of movie: low cost, with inventive photography and themes about a young, restive baby boom generation. With Hopper hailed as a brilliant filmmaker, Universal Pictures lavished $850,000 on his next project, "The Last Movie."
When it was released, "The Last Movie" was such a crashing failure that it made Hopper unwanted in Hollywood for a decade. At the same time, his drug and alcohol use was increasing to the point where he was said to be consuming as much as a gallon of rum a day.
Shunned by the Hollywood studios, he found work in European films that were rarely seen in the United States. But, again, he made a remarkable comeback, starting with a memorable performance as a drugged-out journalist in Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War epic, "Apocalypse Now," a spectacularly long and troubled film to shoot. Hopper was drugged-out off camera, too, and his rambling chatter was worked into the final cut.
He went on to appear in several films in the early 1980s, including the well regarded "Rumble Fish" and "The Osterman Weekend," as well as the campy "My Science Project" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2."
But alcohol and drugs continued to interfere with his work. Treatment at a detox clinic helped him stop drinking but he still used cocaine, and at one point he became so hallucinatory that he was committed to the psychiatric ward of a Los Angeles hospital.
Upon his release, Hopper joined Alcoholics Anonymous, quit drugs and launched yet another comeback. It began in 1986 when he played an alcoholic ex-basketball star in "Hoosiers," which brought him an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor.
His role as a wild druggie in "Blue Velvet," also in 1986, won him more acclaim, and years later the character wound up No. 36 on the AFI's list of top 50 movie villains.
He returned to directing, with "Colors," "The Hot Spot" and "Chasers."
From that point on, Hopper maintained a frantic work pace, appearing in many forgettable movies and a few memorable ones, including the 1994 hit "Speed," in which he played the maniacal plotter of a freeway disaster. In the 2000s, he was featured in the television series "Crash" and such films as "Elegy" and "Hell Ride."
For years he lived in Los Angeles' bohemian beach community of Venice, in a house designed by acclaimed architect Frank Gehry.
In later years he picked up some income by becoming a pitchman for Ameriprise Financial, aiming ads at baby boomers looking ahead to retirement. His politics, like much of his life, were unpredictable. The old rebel contributed money to the Republican Party in recent years, but also voted for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008.
Dennis Lee Hopper was born in 1936, in Dodge City, Kan., and spent much of his youth on the nearby farm of his grandparents. He saw his first movie at 5 and became enthralled.
After moving to San Diego with his family, he played Shakespeare at the Old Globe Theater.
Scouted by the studios, Hopper was under contract to Columbia until he insulted the boss, Harry Cohn. From there he went to Warner Bros., where he made "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant" while in his late teens.
Hopper's first wife was Brooke Hayward, the daughter of actress Margaret Sullavan and agent Leland Hayward, and author of the best-selling memoir "Haywire." They had a daughter, Marin, before Hopper's drug-induced violence led to divorce after eight years.
His second marriage, to singer-actress Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, lasted only eight days.
A union with actress Daria Halprin also ended in divorce after they had a daughter, Ruthamna. Hopper and his fourth wife, dancer Katherine LaNasa, had a son, Henry, before divorcing.
He married his fifth wife, Victoria Duffy, who was 32 years his junior, in 1996, and they had a daughter, Galen Grier.
Dennis Hopper
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