Category: Celebs

Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola and “The Godfather”

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Francis Ford Coppola has written a new introduction for the 50th anniversary edition of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and Entertainment Weekly has posted it.

The new intro is worth a read for fans of the book or movie.  Here are a few tidbits:

  • Coppola didn’t want to direct The Godfather until his second reading of the novel.
  • Most of Don Corleone’s most memorable lines were really spoken by Puzo’s mother!
  • Puzo advised Coppola to never associate with real gangsters! (Which leads to an interesting “encounter” with John Gotti.)
  • Puzo didn’t like the idea of Michael having Fredo killed.
  • It was Talia Shire (Adrian in Rocky!) who came up with the idea of Michael’s wife having a secret abortion and then telling him.
  • Both Coppola and Puzo wanted the third film to be called The Death of Michael Corleone.

 Entertainment Weekly’s post is worth a read and so is Puzo’s novel!

Jan-Michael Vincent: RIP

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It was reported today that Jan-Michael Vincent died on February 10th of cardiac arrest in Asheville, North Carolina.  Vincent was 74 and hadn’t acted in nearly two decades due to battles with drugs and alcohol and the results of two car crashes (1996 and 2008) that left him with damaged vocal cords and an amputated leg.  It was a sad end to a career that started with such promise.

I first took notice of Jan-Michael Vincent when he appeared as Link in the Danger Island segments of The Banana Splits.  Vincent then had the starring role in the TV movie The Tribe.  A couple of years later Vincent co-starred with Charles Bronson in the theatrical release The Mechanic.  He followed that up with a starring role as The World’s Greatest Athlete from Disney.

With his good looks and easy manner, Vincent was on the verge of a long career starring in theatrical films.  Sadly, it just wasn’t to be.  Still Vincent had a strong presence and starred or co-starred in films such as Baby Blue Marine, White Line Fever, Big Wednesday and Hooper (with Burt Reynolds).  His best known television projects included The Winds of War mini-series and a starring role in the tv series Airwolfe.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jan-Michael Vincent’s family, friends and fans.

The Poster and Trailer for “Warrior” (Based on the Writings of Bruce Lee) is Here!

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Bruce Lee fans probably know that Lee tried to sell a tv series about a Chinese warrior in the old west.  Although the series never sold, the Kung Fu tv series was sure close… and sadly Bruce Lee didn’t get the lead, David Carradine did.

Thanks to Cinemax, Warrior, based on the writings of Bruce Lee is coming soon.  Today we have the poster and first trailer.  If I had Cinemax, I’d tune in.

 

“The Dirty Dozen” Gets the Cinephilia and Beyond Treatment!

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The Dirty Dozen is a classic.  If you agree, then you’re going to want to check out Slaughterhouse Twelve: Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen at Cinephilia and Beyond.

Click on the link and you’ll find…

  • Nunnally Johnson & Lukas Heller’s screenplay for The Dirty Dozen
  • OPERATION DIRTY DOZEN: A behind-the-scenes video on the making of The Dirty Dozen
  • Rare behind-the-scenes photos
  • and much more!

The “Master of Dark Shadows” Trailer is Here!

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If you’re of a certain age, then the photo above of Jonathan Frid as Barnabus Collins will bring back a lot of great memories.  Frid became a cult hero playing a vampire on a soap opera called Dark Shadows.

What’s interesting is that Dark Shadows started out as a typical soap opera.  Because the series was facing cancellation, Curtis decided he had nothing to lose and brought in a vampire! Ratings soared and the series spawned two movies, comic books, novelizations, trading cards and more.

Albert Einstein Trivia

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Lucas Reilly and Mental Floss present 19 Things You Might Not Have Known About Albert Einstein.  Here are three of my favorites…

4. NOBODY KNOWS EINSTEIN’S IQ.
Einstein’s IQ was never tested, though that hasn’t stopped people from guessing. Lots of websites claim the physicist’s IQ was 160, but there’s simply no way of verifying that claim. “One fundamental problem with the estimates I’ve seen is that they tend to conflate intellectual ability with domain-specific achievement,” Dean Keith Simonton, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Davis told Biography. For all we know, Einstein’s aptitude in arenas outside of physics might have rivaled that of an average Joe.

6. FASHION WAS NOT EINSTEIN’S STRONG SUIT.
Einstein hated wearing socks and was immensely proud of the fact that he didn’t have to wear them while giving lectures at Oxford in the 1930s. His antipathy apparently stemmed from a childhood realization: “When I was young I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in a sock,” Einstein reportedly said. “So I stopped wearing socks.” As an adult, he typically wore an undershirt, baggy trousers held by rope, and a pair of (occasionally women’s) sandals.

18. EINSTEIN WAS THE INSPIRATION FOR YODA.
Yoda’s face was partly modeled after Einstein’s. According to Star Wars special-effects artist Nick Maley, “A picture of Einstein ended up on the wall behind the Yoda sculptures and the wrinkles around Einstein’s eyes somehow got worked into the Yoda design. Over the course of this evolutionary process Yoda slowly changed from a comparatively spritely [sic], tall, skinny, grasshopper kind of character into the old wise spirited gnome that we all know today.”

Sly Stallone’s Next Movie & TV Projects

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The photo above comes from Sly Stallone’s Official Instagram and is one of a series of photos from the set of Sly’s next film, Rambo V: Last Blood.

Sly has several films in development and is busier than ever.  Here’s what’s in the works:

  • Hunter: Sly is set to star in the adaptation of James Byron Huggin’s best-selling novel of the same name.  This is the film Stallone fans have been hoping for, since the novel’s release as it was written with Sly in mind.  The film will be part of Sly’s Balboa Productions.
  • Samaritan: is set to star Stallone in the tale of a young boy who learns that a superhero who disappeared years ago may still be alive.  MGM and Balboa Productions will team for this one.

Sylvester Stallone and Balboa Productions have also acquired the rights to…

Source: ComingSoon.

“Year of the Dragon” Trivia

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 28 Things We Learned from Michael Cimino’s Year of the Dragon Commentary.  Here are three of my favorites…

8. While set primarily in New York City, much of the film was shot in North Carolina including the sequences on the streets of Chinatown. They recreated streets with attention to detail up to and including the angled grade of their Mott Street — the “main” street in NYC’s Chinatown — which is not actually flat. They took plaster casts of curbstones and recreated the grade for authenticity, something he says most NYC reproductions on film don’t achieve. “If you look at Ragtime, it’s flat, and that’s why it doesn’t look like New York [City]. It’s a very rocky little island.” He’s proud of their accomplishment as it even fooled Stanley Kubrick. The legendary director was given a screening in London where he told Cimino that “Chinatown looks so great.” Cimino told him the truth, and after a little bit of back and forth Kubrick realized he’d been duped. “If you can fool Kubrick, who had the best eye in the world, you can fool anyone.” The sets have been reused in dozens of films in the years since.

12. He feels Lone and Mickey Rourke compliment each other well and achieve his goal of confusing “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” He says the bad guy is attractive and likable, the good guy is neither of those things, and viewers are ultimately forced to like the good guy because of what he does.

18. He credits Clint Eastwood with his career. Cimino’s debut as writer/director, 1974’s Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, only got made thanks to Eastwood’s belief in him. The contract gave Eastwood the right to fire him after the first three days of shooting, and thankfully he never felt compelled to do so.

Peter Tork – R.I.P.

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Peter Tork died today after a long battle with cancer at the age of 77.

Born Peter Thorkelson on February 13, 1942, Peter was, of course, better known as Peter Tork a member of The Monkees.

The Monkees [Peter, along with Davy Jones, Mickey Dolenz, and Michael Nesmith] took the world by storm in 1966.  The group was hand-picked by Screen Gems in an effort to create a tv show about a group of young musicians.  Lightning struck and the group not only had a hit tv series but became one of the biggest selling bands of the 60’s.  In 1967, The Monkees sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined.  The Monkees even appeared in a feature film called Head that was co-written by Jack Nicholson!

I was a huge Monkees fan like many kids my age [7].  I collected their albums, trading cards, comic books and magazines.  I had a model of The Monkeemobile.  I even followed The Monkees after Peter, then later Mike, quit the band.  Sadly, I never got to see them perform live when they reunited for several reunion tours.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Peter’s family, friends and fans.

Jack Benny in “Casablanca”

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Fans of Jack Benny and/or Humphrey Bogart probably know that they appeared together on an episode of The Jack Benny Show.  But for years there has been a rumor that Jack Benny made an uncredited cameo appearance in Casablanca.

BookSteve’s Library takes a look at the rumor, finds newspaper articles and contests indicating that Benny did make an appearance in Casablanca and comes up with a conclusion that may surprise you.  If this interests you, check out Jack Benny in Casablanca.