Category: Celebs

13 (Shhhh!) Memorable Unbilled Movie Performances

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Don’t you love it when you’re watching a movie and suddenly there’s a cameo by an uncredited actor/actress?  It’s like an unexpected treat.

Entertainment Weekly took a look at 13 (Shhhh!) Memorable Unbilled Movie Performances.  Be advised if you click over you’ll find spoilers and uncredited performances by…

  • Kevin Spacey
  • Matt Damon
  • Will Ferrell
  • Keith Richards
  • Jack Nicholson
  • Bill Murray
  • Tom Cruise
  • Ned Beatty
  • Harrison Ford
  • Gene Hackman
  • Gary Oldman
  • Robin Williams
    and
  • Marlene Dietrich

15 Fun Facts About The Twilight Zone

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Neatorama recently posted 15 Fun Facts About The Twilight Zone that You Might Not Know.  Here are my three favorites from their list…

  • Serling narrated for the show, first through just his voice and then on camera during the second season. Serling’s first choice for that role was not himself, but Orson Welles.
  • The episode “To Serve Man” shows aliens visiting Earth and offering to take them to their home planet. They say that they have nothing but benevolent purposes and possess a book titled To Serve Man. After linguists translate the text, they discover that it’s a cook book.That episode starred Lloyd Bochner as one of the translators. Bochner reprised his role and the episode’s most famous line in the movie The Naked Gun 2 1/2.
  • Sterling wrote TV scripts throughout the late 40s and early 50s. His breakthrough script was for “Patterns,” a 1955 episode of Kraft Television Theater. This episode featured a very young Elizabeth Montgomery (later famous for Bewitched) in a tale of conflict and intrigue within the leadership of a corporation. It was enormously popular and earned Serling an Emmy.

The Unbelievable Skepticism of the Amazing Randi

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I’ve been a fan of The Amazing Randi since I first heard of him decades ago.

Despite The Amazing Randi’s stage name, and ability to perform what appear to be supernatural feats, The Amazing Randi is quite the opposite of what you might expect.

While it is true that Randi can perform mind-reading stunts, bend spoons just as those who claim to do so via mental powers, escape from padlocked chains and the like, The Amazing Randi claims no supernatural powers.

In fact since 1964, Randi has been offering up an ever-increasing amount of his own money to anyone who can show scientific evidence of supernatural powers.  The amount is now up to one million dollars and no one has ever collected.  The challenge has become so popular it is now an annual weekend event attended by over 1,000 believers and skeptics alike.

The NY Times.com recently posted The Unbelievable Skepticism of the Amazing Randi by Adam Higginbotham and it is well worth a read!

Behind The Scenes With Ray Harryhausen And His Special Effects Models

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Mighty  Joe  Young.   The  Beast  From 20,000 Fathoms.   20  Million  Miles  to  Earth.   The  7th  Voyage of Sinbad.   Jason  and  the  Argonauts.   The Valley  of  Gwangi.   The  Clash  of  the  Titans.

If these movies take you back to your childhood, you’ll get a kick out of i09’s   Behind The Scenes With Ray Harryhausen And His Special Effects Models.  

Rarely Seen Pilot to “The Orson Welles Show”

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The video embedded below is to the rarely seen pilot to The Orson Welles Show.

The Orson Welles Show  had it been picked up would have been a weekly anthology series hosted by, you guessed it, Orson Welles.

Sadly that was not to be.  Otherwise Welles  could have been mentioned right there with Serling and Hitchcock when folks spoke about the great anthology series that used to be on tv.

Source: io9.

Remembering Kotter and His Sweathogs

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Welcome Back, Kotter  burst onto the scene in September 1975 and was an instant hit.  The initial idea was to focus on a young newly married teacher [Gabe Kaplan] returning to teach remedial students [called Sweathogs] at his former high school where he had been a remedial student.  The show’s breakout stars turned out to be the Sweathogs.

So the focus changed.

Soon the spotlight was on the students with their teacher in a co-star or even supporting role.  The teacher’s wife usually had a scene in the shows opening and again in the closing where she got to laugh at an old joke told by teacher.  There were stories of an unhappy set.

Things became more complicated when Kaplan butted heads with the show’s producer and John Travolta [one of the remedial students] made it big in the movies.  Both Kaplan and Travolta didn’t even appear in many of the last season episodes.

The show ran four seasons and for the first two and maybe the third it was “must-see” tv.  Sadly during the the fourth and final season the audience graduated even if the Sweathogs didn’t.

The AV Club posted a piece by Noel Murray titled 10 Episodes That Show How Welcome Back, Kotter Was Like a Class in Comedy History.  While that may be a bit of an overstatement, the article did bring back some fun memories of Kotter and his Sweathogs.

Mike Torrance Goes Out on a Cliff

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Mike Torrance aka The Krayola Kidd is back and he’s brought Gabe Walker with him!

Over the coming weeks/months I’ll be posting more of Mike’s sketch card commissions.  My goal is to eventually get a card for every character Sly has played.  We’re well on our way!

You can see more of Mike’s art at his Deviant Art site. Mike is available for commissions and his prices are very reasonable.

 

Q & A with John Carpenter!

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I’ve been a John Carpenter fan since his classic Halloween.  Then when VHS came out I was able to go back and see Assault on Precinct 13  [which I prefer to the two].

Carpenter went on to do Escape from New York,  The Thing  and so many other cool films.  Somewhere along the way the lighting escaped the bottle.

Carpenter has the best attitude about his career, his life and his legacy.  I’d love to see him return to Snake Plissken with Kurt Russell one more time.

That’s not likely and Carpenter doesn’t talk about it in this interview, but he does talk about a lot and the interview is more than worth a read.

Source: Deadline.

Mike Torrance and Snaps

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Mike Torrance aka The Krayola Kidd is back and he’s brought Angelo “Snaps” Provolone with him!

Over the coming weeks/months I’ll be posting more of Mike’s sketch card commissions.  My goal is to eventually get a card for every character Sly has played.  We’re well on our way!

You can see more of Mike’s art at his Deviant Art site. Mike is available for commissions and his prices are very reasonable.