Tamra Davis is bound by contract not to discuss the film that, at this very moment, she’s editing for release next year. “I’m officially not supposed to do any press for it,” the director says sheepishly, so she offers a few off-the-record comments about the movie, a road-trip comedy-drama starring…
The publicist asks if I’d like to speak to D.A. Pennebaker to commemorate the 60th birthday of Bob Dylan, which falls on May 24. She asks this because, during the spring of 1965, Pennebaker made a documentary about Dylan’s tour of England, Dont Look Back, which captured a drained, cagey…
ids might well be amused by the frenetic pacing of Shrek, the latest computer-animated film from DreamWorks, which moves so quickly it’s nearly a blur, though they need not get the jokes to enjoy frolicking in the muck (and the maggots) with a green, snaggletoothed ogre who wants only to…
There are not many stories left buried in James Ellroy’s past. In 1996, at the age of 48, he penned his memoirs, in which he paired his life story with that of his dead mother, Jean Ellroy, a nurse found strangled and beaten in the bushes of suburban Los Angeles…
Heath Ledger, wearing the scowl of the anxious and uneasy, is having trouble standing still. He most certainly would rather be anywhere but here: killing time in a TV studio, waiting to be interviewed during a live afternoon newscast. Waiting to promote his new movie. Waiting to assume the guise…
Heath Ledger, wearing the scowl of the anxious and uneasy, is having trouble standing still. He most certainly would rather be anywhere but here: killing time in a TV studio, waiting to be interviewed during a live afternoon newscast. Waiting to promote his new movie. Waiting to assume the guise…
Last thing first. At this very moment, Chris Carter sits behind his desk in the Ten Thirteen Production offices, on the 20th Century Fox lot in Studio City, California, finishing the final X-Files episode of this season. The show’s creator has just one scene left to write–the very last–and that…
There is no good place to begin with Harry Shearer, because he doesn’t sit still long enough to allow one the chance to focus. He is a blur, forever in motion–on his way to the radio station, on his way from the movie studio, on his way to the publisher’s…
Joe Simon doesn’t read comic books anymore, and not because he’s an 87-year-old man with far better ways to spend his time. The former and, perhaps, future comics writer and illustrator simply doesn’t get them anymore; he doesn’t know who they’re for, what they’re about, why most of them even…
September 9, 1966: Adam Sandler is born in Brooklyn, New York. He is raised in Manchester, New Hampshire. September 1987: Sandler joins Ken Ober, Colin Quinn, and Denis Leary as cast member on MTV’s game show Remote Control. Sometime in 1989: Sandler lands first starring role in a movie, playing…
Paul McGuinness has never thought of himself as a teacher of life lessons, so it comes as a bit of a surprise for him to hear it relayed that Kelly Curtis considers him an adviser–hell, a mentor. It comes as even more of a shock to discover that Curtis recalls…
Easily the creepiest (and by far the most interesting) thing about Along Came a Spider, yet another adaptation of one of James Patterson’s alleged mystery novels featuring beleaguered Det. Alex Cross, is how much costar Monica Potter looks, sounds, and acts like Julia Roberts. Granted it’s hardly a revelation to…
This is how famous Denis Leary is: He begins and ends a story by saying, “To this day, when I see Mick…,” and by Mick, he means Mick Jagger. They became pals, oh, seven years back, when the Rolling Stones were on that week’s farewell tour, kickin’ it in the…
Ennio Morricone can tell you stories about each of his 400 children–where they were conceived, what they mean to him, why each one remains so singular and special he cannot and will not choose a favorite. He’s proud even of the orphans, the runts, the bastards, the children long ago…
To keep it simple, Enemy at the Gates plays like a cross between the PlayStation game Medal of Honor, a World War II Nazi-shoot-’em-up viewed through a sniper’s scope, and a Harlequin Romance novel. It’s history lesson as video game, video game as soap opera, soap opera as highbrow drama,…
Gil Cates takes a long, deep breath before answering the question: Is producing the Academy Awards show the ultimate no-win situation? Cates has produced nine of the past 11 Oscar telecasts, and he returns March 25 after a year’s layoff; for those scoring at home, Cates is not to blame…
One can only imagine the pitch meeting at which comedian-turned-film actor Denis Leary told ABC programming execs he wanted to write and star in a show about a pill-popping, Scotch-swilling, chain-smoking, adulterous New York City cop who utters obscenities as casually as he exhales. It’ll be a 30-minute show, Leary…
Sam Hamm is, relatively speaking, a successful Hollywood screenwriter, meaning he earns his keep penning screenplays without having to subsidize his income by tending bar or waiting tables. He has to his credit a handful of films, some little known (1983’s Never Cry Wolf, his debut), some enormously profitable (1989’s…
It was to have been a routine stop on a routine press tour, yet another town in which the actress was to show up, chit and chat with the local media about her movie, then move on–the traveling salesman getting the word out, moving The Product. Denver, Dallas, San Francisco,…
Lance Barton, thin as paper and frail as fine china, is such a horrific stand-up that during an amateur-night performance at the Apollo Theater, he is booed with so much force, he’s literally knocked off the stage. Lance’s manager insists he’s a failure because he’s afraid of being himself: Lance…
Sometimes, usually out on the golf course near his home in upstate New York, Dan DeCarlo feels terrific, far younger than his 81 years. He’ll thwack the ball, reflect upon his 55 years of marriage to the same beautiful woman and occasionally contemplate a life spent drawing and creating some…
When the lights finally came up in the Washington, D.C., movie theater, Leonard Nimoy sat still, silent, and a bit shaken. He could scarcely believe what he had seen–and what he had not seen. The movie was beautiful, but beneath the surface sheen, there was no heart, no soul. It…
