Sam Shepard

Very sad news today...

Sam Shepard, whose snaggle-toothed smile, craggy good looks and outlaw style as actor and writer made him an American icon in the mold of Gary Cooper and Marlon Brando, died July 27 at home in Kentucky. He was 73 and had been suffering from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actor, author, screenwriter and director, Shepard was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of pilot Chuck Yeager in Philip Kaufman’s 1983 film The Right Stuff. The author of 44 plays, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for Buried Child and was best known for such works as Fool for Love, True West and A Lie of the Mind. In 2009 he was named the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award as a master American dramatist. Shepard was born in Fort Sheridan, IL. 

His partner from 1982 through 2009 was Oscar-winning actress Jessica Lange, with whom he had two children.

He was a great writer and actor and will certainly be missed.

Live long

EW revealed their three upcoming covers focused on Star Trek: Discovery...





Enjoyable.

The show premieres on CBS on September 24th.

Clowning around

A new trailer for the upcoming movie IT was released today...



I'm one of the many people who don't enjoy clowns, so I'm not sure I'll rush out to see this.

That being said, this looks pretty creepy and will likely make lots of money.

But I doubt any of that money will come from me.

The movie opens on September 8th.

True Story

Wonder Woman 2: Electric Boogaloo

The Wonder Woman sequel release date was announced today:

Diana Prince has a Christmas gift for you — but you can’t peek for 2 1/2 years. Warner Bros said today that its sequel Wonder Woman 2 starring Gal Gadot will crash into megaplexes and Imax theaters on December 13, 2019.

This pretty much sums up how I feel about that...

 

Very exciting and I can't wait to see it!!

New Comic-Con Trailers

With Comic-Con in full swing over the weekend, a LOT of film and TV properties took that opportunity to release new trailers. Here is the new one for Justice League...



It's a pretty awesome trailer and appears to feature a bit more Wonder Woman than the first trailer (which makes sense, considering how well Wonder Woman is doing at the box office).

It's still a bit more CGI-y than I would like at this point, but we'll see how the film looks when it opens on November 17th.



Also, we got a full trailer for the second season of Stranger Things....



I loved the first season and this one looks like even more of the same, which is a VERY good thing.

We'll see how well the kids get through this when it starts airing on Netflix on October 27th.

It's Friday!

Skippin' Rope

A new red-band trailer was just released for the upcoming Kingsman: The Golden Circle...



It's certainly fun-filled and action-packed!

Plus, it's got a really cool cast (hello Julianne Moore as the villain) and a rockin' soundtrack. I loved the first one, so am really looking forward to the sequel on September 22nd.

It's about family

A new behind-the-scenes video was released for Star Wars: The Last Jedi...



It's looking awesome and I love seeing the crazy creativity that goes into putting one of these productions together, along with the excitement and playfulness of the cast (including the late Carrie Fisher).

Can't wait!

The film opens on December 15th.

A Wrinkle In Time

The first trailer for the move was released....



I read these books as a kid, but remember very little about them. So, I'm really looking forward to the movie to fill in the blanks.

Overall, it looks pretty visually cool and with the cast of Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, and Chris Pine...I think it's off to a pretty good start.

The movie opens on March 9th.

Martin Landau

Very sad news over the weekend...

Martin Landau, the chameleon-like actor who gained fame as the crafty master of disguise in the 1960s TV show Mission: Impossible, then capped a long and versatile career with an Oscar for his poignant portrayal of aging horror movie star Bela Lugosi in 1994's Ed Wood, has died. He was 89.

Mission: Impossible, which also starred Landau's wife, Barbara Bain, became an immediate hit upon its debut in 1966. It remained on the air until 1973, but Landau and Bain left at the end of the show's third season amid a financial dispute with the producers. They starred in the British-made sci-fi series Space: 1999 from 1975 to 1977. 

He enjoyed far less success after "Mission: Impossible," however, finding he had been typecast as Rollin Hand, the top-secret mission team's disguise wizard. His film career languished for more than a decade, reaching its nadir with his appearance in the 1981 TV movie "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island." 

He began to find redemption with a sympathetic role in "Tucker: The Man and his Dream," the 1988 Francis Ford Coppola film that garnered Landau his first Oscar nomination. He was nominated again the next year for his turn as the adulterous husband in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors." His third nomination was for Ed Wood, director Tim Burton's affectionate tribute to a man widely viewed as the worst Hollywood filmmaker of all time. 

"There was a 10-year period when everything I did was bad. I'd like to go back and turn all those films into guitar picks," Landau said after accepting his Oscar.

He has certainly done a lot of great work over the years. But, for me,  I'll remember him most from playing Commander Koenig on Space 1999. It is one of my favorite Sci-fi shows and I never missed an episode.



He will be missed.

Winter is HERE

The new season of Game of Thrones starts this Sunday night on HBO.

I.

Can't.

Wait!

Time to Live

A cool behind-the-scenes video was released for the upcoming Blade Runner 2049...



They appear to have done an amazing job capturing the overall look, feel, and music of the original Blade Runner. I'm really looking forward to seeing this in the Fall!

The movie opens on October 6th.

B.O.

Ryan Reynolds posted this yesterday when Wonder Woman's box office total surpassed his Deadpool total...



Ryan Reynolds, who is known for his savvy and humorous social media posts, took to Instagram to honor a superhero — and it wasn’t Deadpool. When the actor found out that Wonder Woman box office tally reached $368 million, surpassing Deadpool‘s domestic box office of $360 million, he posted a picture of the Merc with a Mouth making a heart shape with his hands over a Wonder Woman gold chain with the mildly crass, yet sweet caption “The Merc May Be Filthier, but Her B.O. is Stronger. Congrats #WonderWoman #BoxOfficeBoss” 

"Her B.O. is Stronger."

Hilarious and true.

Kicked to the Curb

A new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm is coming soon....

After a six-year hiatus, HBO’s Emmy-winning comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm, starring Larry David is back for a 10-episode ninth season. Premiere is set for Sunday, October 1 at 10 PM on HBO. 

Cast favorites Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman and JB Smoove, will return, among others. 

While the most recent eighth season of Curb, which wrapped in 2011, had a final scene of Larry (David) in France that could serve as a series ending, HBO brass had kept up the hope that David would do another season eventually. David announced in June 2016 that he would return for another installment. 

Curb Your Enthusiasm stars David as an over-the-top version of himself in an unsparing but tongue-in-cheek depiction of his life. With 80 episodes to date, the show is HBO’s longest-running scripted comedy or drama series. 

The series is hilarious, but the best parts for me have always been Larry and Susie fighting. She swears as easily as she breathes and it's glorious to watch...



Season 9 of Curb Your Enthusiasm will start on October 1st.

Bright Eyes

Hilarious!

Final Episodes

The trailer for the fifth (and final) season of the Showtime series Episodes was released today...



I've only watched the first three seasons and they were, surprisingly, pretty funny. I need to wrangle some free Showtime to catch the final two seasons.

The new episodes start airing on August 20th.