Monte Hale Centennial

James Dean with Monte Hale on the set of "Giant"

Who? Listen we're not huge western devotees but nevertheless we tip our imaginary cowboy hats today to the bygone tradition of singing cowboys on film. (You know the kind if only from watching Alden Ehrenreich work such charismatic wonders as one of 'em in the Coen Bros Hail Caesar!). Monte Hale, born on this day 100 years ago in Oklahoma, was among the last of such stars...

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The one that got away from Bruce Lee: Season 1 of "Warrior"

by Lynn Lee

Did you know that the 1970s TV show “Kung Fu” was based on an uncredited pitch by Bruce Lee?  According to Lee’s widow, Warner Brothers liked (and poached) his idea of a martial arts master wandering the American West but passed him over for the lead role in favor of David Carradine. Warner Brothers claims they’d already had the concept for “Kung Fu” in the works when Lee proposed his own series (called “The Warrior”) to the studio in 1971.  But even if you believe them, it’s hard not to wonder what a version of the show that starred Bruce Lee might have looked like. 

Nearly half a century later, Lee’s daughter Shannon, director-producer Justin Lin (Better Luck Tomorrow, various The Fast and the Furious installments), and writer-producer Jonathan Tropper (This is Where I Leave You, “Banshee”) have created a Cinemax TV series that attempts to realize his original vision while updating it for a new generation...

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Howard Keel Centennial: "Calamity Jane"

We're celebrating musical star Howard Keel's Centennial this week. Here's Tim Brayton...

Presenting a musical in which Howard Keel plays the obnoxious gunslinger love interest to a famous woman from the Wild West. My apologies if you feel a little bit of déjà vu from that logline: Nathaniel did, after all, just write about Keel's breakout performance in 1950's Annie Get Your Gun, about which every word of that sentence equally applies. And that's absolutely no accident. Warner Bros. had fought to get the rights to that stage musical as a vehicle for its up-and-coming singing star Doris Day, but lost out to MGM. When that film proved to be a hit, Warner's responded by developing an original Western musical based - oh so very loosely - on the life of Calamity Jane, famous frontierswoman and scout.

So eager was the studio to recreate that Annie magic that they even went to the trouble of borrowing Keel from MGM for the span of this one production. Not that you could tell any of this just by looking at 1953's Calamity Jane...

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Howard Keel Centennial: "Annie Get Your Gun"

Our Howard Keel Centennial celebration begins. Here's Nathaniel R...

What is the lasting legacy of Hollywood's biggest musical of 1950, Annie Get Your Gun? The best remembered thing about it may well be its place in Judy Garland's storied career; she was infamously fired well into production, marking in some ways the nadir of her career, and fueling the mythology of that comeback of all comebacks with A Star is Born (1954) after a four year absence from the big screen. But that's not the movie as it exists today, only what could have been. And "could have beens" are many with this troubled production which lost its original star (Judy), its first two directors (Busby Berkeley and Charles Walters) and one key supporting cast member (Frank Morgan as Buffalo Bill, who died after filming began) on its way to its final cut.

The first shot of Howard Keel in "Annie Get Your Gun"

Though "Annie Get Your Gun" has had a long healthy life on stages, big and small (including three Broadway runs: 1946-1949, 1966, and 1999-2001) it's most lasting cinematic contribution is the introduction of Howard Keel as a leading man...

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Months of Meryl: The Homesman (2014)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

#46 —Altha Carter, a minister’s wife who gives comfort to three disturbed women. 

JOHN: The Homesman is one of the best films Meryl Streep has ever had the good fortune to be in, and yet, she’s on screen for no more than five minutes. Set circa 1850 in the Nebraska territory, Tommy Lee Jones’ adaptation of Glendon Swarthout’s novel is a gorgeous and unsettling theatrical follow-up to his 2005 stunner The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.

Hilary Swank stars as Mary Bee Cuddy, a self-sufficient spinster who volunteers to transport three insane women from their town to a church in Hebron, Iowa that cares for mentally ill patients...

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