Who was Marion Barry? This HBO documentary is a good primer

Today marked the passing of Marion Barry, DC political legend and one of the country’s most controversial mayors. To describe his decades of public involvement as tumultuous would be an understatement; Barry weathered multiple scandals and a high-profile arrest yet remained enormously popular among his constituents, serving four non-consecutive terms and continuing to serve as […]

Continue reading

The many works of Mike Nichols, EGOTer and prolific director

Mike Nichols, EGOT-winning director of The Graduate, died yesterday at age 83. For an acclaimed and decorated filmmaker, Nichols kept a comparatively low profile in the entertainment world, but he leaves behind an impressive lineup of truly great films and television productions, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Primary Colors, Working Girl, Angels in America, […]

Continue reading

A eulogy for the Saturday morning cartoon

Yesterday marked the largely unheralded end of a television tradition: the Saturday morning cartoon. For nearly fifty years, network channels devoted a significant portion of their Saturday programming to children’s animated programs, but with the end of The CW’s “Vortexx” block, no major broadcast networks is airing cartoons on Saturday anymore. After years of criticism […]

Continue reading

RIP Eli Wallach, supporting actor legend

Audiences might remember him best as Tuco (The Ugly) from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, but Eli Wallach was an actor of enormous range. Working on film and television well into his 90s, Wallach was the ultimate supporting actor, a man whose prolific appearances who brought life to every film in which he […]

Continue reading

H. R. Giger, artist of the Alien, dies at 74

Swedish surrealistic H. R. Giger died today at 74. Though he worked primarily in painting and sculpting, Giger is best remembered as the designer of the terrifying and highly Freudian architecture and creatures from Ridley Scott’s Alien franchise. Giger designed much of the iconic, dark, and twisted art of that world – from infested hallways […]

Continue reading

Director Michael Glawogger dies unexpectedly, leaves behind great works on globalization

In a bizarre turn of events, renowned Austrian documentarian Michael Glawogger suddenly died today of malaria while filming on location in Liberia. He died far too young and early into his career, but he leaves us with a number of quality films exploring hazardous products of globalization, from slum living to prostitution. It’s difficult to […]

Continue reading