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Before we begin, let’s make something clear: Russell Crowe’s Father Gabriele Amorth is a cool priest. How cool is he? He’s so cool that whenever he exits Vatican City he rides a vespa while bathed in perpetual sunset. How cool is he? When that vespa crosses the Ponte Sant’Angelo his film throws up a title card that reads “Rome, Italy”. How cool is he?! When he speaks with an Italian accent, it’s like Chico Marx has risen from the grave and come back with the swagger of Serpico.

This call and response is necessary because you need to know that Crowe’s exorcist is the most Bde exorcist we’ve had onscreen in ages. He’s also something of a saving grace for The Pope’s Exorcist, a movie that could be the stuff of fire and brimstone with a lesser lead performance.

For this writer,...

Gangster icons aren’t always determined by top billing. Sometimes it’s decided by a flip of a coin. Director Howard Hawks’ 1932 gangster classic Scarface recently celebrated its 90th anniversary. Producer Howard Hughes was so committed to presenting a realistic depiction of mob violence that the film pushed the Motion Picture Production Code to its limit. Paul Muni puts in a gritty, animalistic performance in the title role of Antonio “Tony” Carmonte, modeled after Al Capone, but the actor with the gangland bona fides was the co-star, George Raft.

Hired for his dark and menacing presence, Raft doesn’t have many lines in Scarface. To give the inexperienced actor something to do, Hawks directed him to flip a nickel. Raft practiced the toss to perfection, setting the film up for one of the most memorable mob movie moments: a coin rolling across a floor to a dead stop.

Raft would...

On Friday’s “Real Time,” Bill Maher devoted a surprising amount of time to absolutely roasting New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo over his still-unfolding sexual harassment scandal, calling him “f—ing stupid” and also mocking him for being creepy and for being “an Italian with no game.”

We’re sure you’re caught up, but just in case, Cuomo has been caught up in several scandals lately. First there was the reveal that he lied about the number of Covid deaths at nursing homes to make himself look good, and then a wave of sexual harassment accusations from much younger women, some of whom worked for him. He has been accused of unwanted hugs and kisses, and initiating sexually inappropriate conversations, including one in which he appears to have tried to probe a 25 year old employee as to whether she would date someone his age.

He has apologized, sort of,...

Movies to watch when you’re staying in for a while, featuring recommendations from Dana Gould, Daniel Waters, Scott Alexander, and Allison Anders.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Destroy All Monsters (1969)

Planet Of The Apes (1968)

Beneath The Planet of the Apes (1970)

Escape From The Planet Of The Apes (1971)

Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (1972)

Battle For The Planet Of The Apes (1973)

Suparpie

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Hello Down There (1969)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Thirteen Days (2000)

Stalker (1979)

Last Year At Marienbad (1961)

No Exit (1962)

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Sleeper (1973)

The Tenant (1976)

Final Cut: Ladies And Gentlemen (2012)

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990)

La classe américaine (1993)

The Sex Adventures of a Single Man a.k.a. The 24 Hour Lover (1968)

The Omega Man (1971)

Soylent Green (1973)

Knives Out (2019)

The Hunt (2020)

Banana Split (2020)

The Cocoanuts (1929)

Animal Crackers (1930)

Monkey Business (1931)

Horse Feathers (1932)

Duck Soup (1933)

A Night At The Opera (1935)

The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant (1971)

Susan Slade (1961)

My Blood Runs Cold...

The great Larry Wilmore joins us to share some very personal double features.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

1917 (2019)

Animal Crackers (1930)

Duck Soup (1933)

My Little Chickadee (1940)

A Night At The Opera (1935)

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

The Parallax View (1974)

Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Jaws (1975)

The Stepford Wives (1975)

The Party (1968)

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)

The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)

Richard Pryor: Live In Concert (1979)

Richard Pryor: Live And Smokin’ (1971)

Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986)

Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Lenny (1974)

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)

Lolita (1962)

Caligula (1979)

The Night of the Iguana (1964)

The Elephant Man (1980)

What Would Jack Do? (2020)

Blue Velvet (1986)

The Apartment (1960)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Double Indemnity (1944)

The Sting (1973)

Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid...

The critical consensus about Howard Hawks' themes and talents strikes me as bang on. The Cahiers critics identified him as a classic auteur, continually exploring characters and situations he had an affinity for, and in a consistent style. The surprise is it took so long for style and characters to come together to form the Hawks we know: his best early films are outliers, and only gradually did he come to explore the kind of group dynamics, sexual sparring and codes of professionalism with which he's now justly associated.Early 1930s Hawks just isn't quite all there yet, but you can see lots of Hawksian characters and themes struggling to come together and be their ideal selves.This one has Edward G. Robinson as a "Portagee" fisherman with a Chico Marx accent and an earring. For some reason, Hawks didn't really connect effectively with the urban tough guy actors until Bogart came his way,...

Updated: Following a couple of Julie London Westerns*, Turner Classic Movies will return to its July 2017 Star of the Month presentations. On July 27, Ronald Colman can be seen in five films from his later years: A Double Life, Random Harvest (1942), The Talk of the Town (1942), The Late George Apley (1947), and The Story of Mankind (1957). The first three titles are among the most important in Colman's long film career. George Cukor's A Double Life earned him his one and only Best Actor Oscar; Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest earned him his second Best Actor Oscar nomination; George Stevens' The Talk of the Town was shortlisted for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. All three feature Ronald Colman at his very best. The early 21st century motto of international trendsetters, from Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and Turkey's Recep Erdogan to Russia's Vladimir Putin and the United States' Donald Trump, seems to be, The world is reality TV and reality TV...

Above: 1960s French stock poster for Marx Brothers revivals.This weekend New York’s Film Forum begins a week-long series entitled The Marx Brothers & The Golden Age of Vaudeville which is as good an excuse as any to look at the representation of the greatest sibling comedy team in cinema through movie posters. It has long been a tradition in movie poster illustration to render comedy stars as caricatures—often with oversized heads on small bodies—and Groucho, Harpo and Chico were a caricaturist’s dream. (Zeppo, the straight man, less so, but he left the act after Duck Soup in 1933, and re-release posters for the films he appeared in tend to ignore him, as in the Belgian Duck Soup and the Danish Horse Feathers below). With their distinctive props—Groucho’s oversized greasepaint mustache and cigar, Harpo’s curly blonde wig and Chico’s Alpine hat—the threesome could...

The King Baggot Tribute will take place Wednesday September 28th at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The 1913 silent film Ivanhoe will be accompanied by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and there will be a 40-minute illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks’ Tom Stockman. A Facebook invite for the event can be found Here

Here’s a look at the final phase of King Baggot’s career.

King Baggot, the first ‘King of the Movies’ died July 11th, 1948 penniless and mostly forgotten at age 68. A St. Louis native, Baggot was at one time Hollywood’s most popular star, known is his heyday as “The Most Photographed Man in the World” and “More Famous Than the Man in the Moon”. Yet even in his hometown, Baggot had faded into obscurity.

By 1935, the Marx Brothers already had five movies to add to their already extensive Broadway and Vaudeville resume, among them the legendary Duck Soup and the near-classics Animal Crackers and Monkey Business. As we’ve often seen, however, some of our most beloved Hollywood favorites flopped upon first release. 1933’s Duck Soup, specifically, was the last of a five-picture deal the Brothers had at Paramount, and its commercial failure would spell a parting of the ways between the studio and the iconic comedy team.

Enter Irving G. Thalberg, the wunderkind who helped build MGM into a powerhouse. Perhaps best known today for the namesake honor given to producers at each year’s Academy Awards, Thalberg left an indelible mark on Hollywood before his untimely death in 1937 at the age of 36. In addition to launching such innovations as the first production code and the use of audience response questionnaires to hone...

Well, this is lousy timing. Several horror movies, including "The Exorcist," "Night of the Living Dead," and "Interview with the Vampire" are leaving Netflix on October 1, right before Halloween.

Also leaving October 1, some spooky TV titles, including "The Dead Files."

More than 150 titles are leaving Netflix in October; here's the entire list of movies and TV shows that will disappear from Netflix streaming in October.

Leaving Oct. 1, 2015

"Aces High" (1976)

"A Fond Kiss" (2004)

"Agata And The Storm" (2004)

"A Good Day to Die" (2013)

"Alakazam The Great" (1960)

"All Is Lost" (2013)

"An Affair to Remember" (1957)

"Agora" (2009)

"A Liar's Autobiography" (2012)

"America Declassified" (2013)

"Analyze This" (1999)

"Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues " (2013)

"Angela's Ashes" (1999)

"Annie Hall" (1977)

"Another Woman" (1988)

"Apocalypse Now" (1979)

"Apocalypse Now Redux" (2001)

"Axed" (2012)

"Baby's Day Out" (1994)

"Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession" (1980)

"Baron Blood" (1972)

"Beaufort" (2007)

"Belle of the Yukon" (1944)

"Big Night" (1996)

"Blue Velvet" (1986)

"Brewster's Millions" (1945)

"Buying & Selling" (2013)

"Caesar and Cleopatra" (1945)

"Caprica" (2009)

"Carve Her Name With Pride" (1958)

"Casanova...

Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup.' Groucho Marx movies: 'Duck Soup,' 'The Story of Mankind' and romancing Margaret Dumont on TCM Grouch Marx, the bespectacled, (painted) mustached, cigar-chomping Marx brother, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 14, '15. Marx Brothers fans will be delighted, as TCM is presenting no less than 11 of their comedies, in addition to a brotherly reunion in the 1957 all-star fantasy The Story of Mankind. Non-Marx Brothers fans should be delighted as well – as long as they're fans of Kay Francis, Thelma Todd, Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Allan Jones, affectionate, long-tongued giraffes, and/or that great, scene-stealing dowager, Margaret Dumont. Right now, TCM is showing Robert Florey and Joseph Santley's The Cocoanuts (1929), an early talkie notable as the first movie featuring the four Marx Brothers – Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Based on their hit Broadway...

A long time ago, sometime around 1912, a director by the name of D.W. Griffith packed up his filmmaking wares and took his crew, including favored cinematographer Billy Bitzer and star Mae Marsh, across the water to a relatively mysterious island off the Southern California coast to shoot a short film. The project, Man’s Genesis, subtitled A Psychological Comedy Founded upon the Darwinian Theory of the Evolution of Man (Is that Woody Allen I hear whimpering with envy?), isn’t one for which Griffith is well remembered, in the hearts of either academics or those given to silent-era nostalgia. (One comment on IMDb suggests that no one would ever mistake Griffith’s simple tale of a landmark of human development—man discovers his ability to craft and use tools in order to achieve a specific goal-- for “a serious work of speculative anthropology” and wonders “what the director and his...

People thought PTA doing an art house Adam Sandler movie was weird. How about a live action kids movie about a wooden boy?

Via THR, Paul Thomas Anderson’s next film following Inherent Vice may be a version of Pinocchio that Robert Downey Jr. has been developing for the last several years. Anderson is being brought in to rework a script by Michael Mitnick (The Giver) and is being eyed to direct.

Originally, Downey was slated to play Geppetto in a version to be directed by Tim Burton. Burton was then eyed to direct a competing Pinocchio project over at Disney, but eventually settled on Disney’s live action Dumbo movie. But Downey still seems enthusiastic about the project, describing it this way to GQ two years ago:

“I got real excited about it. I was just thinking about Geppetto as a cross between Jake Lamotta and Chico Marx. It’s such a vital story,...

The King Baggot Tribute will take place Friday, November 14th at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium beginning at 7pm as part of this year’s St. Louis Intenational FIlm Festival. The program will consist a rare 35mm screening of the 1913 epic Ivanhoe starring King Baggot with live music accompaniment by the Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra. Ivanhoe will be followed by an illustrated lecture on the life and films of King Baggot presented by Tom Stockman, editor here at We Are Movie Geeks. After that will screen the influential silent western Tumbleweeds (1925), considered to be one of King Baggot’s finest achievements as a director. Tumbleweeds will feature live piano accompaniment by Matt Pace.

Here’s a look at the final phase of King Baggot’s career.

King Baggot, the first ‘King of the Movies’ died July 11th, 1948 penniless and mostly forgotten at age 68. A St. Louis native, Baggot...

The Marx Brothers created timeless comedy, but fans have had to “make do” with the relative handful of movies they left behind. It’s no chore to revisit Duck Soup or A Night at the Opera on a regular basis, but now, thanks to Shout! Factory’s new three-disc DVD set The Marx Brothers TV Collection, there is more Marxian madness than ever to enjoy. And, if you say the secret woid, there is a fourth “bonus” disc available in limited quantities (along with a poster of Drew Friedman’s wonderful DVD cover art) if you order directly from Shout! Factory’s website Here. It includes a half-hour filmed segment from the anthology Silver Theater starring Chico called Papa Romani (1950), an...

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Philip Marshak, who directed the 1980 Troma film Cataclysm (aka The Nightmare Never Ends and Satan’s Supper), died July 24 in his home in Los Angeles of diabetes, heart disease and leukemia, his son Darryl said. He was 80. Marshak also directed a segment of the horror anthology Night Train to Terror (1985) as well as a string of X-rated films. Born in the Bronx, Marshak served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, studied acting in New York with Maxine Marx (Chico Marx’s daughter) and performed in such plays as Detective Story and Harold Robbins' A Stone for

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Probably the single most influential piece of film criticism in my life is Manny Farber's piece on Preston Sturges, and in particular his paean to the Sturges stock company ~

"They all appear to be too perfectly adjusted to life to require minds, and, in place of hearts, they seem to contain an old scratch sheet, a glob of tobacco juice, or a brown banana. The reason their faces--each of which is a succulent worm's festival, bulbous with sheer living--seem to have nothing in common with the rest of the human race is precisely because they are so eternally, agelessly human, oversocialized to the point where any normal animal component has vanished. They seem to be made up not of features but a collage of spare parts, most of them as useless as the vermiform appendix."

There are things I don't love about Farber—his insistence upon virility as a...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: May 6, 2014

Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Olive Films

The 1949 music-filled comedy Love Happy was the final film starring the legendary Marx Brothers (Duck Soup, Animal Crackers).

In the film, Harpo Marx is a true patron of the arts, taking from the rich to help feed a group of poor actors struggling to open a new musical without financial backers. He unknowingly makes off with the missing Romanoff diamonds when he shoplifts a tin of sardines from a classy Manhattan market. The diamonds have been smuggled into the country by a sinful yet sizzlingly beautiful jewel thief, Madame Egelichi (Ilona Massey). The Madame traces the tin back to the theater and becomes the show’s financial backer. Hoping to recover the missing diamonds, she and her henchmen nearly bring the whole house down in a madcap race to retrieve the jewels on opening night.

In addition to Harpo,...

Screwball comedy movies, rare screenings of epic box office disaster: Library of Congress’ Packard Theater in April 2014 (photo: Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in ‘The Awful Truth’) In April 2014, the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theater in Culpeper, Virginia, will celebrate Hollywood screwball comedy movies, from the Marx Brothers’ antics to Peter Bogdanovich’s early ’70s homage What’s Up, Doc?, a box office blockbuster starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. Additionally, the Packard Theater will present a couple of rarities, including an epoch-making box office disaster that led to the demise of a major studio. Among Packard’s April 2014 screwball comedies are the following: Leo McCarey’s Duck Soup (Saturday, April 5) — actually more zany, wacky, and totally insane than merely "screwball" — in which Groucho Marx stars as the recently (un)elected dictator of Freedonia, abetted by siblings Harpo Marx and Chico Marx, in addition to Groucho’s perennial foil,...

The trailers for “A Madea Christmas” promise the sight of the tough-talking, no-nonsense protagonist working as a shopping mall Mrs. Santa and shooting down the dreams of bratty kids. That never happens in the movie, alas, but the sight of Madea in a fake North Pole makes me want to share my own Christmas wish: I want Madea to have her own “Duck Soup.” Fans of the Marx Brothers fondly remember that 1933 comedy as the group’s finest and funniest, and one of the reasons it’s so great is because it’s the most unfiltered vehicle for Groucho, Harpo,...

I'm not sure what I think of a live-action adaptation of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, especially if it were to be directed by Tim Burton, which was the original plan with Robert Downey Jr. set to star as Geppetto. As it turns out, that iteration of the story seems to have gone by the wayside, but now it seems Downey has a new helmer in line... his Tropic Thunder director and co-star, Ben Stiller. Recently Downey floated the idea to Sky Italia saying, "I would like to make it with Ben Stiller" and since then the rumor hasn't gone away to the point Deadline.com now reports Stiller is in talks with Warner Bros. to direct the picture. As far as the story, Downey was quoted in the recent GQ profile on the actor saying: My first pitch! I got real excited about it. I was just thinking about Geppetto as...

Well, now this is something I do not recall hearing about before, and I’m usually pretty up on my Robert Downey Jr. news. The star has apparently been in talks to play Geppetto in a (presumably) live-action version of Pinocchio. Now his good friend and Tropic Thunder director/co-star Ben Stiller is reportedly looking into helming Pinocchio. This just got a whole lot more interesting.

The concept has been kicking around for awhile now, as these things tend to do. There was word that Tim Burton might direct – that might have been a very cool pairing! –but now it appears that Burton is out and Stiller is making headway.

Robert Downey Jr. has stated that he views his Geppetto as a cross beteen Jake Lamotta and Chico Marx, which is either the greatest idea in the world, or a piece of Rdj sarcasm that just sounds awesome. Either way,...

Robert Downey Jr. wished upon a star for Ben Stiller to direct his upcoming adaptation of “Pinocchio,” and it looks like it's coming true: Stiller is in talks with studio Warner Bros. to helm the feature. Negotiations to secure Stiller are in early stages, according to Deadline, though discussions with writers who could pen the project are reportedly already taking place. Downey, who will play Geppetto, was originally supposed to star in the feature for director Tim Burton, who had just come off a successful adaptation of another Disney classic, “Alice in Wonderland.” Burton eventually left the project, and during recent press junkets promoting “Iron Man 3,” Downey was asked who he would like to see direct “Pinocchio” in Burton's stead. Downey suggested Stiller, setting the ball rolling for the current negotiations. The pair previously worked together on Stiller's “Tropic Thunder.” The adaptation will stray from Downey and Burton's original vision for the film,...

A friendly reader had pointed us to this news a couple weeks back, when Robert Downey Jr. dropped the news to Italian press, but Google translate made it all sound iffy... but lo and behold, "Pinocchio" lives. News of this project first dropped over a year ago, when Tim Burton was being eyed to direct, but Deadline reports that Ben Stiller is now in talks to helm the movie. Right now, it's all a concept -- no writers have been hired just yet -- but here's how Rdj described it recently: I was just thinking about Geppetto as a cross between Jake Lamotta and Chico Marx. It's such a vital story, but it's really about this working-class weirdo who invests this inanimate object with all of the qualities he doesn't have," he said. "I'm just crazy about the idea.... To me a wooden boy is a real boy who doesn't feel like he's acknowledged.

Clearly fed up of being in films that actually make money, Robert Downey Jr., who remains unsure of his involvement in the next phase of the Marvel Universe, is planning on teaming up with Ben Stiller to make a live-action version of classic children’s fairy tale Pinocchio, in which he would portray Gepetto, Pinnochio’s creator.

After originally pitching it to Warner Bros. with Tim Burton to direct, a recent interview with Sky Italia has suggested that the Iron Man star intends to move on with the project. With whom, you ask? His Tropic Thunder co-star Ben Stiller – Tim Burton apparently having flown away for some reason, perhaps startled by a loud noise or bright sunlight.

Ben Stiller is an interesting choice, considering that he seems anxious to work with more dramatic material after his adaptation of James Thurber’s short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has...

Martin Short's elastic face has morphed into many memorable characters, including Jiminy Glick, Ed Grimley and an impressively passable Katharine Hepburn. The latest persona the comic slipped into, however, required no facial contortion: Short-voiced Stefano, a friendly Italian sea lion who performs in the circus in “Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted.” Moviefone spoke with Short ahead of the film's June 8 release about his favorite characters, what you might find in his garage, and his "bitchy sarcastic side." (Don't worry, we didn't pull a Kathie Lee Gifford and awkwardly ask him about his personal life.) Stefano is a new character for the third "Madagascar" movie. Is there anything in particular that made you want to get involved with the series? I just think it's successful. It's funny. It cops to what it sets up to be and it's a pretty impressive talent line-up that they have. Your character also has...

Old sports writers (mainly Pardon the Interruption host and professional crank Tony Kornheiser) like to remind anybody listening that for most of the pre-World War II era, the biggest sports in America were baseball, boxing, and horse racing.

If you really want to get your 1930s on this weekend, you’ll have that chance: The baseball season is in full swing (Let’S Go Mets!), there’s a huge title fight in the boxing world between Floyd Mayweather and Miguel Cotto, and on Saturday evening, the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby begins.

The Kentucky Derby is an excellent excuse for a party,...

Each week within this column we strive to pair the latest in theatrical releases to worthwhile titles currently available on Netflix Instant Watch. This week we offer alternatives to The Three Stooges, Cabin in the Woods & Lockout.

The classic comedy team gets a reboot at the hands of the Farrelly Brothers. Will Sasso, Chris Diamantopoulos and Sean Hayes co-star.

Craving more classic comedy teams?

Duck Soup (1933) The iconic Marx Bros. front this comedy classic. Here Groucho plays Rufus T. Firefly, the recently appointed dictator of the country Freedonia. Masterful slapstick and sharp political satire ensue. Chico, Zeppo, and Harpo Marx co-star.

Laurel & Hardy: Flying Deuces (1939) One of the most critically heralded comedy double acts, Laurel and Hardy made an art out of slapstick. In this winsome misadventure they parody the war stories that were all the rage with a wacky tale of two American idiots who get caught up in...

Freddie Prinze Jr.

Mmmmm, Freddie Prinze Jr. I could think about tugging on Fred from Scooby Doo's ascot with my mouth for hours on end. In a nightmare situation, this act would pull off Fred's "mask," and he'd be revealed as an angry carnival owner. He wouldn't gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for my meddling hormones. Rawr. Let's talk about March 8, kids!

1911: The first International Women's Day is held! Sounds like a great Maxim photo shoot!

1959: Groucho, Harpo, and Chico Marx film their last TV appearance together. Meanwhile, Zeppo Marx huffs in the audience and pouts that he's more commercial than Chico, and Gummo Marx sits at home and gets his tongue stuck in the toaster or something.

1976 and 1977: Freddie Prinze Jr. and James Van Der Beek are born, respectively. If you could only attend one of their birthday parties, whose would you pick?...

Actor Robert Hegyes, best known for playing Sweathog Juan Epstein on Welcome Back, Kotter, has died. The Star-Ledger reports he suffered an apparent heart attack at his New Jersey home earlier this morning. He was 60 years old.

Hegyes played Epstein on ABC's hit sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter for all four seasons, starring alongside Gabe Kaplan, Marcia Strassman, John Sylvester White, Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs, Ron Palillo, and John Travolta.

The actor said that he modeled the "Juan Luis Pedro Philippo DeHuevos Epstein" character after Chico Marx, whom he later played in a national touring production of A Night With Groucho. Most of the Kotter cast reunited at last year's TV Land Awards to celebrate the sitcom's 35th anniversary.

Hegyes also co-starred on Cagney & Lacey as Detective Manny Esposito and guest-starred on other beloved shows like The Love Boat, NewsRadio, Diagnosis Murder, The...

Metuchen, N.J. (AP) — Robert Hegyes, the actor best known for playing Jewish Puerto Rican student Juan Epstein on the 1970s TV show "Welcome Back Kotter" has died. He was 60.The Flynn & Son Funeral Home in Fords, N.J., said it was informed of Hegyes' death Thursday by the actor's family.A spokesman at JFK Medical Center in Edison, N.J., told the Star-Ledger newspaper that Hegyes, of Metuchen, arrived at the hospital Thursday morning in full cardiac arrest and died.Hegyes was appearing on Broadway in 1975 when he auditioned for "Kotter," a TV series about a teacher who returns to the inner-city New York school of his youth to teach a group of irreverent remedial students nicknamed the "Sweathogs." They included the character Vinnie Barbarino, played by John Travolta.The show's theme song, performed by John Sebastian, became a pop hit.Hegyes also appeared on many other TV series,...

Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer in Leo McCarey's Love Affair Leo McCarey on TCM: Going My Way, Duck Soup, Love Affair, Make Way For Tomorrow Leo McCarey's Love Affair (1939) is now mostly forgotten, whereas its 1957 remake (also by McCarey), An Affair to Remember, remains a romance classic. In the original, in place of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr we have Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne as the star-crossed lovers. Boyer would become a fantastic dramatic actor in later years (e.g., Max Ophüls' Madame De…), but here he's just Hollywood's boring version of the "suave continental." Irene Dunne, on the other hand, was one of the best actresses of the '30s and '40s. She's fine in Love Affair, though it's not one of her greatest performances. (Warren Beatty and Annette Bening starred in a widely panned 1994 remake, that also featured Katharine Hepburn in the role played...

 

Harpo as Sir Isaac Newton

Long before he hit paydirt with sci-fi TV series and disaster movies, producer/director Irwin Allen was responsible for one of the screen's greatest misfires: the 1957 movie The Story of Mankind which purports to tell the history of the world in a humorous vein. Among the legendary actors/victims appearing in the film are Vincent Price, Harpo Marx, Agnes Moorehead, Groucho Marx, Charles Coburn, Hedy Lamarr and Chico Marx, though the Marx Brothers never appear on screen in the same scene. The film is being shown at 4:00 Am (Est)  on TCM North America on the evening of August 4-5. Click here for more...

“This is the scariest chase I ever saw since The French Connection.” That’s what a U.S. Supreme Court justice says in reference to videotaped evidence of a high speed police pursuit along George back roads, which has been appropriated by filmmaker Brian L. Frye for his gripping short film A Reasonable Man, embedded above. Another justice — or maybe the same, it’s hard for me to tell — later invokes a Chico Marx joke regarding the evidence: “Who are you going to believe? Me or your own eyes?” How about you watch the evidence yourself and decide the answer to that question?

Frye doesn’t give any background information in the film about the case that’s being argued, but it’s easy to figure it all out from the Supreme Court audio. (Or check the film’s Vimeo page as a cheat sheet.)

A teenage kid gets spooked...

On top of the one film I mention below, I also watched Blue Crush 2, which hits DVD and Blu-ray this Tuesday, June 7. I considered adding it below, but I think I'll just talk about it on Tuesday, but I have to tell you... I don't have anything good to say about it. Let's move on...

Monkey Business (1931) Quick Thoughts: Last week I mentioned how Universal was releasing five Marx brothers movies on DVD this coming Tuesday. I had just watched Duck Soup and this week I followed that up with Monkey Business, which I believe is "laugh out loud" funnier than Duck Soup, but on a whole I'd say Duck Soup is a better and funnier film, but then again, there really is no reason to compare the two.

Monkey Business features Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo as four stowaways aboard a transatlantic crossing and as they do their...

Ian Sansom on the comic clan who grew up in a happy, hectic house

The Schönbergs lived at 179 East 93rd Street, in the Yorkville neighbourhood of Manhattan, an area then inhabited mostly by immigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe. Fanny and Levy were from Dornum, in East Frisia. Their daughter Minnie married a man she met at a dance, Samuel Marx, a tailor, from Mertzwiller, in Alsace; the family called him Frenchie. Minnie and Samuel had five sons: Leonard, born 1887; Adolph, born 1888; Julius, born 1890; Milton, born 1892; and Herbert, born 1901. Their firstborn son, Manfred, had died aged just seven months in 1886.

Years later, Adolph recalled their early years. "There were 10 mouths to feed every day ... five boys ... cousin Polly, who'd been adopted as one of us; my mother and father, and my mother's mother and father. A lot of the time my mother's sister, Aunt Hannah, was around too. And on...

Your weekly fix of great movies made before you were born that you should check out before you die. This week’s Old Ass Movies celebrates the nonsense of the best American comedians of all time. Groucho, Harpo and Chico move in on Bogart’s territory by setting up camp at a hotel in Casablanca, mocking Nazis, playing with a toupee, and remembering to set their watches. A Night in Casablanca (1946) Directed By: Archie Mayo Written By: Joseph Fields & Roland Kibbee Starring: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Sig Ruman, Lisette Verea, Lois Collier, and Charles Drake Selling someone on watching a Marx Brothers movie should be as easy as standing on the street corner offering free bacon, but A Night in Casablanca isn’t the typical Marx movie. It certainly shouldn’t be the first a newcomer should see, since that distinction goes to Duck Soup. It shouldn’t even be the second or third film...

"Oh, to be young and feel love's sting." - Albus Dumbledore.

There is a reason why Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Edgar Wright's wildly innovative film adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's collection of graphic novels, is, in the parlance of its characters, an epic win.  Beneath the dazzling special effects, catchy music, layers of sound design and more sight gags you can shake a +2 against girls hammer at, beat the hearts of confused young people in love.  

SPvTW tells the story of a slackerish kid in Toronto who likes video games, plays bass in a mediocre band, hasn't had a mature emotional relationship and, importantly, doesn't know that yet.  The telling of his life is treated like a game (with effects-heavy fight sequences dropped in like songs in a musical) and Pilgrim moves from level to level, reaching the ultimate boss fight in an attempt to win the girl of his (literal) dreams.

There are Star Wars people, and Star Trek people. Some people dig Bugs Bunny; others love Mickey Mouse. There’s DC folks, and those who Make Theirs Marvel. There’s the “boxers” crowd…and the “briefs” bunch. Red states. Blue states. You may have heated debates over any (or none) of these ways of seeing the world, but most of the time, the stakes of these discussions aren’t as very high as they might initially seem.

There are those who think humanity is worth preserving, and those who believe we ought to self-destruct our way back into a feral wasteland. That’s the discussion that takes place in Irwin Allen’s first live-action feature film, The Story of Mankind.

And that discussion is a hoot and a half!

Readers of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and devotees of Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen...

HollywoodNews.com: Turner Classic Movies (TCM) today unveiled the network’s list of 10 Best Comedy Lines from Classic Movies, timed to coincide with the buildup to sister network TBS and Just For Laughs’ second annual comedy festival in Chicago, which begins tomorrow. The list includes lines from a number of memorable comedies, spoken by such notables as Groucho Marx, Mel Brooks, Ginger Rogers, Peter Sellers, John Belushi and Rob Reiner’s mother.

With this latest authoritative list, TCM set out to find lines that leave audiences in stitches. Many of the lines are repeated by even the most casual movie fans, demonstrating their strong foothold in pop culture.

“Great movie quotes frequently make their way into everyday conversation, and that is especially true for lines that make us laugh out loud,” said TCM host and film historian Robert Osborne.

Here are the lines included on TCM’s list of 10 Best Comedy Lines from Classic Movies,...

TCM has gotten in the habit of releasing new top tens quite frequently and every now and again one is rather interesting, such as their list of the Top 15 Most Influential Films of All-Time, which set the Internet on fire last April for about two straight weeks and even encouraged some sites to poll their users to see just how TCM's list compared to a user generated one.

I doubt today's list will be scrutinized as hard as that one considering comedy is so subjective, but I'm sure many of you will have something to add to the list that you feel should be included. What follows directly below is Turner Classic Movies' (TCM) list list of the 10 Best Comedy Lines from Classic Movies, which lines from such notables as Groucho Marx, Mel Brooks, Ginger Rogers, Peter Sellers, John Belushi and Rob Reiner's mother.

The list is presented in...

Behind every unique subculture is a great story, but not each of these stories is deserving of their own feature length documentary. Best Worst Movie would no doubt have made a fun long form essay somewhere in the back pages of Harper’s, but as a movie it doesn’t cut it.

Best Worst Movie tells the story of how the abysmal badness of Troll 2, a direct-to-video 1990 low budget horror film, has lifted the property from discount bins to cross-country sell-out midnight screenings. At the center of the film is failed actor George Hardy, a friendly yet egotistical dentist who kinda looks like a puffier and more effeminate Jonathan Archer. Through his eyes we ride the wave of Troll 2’s resurgence on the rep theater circuit, smooching drunken, adoring fans from New York to Austin.

Best Worst Movie profiles Hardy with love, but casts a jaundiced eye on...

Some performers are so gifted that all they have to do is make noise and you laugh. George Carlin had the gift. Chico Marx had it. Bill Murray and Will Ferrell have it, too. No one, however, got more laughs out of me just from the sound of his voice than Tommy Chong.

Sometimes, when I want to giggle, I just think about Tommy Chong saying, "okay, man" and I'm done. What this says about me, I don't know. So imagine how hard it was for me to keep it together when I was talking to the dude on the phone!! And while he may not do as many "wow"s and "man"s on the phone, it still sounded just like him.

Below are some highlights of our conversation, the day Chong called to shill for his new DVD Cheech and Chong: Hey Watch This! which I have not watched.

What's worse than powerful husbands who cheat on their wives? Their lame denials!

7 Lamest Excuses Told Celebrity CheatersTiger Woods

Denial/Apology Strategy: Fame made him do it

Was it apology to his wife, his fans or more likely to his present and future endorsement deals? It was difficult to tell when Tiger held a press conference February 19 and copped to his multiple affairs. The reasons for his dalliances explained Tiger, "I felt I was entitled. Thanks to money and fame." One thing for sure the once golden golfer knows how to practice -- every time he said he was sorry he looked straight to camera.

Mark Sanford

Denial/Apology Strategy: Where In the World Is Mark?

For one week no one seemed to know where in the world the Republican Governor of South Carolina was on the map. First he was said to be grabbing some "alone time" on the Appalachian Trail,...

Correspondent who exposed Soviet Ukraine's manmade famine to be focus of new documentary

In death he has become known as "the man who knew too much" – a fearless young British reporter who walked from one desperate, godforsaken village to another exposing the true horror of a famine that was killing millions.

Gareth Jones's accounts of what was happening in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33 were different from other western accounts. Not only did he reveal the true extent of starvation, he reported on the Stalin regime's failure to deliver aid while exporting grain to the west. The tragedy is now known as the Holodomar and regarded by Ukrainians as genocide.

Two years after the articles Jones was killed by Chinese bandits in Inner Mongolia – murdered, according to his family, in a Moscow plot as punishment.

The remarkable story of Jones is being told afresh by his old university, Cambridge, which...