Joan Rivers 1933-2014

We lost Joan Rivers today. The award winning actress, producer, writer, director, hostess, and comedienne was 81. The star of stage, film, and television will be missed.

Joan Rivers has been around as long as I can remember. While still fairly young she first started showing up on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show" around the time I was born. She was always a hit, always hilarious. Later as the show entered its guest host phase, when Johnny would take weeks off at a time and they would have a fill-in for a week at a time, Joan rose to prominence.

I loved her stand-up and she interacted with guests almost as easily as Johnny. She was almost the designated guest host throughout most of the seventies and early eighties. Joan was always funny, sometimes later mean and funny, but always funny. Most of her jokes revolved around her husband Edgar, and her star shined bright.

Sadly her career turn a bad turn when she chose to go against Johnny as his competitor on the fledgling Fox network. The show, which eventually fell into the hands of Arsenio Hall, was not a good move. It's even been said that the stress of the show may have killed her husband. Joan drifted after that, falling into crazed and botched plastic surgery and hosting home shopping shows before she found a new career on the red carpet with the E! network.

Joan's meanness had tamed, and her face was nearly unrecognizable, but her presence and humor shone through as she, along with her daughter Melissa, interviewed celebrities on the entertainment channel.

I will still remember sneaking downstairs at 11:35 PM weeknights to see Joan's monologue on "The Tonight Show" as I also did with Johnny, and David Brenner, and Jerry Seinfeld, etc. I'll remember how much everyone wanted to see her movie Rabbit Test in eighth grade, and how bad it actually was. Joan was funny, and yes, she'll be missed.

RIP Richard Attenborough

Award winning actor, director, and producer Richard Attenborough died yesterday. He was only a few days short of his 91st birthday.

Most people may know him from his acting roles, as in Jurassic Park, The Great Escape, Doctor Doolittle, the most recent version of Miracle on 34th Street, The Sand Pebbles, and one of my personal favorites, the original Flight of the Phoenix. But the truth, and his real talent was as the man behind such great films as Gandhi, A Chorus Line, Chaplin, and Cry Freedom.

We have lost one of the shining lights of both the British cinema and Hollywood. Lord Richard Attenborough will be missed.

Gravity

This is an Oscar nominated and winning film. Let me be clear, Gravity is a B-grade scifi thriller that got very lucky. It breaks tradition. It has stars, it has special effects, a high caliber for cinematography and direction, so it gets a pass. I truly wonder if the names George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, and Ed Harris were not involved, would the art film snob crowd that usually haunt the Oscar movies even be interested?

Astronauts are on a Space Shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Telescope when debris from a destroyed Russian satellite scrag the mission and the shuttle. Untethered and lost, two of them, Kowalski (Clooney) and Stone (Bullock), try to get to the International Space Station after the debris hit. Only a preliminary knowledge of gravity and physics is needed to know how truly and totally screwed they are.

Kowalski is the voice of reason and experience in contrast to Stone's inexperience and panic. Their audio interaction when we really can't see facial expression is testament to these two actors' superior ability. These are two professionals, two artists in the field. Once separated, with only Clooney's voice, he proves what real acting is. Bullock substantially carries the film solo after that. No Oscars, Academy? Really?

Those awards went to director Alfonzo Cuaron, and to the cinematography and visual effects folks. It won the most Oscars that year and similarly swept the BAFTAs, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Golden Globes, while still being basically a 1970s scifi thriller with a good pedrigree. The visuals are stunning, and I can imagine it might have been dizzying in 3-D, or simply on the big screen.

I dug Gravity a lot. Despite its space trappings and apparent scientific inaccuracies, it explores the truly horrific themes of loneliness and helplessness in a very real way. Highly recommended.

Lost Hits of the New Wave #16

"Love Is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar

Another example of an established rock act getting on the new wave bandwagon, this example may well have had good intentions but went above and beyond them. While the previous studio album by Pat Benatar, Get Nervous was far more new wavey than this song, it didn't do as well as it was intended to do, and the singles released did not sample that flavor.

"Love Is a Battlefield" was the first single from Benatar's live greatest hits collection, Live from Earth. Written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman, the drum and synth heavy tune was accompanied by a music video that featured Benatar as a runaway/taxi dancer who leads a rebellion against her pimp and walks off into the sunset victorious. The fashion, the dancing, and the story got the video honored with multiple awards, and earned Benatar her biggest US hit.

Andy Griffith 1926-2012

Andy Griffith was the multiple award-winning and nominated star of television, film, stage and song. The actor, writer, director, producer, comedian, musician and singer passed away this morning in North Carolina. He was 86.

Back in my preschool days, "The Andy Griffith Show" was my favorite show, second only to "Batman." The opening of the program with Andy and his son Opie, played by Ronny Howard, going fishing and walking in the woods reminded me of my father and me. Especially the bit with that kid throwing rocks. I was that annoying kid throwing rocks whenever we went fishing or went for walks in the woods. My imaginary friend was even named 'Opie.' Hey, stop judging. I never said I was a bright kid. The point is, from an early age, "The Andy Griffith Show" and its spin-offs were a family tradition.

Just as I watched little Opie grow into Richie Cunningham and later a successful director, I also watched Andy in the largely forgotten but also fondly remembered ABC series "Salvage 1," and later on the more palatable "Matlock." When my brother-in-law gave me all his 45 RPM records (for the kids out there, think single MP3 iTunes purchases, only round and on vinyl), I discovered another facet of Andy Griffith with his down home comedy spoken word hit, "What It Was, Was Football."

As an adult I discovered how his humor led to Andy's role on the stage and then in film with No Time for Sergeants. The film not only firmly established his persona for the next few decades but also was the direct inspiration for later television spin-off "Gomer Pyle, USMC." Andy also did a flick at this time called Onionhead, that was so bad, he stopped doing movies.

However, before that, he made the film that for me, earns Andy Griffith the most respect. 1957's A Face in the Crowd, written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan, is one of my favorite films, easily in my top five, and Andy Griffith, as the charismatic but evil entertainer Lonesome Rhodes, is the star. This is an acting tour de force, and Griffith is a whirlwind. If you have not seen this phenomenal drama, I can't recommend it enough.

We have lost not only one of our most beloved television icons, but also a visionary in the way TV is done, as well as one of America's greatest actors and comedians. Rest in peace, Andy, we will miss you.

RIP Amy Winehouse

In early 2007 friends were chattering about a stunning new voice in music called Amy Winehouse. By the summer of that same year, the single "Rehab" was everywhere and she was a superstar. And by the end of 2007, and through to the end of her life, due to her erratic and self-destructive behavior, she had become a punchline to a bad joke.

Amy Winehouse passed away yesterday, at the age of 27, due to unconfirmed circumstances. Her interesting past with various illegal substances lead many to believe it was drug or alcohol related. The singer/songwriter was a fresh new voice crossing genres and garnering multiple awards and nominations. However you see her, talent, train wreck or media target, Amy Winehouse will be missed.