Day: May 10, 2024

Like everyone else, I’m stunned by the sudden death of KTLA entertainment reporter Sam Rubin, 64…felled by a heart attack.

I can’t say I “knew” Rubin all that well, but I certainly ran into him at parties and press junkets over the last 25 or 30 years…joshingly, good-naturedly…and can say he was a smart, devotional movie hound…good fellow, disciplined pro, quick with a quip and a real eager beaver.

I’m very sorry that his curtain came down (or “rang” down as it were) this early. Tragic.

Emotionally Sam’s passing feels like the death of the well-liked Meet The Press moderator Tim Russert, who also died quickly from a heart attack. Tim was 58.

Condolences to Sam’s friends, family, colleagues, KTLA fans, industry acquaintances, etc.

Death has this occasionally rude habit of paying a call when it damn well feels like it, and when your number’s up, you’re done.

Al Pacino‘s career had three great surge periods — the early to mid ’70s, stand-alone Scarface and the ’90s.

Surge #1 was comprised of six films: The Panic in Needle Park, The Godfather, Serpico, Scarecrow, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon.

The rest of the ’70s and much of the ’80s were almost a disaster for the poor guy — Bobby Deerfield, …And Justice for All, Cruising, Author! Author!, Revolution.

Scarface was its own surge, and then came The Glorious ’90s when Pacino’s character-actor instincts and exclamatory hoo-hah ignited a winning streak that lasted through 12 films — Sea of Love, Dick Tracy, The Godfather Part III, Glengarry Glen Ross, Scent of a Woman, Carlito’s Way, Heat, City Hall, Donnie Brasco, The Devil’s Advocate, The Insider and Any Given Sunday.

What brand-name actor has ever had a run like this?

Have I posted this David Simon Criterion interview before?

“There’s something about the juice and the camaraderie of war that undercuts every anti-war message. But not in this film. Because it’s not strictly an anti-war film — it’s an anti-authority film.”

My brain was in knots after reading this 5.9 THR piece about Emma Corrin, who’s always been my idea of a first-rate actress.

I honestly felt as if I was choking on all the “they/them” pronouns…like I was Kirk Douglas battling a giant squid in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.

Thank you, non-binary Zoomer contingent, for making boilerplate trade-paper interviews into complex reading challenges, for completely up-ending grammar rules that have been in place for dozens of centuries, and for generally making all of us ask “how high?” when you crack your whip and say “jump.”

Imagine having grown up and spent several decades in a world that didn’t saddle Average Joes and Janes with all this “they/them” shit. This is what the world was like, in fact, as recently as five or six years ago. Growl, grumble.