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- “Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.” — Janet Malcolm
- “I’m one of those people who thinks you can have a happy life and still be an artist.” — Shelley Duvall
- “There’s a difference between writing about something and living through it. I did both.” — poet/novelist Margaret Walker
- “I believe what Camus says. When the curtain rings down, your job is done.” — Warren Oates
- Physical Media Booklet Essay podcast interview
- “My voice isn’t an instrument I can just hang up on a hook.” — Audra McDonald
- “You can’t be on top all the time. It isn’t natural.” — Olivia de Havilland
- “If I don’t feel it, I can’t play it.” — James Cotton
- “I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.” — Lena Horne
- “But man has always succeeded in rising again.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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Category Archives: Actors
Great Performances of 2024
Ebert writers wrote of their favorite performances this year. There were so many entries it was broken up into two parts: The Great Performances of 2024, Part One The Great Performances of 2024, Part Two Thank you so … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies
4 Comments
“I always knew I was going somewhere — going out. I just knew. I just knew. I just knew there were a lot more points of view out there. I wanted to see them. I wanted to hear them.” — Brad Pitt
It’s his birthday today. Turns out I haven’t written that much about Brad Pitt, and this needs to be rectified. I’ve got THOUGHTS on the man, and I have from the jump when he first got my attention, in Thelma … Continue reading
Am I Too Loud For You? Eminem’s “Kim”
Below is the first real thing I wrote about Eminem, the first time I really “dug in”, in 2011. I updated it slightly after Revival came out in 2017. Context first: “Kim” was on The Marshall Mathers LP, his second … Continue reading
Dynamic Duo #41
River Phoenix and Lili Taylor Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a … Continue reading
Posted in Actors
Tagged Dogfight, dynamic duo, Lili Taylor, Nancy Savoca, River Phoenix
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R.I.P. Kris Kristofferson
I paid tribute to this legend on my Substack. Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. … Continue reading
“I was a silent actress: a body. I belonged to dreams – to those who can’t be broken.” — Sylvia Kristel
Today is the birthday of Dutch actress and – briefly – international superstar – Sylvia Kristel. The timing is fortuitous. Often pigeonholed due to the massive success of the soft-core classic Emmanuelle, Kristel was a gifted and intuitive actress, who … Continue reading
R.I.P. Maggie Smith
I’m sometimes inconsistent in my tributes here but it doesn’t mean I don’t have thoughts about those I didn’t write about! James Earl Jones died on September 9 and I didn’t write anything here because I was in Scotland and … Continue reading
“Groundhog Day was one of the greatest scripts ever written. It didn’t even get nominated for an Academy Award.” — Bill Murray
Yup. (It’s Murray’s birthday today.) I have often said that it’s interesting to consider what films made today might be considered classics to future generations. Something like Casablanca was not a “prestige picture”, it was not filmed with a ponderous … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day, Television
Tagged Bill Murray, Elvis Presley, Sofia Coppola
10 Comments
“I’ve been very lucky, considering what I look like and what I do.” — James Gandolfini
It’s his birthday today. 51 years old. It seems incomprehensible. Like a lot of people, he first came on my radar through the extraordinary scene in the motel room with Patricia Arquette in True Romance (“you gotta lotta heart, kid.”) … Continue reading
Delon, part deux
I loved reading my good friend Farran’s tribute to Alain Delon – in all his complexity, and my God, his life was complex – on Ebert.