There haven’t been that many working actors from Atlantic City (James Avery and Rosalind Cash come immediately to mind), but Jeremy Slate was one of them. He passed away Nov. 19 after cancer surgery.
Born in Atlantic City on February 17, 1926, he was never famous but he did a slew of television guest spots and the occasional movie in his long career. You can catch him in an unaccredited role as a policeman in Hitchcock’s classic North By Northwest, and John Wayne killed him (and fellow bad guy Dennis Hopper) in True Grit. He also died on-screen trying to save John Wayne’s life in The Sons of Katie Elder. A World War II veteran who saw action at Omaha Beach, he got into acting in his thirties after careers as a lifeguard, sportscaster and public relations man. His other film roles include GI Blues and Girls! Girls! Girls! opposite Elvis, Born Losers, Hells Angels ’69 (which he co-wrote) and Lawnmower Man. He was the star of the 1960 TV series The Aquanauts, and was a long time regular on the soap opera One Life to Live in the 1980s. His many TV guest spots include the shows Combat, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Bonanza, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Route 66, Perry Mason and Have Gun, Will Travel. More recently he guested on My Name Is Earl.

Emilio Estevez is very passionate about his new film Bobby, a drama about a group of people living and working at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night Bobby Kennedy was shot at the hotel. At the Toronto Film Festival, where the film was given its North American debut, he and members of his cast, including William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone and Christian Slater talked about the film …

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Can you generate Oscar buzz with a movie that makes fun of Hollywood types who go nuts when the O-word is mentioned in regards to their work? I’m here to suggest that Catherine O’Hara, a long time member of the Christopher Guest repertoire company, and an SCTV alumnus, is Oscar-worthy as Marilyn Hack, an actress who lets Oscar talk swell her head, in Guest’s often hilarious spoof For Your Consideration. (To read my complete review, check out http://www.acweekly.com/index.php this Thursday.)
Catherine O’Hara has been underappreciated over the years, except by my fellow fanatics who found her so amazing as a regular on the Canadian TV sketch show SCTV.
Since the premise of For Your Consideration is that a blog suggesting that Marilyn Hack is Oscar-worthy in Home For Purim starts the Oscar buzz rolling, I’ve decided to do the same in reel life. Katherine O’Hara should earn as Oscar nomination for playing Marilyn.
Let’s start the Internet buzz right now—we want an O-nod for O’Hara.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that renowned chef Susanna Foo, going against the tide of several Philly area restaurateurs, will close her Suilan restaurant at the Borgata on Jan. 1. The Euro-Chinese restaurant opened with the Borgata in July 2003. Last week, it was also reported that Foo reached a deal with prosecutors that would allow her to instruct Philly’s homeless on cooking instead of “facing trial for allegedly striking a Parking Authority ticket writer” earlier this year.

I took my nephew and his best friend to Vineland’s Delsea Drive-In last Saturday night for the holiday triple bill of Flushed Away, Happy Feet and Man of the Year. It was appropriate that one of the movies was set at the South Pole. My feet felt like they were incased in ice while watching Happy Feet as the temperature dropped to near freezing.

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The problem with having a passion for sports is that your state of well being is tied directly into the success or failure of the teams you are passionate about. When those teams are doing well, the euphoria can help you rise above the mundane problems of your own life. On the other hand, when those teams are falling off a cliff, you feel like jumping over the edge with them.
Welcome to the cliff-jumping world of the Philadelphia sports fan. In the last twenty-five years the negatives have outweighed the positives, and frankly, we are pissed about it.

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Robert Altman created a style of moviemaking that has been often imitated but rarely duplicated. The maverick film director who mostly worked outside the studio system died last night at age 81. His body of work is a legacy of movies that featured multiple characters with overlapping dialogue. These characters would often circle around in their own universe until they crashed into other characters in exciting ways. Notable examples of his distinctive style include Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts and Gosford Park. His fourth movie was a studio job that remained his most popular effort in terms of box office success. Before the TV series, there was M*A*S*H (1970) a movie that took a well worn genre, the G.I. service comedy, and took it into the realm of cutting edge anti-war black comedy at the height of the Vietnam War. In my mind Donald Sutherland is Hawkeye Pierce, Elliott Gould is Trapper John, Sally Kellerman is Hot Lips and Robert Duvall is Frank Burns.
My other Altman favorites include his take on the detective film, The Long Goodbye; his devastating look at Hollywood insiders, The Player, featuring a brilliant performance by Tim Robbins, and his Altman-ized version of the classic British upstairs/downstairs drama Gosford Park. His last film, A Prairie Home Companion, was Altman in a minor key, but it made fans of his multi-character canvas smile. While accepting a lifetime achievement Academy Award last February he noted,

“No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have. I’m very fortunate in my career. I’ve never had to direct a film I didn’t choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition.”

Hollywood said goodbye to rugged character actor Volodymyr Palaniuk last Friday when he died at age 87. The son of a coal miner from Pennsylvania was better known as Jack Palance. Palance’s craggy visage was earned by an early boxing career and plastic surgery after a training accident as a pilot during World War II. He had a face made for menacing film roles and that’s just what he did following graduation from Stanford University in 1947. His first break was as stand-in to Marlon Brando for A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, where he took over the role. He made his film debut in 1950’s Panic in the Streets and earned back-to-back Oscar nominations for bad guy roles in Sudden Fear and the classic western Shane. Forty years later he won the golden statuette for his comedy performance in City Slickers (1991) as Curly. His one-arm push-ups after he accepted the award earned him the biggest notoriety of his long career. It remains one of the most memorable Oscar moments of all time. My personal Jack Palance film festival would include his finest performance, an Emmy-award winning turn as a washed-up fighter in Rod Serling’s TV drama Requiem for a Heavyweight. Also on the “best of” list would be Shane, Panic in the Streets, The Big Knife, City Slickers and Bagdad Café.

Palance with his 1957 Emmy (above); doing push-ups at the Oscars (right).

Yesterday, Rod Stewart announced he will embark on a 56-city North American tour – but it looks like local fans of the sex-symbol-cum- born-again-crooner will have to travel to Philly or New York to see him as he will not be returning – as of now – to our neck of the woods. Perhaps he was miffed about a recent AC Weekly article mentioning him?

As we all know from watching the West Wing, while the winners and losers of yesterday’s election are all saying the right things and striking a consolatory tone in their speeches, they are ranting and raving behind closed doors. But like a football victory, let’s hope the crowing stays behind closed doors, and that the job of embracing an angry nation’s distress, and finding palatable and workable bi-partisan solutions will be achieved. That said, I’m no politician. I am a Bush basher and hope that he understands the message being sent by the ballot box. President Bush, listen to your advisors. Fire Rumsfeld. That will send a clear message that you are willing to—and I hate this phrase—“Change the culture of our Iraqi policy.” Work together with the new Congress to find a road you can both walk towards a resolution of the mess in Iraqi. Our politicians might use party politics as a nasty club to bash opponents with ridiculous and seemingly libelous accusations, but after the votes are counted we are not going out and killing members of the other tribe. In our hearts and souls we are Americans first. Let’s show the rest of the world what “United We Stand” really means. For a more formal fire Rumsfeld argument check out this link http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/08/AR2006110800894.html
Later
P.S. Don’t you love this picture. For more like it, check out http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-rumsfeldreloaded.htm