We’ve all fallen asleep while watching a movie or a TV show—but these actors managed to doze off while they were filming a movie or a TV show. Norm Macdonald In 1995, the Saturday Night Live star acted in one of his first movies, Billy Madison, with fellow SNL star Adam Sandler. The movie is […]
Hollywood blockbusters costs tens of millions (or more) to produce. Studios can offset that by taking cash from companies who want their product to be featured in the movie. That’s called “product placement” and sometimes it makes the movie stop dead in its tracks. Mac & Me (1988) E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial featured some of the […]
Before home video was cheap and widely available, a book that retold the events of a movie was one of the few ways to experience a favorite film after the projector stopped rolling. The problem with “novelizations” was that the writers hired to churn them out were often given a very early version of the […]
Today’s the birthday of 40th American president and one-time actor Ronald Reagan. While he was usually relegated to “B” movies, Reagan appeared in classics like Knute Rockne: All American. He also starred in a lot of duds—hey, an actor’s gotta eat. Louisa (1950) Reagan plays Hal, a young man who worried and sickened that his […]
Here are five TV shows that for various reasons had to change their titles in the middle of their runs. Sometimes it attracted more viewers…and sometimes it lost them. (1) Currently in its 14th season, NCIS is the second-longest running drama currently on TV. It began life back in 2003 as a spinoff of the […]
She could turn the world on with her smile, and take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile. So long to Mary Tyler Moore, a pop culture icon for more than 50 years. One of Moore’s first paid acting gigs: as Happy Hotpoint, a buoyant elf in a 1956 commercial for the […]
The Oscars are the biggest awards ceremony in Hollywood, and they stretch back 80 years. That’s bound to generate some controversy…and rumors.
What do the following otherwise high-minded, and Oscar-winning, movies have in common? Against all odds, a memorable scene involving farts. The Usual Suspects The plot: a bunch of career criminals meet up at a police lineup and plot a heist. During the lineup, they’re all told to read a line by a police officer, but […]
What does an athlete do after the Olympics are over? They become movie stars…or at least try. Kurt Thomas… competed in gymnastics, a sport for which the Olympics are the epitome. After winning multiple medals at the World Championships in 1978 and 1979, Thomas was primed for Olympic gold…but didn’t get the chance. The U.S. […]
A lot of this year’s new shows won’t make it to a second season. They should count themselves lucky—these shows were scrapped after they were announced, produced, and promoted by their respective networks. Hieroglyph This big-budget adventure series was supposed to air on Fox sometime during the 2014-15 season, and was seen by the TV […]
Let’s set the stage for some of the most unlikely theatrical adaptations of things you’d never think you’d see in a theater. Doctor Who Doctor Whois so popular in England, and has been for some time, that it’s not just a TV show. The series has spawned novels, radio plays, movies, and even a few […]
TV game shows are highly regulated and played under very strict sets of rules. Nevertheless, people still find a way to beat the system to beat the game. Here are some people who cheated on game shows. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Charles Ingram appeared on the British version of Who Wants to Be […]
It used to be that a vital part of a successful TV series was a catchy and memorable theme song. But there are a handful of TV shows that had such great theme songs that they became hits…and far surpassed the popularity of the shows they came from. Here are some TV theme songs that […]
Fisher, the star of Star Wars and prolific writer, recently passed away at the age of 60. As a playwright, screenwriter, and memoirist, she was outspoken about her years in Hollywood…and often in a brutally funny way. The Star Wars Holiday Special is legendarily bad, but Fisher embraced that fact. The special, cheaply produced and […]
From the birth of cinema in the 1890s until the late 1940s, the standard film stock was made of a nitrate base, which is highly combustible. Plus, it disintegrates quickly if it’s not stored in a special low-oxygen, low-humidity, climate-controlled vault. Result: Hundreds of films are gone forever, including these: THE FAIRYLOGUE AND RADIO-PLAYS (1908). […]
You’ve probably never seen these movies. That’s why they’re on this list. The 13th Warrior In the ‘90s, several adaptations of works by Michael Crichton were among the most successful projects in Hollywood. The 1993 big-screen version of his novel Jurassic Park was the top movie of the year, and successful movies of Rising Sun, […]
Here’s the story of a lovely lady…beloved by millions for her career-making role on The Brady Bunch. RIP Florence Henderson. She Was a Stage Star While Still a Teenager In 1952, 18-year-old Florence Henderson landed one line in a Broadway play called Wish You Were Here. The theatrical giants of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein […]
After a movie is filmed, a Foley artist is tasked with making the sounds of the movie come across as realistically as possible. And they have a lot of weird and amazing tools at their disposal. Here are some real techniques used by real movie Foley artists. When somebody in a horror movie gets stabbed: […]
