The Popdose Interview: Michael Stuhlbarg

"It doesn’t get any easier trying to bring these characters to life," says the acclaimed New York stage actor, who is the star of the Oscar-nominated Coen brothers film, out now on DVD.

Popdose: Tops, Flops, Oscars, Razzies

From Avatar to the Transformers sequel, from Up in the Air (pictured) to the depths of Obsessed, a look back at the highs and lows of 2009 as awards season takes shape.

Also, 11's, or other movies that stayed with me for some reason or another: Coraline; The Cove; Duplicity; Fantastic Mr. Fox, (500) Days of Summer; The Hangover; Humpday; I Love You, Man; The Informant!; Killshot; Me and Orson Welles; Moon; Observe and Report; Public Enemies; Red Cliff (US version); A Single Man; Sin Nombre; Sunshine Cleaning; Tony Manero; Tetro; Trick 'r Treat; Two Lovers; Up; and Watchmen.

Top DVDs 2009

I reviewed some of these for Popdose and Cineaste, but some I picked up, or they just sort of materialized (as I fret a major, overdue culling and reorganization of my DVD cabinets). The catalog (i.e. "old movie") market got a real boost from DVD-on-demand programs like the Warner Archive, though the naysayers gripe about price, disc quality, lack of extras, etc. I share their pain, but as the market matures and the studios turn to recycling hits on Blu-ray the situation we're in is the situation we're in. Hail Columbia for continuing to release standard, extras-packed discs (for now, as cutbacks sweep Sony); I have to say that these DOD programs, revealing buried treasures, did give my interest in the format a shot in the arm.

Top 10 (alphabetical):

Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics I (Sony)
Dusty and Sweets McGee (Warner Archive)
The Exiles (Milestone)
The Films of Michael Powell: A Matter of Life and Death and Age of Consent (Sony)
The Important Thing is to Love (Mondo Vision)
Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection (Sony)
Messiah of Evil: The Second Coming (Code Red)
Nikkatsu Noir (Criterion Eclipse)
People Like Us: The Complete Series (BBC)
The Stepfather (Shout! Factory)

11's: Ashes of Time Redux (Sony); Black Rain (AnimEigo); Classic Film Noir Collection Vol. 3: The Amazing Mr. X and Reign of Terror (VCI); Danton (Criterion); Husbands: Extended Cut (Sony); Monty Python: Almost the Truth (Vivendi); Nora Prentiss (Warner Archive); Repulsion (Criterion); Suspense (Warner Archive); The Terminal Man (Warner Archive); The Three Stooges Collections Vols. 6 and 7 (Sony); Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (Warner Archive)

Popdose: Paris, Texas on DVD

The Criterion Collection goes down the road again with Wings of Desire director Wim Wenders as the German filmmaker creates a classic portrait of America. So I didn't care for it the first time.

Live Design: Beginning of 10

Regrouping from my "End of 09" entry a whole month after the year and decade began...in the company of set designer John Lee Beatty and LD Peter Kaczorowski as they collaborate on two new plays, Time Stands Still with Laura Linney and Venus in Fur at Classic Stage Company, plus the revival of A View from the Bridge with Liev Schreiber and Broadway debutante Scarlett Johansson (pictured).

Film Forum at 40

There are many ways to salute New York's Film Forum, my home-away-from-home in my 30s, on its 40th anniversary year. Starting today the Museum of Modern Art is going all out with a retrospective of its non-fiction programming, curated by its director, Karen Cooper. Some of the ones I've seen at Film Forum include Bruce Weber's riveting Chet Baker portrait Let's Get Lost (pictured), Crumb, The Battle of Chile, and My Architect, all a window onto the world.

Oscars: More MOR than ever

Last year the movie world trembled when it was announced that the number of Best Picture Academy Awards would double from five to ten, returning it to where it had been in the mid-1940s. The intent--to jack up the ratings for the sagging telecast by pulling in the likes of The Dark Knight--was purely commercial, a move to placate the popcorn picture crowd that's illiterate about, say, The Reader. Not a terrible idea; maybe Star Trek would get in. Then, the second thoughts, the doubts, the night terrors--would the Globe-winning Hangover get nominated? Or something even...worse?

The fears were allayed this morning. While I wouldn't have minded a big broad hit like either of those two to compete the whorehouse is secure...and Oscar is more middle-of-the-road than ever. The overrated District 9 and The Blind Side (picture), which I'm now obliged to see, are the only challenges to the established order, and don't pack all that much rooting interest. Why not, say, the edgy-charming (500) Days of Summer, 2009's only real indie success/surprise story, and a movie to pull in the prized younger demographic that made it a hit in the first place?

Unless Transformers hottie Megan Fox reprises Pink's hot wet dance Grammys number at the Oscars expect the ratings to go up not much more than a tick, as lovers of A Serious Man and An Education wheel themselves in front of the TV at the retirement center. Kidding: All things considered it's not a bad list, and not so different from my own Top Ten, but the wow factor just isn't there. What was the point?

A few thoughts:

So I'm stuck seeing The Blind Side, though I'm pleased at the rehabilitation of my long-faltering crush object Sandra Bullock.

Jeremy Renner, Christopher Plummer, fist bumps!

I've never missed a Peter Jackson picture but The Lovely Bones may be it, sorry, Stanley Tucci--why not a nod for Julie & Julia? (Jackson gets the District 9 nods as a consolation prize for its failure.)

Matt Damon? Invictus? Seriously? Not going to see an Eastwood picture that his acolytes in the press wrote off. The hoariest nomination was Freeman's.

Maybe its tiny distributor will give The Messenger the chance to deliver a few more viewers.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Anna Kendrick, Vera Farmiga, nice going, too bad about the Mack truck in front of you.

More kudos: Nick Hornby and the In the Loop writers, keeping the British end up in a more American-centric field than usual.

A surprise to see some tech love for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. On the other hand it's Avatar all the way in seven of its nine categories, with Hurt Locker stealing director and picture thunder.

I hate to say it, but Sherlock Holmes really did have the most flavorful score of the year. I may need reminding on Fantastic Mr. Fox, though.

Disney's at it again, swiping Best Song noms. But "The Weary Heart" is a lock.

The Secret of Kells? What?

A Prophet (une prophete) is the best foreign-language film I've seen in recent months. Riveting.

The Cove for Best Doc. Dead dolphins, tears, outrage.

Best title: A Matter of Loaf and Death (Animated Short).

The Oscars air March 7.

Popdose: Why I Heart Jeff Bridges

Will the fifth time be the charm for perennial Oscar hopeful Jeff Bridges? Stay tuned for Tuesday, but in the meantime a look back at the career of the quintessential American actor and his Crazy Heart.

B-Fest 4-Ever

A salute to all those attending this year's B-Fest at Northwestern this weekend. I, too, camped out overnight at Norris Center, enjoying mind-croggling filmic fare, dozing in the seats, and eating food that got more and more inedible with each passing hour. But, oh, the company I kept, over twenty years ago now--Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Giant Claw, Fiend Without a Face, all back to delight a new generation of genre insomniacs, plus Mae West in Sextette and Troll 2, not there was much difference between Mae and a troll in her dotage. (Rim shot!) I join the Claw in winging my way over to you if I could. Next best thing: Kids, if you call out "Day, night! Day, night!" during Plan 9's innumerable intra-scene changes, you may hear my echo reverberating from the walls.

Popdose: Kingdom of the Spiders on DVD

The Shat hits the fan as an arachnid army marches through Sedona, as the 1977 creature feature gets a special edition crawling with extras.

Popdose: Surrogates on DVD

It's doubles trouble for FBI agent Bruce Willis in Jonathan Mostow's sci-fi thriller , an Earthbound predecessor to Avatar (in more ways than one).

RIP Jean Simmons

Sad to report that the actress who supplied the beating heart of Spartacus (pictured) has passed into legend herself. I always liked her, and my dad recently said she was one of his favorites. Despite many great credits, two Oscar nominations (for her Ophelia in Olivier's 1948 Hamlet, and 1969's The Happy Ending, as a desperate housewife directed by her then-husband Richard Brooks), and an Emmy (for The Thorn Birds) I think she was undervalued, and finding suitable parts was a challenge once her heyday had passed. But look at that resume, in major films and minor diversions: David Lean's Great Expectations, bewitching in Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus, the original Blue Lagoon, So Long at the Fair, malevolent and able to put a scare into Robert Mitchum in Otto Preminger's Angel Face, George Cukor's The Actress, holding unwieldy pictures like The Robe, Guys and Dolls, and The Big Country together with her warmth and good sense, Brooks' Elmer Gantry. All the Way Home and Home Before Dark would be welcome to see.

It was great to see her in 1995's How to Make an American Quilt after a film hiatus and to hear her voice again in the English-language version of Howl's Moving Castle. Bby chance I recently saw her in several episodes of the short-lived revival of TV's Dark Shadows. Big screen or small, she was one English rose who was always in bloom.

Misdiagnosis

There's an article about CBS Films in today's New York Times that centers on Friday's release of Extraordinary Measures, an uplifting true-life medical thriller starring Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser. The cynic in me says that if the movie were truly extraordinary it would be released in a more happening month, but no matter. What nagged at me is an offhand dig at Lorenzo's Oil, a fact-based movie with a similar bucking-the-medical-establishment theme.

"Medical tales, especially involving children, can veer dangerously close to schmaltz. One misstep and you could have Lorenzo’s Oil, the 1993 film about a boy with a rare disease that was well reviewed at the time but has become the industry’s go-to example of overdone sentimentality."

First off: Lorenzo's Oil was released in 1992. Besides being well-reviewed, it was nominated for two Oscars, and should have been up for more. Co-written and directed by an actual doctor, George Miller, it's one of the most gripping dramas I've seen, and there's not an ounce of sentimentality in it. If anything, its boxoffice was limited by it being too clinical, too "depressing." Yes, there are scenes where Lorenzo's Catholic parents (extraordinarily well-played by nominee Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte) break down in frustration and even beg their son to "fly to Jesus" if his silent suffering becomes too unbearable, but these are hardly overdone after what we've experienced. If this is "schmaltz," I'd wish we'd see more of it on our screens.

Popdose: Streamers on DVD

Robert Altman's take on David Rabe's classic Vietnam-era play, with Matthew Modine and David Alan Grier, resurfaces. It's as penetrating now as it was in 1983, and the Off Broadway revival of the show I saw in 2008 had its work cut out for it to equal its quality.

Oscars suggestion

To cut the running time down further, simply mail Mo'Nique and Christoph Waltz their statuettes. After an avalanche of critics awards the Golden Globes confirms that without even being nominated yet they're shoo-ins to win. Hell, maybe develop a story where their evil characters from Precious and Inglourious Basterds meet in the late 80s and plot world destruction. Perhaps not, but it's a little off-putting to the home punter when there's a lock two months before the actual event, even if it does assure you two points in your Oscar pool (maybe three if you go with Jeff Bridges, who seems pretty solid this year to get a fifth nomination and an overdue prize). Though I like both for various reasons cause for concern is Avatar blanking The Hurt Locker last night--but the Globes don't mean anything, right?

Popdose: The prime of Christopher Plummer

The veteran actor celebrates his 80th birthday with two new films, playing Tolstoy opposite Helen Mirren in The Last Station, and an immortal carnival barker in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (with Tom Waits, pictured).

By George!

"He said, 'It's George Sanders' and I didn't even know who George Sanders was!"

--Michael Fassbender, on auditioning for his part in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (in the current issue of Vanity Fair).

“Acting is like roller skating. Once you know how to do it, it is neither stimulating nor exciting.”--George Sanders

Popdose: Passing Strange on DVD

Spike Lee's fine film of the groundbreaking Broadway show bows on DVD. If you can't wait to order or Netflix it, it also airs tonight on PBS' Great Performances.

Centennial celebration

Sometimes I feel like a cryptkeeper, always burying the dead. But today a chance to light 100 birthday candles for Luise Rainer, winner of back-to-back Oscars for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). She said the feat killed her career, but it gave her a kind of immortality as a trivia quiz answer, and I'm not sure anyone will ever equal her status of the oldest living Academy Award winner. (Not that I wouldn't like to see someone try.) You can see those 70-plus-year-old credits tonight on TCM. I missed her comeback on a 1983 Love Boat episode, but I did see her in The Gambler, from 1997--the same year her contemporary, Gloria Stuart, took a return trip on Titanic. She hits the century mark on July 4. You go, girls!

RIP Eric Rohmer

“I saw a Rohmer movie once,” sniffs Gene Hackman's detective in Arthur Penn’s Night Moves (1975). “It was kind of like watching paint dry.” I imagined that bemused the filmmaker, not that he hadn't heard it before. And it fits the character perfectly: He's a guy who doesn't see what's right in front of him, which turns out tragically. I remember settling in with Pauline at the Beach (1983) on Cinemax, and expecting a hot number--which it wasn't. But it was a rich experience--Rohmer's films typically are. And in its own way, beneath the chatty surface, it was a hot movie, it's just that at age 18 I wasn't ready to see the substance of sex beneath the skin, as it were.

A noble career his was, as the charter member of the French New Wave whose films so often hearkened back to an earlier time, sometimes historically but most often in a mode of civility and cultural engagement that seems remote but is actually quite refreshing to absorb. I was especially taken with his 2001 film The Lady and the Duke whose up-to-the-minute technique of digital painting recreated a vanished before our eyes. (This I would have liked to have seen in 3D.) Pictured is his last film, 2007's The Romance of Astrée and Céladon. Studied, antique, beautiful--and kind of hot.

Me and The Simpsons

Settling in to watch the 20th anniversary episode of The Simpsons, and Morgan Spurlock's documentary about the animated juggernaut that got the drop on Gunsmoke and rewrote the TV series longevity books, I realized that I've seen all but a handful of episodes. And I may have seen those, too, at some point, amidst moves and life changes. The show got its start when I was living in Hong Kong, and eventually migrated to Asia. I got into it early on. The first one that made me laugh out loud had a parody of Jean De Florette, with Bart sent to France to work with Gallic evildoers, one named Ugolin, as in the movie. I mean, Jean De Florette as a subject of satire on a US network show? How many viewers got it then? Would anyone get it now? Those early episodes must seem like Sanskrit, full of lost or obscure cultural references.

Nevertheless, what makes the show work, then and now, is its abundant heart, which offsets a wicked cynicism. The two elements keep me watching, year in and year out. (Those, and that the show is programmed into my DVR, not that it's ever been hard to find. Rule No. 1 to keeping a show on the air: Leave it in the same place, without constant schedule hopping*.) It waxes and wanes, and was probably never better than when Conan O'Brien was at the writing helm, in 1991-1993, the years I lived in San Jose, CA, and needed the weekly pick-me-up. With NBC stabbing him in the back maybe he'd consider going back to it.

Hong Kong. San Jose. New Jersey. Manhattan. Brooklyn. Marriage. Fatherhood. And to think it made it into the new century and it's still on for Larissa to enjoy. Amazing. Simpsons, I salute you.

*Of course, in football season, always leave plenty of overtime when you tape/record. I lost the last 15 minutes of the special. D'oh!)

RIP Art Clokey

Sorting through the Christmas boxes my parents came across my Gumby, who had somehow made his way into one. They insisted it was my original childhood Gumby, but I don't think so; he's too shiny and well-preserved. I think they bought me a new one a few years back as a sentimental gag, knowing how much I loved him as a kid, an affection that Eddie Murphy's parody did little to diminish. In any case, they gifted him to Larissa, who now has a flexible friend to call her own. And she enjoys him as much as I did.

Clokey was a more complicated person than his legacy, which also included the gentle Christian program Davey and Goliath, would suggest. There's a good documentary about him, Gumby Dharma, that goes into his deprived childhood, pioneering efforts in stop-motion animation, and later soul-searching. One can only marvel at someone whose creations have inspired generations of children to pursue adventures of their own.

Popdose: Youth in Revolt

Michael Cera tries to get laid--again!--in the cultish comedy Youth in Revolt, which kicks off the new year in movies.

An Ovation for Slings and Arrows

One of the TV highlights of the aughts, or naughts, or whatever was the great Canadian comedy series Slings and Arrows, which we loved on the Sundance Channel. Ovation has picked up all three six-episode seasons and will begin airing the show tonight at 8pm. Set amidst the Shakespearean levels of comical chaos generated by a Stratford-like company, Slings and Arrows was created by the folks behind the Tony-acclaimed musical The Drowsy Chaperone and I can't recommend it enough. And it comes just in time to chase the winter blues away. Pictured from left are stars Paul Gross, Don McKellar, and Kid in the Hall Mark McKinney. Bonus star-gazing: Rachel McAdams (Sherlock Holmes) was in the first season, and Sarah Polley the third.

Notflix

I was an early adopter of Netflix when it debuted in the late 90s. Too early: at the time it had just one distribution center, in California, and the DVDs took forever to arrive. I unadopted.

But I've been back in the fold for years now, and with a distribution center in nearby Flushing I sometimes get a new disc the day after I send one in. Trouble is, it can take me weeks to get to the DVDs I already have.

But Netflix has solved that problem for me. It's cut a deal with Warner Bros. that will keep its releases out of the familiar red envelopes for a 28-day window, to encourage DVD sales and other more profitable ancillary revenues. I can see how that benefits WB (and, inevitably, the other studios that will no doubt clamor for similar arrangements) but as a Netflix subscriber, even a slovenly one like me, why would I want to wait to see today's hot DVD a month later?

The official story is, "The new Netflix deal terms represent a bet by both sides that consumers will be willing to spend about $20 to buy what they want right away or otherwise wait nearly a month to get it as part of their subscription.

"This deal uniquely works for Netflix because our subscribers are desensitized to street dates and more interested in being matched to the perfect movie," said Ted Sarandos, Netflix's chief content officer, who handles studio relationships. "Some subscribers will so passionately want to see it in the first 28 days they may go out and buy it, just as some people want to see Avatar so badly they pay to watch it in 3D."

I'm slow to watch some of my Netflix pickups, but I'm not "desensitized." Due to the power of advertising, who doesn't know that the new Harry Potter is on DVD now? If I want him, I wave my magic cursor around my queue and get him ASAP; I don't want to twiddle my thumbs and wait a month for him to turn up, as I would on say pay per view. What business is Netflix in? Encouraging renters to buy, or stream movies through their computers rather than their home theaters, doesn't seem like an ideal model for growth. But what can one expect from a content officer who thinks that just a handful of viewers are seeing the billion-dollar earning Avatar in 3D?

2010: The year we make...manimals?

TCM is about to air 2010 (1984) in a few minutes. It's the 2001 sequel that imagines the birth of a second sun...but somehow couldn't foresee the end of the Cold War, which is in full chill as the movie opens but as we know pretty much came to a halt with the fall of the Berlin Wall five years later.

Once you've made that obvious stop this New Year's Day, maybe hit a few more flicks set this year. There's 1988's The New Gladiators, where armed gangs roam a post-nuke Los Angeles. Or 2004's District B13, where armed gangs skilled in the art of parkour crawl the walls and pop through walls in pursuit of a neutron bomb aimed at the slums on the outskirts of Paris. The armed--and legged, and furred, and toothed--gangs in 1996's The Island of Dr. Moreau are made up of Marlon Brando's menagerie of manimals, which back when a man from Hope was in the Oval Office and everything seemed possible we all figured would be commonplace by now. Maybe Lady Gaga is one.

There's 364 days left and the last laugh may be on me, but I suspect that by 2011 we'll still have one sun and be bereft of manimals. (The nukes and neutron bombs I'm not so sure about.) And I'm OK with that, so long as the events prophesied in 2012 don't come to pass.

Top 10 Theater in 09

In alphabetical order:

The Cherry Orchard (Bridge Project/BAM)
The Cripple of Inishmaan
The Emperor Jones (at the Soho Playhouse through Jan. 31)
Finian's Rainbow (closing Jan. 17 at the St. James)
God of Carnage
The Late Christopher Bean
Mary Stuart
Next Fall (reopens on Broadway March 11)
Ruined
A Streetcar Named Desire (BAM, pictured)

Of note: The American Plan, Blithe Spirit, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Distracted, In the Next Room or the vibrator play (closing Jan.10 at the Lyceum), The Royal Family, Superior Donuts (closing Sunday at the Music Box), and the one-third of The Norman Conquests I was able to see.

Welcome mat: A Broadway hello to Catherine Zeta-Jones (A Little Night Music) and Daniel Craig (A Steady Rain). Good to see you again, Jude Law (Hamlet).

Flop house: Three of the worst shows I saw last year were at the American Airlines, which is enduring heavy turbulence: After Miss Julie, Hedda Gabler, and The Philanthropist. Further dishonorable mention to Killers and Other Family and Race.

Thought for the day

"New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."--Mark Twain

The maligned Manhattan Bridge

The Manhattan Bridge is my lifeline to the "Big City," but it's celebrating its sort-of centennial without party hats and "Auld Lang Syne." The span has an image problem, exacerbated by its portrayal in the movies. On film, the Brooklyn Bridge is host to romances, high drama, and spectacular cataclysm (think the U.S. Godzilla reboot, or Cloverfield), while the Manhattan Bridge inspires...suicides. Think The Lonely Guy, where lonely guys like Steve Martin and Charles Grodin consider taking the plunge; or Luv, where Jack Lemmon does the same; or 1961's Something Wild, where Carroll Baker nearly ends it all, only to meet a stranger fate in the arms of rescuer Ralph Meeker.

I'd think about offing myself, too, if I walked across or biked the bridge on a rainy bad day, as I squeezed my frame along its narrow pathways while the N and D trains rumbled by noisily. On the other hand, the view from the trains is a treat, taking in the Statue of Liberty (and the scene-stealing Brooklyn Bridge) and a nice sliver of Chinatown as it descends into Manhattan. Someone should film that and uplift the bridge's profile.

As we ring in the New Year, may your prospects be Brooklyn Bridge, but remember that those Manhattan Bridge days build character. And the news isn't ever all gloomy: Sergio Leone gave the Manhattan Bridge a shot at immortality with an iconic Water Street view in 1984's Once Upon a Time in America.

Muppets, Michael Jackson make Film Registry

Back in spring I wrote up several titles for a proposed book covering all the movies entered in the National Film Registry. The status of that project is unclear but today add 25 more to the list, bringing the total up to 525. The enshrined run the gamut from The Muppet Movie, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and Once Upon a Time in the West to a number of early cinema selections, the excellent quasi-documentary The Exiles, and the first music video to make the grade, Michael Jackson's Thriller.

The full list:

1) Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
2) The Exiles (1961)
3) Heroes All (1920)
4) Hot Dogs for Gauguin (1972)
5) The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
6) Jezebel (1938)
7) The Jungle (1967)
8) The Lead Shoes (1949)
9) Little Nemo (1911)
10) Mabel’s Blunder (1914)
11) The Mark of Zorro (1940)
12) Mrs. Miniver (1942)
13) The Muppet Movie (1979)
14) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
15) Pillow Talk (1959)
16) Precious Images (1986)
17) Quasi at the Quackadero (1975)
18) The Red Book (1994)
19) The Revenge of Pancho Villa (1930-36)
20) Scratch and Crow (1995)
21) Stark Love (1927)
22) The Story of G.I. Joe (1945)
23) A Study in Reds (1932)
24) Thriller (1983)
25) Under Western Stars (1938)

"Barbara Steele Day"

An 8 1/2 fan of my web acquaintance has declared today "Barbara Steele Day," in honor of her 72nd birthday. I'll go along with that, except to say that in my horror-loving house every day is "Barbara Steele Day"--so beautiful, so cruel, in a number of classics and cult hits from the 60s to the 80s, from Black Sunday and The Pit and the Pendulum to Piranha and Silent Scream. Truth be told, I'm not much of an 8 1/2 admirer, feeling that it marked Fellini's descent into dull pageantry--but Steele brings her special something to her brief role, which is pictured. (I'm not sure there's an equivalent to her in Nine; then again, how could there be?)

Fans can really Steele themselves tomorrow, as the Chiller channel presents an all-day marathon of episodes of the prime-time version of Dark Shadows, which had a brief run in 1991. Too bad, as it's quite good. I discovered it while channel surfing a week or two ago (I was living overseas back then and was pretty much ignorant of it) and look forward to recording the episodes I missed. Steele had her biggest acting role in years in the show, as the physician attending to Barnabas Collins the vampire (a full-blooded performance by Ben Cross), and hasn't done all that much since. (She's listed as a producer of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, but I'm not sure that's accurate; she did, however, win an Emmy with Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis for producing War and Remembrance in the golden age of TV miniseries in the 80s. Joining Steele for this gratifyingly large assignment on the short-lived show were Jean Simmons, Roy Thinnes, Lysette Anthony...and, a big surprise for me, nine-year-old Joseph Gordon-Levitt, well before Third Rock from the Sun and his current, well-earned It Actor status. Surrounded by such a coven of talent so young no wonder he's turned out as well as he has.

Popdose: Big Christmas Packages

At the movies this holiday season: Not your Grandma's Sherlock Holmes, and an Avatar from the returning King of the World.

Live Design: End of 09

A starry revival of A Little Night Music, a new Mamet, and an Emperor Jones superbly acted by John Douglas Thompson (pictured) round out the year (or my year) in theater.

"TCM Remembers" too soon

TCM's annual remembrance short is much better and more thorough than the one at the Oscars, which always manages to overlook a few folks. This year's is no exception, and managed to fit in Richard Todd before it first aired--but we've lost one Oscar winner and other worthies since then, and my gut tells me there will be other losses through New Year's Eve (there always are this time of year.) Would it, err, kill TCM to put together the final assembly and broadcast it in January?

RIP Brittany Murphy

As I wrote to a Facebook friend, "When you're in Perez Hilton more than on movies or TV there's bound to be trouble." But I never thought it would end so badly for the 32-year-old performer, who should have become a major character actress. I hadn't seen her for a while, and was dismayed to learn that she changed her appearance and had become tabloid fodder, fit for parody on Saturday Night Live. Before the decline was a credible match for Eminem in 8 Mile (pictured), charmingly ditsy as the voice of Luanne on King of the Hill (admirably, a gig she maintained through thick and thin) and more than held up her end of the legendary 1997 revival of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge on Broadway. Film, TV, theater: There was versatility there that will go sadly untapped. Her 2004 film Uptown Girl was filmed right across the street from me on First Avenue and I saw her come and go; more memorable were her very different roles in films like Clueless, Girl, Interrupted, Spun (as a meth tweaker), Sin City, The Dead Girl, and another memorable voiceover role in Happy Feet. Just a damn shame.

RIP Robin Wood

More people pass away at this time of year than any other, and this year has been no exception. The Canadian film critic authored one of my favorite books, 1986's Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. His book about that turbulent and fertile era is all the more rewarding for its close readings of movies either difficult or dismissed (like Heaven's Gate and Cruising) and low-budget horror films on the fringes of respectability, like Eyes of a Stranger. His insight on these and so many others will be sorely missed.

Popdose: Harry Potter, Hangover on DVD

Round Six for the seemingly endless saga of Harry Potter, and a second helping of The Hangover, both on DVD in time for stocking stuffing.

RIP Dan O'Bannon

In space, no one can hear you scream...

RIP Jennifer Jones

For all intents and purposes Jones started her film career with a Best Actress Oscar for The Song of Bernadette in 1943; she ended it definitively a little over 30 years later with a dramatic plunge from The Towering Inferno ("poor Bernadette!" my mother gasped.) A third act of philanthropy--and avoidance of strolls down memory lane--followed. In between were four more Oscar nominations, two for films I like, 1946's lurid Duel in the Sun ("Pearl Chavez!") and a personal favorite, 1955's Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, as much for its views of a lost Hong Kong as for her own performance (pictured with co-star William Holden, she played mixed-race parts with as much delicacy, and sensuality, as the scripts allowed her). Other notable parts: 1948's Portrait of Jennie (with another great setting, a wintry Central Park), Vincente Minnelli's Madame Bovary (1949), William Wyler's Carrie (1952), driving Laurence Olivier to understandable distraction, and John Huston's We Were Strangers (1949), opposite John Garfield, and his curious Beat the Devil (1953). There's ample material there for a TCM tribute, which might excavate her obscure 60s credits The Idol and the eccentric Angel, Angel Down We Go.

Golden Globes, other awards orgs Hurt

We're in the thick of awards season now, with the largely unseen Hurt Locker getting the attention it deserves. As usual some goofy choices (we gave up on the tapped-out Entourage this season, shouldn't the Globes and the Emmys do the same?), some questionable ones (the praise for Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia may be overcooked), and some welcome ones--Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Stuhlbarg, etc. Guess I better get on the stick and see Nine (pictured), Up in the Air, and so on.

Susan Gordon speaks (and sings)

The former child star is pitching Pennies--The Five Pennies, that is, a film she co-starred in with Danny Kaye in 1959. It's part of this Wednesday's matinee performance of the Off Broadway show Danny and Sylvia: The Danny Kaye Musical, at St. Luke's Theatre. Her appearance will include a recreation of a number from the film.

Well, OK, fine, that's nice...but why do I care about this? Because Susan Gordon is the daughter of filmmaker Bert I. Gordon--the beloved "Mr. B.I.G.," whose drive-in creature features included The Amazing Colossal Man, War of the Colossal Beast, and Earth vs. the Spider. Susan Gordon appeared in 1958's Attack of the Puppet People, which reversed the format. I can't attend, but if I could I'd definitely ask her about dad, who's 87. And you know I'd be there if she brought the amazing colossal man with her.

Popdose: Singular Men

This week, Colin Firth is Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man for first-time director/fashionista Tom Ford, and Christian McKay (pictured) excels as Orson Welles in Me and Orson Welles.

Popdose:The Golden Age of Television on DVD

The era of live TV and the original versions of Marty, Days of Wine and Roses, and Patterns returns via a Criterion Collection DVD set of the 1981 PBS series The Golden Age of Television. Was all that glittered really gold?

Room with a view on Broadway

My review of Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or the vibrator play is online at the Live Design site. But it may be lurking behind a firewall (where, groan, Variety is retreating) so here it is...

"The Lincoln Center Theater production of Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room or the vibrator play is housed in Broadway’s oldest theatre, the Lyceum. It’s the perfect place for the show, whose period setting—the 1880s, as electricity was being introduced—matches the antique atmosphere of the venue. Progress and its discontents are a theme of the comedy, which focuses on a doctor (four-time Tony nominee Michael Cerveris) who treats neurotic women for “hysteria,” a medical condition at that time. The treatment, which involves electrical stimulation of the delicate regions, proves wildly popular among his clientele—but neither the women, nor the men in their lives, realize the stress-relieving “paroxysms” for what they are. This includes the doctor’s wife (Laura Benanti, a Tony winner for Gypsy, who, dissatisfied with her life after the birth of their first child, secretly uses the equipment on herself—and begins to feel an unexpected surge of affection for her husband’s first male patient (Chandler Williams), a lovelorn artist who, in one of the show’s funniest scenes, endures/enjoys his own tailor-made treatment.

After the excruciatingly whimsical Dead Man’s Cell Phone, I’d disconnected on Ruhl, but this new play matches the style of earlier shows like The Clean House and Eurydice with more heartfelt substance. (And bigger laughs, too, as the actors, especially Maria Dizzia as one of the doctor’s more avid patients, react to the therapy.) Best known for their musical parts Cerveris (in a rare performance with hair) and Benanti are affectingly awkward as the couple, who little comprehend one another’s needs, at a time when people didn’t know or acknowledge that they had needs. Under the confident direction of Les Waters, they and the rest of the cast, including Quincy Tyler Bernstine as the more knowledgeable wet nurse employed by the doctor, give performances that respond nimbly to the shifts in tone in Ruhl’s work.

There are, perhaps, too many gear changes; after a brisk first act the second act dips in pace, though the design team rallies with a lovely coup that ends the show on a romantic note. Until that time this is the most naturalistic production Ruhl has written, with a handsome two-room set, by Annie Smart, that is ideal for drawing room comedy—one is the living room, and the “next” is the operating theatre. David Zinn’s richly detailed costumes, which require much effort to work around for the treatments to take place, are a constant source of pleasure, as is Russell Champa’s dawn-of-electricity illumination; lighting is referred to often in the text, and Champa’s takes full, yet understated, advantage of the opportunity. Jonathan Bell’s evocative original score is a primary recipient of Bray Poor’s fine sound design. Abuzz with humor and heartache, the vibrator play proves a vibrant work."

Design award winners announced

Set designers David Korins and Derek McLane, and lighting designers Clint Ramos and Kevin Adams, are among this year's winners of the Henry Hewes Design Awards. McLane and projection designer Jeff Sugg are feted for their work on the play 33 Variations. Pictured is of course Hair, with Adams' award-winning illumination.

World ends

I don't watch soaps, but the passing of The Guiding Light and now the 54-year-old As the World Turns affect me. As someone notes in the article, the soaps, born in the Great Depression, are dying out in the Great Recession. It's like the last T-rex collapsing dead at your feet. Judging by the pic, though, it did try to stay relevant.

RIP Richard Todd

I'd sort of sworn off obits, but the British actor, an Oscar nominee for 1949's The Hasty Heart, has an unusual distinction on his resume. A hero parachutist of the Normandy landings, Todd co-starred in two films about D-Day, D-Day: The Sixth of June and The Longest Day, where he was portrayed by other actors. His best-known role was in another WWII-related film, 1955's The Dam Busters, an influence on Star Wars. Other credits included a stint as Robin Hood for Disney in the 50s, Hitchcock's Stage Fright ( 1950) and King Vidor's noir Lightning Strikes Twice (1951), Raleigh to Bette Davis's Queen Elizabeth I in 1956's The Virgin Queen, Never Let Go (1960) opposite a villainous Peter Sellers, and a memorable turn as a calculating professor-turned-guru in 1967's conservatively counter-cultural The Love-Ins.

RIP Paul Naschy

I've slowed on posting death notices of late, but I really should say goodbye to the "Spanish Lon Chaney,", a beloved figure in horror movie circles, and one of the handful of performers who might still be considered genuine stars of the genre. But Naschy didn't just act; he was a one-man band, enthusiastically reviving all the classic monsters in uneven but distinctive pictures that kept many a TV-watching insomniac entertained when edited, cropped, and subtitled prints turned up. (Frankenstein's Bloody Terror, which introduced his best-known werewolf character, the cursed Waldemar Daninsky, and Count Dracula's Great Love were in a seeming loop of syndication in the early days of cable.) The psycho thriller Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll and the witchcraft film Horror Rises from the Tomb, with Naschy in a dual role, are worth seeking out on DVD, as is Bloody Terror, a Frankenstein-less werewolf and vampire saga, which U.S. distributor Sam Sherman sorts out in a marvelous commentary track. Naschy clearly enjoyed his rediscovery on disc and was himself a welcome contributor to the medium.

Gods, Monsters, and Showboat

The great James Whale is getting a one-week retrospective at New York's Film Forum starting tomorrow. What fun--the Frankensteins, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, and, beyond the macabre, his legendary filming of Showboat (with Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan), The Man in the Iron Mask, and one of the strangest screwball comedies, Remember Last Night?, which really boggled me when I saw it on TCM earlier this year. All this plus Ian McKellen's Oscar-nominated performance as Whale in 1998's Gods and Monsters. It's a Whale of a week (puns and wordplay; my only weakness...).

Beyond the Canon

Now here's a film list I can get behind. A few months ago I was asked to participate in an effort to determine the next 100 best films of all time, beyond the standard 100. This was a compelling undertaking that the indefatigable Iain Stott committed to, and it makes for fascinating reading. The list is here; and here are my choices. 1934's The Black Cat (pictured) made it onto my list and the official one. Now go see some movies.

The horror of Cineaste

A special focus on contemporary horror films is a big part of Cineaste this edition, and I'm pleased to have played a part in bringing it to Frankenstein-ian life. Articles in the magazine are a critique of Saw and "torture porn," a look at the chaste vampirism of Twilight, and my friend and colleague John Calhoun on Let the Right One In and other childhood terrors. Online you'll find an interview with Re-Animator and Stuck director Stuart Gordon, Richard Harland Smith's authoritative viral history of zombie movies post-Night of the Living Dead, and my own roundup of horror movie books. "To avoid fainting, keep repeating...it's only a magazine...only a magazine..."