Oooh! Mandy Patinkin singing "Buddy Can You Spare A Dime" is AMAZING—he builds it and builds it as the seething rage in his voice finally explodes in the last few notes. ("Say, don't you remember? I'm your pal!! BUDDY! Can you spare a dime?!?!?!")

Lovely vocals/arrangement, but he turns the lyrics to gibberish and nothing in it rhymes or flows.

I was substitute teaching in a middle school acting class in California, and that day the teacher had the class watching "The Wizard of Oz" on DVD—why, I don't know. (I gave a very brief opening pitch about the different actors' physicality—Ray Bolger's straw-filled legs, Jack Haley's stiffness, Bert Lahr's…

It's been awhile since an episode of "MF" made me laugh as hard as Gloria in the wind chamber at the museum—she was doing comedic physical stuff that was almost as good as Debra Messing and the water bra on "Will and Grace," or Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams in the heyday of "Laverne and Shirley."

Some people apparently think it's "mean" that Jaden Smith is getting smacked down like this when he's "only a kid." He's been smirking his way across screens for several years now, always coming across as an entitled little brat who can't act his way out of a wet paper bag; let him cry all the way to Daddy's bank. …

As someone who received Rick Mintz's immortal "The Great TV Sitcom Book" for my 14th birthday around 1980—and rely on it as a Bible for pretty much all sitcoms up through "WKRP" and "Taxi"—this new book sounds like a major turn-off written by a poseur. Just a few quibbles: why "Leave It To Beaver" and not "Father…

I agree, "Huge" was a truly excellent show with an amazing cast. Every week I was so impressed with how good the writing and direction were, and how every actor (but especially all the kids) filled in a zillion tiny details to make their characters rich and complex. I was really astonished and bummed when it wasn't…

Thank you, I was astonished no one had mentioned Burnett yet. Arguably the most important woman in American comedy behind Lucille Ball. Yes, Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey and others are also hugely influential and brilliant, but I don't think they engender the kind of love Burnett…

Always glad to bat these sorts of ideas around with a fellow traveler. :) BTW, my favorite actress is actually Michelle Pfeiffer.

You may be the only person I've ever met who liked "The Main Event." Not a criticism, just….wow. Very rare. (I think it's her worst movie and performance.) But "Doc" is a comedy classic.

Have you seen "Funny Girl"? Track down Pauline Kael's review of it, then go back and watch it again; Kael commented "she uses song as Astaire used dance—expressively, to complete a character." No one besides Judy Garland (or maybe Julie Andrews) is as completely expressive a performer on film. (Which is why in some…

"With Streisand, you do not play—you work your butt off. All this stuff about ego clashes is pure B.S."—James Caan

No, I remember reading that somewhere too—and she always said that he was her favorite co-star, and how wonderful and kind he was, which didn't play very well with segregation-minded audiences. She was one of the last of the Rockerfeller Republicans, liberal/moderate on social issues and fairly progressive for the…

That was the whole point—some manager or agent told her she was too ethnic and since she wouldn't get a nose job, "at least change your name." (He was thinking Barbara Sands or somesuch.) She did, in fact, change it, and told people so: from Barbara to Barbra. That way she could say that she'd already changed it if…

I saw this in high school and thought it was the most boring, talky thing I'd ever seen—after Funny Barbra from "Funny Girl" and "What's Up Doc" and action guy Redford from "The Sting" "Downhill Racer" and "Brubaker," I wasn't prepared for two people falling in and out love for two hours. I watched it again in…

Michael Jackson proclaimed himself "The King of Pop," and refused to do interviews with people unless they used that moniker to describe him. (Same reason journalists still routinely call his youngest son "Blanket" instead of Prince Michael Jackson II.) Jackson's talent was only matched/exceeded by his ego;…

There are some terrific soul/R & B covers of the Beatles (remember the kid in the street singing "Let It Be" in "Across the Universe"?). However, I remember being in Ashland a couple years ago, and a local theater was doing an evening of these sorts of soul covers, and their advertising spin was how much "better" and…

When Harrison died, an editorial cartoonist in the newspaper did a sketch version of the black and white photo from, I believe, "Meet the Beatles"—but only Starr and McCartney were drawn in, and where Lennon and Harrison had been was just inky blackness. That was a punch in the gut.

Shockingly, Karen Carpenter.

RO Sutwell and others briefly mentioned "The Bishop's Wife," but I think it deserves a little more of a boost. Yes, when you say "Cary Grant" everyone thinks of "North by Northwest" "Gunga Din" "Holiday" "Bringing Up Baby" "Only Angels Have Wings" "The Philadelphia Story" "Suspicion" "Notorious" "To Catch a Thief"…