I was at the Walgreen's the other day when I saw that Whitney Houston's greatest hits was being sold at the counter, with a sticker boasting that it was a "GREAT PRICE!" Which was $9.99. Yes, that's an amazing price for something that was in the discount bin a month ago. As much as the Michael Jackson death and…

@avclub-7d26c14b4a096a0afc48154974c4b7d6:disqus I'd add a codicil: Clooney needs a director who isn't himself. I know people liked Good Night And Good Luck, but that movie would have been much better had it not been directed as though it were a breezy comedy with a bit of McCarthy in there.

Isn't that photo from The Happening? I remember watching that movie, thinking that there's no way Shyamalan could possibly make something worse. And then he did. I never say that anymore.

It did the best it could with a bad situation.

That too.

Apologies for the formatting here, something went haywire.

Should I have written, "Co-starring Brent Spiner"?

I'd believe that even if it weren't coming from one of the most crotchety men on the face of the planet.

Benny's Blog: Incubus II

Benny's Blog: Incubus

Have you ever wondered what the movie Mr. Brooks would have been like if it had starred Avery Brooks? I have.

Next week, my affiliation with Mr. Leslie Stevens goes south as I recount the harrowing adventures of filming his misbegotten Incubus, starring of course William Shatner.

Benny's Blog: The Outer Limits Days

Next week, Benny hits the L.A. sci-fi scene in 1959, hobnobs with bigshots, meets a young man named Roddenberry and gets chewed out by Martin Landau.

I try to avoid cursing, though now that I'm old it's hard to be very uptight about that or much of anything else these days.

Benny's Blog: The Road Gets Tougher

I've admittedly lost touch with them. Last I heard, they were living in a commune in India. Will tell the full story later on.

Depends on the drug. Marijuana, probably would be able to tell us apart. PCP, I doubt it. But then you get into a discussion of what variety, what intensity, and so forth.

The industry has changed a lot from when I broke in. But all I know is, and this is hard to describe, there is this sense you get when you have something, when you're building on something, that's different from when you're not. If you have good taste, all you have to do is trust that sense and cultivate it. And never…

Can't say I did. Was sorry to hear he died a little while back. I just did some freelance scripts for the show, there was some talk of my getting a staff job but then the show ended. I was writing for a few shows at the time, including three Hill Street Blues. The '80s were a rough decade for me, part of a long…