Monthly Archives: February 2014

Our friend Frank Ferrante has just concluded a four-month run in Teatro ZinZanni, a wonderful dinner show in Seattle. Now, he's back on the road doing his lovely one-man (plus pianist) show, An Evening With Groucho, all across America.

If you're in Southern California, you can see him this Wednesday night. He's doing a benefit for the Red Cross at San Marino High School. Details and tickets are available here. If you can't make it there, he'll be down in Cerritos on April 13. Details and tickets for that are available here.

Between now and then, he'll be in Pensacola, Florida and Carmel, Indiana and West Palm Beach, Florida and Carterville, Illinois and LaPeer, Michigan and Queens, New York and Red Bank, New Jersey and Ocala, Florida and there are other dates later in the year. If he wanders near you, go see him. Every time he performs, I get at least one e-mail from someone who says, "I went to see Frank Ferrante on your recommendation and he was even better that I imagined." It's the closest thing you'll ever see to actually being in the same room as the one, the only…Groucho.

I am shocked as any of you about the sudden death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. He was a terrific actor and I have nothing to add to that discussion.

The Woody Allen debate goes on, as I suppose it will forever. I fear this matter has already reached the stage where the truth doesn't matter to a lot of people; only how they can use the issue to promote themselves and their causes. Scandals debated in public quickly move past the stage where they're really about what they're really about. Everyone does agree that raping a child is among the most loathsome, sick things a human being can do. Not everyone agrees that every accusation must be treated as incontrovertible proof of that crime. And yes, some of us admire the guy's work so we'd like to believe it's not so…but that doesn't mean it's so.

It's yet another good day to not be Chris Christie.  We seem to be having a lot of them lately.

Good article in the L.A. Times about our friend, Disney Legend Floyd Norman. The thing to always remember about Floyd is that while he gets a lot of his honors and attention because he was the studio's first black animator, he also deserves them for non-racial reasons. He's just simply a very talented guy.

Another talented cartooning friend of mine, Scott Shaw!, has not been well lately and all his friends were very concerned for his health. So was I until last night when he phoned me. He had an infection, it's going away and he should be up and functioning shortly. Happy news.

I got Scott's call last night when I was heading home from Instaplay. This is a local improv show that I've plugged here before and have always enjoyed. What it is is that a talented troupe of folks — last night, Jonathan Stark, Cheri Steinkellner, George McGrath and guest performers Phyllis Katz and Navaris Darson, all led by director Bill Steinkellner and accompanied by pianist Mari Falcone — improvise an entire musical comedy from a title suggested by someone in the audience. We nominate many, we vote, and the winning title gets performed.

The winning title last night was "An Extra is Born" and it turned into a very funny play about a couple in Italy that breaks up when the man decides his life's dream is to go to Hollywood and get a job eating at a table in a scene behind Tom Hanks. The audience howled but nothing in it is really quotable out of context. You had to be there. If you're in the Los Angeles area and would like to be there next time, you should know that next time will be April 5th. I'll let you know here when tix go on sale.

As usual, I will not be watching the Super Bowl. I'll be sitting here, working on an assignment. I wish I had someplace I wanted to go this evening that I've always wanted to go to but didn't because it would be too crowded except on Super Bowl night.

Hey, let's watch an episode of the 1960 TV show, Championship Bridge! This was a syndicated TV series on which hosts Alex Dreier and Charles Goren did play-by-play as four great bridge players played the game.

Why the hell are we watching this? Because one of the players in this episode is Chico Marx, making what some claim was his last TV appearance ever. He passed away on October 11, 1961.

Throughout, the hosts refer to him as "Cheeko." Those who knew him — like, say, his brother Groucho — always pronounced it "Chicko," noting that the nickname came about because he liked to chase chicks (i.e., cute women). I dunno why Chico didn't tell the hosts how to pronounce his name but maybe by then, so many people had gotten it wrong that he'd given up.

You probably won't want to watch the whole thing but you might want to watch a little of it, especially if unlike me, you know how bridge is played. There's actually a website that diagrams this particular game so you can study it and decide what you'd have done. In case you don't make it to the end, Chico and his partner lose badly and Chico, saying one of the few funny things he says during the program, insists, "It was a close match until the first hand."

One more view of the Woody Allen situation. Roger Friedman thinks there is a calculated campaign and…well, read it for yourself.

This whole thing is a shame but I'm not sure what kind of shame it is. If Allen really did molest the girl then it's a shame he's getting away with it and she was as hurt as she said in her article. If he didn't molest the girl, then it's a shame she's experienced all that hurt, "remembering" something that didn't happen and it's a shame Allen can never fully clear his name.

At some point, maybe soon, I'll probably stop reading these articles because there seems to be no resolution possible. But it felt important to link to this one.

• Friends mock me for caring so little about football that this year, I decided to wager on the Super Bowl. Just bet a hundred on the Rams.

We interrupt our work to bring you this…

Since I linked to a defense of Woody Allen a few days ago, I feel I should link to this. It's an open letter from Dylan Farrow, who says that she was sexually molested by Allen when she was seven years old. There's also this from Nicholas Kristof, a columnist and friend of Farrow's who helping publicize her side of the dispute.

I have no opinion on what happened in the attic long ago and believe most people expressing one should admit that they don't know, either. I do think too much is being made of the Golden Globes honoring Allen but that's because I think the Golden Globes are kind of a joke. I could round up ten friends, we could pick out a cool name for a trophy, decide on Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor and other categories…and then, if we were as good at P.R. and promotion as the unknown folks at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, our award could be taken just as seriously. I also disagree with Kristof when he says…

The standard to send someone to prison is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but shouldn't the standard to honor someone be that they are unimpeachably, well, honorable? Yet the Golden Globes sided with Allen, in effect accusing Dylan either of lying or of not mattering. That's the message that celebrities in film, music and sports too often send to abuse victims.

I doubt the Golden Globes' "siding" went any farther than just saying Allen has produced an impressive body of work…and maybe that they thought it would garner attention and credibility for their lightweight award to give him one. Dylan probably didn't enter into the decision, nor did anyone's personal life.

In 2003, the Motion Picture Academy gave Roman Polanski a Best Directing Oscar for The Pianist. Now, Polanski's guilt in a child molestation case is admitted and inarguable but the Academy wasn't siding against his victim or approving or forgiving his actions in that matter. They were just saying they thought he had done the best directing job of that year. It's possible to have that opinion and also believe that the man who did that best directing is a sex criminal.

Is Woody Allen? I don't know and barring a Perry Mason Moment from Dylan or Woody — someone blurting out a confession — I don't think we'll ever know. But I do know he's made some great movies so I can at least say that with some certainty.

I have much to write today of a deadline nature so there will be little if any posting here today. I'll make it up to you tomorrow or Monday with a very long Tale of My Childhood.

Turner Classic Movies is running A Thousand Clowns tomorrow morning. That's one of those movies you should see if you've never seen it. Later in the day, they also have a few more like that: The Caine Mutiny, The Defiant Ones, 12 Angry Men and The Lost Weekend.

Someone pointed out to me a mistake I made on the commentary track for the new Criterion release of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. I said that the police calls, which were played in first-run theaters during intermission, were included on the Laserdisc release. Not true. The Criterion DVD/Blu-ray set is the first time they've been available on home video.

I hear the set is selling very well and I see it's getting raves from all the online professional reviewers. There are, of course, some complainers on Amazon, most of whom don't seem to get the fact that when you do a restored version of a movie, putting back footage that was lost and had to be found, the audio and video may not be perfect even after extensive correction and processing. I especially like the guy who complained that the package that holds the discs doesn't contain a Table of Contents. He might try looking at the flap that says "Disc Contents." I'm sure that if Criterion ever issues a Russ Meyer set, the same guy will complain on Amazon that the movies don't have any women with large breasts.

Okay, back to work on this, another good day to not be Chris Christie…

37 years of Best Visual Effects winners at the Oscars…