Every endeavor involves 2 things: skill and luck. Depending on what the endeavor is, more of one may be needed than the other. Concert pianist? Your odds of playing all the right notes in a concerto by luck are pretty low. Actor? Anyone can do it. Bodybuilders, wrestlers, singers, comedians. Luck is paramount. Technologist? My experience in software engineering is that it’s a skills-based profession. If you know things other people don’t know and you can solve problems other people can’t solve, you are the king or queen of the programming jungle. That said, I can’t recommend a course or bootcamp or resume trick, and in a bad market, you may need some luck, but it’s a skills-based profession. Skills and hard work. Get behind the mule and plow. Thus spoke The Programmer. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Actors
It’s Called Acting, My Dear Boy
Bros Actor Guy Branum Blasts The Whale and Brendan Fraser’s Casting — movieweb.com In which a couple of fat gay actors complain that Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming move The Whale casts Brendan Fraser, who is not gay or especially fat, as a 600-pound gay man. “Who knows more about being an obese queer man than an obese queer man?” asks Daniel Franzese, an obese queer man. This reminds me of a story (which admittedly Dustin Hoffman has said is not quite accurate) about Marathon Man, in which Hoffman starred with Laurence Olivier. Hoffman showed up one day having not slept the night before so he could shoot a scene in which his character had not slept the night before. Olivier thought it was absurd. “It’s called acting, my dear boy,” he said. Olivier in that movie played a cold-blooded Nazi killer, that is, a cold-blooded Nazi who killed people, not a… Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
John Amos, actor Meredith Baxter, actress Lou Christie, pop singer Jaime Farr, actor David Hartman, TV host Judd Hirsch, actor Stacy Keach, actor Bernie Kopell, actor Michael Learned, actress Lee Majors, actor Lee Meriwether, actress Ryan O’Neal, actor Gene Shalit, film and book critic Leslie Uggams, singer/actress Liv Ullmann, actress Burt Ward, actor Updates John Amos, died 8/24/2024, age 84 Ryan O’Neal, died 12/8/2023, age 82 Read more →
And That’s the Truth: Sidney Poitier
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth — PE] God he was a handsome man. I seen that he died. He was described as a “legendary actor and civil rights activist.” Black folks got to get over the notion that all they problems are caused by other people. Nobody likes Jews but Jews done very well for theyselves. We had a Jewish man, Bernie Sanders, run for president two times and I never once heard him even mention that he was Jewish or that you was a Jew-hater if you disagreed with him. A black person run for some office, everything about race. You can’t disagree on the merits, you can only disagree because you a racist. I would like to hear someone explain Asian success to me in the context of white supremacy. America has always treated Asians very badly . . .… Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
Jean-Luc Godard, film director, screenwriter Earl Holliman, actor Tony Kubek, baseball player and broadcaster Steve Lawrence, singer John le Carré, novelist Jill St. John, actress Clarence Williams III, actor Updates John le Carré, died 12/12/2020 Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
Mario Andretti, auto racer Leslie Caron, actress Mitzi Gaynor, actress/singer/dancer Marla Gibbs, actress Bobby Goldsboro, singer Mikhail Gorbachev, General Secretary of the USSR Howard Hesseman, actor Sally Kellerman, actress Peter Lupus, actor Gavin MacLeod, actor Robert MacNeil, TV journalist Jackie Mason, comedian Lee Meriweather, actress, former Miss America George Mitchell, U.S. Senator Jaye P. Morgan, singer/game show panelist Bill Moyers, journalist Charley Pride, singer Dean Stockwell, actor Fred Williamson, athlete/actor Updates Mitzi Gaynor, died 10/17/2024, age 93 Mikhail Gorbachev, died 8/30/2022, age 91 Howard Hesseman, died 1/29/2022, age 81 Sally Kellerman, died 2/24/2022, age 84 Gavin MacLeod, died 5/29/2021, age 90 Jackie Mason, died 7/24/2021, age 93 Charley Pride, died 12/12/2020, age 86 Robert MacNeil, died 4/12/2024, age 93 Dean Stockwell, died 11/7/2021, age 85 Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
Earl Holliman, actor Sonny Jurgensen, football player Bill Mazeroski, baseball player Vera Miles, actress Pete Wilson, politician Read more →
See You in Hell: Morgan Freeman Edition
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings from the underworld! I was looking forward to reading the “shocking” allegations against Morgan Freeman . . . it turns out he likes to look at women’s breasts! WHAAAAT?! Men like to look at breasts, women like to look at breasts . . . and he also says things like “I’d like to spend an hour with her.” Every person on earth older than 12 has said the same thing. If looking at breasts and naming a person you’d like to fuck gets you condemned to Hell, I’m not going to have enough room to put all these people. Heaven will be empty! Public life in America is now dominated by whatever actresses are currently complaining about. See you in Hell! Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
Herb Alpert – trumpeter Max Baer Jr. – actor, “The Beverly Hillbillies” Barbara Bain – actress, “Mission: Impossible” Brigitte Bardot – actress Rona Barrett – gossip columnist Frank Borman – astronaut Roy Clark – musician Roger Corman – film producer Robert Crumb – cartoonist Bill Daily – actor Vic Damone – singer Angie Dickinson – actress Annette and Cecile Dionne – quintuplets Sam Donaldson – TV newscaster Hugh Downs – TV announcer Daniel Ellsberg – released theย Pentagon Papers Barbara Feldon – actress Fannie Flagg – actress and game show panelist Larry Flynt – publisher ofย Hustler Whitey Ford – baseball pitcher A.J. Foyt – auto racer Ron Gallela – celebrity photographer, aka “paparazzo” Whitey Herzog – baseball manager Ernest Hollings – U.S. senator Cloris Leachman – actress Tom Lehrer – musical satirist Jerry Lee Lewis – singer and pianist G. Gordon Liddy – Watergate mastermind Rich Little – impressionist Peter Max… Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
People who advise you to “embrace failure.” Probably good advice, but if I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it ten thousand times. We get it: Embrace Failure. Let’s move on already. Extra demerits: You have opinions on other completely played-out topics like management vs. leadership and how to optimize your LinkedIn profile. People who say “Can I put you on hold for a moment?” and then immediately put me on hold without giving me a chance to sigh ostentatiously and say “If you must.” Full-grown adults who tell you how sexually attracted they are to an actor or actress in a movie. Extra demerits: You invent your own fawning vocabulary with words like “droolworthy.” Your ability to be sexually aroused by a fantasy on a movie screen doesn’t enhance my opinion of you at all. Try maintaining a relationship in real life with someone who’s no more attractive than you… Read more →
Philip Seymour Hoffman, 1967-2014
Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead Sunday of an apparent drug overdose at his Manhattan apartment. Police responded to the 46-year-old’s apartment in the West Village shortly after 11 a.m., police sources told FoxNews.com. A friend found his body in the apartment and phoned police. Hoffman was alone in his bathroom when he was discovered with a heroin-filled needle in his arm, law enforcement sources said. — Philip Seymour Hoffman found dead in NYC apartment from apparent drug overdose I am really shocked to hear that. People are shooting up heroin first thing in the morning?! To me, a shot of heroin — like a nice, warm bath — is best enjoyed in the evening, to unwind after the travails of the day. This is yet another blow to a theory that most Americans believe, which is that wealth is synonymous with happiness. Philip Seymour Hoffman, he’s in… Read more →
James Gandolfini Will See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] James Gandolfini is in Hell now. He says hi, and thanks for all the kind words. I’ve been at this gig a long time now but it still amazes me the hyperbole that surrounds the death of actors. Every one of them who dies is one of the great thespians of all time, if you buy into the post-mortem hype. Most lines of work have objective standards. When Joe Shlabotnik bites the dust, you can’t eulogize him as one of the great ballplayers of all time. But acting is something anyone can do well. You learn the script, say your lines and pick up your check. “He died too soon,” people say. When was he supposed to die? Like we can’t find another fat Italian guy to learn a script, say his lines and pick up… Read more →
The Career of a Character Actor
“Who’s Jack Elam? Get me Jack Elam. Get me a Jack Elam type. Get me a young Jack Elam. Who’s Jack Elam?” — Jack Elam (1920-2003), interviewed in 1976 Read more →
Trained Dogs
When Righteous Kill came out recently, the build-up was that it featured Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, “the most acclaimed actors of our time.” So what’s the big hit at the box office? Beverly Hills Chihuahua, a talking dog movie. When you’re “the most acclaimed X of our time” and you can be replaced by a trained dog, you know you’re in a stupid profession. Read more →
HW’s Movie Reviews: The Dark Knight
It was a sickness: this great interest in a medium that relentlessly and consistently failed to produce anything at all. People became so used to seeing shit on film that they no longer realized it was shit. — Charles Bukowski, Hollywood Haven’t seen it. Might see it . . . not sure yet. I’ve seen the trailer though and I’ll tell you something: Heath Ledger is TERRIBLE! That’s not acting! Put the same makeup on somebody else, give ’em a script, let ’em read the same lines . . . there’s a million people who could do the same thing. You don’t think so? You don’t think Heath Ledger knew that? Why do you think he’s dead of an overdose? Read more →