Meet James Best (Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on THE DUKES OF HAZZARD) This Friday

Ever see THE DUKES OF HAZZARD? Well, Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best) will be in Greenville, IL this Friday and Saturday. He will be giving a special one-man show at the Globe Theatre Friday night and will be at Greenville Graffiti on Saturday as an honored guest and judge. If you are available Friday evening, I highly recommend you come out for the one-man show. It's not all that well known outside the entertainment community, but Best ran one of the most respected acting workshops in Hollywood for several decades. In addition to his cast mates on THE DUKES OF HAZZARD he was a mentor to Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, Gary Busey, Teri Garr, Lindsay Wagner, Farrah Fawcett, and even Quentin Tarantino. If you have an interest in the movie business, this is one show you don't want to miss out on. Hollywood doesn't come this close to your neighborhood very often

So Long, Egon

Courtesy of MegaCynics.

B.J. Novak Becomes a Novelist

So, BJ Novak, one of the producers of the American THE OFFICE and on-again, off-again real life boyfriend of Mindy Kaling has a book of comical short stories coming out on February 4th. I'm not a big fan of celebrities who become authors. However, Novak has been writing for a long time and I'm willing to read his book. I love the promo they shot for it. Watch it below.

R.I.P. Annette Funicello

I'm thankful that my parents introduced us to the wonderful work of Annette Funicello. She was the first teen pop sensation. Rest in peace, Annette.

Justin Timberlake

I'm not a fan of Justin Timberlake. He has a smidgen of talent and is completely overrated. However, I always assumed he was intelligent. That was until I read an interview with him in the Oct. 8, 2010 edition of Entertainment Weekly. His quotes say it all.

On whether or not he will be making another album: "All I'm saying is, in very simple terms, I'll know when I know. And until I know, I don't know."

On if there is anything he would like to do in movies that he hasn't: "You talk about film with me, I'm like an open flesh wound. But in good ways, too. Sensitive to everything, sensitive to what could be great, afraid of success and afraid of failure."

Jeff Bridges' SNL Promos

Jeff Bridges is hosting Saturday Night Live this Saturday, December 18, 2010. Like most of the guest hosts for the show, there's a series of short promos that are airing on tv this week. Below are the three Jeff made. The best of the three is the last one where Jeff introduces Joel and Ethan Coen. It made me laugh.

Famous People Born on November 30th

Famous people born on November 30th:

Sir Phillip Sidney-1554
Jonathan Swift-1667
Sir Phillip Sidney-
Mark Twain-1835
Winston Churchill-1874
Robert Guillaume-1927
Dick Clark-1929
David Mamet-1947
Mandy Patinkin-1952
Billy Idol-1955
Ben Stiller-1965
Tom Varner-1976 (not the famous French Horn player)
Clay Aiken-1978
Elisha Cuthbert-1982
Kaley Cuoco-1985

Farewell, Leslie Nielsen

Actor Leslie Nielsen passed away today (Sunday, November 28, 2010). Nielsen was born Feb. 11, 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan. I was first introduced to Nielsen when my Dad rented a VHS copy of Disney's SWAMP FOX and showed it to me. He was a great dramatic actor, but he was surely a great comic actor, too. Wouldn't you agree, Shirley?

Jennifer Grey and DANCING WITH THE STARS

I have a confession to make: I'm semi-addicted to the current season of DANCING WITH THE STARS. Until a couple months ago, I had never seen an episode of the show. However, one of the contestants this season is Kurt Warner. Warner was one of my Dad's favorite football players of all time and I know if he was still alive, he would be watching the show because of Warner. Warner's retired from football and hasn't lived in St. Louis for years, but there are a lot of people in and around the St. Louis area who still remember him for the classy athlete he is.

Anyway, so I've seen four episodes this season and there are some things I noticed very quickly. First of all, the judges have their favorites. This was evident from the very beginning. They probably won't ever admit it, but they do. It's obvious in their comments and how they relate with the contestants.

I'm not sure how other seasons have been, but this season had two contestants who had a huge advantage over the other contestants: Brandy and Jennifer Grey. Brandy is a huge musical act with a major background not only in singing, but dancing. As for Grey, one her biggest claims to fame (after being the daughter of legendary character actor Joel Grey) is that she was the lead female in the movie Dirty Dancing. I know the dancing in that movie wasn't quite the same thing and Grey has had some physical ailments that have hindered her physicality in recent years. However, unlike a lot of the contestants on the show, she's not a dancing novice.

I'm not trying to be flippant because I know Grey was in a major car accident a few years ago and also had thyroid cancer. However, she seems to be a major whiner. She's always complaining about some body part or other hurting or about how hard it is for a woman her age to be competing. I think a lot of it is just a show for the cameras for sympathy. I've never seen her wince once during the actual competition. Not only that, but she is clearly the judges favorite. There have been a couple of times where she made some error (I'm not a dancer, so if you make an error and I catch it, you know it's big), but the judges have glossed over it and given her a 9 or 10. She also is really good at putting on a big emotional display, usually accompanied with tears, for the judges after dancing.

Jennifer Grey is the woman the judges want to win. Just think of the headlines: DIRTY DANCING STAR WINS DANCING WITH THE STARS. Personally, the consistent whining I've heard from her has really turned me off and I hope she gets voted out off before the finale.

Most Influential Man in America?

I debated about mentioning this. However, the results of the survey are floating all over the Internet and I'm sure it'll be talked about on radio shows for days, weeks, and (where news is slow) in some cases months to come.

Today a website called AskMen.com revealed the results of their annual "Most Influential Men" list. According to the website, Jon Stewart is the most influential man in America.

Really? I really don't think AskMen.com is a very reliable source of information. Even though it has actual paid writers on staff, the issues discussed about (outside of health matters) are often less reliable than information found on Wikipedia. Also, other than the gimmicks they do, such as this annual list, no one even knows the website exists.

That aside, they rank Jon Stewart as the most influential man in America. There's also three people listed in their top ten that I've never heard of before: #8 Graydon Carter, #9 Jose Mourinho, and #10 Elon Musk. I'm an avid reader and still read newspapers and magazines in addition to books. I'll be the first to admit that there's so much I don't know and that I'm not as cultured or experienced as many others. Still, you would think I'd of heard of all the people in the top ten list of the most influential men in America. But #8, #9, and #10 were completely unknowns. After doing some research I discovered that Carter is the editor for Vanity Fair, Mourinho is a soccer coach, and Musk is the co-founder of PayPal. That makes sense now because Vanity Fair is a magazine that no one reads, soccer is a sport that will never be popular in America, and unless you let people know you co-founded PayPal no one is going to know.

The real most influential man in America is a multi-billionaire (#35 of the richest people in the world) that the usual publications tend to ignore: George Soros. Soros broke the British pound in 1992 and made hundreds of millions of dollars off the stock market crash and Great Recession in 2008 (there is circumstantial evidence that he actually helped start the recession and cause the crash just so he could make more money). Soros isn't as recognizable as other American billionaires, but the guy has his hands in more political and media organizations (mostly progressive in nature) than anyone else in the country.

Jon Stewart is the most influential man in America? That's only because Soros wants you to think that. Wink, wink.

R.I.P. Stephen J. Cannell

I just found out that Stephen J. Cannell died a couple of days ago from complications from melanoma (skin cancer). A lot of people might not know who Cannell is, but at one time he was one of the most powerful tv executives around. He created two of my favorite tv shows that I watched as a kid: The Greatest American Hero and The A-Team. He was the creator of a lot of other shows too, including The Rockford Files, Hunter, Hardcastle and McCormick, Wiseguy, The Commish, and Renegade. He was a producer who was very hands on with his projects: he wrote many of the shows he produced, he directed a lot of them, and some of them he even acted in.

R.I.P. Tony Curtis

Actor Tony Curtis died yesterday (Thurs. Sept. 30, 2010). Curtis acted in a lot of movies, but the two I've seen I remember him in the most are Some Like It Hot and Spartacus. From what I've seen in the pictures, Curtis was a talented actor who never quite got his due.

A year and a half ago I had the opportunity to meet Curtis in Chicago. He was very friendly and seemed to enjoy signing autographs and the attention he was getting, though he was prone to wandering (particularly his hands on ladies bottoms and bosoms). Apparently, he died in his sleep at home. Rest in peace, Mr. Curtis.

Joaquin Phoenix Was Acting the Whole Time

Remember about a year and a half ago and Joaquin Phoenix appeared on David Letterman with a scruffy beard and was acting all bizarre. It was shortly after he made the announcement that he was "retiring from acting" and had decided to pursue a career as a hip-hop or rap musician.

As it turns out, it was all faked. It was just one big stunt.

I told you. Joaquin Phoenix was acting the whole time.

I'm not sure why Phoenix wanted to do the gig. His announcement came just two years after his Academy Award-nominated performance in Walk the Line. As for Casey Affleck, he's trying to prove himself more as a filmmaker and the more talented of the Affleck brothers, so I can see why he was interested in the stunt.

So, there you have it.

At the Other Premiere of THE OTHER GUYS

So, late yesterday afternoon I went with my brother to St. Louis. St. Louis beat 19 other cities out in an online voting contest to hold the Other Premiere for THE OTHER GUYS, a new movie starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg. Ferrell and Wahlberg were scheduled to make an appearance and my brother is a huge Ferrell fan. The red carpet line-up was scheduled to start at 7:30P.M.

The first celebrity to appear was one that was completely unexpected: the one and only Don King.

The radio DJ's who were emceeing the event were completely caught off guard by that one. They weren't as surprised when a couple of expected guests arrived shortly after: Ozzie Smith & Mayor Francis Slay.

The DJs recoginzed some St. Louis Blues players, but they had no idea who any of the St. Louis Rams were, including offensive lineman Phil Trautwein who was dressed in a giant Elf costume. Poor Rams. Maybe if they'd win more than 1 or 2 games a season, people would start caring about them again.

After a couple of hours waiting near a barricade (and seeing one woman almost faint from heat exhaustion nearby), Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg finally arrived.

The Mayor gave them keys to the City of St. Louis. Ozzie Smith gave them Cardinals jerseys with his number, but with their names. Someone from the Rams gave them Rams jerseys. They chatted for a bit. Then they "drove away" apparently to return to the theatre to take some questions from people who were lucky enough to get in to see the movie. Overall, it was quite a memorable evening.