Donald Sutherland, M*A*S*H And Hunger Games Actor, Dies at 88

Entertainment Weekly reports that one of my favorite actors, Donald Sutherland, has died.

Donald Sutherland, he Canadian actor whose career spans seven decades and includes revered films as Klute, M*A*S*H, Ordinary People, Pride and Prejudice, and The Hunger Games, has died. He was 88. 

His son, fellow actor Kiefer Sutherland, 57, revealed the news in an emotional Thursday social media post.

"With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away,” he wrote on X.  “I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that. A life well lived.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Donald Sutherland dead: 'Hunger Games' actor was 88 (ew.com)

I first saw Donald Sutherland in one my favorite films, The Dirty Dozen. Sutherland had a minor role as one of the dozen military misfits, but he stood out in one scene when Lee Marvin asked the goofy soldier to impersonate a general. Great scene.

You can watch the scene below:

Bing Videos   

I next saw Sutherland in one of his finest roles as Army Doctor “Hawkeye” Pierce in Robert Altman’s 1969 film MASH.

You can watch a scene from the film via the below link:     

Bing Videos

Sutherland also appeared as the lead in a fine horror film called Don’t Look Now.

You can watch a scene via the below link:

Bing Videos

And Sutherland appeared with another one of my favorite actors, Sean Connery, in The Great Train Robbery.

You can watch a video via the below link:

Bing Videos

Donald Sutherland appeared in many more films and TV shows.

He will be missed.

Is A Remake Of The Classic TV Western 'Have Gun - Will Travel' A Good Idea?

 

I grew up watching Richard Boone as the intelligent, cool and tough gun for hire on TV in Have Gun - Will Travel.

I loved Richard Boone as Paladin as a kid and I'm watching and enjoying the old classic TV show again on Comcast's Demand Encore Channel.

Now comes word that David Mamet is planning a remake, or reboot, of the old western.

Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly thinks that a reboot is a great idea. I'm not so sure.

David Mamet is reportedly developing a new version of Have Gun — Will Travel for the network that first presented the series in 1957, CBS. It’s a great idea, since the central character Paladin, played by Richard Boone, is very much in the Mamet tradition of well-spoken but violent, meticulous yet profane protagonists. Take off his holster, and Paladin would have fit right in among the salesmen in Glengarry Glen Ross (Paladin is the only TV Western hero who handed out business cards) or on Mamet’s earlier CBS drama, The Unit.

Have Gun ran from 1957 to 1963, and stood in stark contrast to the most popular Westerns of that era, the squares-ville Gunsmoke and the more tongue-in-cheek Warner Bros.-produced shows such as Cheyenne and Sugarfoot. Have Gun — Will Travel signaled its break with standard TV Westerns right from its opening. Paladin, unlike other heroes, dressed in black. The first thing you saw was not the man but his gun and holster, the latter embossed with a white knight chess piece. You saw Paladin draw the gun, point it straight at the viewer, and heard Boone articulate a kind of credo, that he would not hesitate to kill you if you didn’t do as he said.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://watching-tv.ew.com/2012/08/22/david-mamet-have-gun-will-travel-reboot/

Entertainment Weekly Celebrates 50 Years Of James Bond

Entertainment Weekly has James Bond on the cover.

What is the most appropriate gift you could give Brit super spy and martini aficionado James Bond to celebrate 50 years of big screen 007 adventures? A cake in the shape of a gun? A gun in the shape of a cake? A new liver? Or…How about an entire issue of Entertainment Weekly devoted to the half century of espionage-themed pleasure the Bond franchise has given the world since Sean Connery defined the role of 007 — and Ursula Andress defined the ideal way to wear a bikini — in 1962′s Dr. No?

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/08/01/james-bond-skyfall-2/

True Grit: 1969 Versus 2010

Entertainment Weekly questions the Coen Brothers' claim that their film True Grit, starring Jeff Bridges, is not a remake of the 1969 film True Grit, which starred John Wayne and was directed by Henry Hathaway.

You can read the piece and watch selected scenes of both films via the link below, and, as they say on FoxNews, you decide.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/02/01/true-grit-1969-versus-2010/

You can also read my earlier post on the two True Grit films via the below link:

http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com/2010/09/true-grit-updated-by-coen-brothers.html