Being the Ricardos (Frank Analysis With A Few Spoilers)

OK, when I first heard about Aaron Sorkin's new film, Being the Ricardos, I hesitated, particularly when I found out Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem were playing Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz--they're not the first people who come to mind when I picture a Lucy-Desi biopic. I don't picture anyone in a Lucy-Desi biopic because I don't …

Of Marriages and Mortgages

Hello, Mr. Brett... When Carissa announced this blogathon I felt a wee bit giddy because Sherlock Holmes always comes to mind when I think of Jeremy Brett. He IS Sherlock Holmes in my opinion, no offense to any of the other guys who have played the character. However, I wanted to look at Brett's other …

Before Stars Hollow, Part Two

On to our second gallery of Gilmore Girls luminaries, and as you'll no doubt notice, the names here are decidedly bigger than yesterday's, not that yesterday's were too shabby or anything. Again, I had to make a lot of deep cuts, but it's all good. Off we go... Liza Weil (Paris) Two years before she donned Chilton's …

Before Stars Hollow, Part One

November seems to be Gilmore Girls Month on Taking Up Room. I don't know why. Maybe it's because November is when their limited series hit Netflix. Anyway, I was watching The Sentinel a few months ago and saw a familiar face pop up. Who was it? I'll tell you all later. Long story short, it occurred to …

Anne Meets Mrs. Fanning

Hello, Ms. Bancroft... Anne Bancroft was, of course, a busy lady of both stage and screen, and every once in a while those two planes collided, such as in the BBC production of Paddy Chayefsky's The Mother. The play is set in the Bronx, New York in 1954 and deals with family, aging, and accepting reality. …

Oz Goes Highland

Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well! One of the most popular characters on the Christy TV show was, by far, Doctor Neil MacNeill, and one of the most popular show arcs was the triangle between Christy (Kellie Martin), Neil and preacher David Grantland (Randall Batinkoff). Neil was wonderfully played by Stuart Finlay-McLennan, who seemed to burr with the …

Page To Screen: Anne Frank Remembered

Miep Gies was the last of the Secret Annex helpers to survive, passing away in 2010 just shy of her 101st birthday. She and Anne had a special sisterly relationship from the time Anne was four, and naturally people wanted to know more about that. In 1987, she published a book, Anne Frank Remembered, with Alison Leslie …

Oh, It’s You, Mr. Lee

Hello, all... One of the interesting things about Sir Christopher Lee is that he never turned his nose up at a good part whether it was large or small, and over the course of his career he amassed quite a selection of bit roles in various films and TV shows. There wasn't a lot of …

Onward, Duplicitous Humies

Who here has seen JourneyQuest? If not, what are you waiting for? Not to be confused with the Colorado rafting company, JourneyQuest premiered in 2010, the brainchild of writers Kate Marshall and Matt Vancil, the latter of whom also directed a few episodes and played a character named Wharrgarbil. The show has caught on in …

Be Kind, Rewind

Click... Ah, Red Dwarf. Part Star Trek send-up, part Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy and part sitcom, it's original enough that it's taken on a life of its own since its 1988 debut. It's such a big deal that the Red Dwarf Fan Club holds a convention every year, with cosplay and panel discussions with cast members. There …

I Just Want To Be Evil

Joan Collins, darlings, and not a swimming pool in sight. As we've talked about before, Hollywood lined up to guest star on the Batman TV show, and one of the favored few was Joan Collins, who played a wily woman known as the Siren. She was fresh off an appearance on Star Trek and not well-known to …

A Partial Defense of “Bunheads”

Amy Sherman-Palladino once said that she peaked with Gilmore Girls. "It's me under a bus after this." Well, you can't keep a good writer down, and Sherman-Palladino is still at it. Her second artistic follow-up to Gilmore Girls was 2012's Bunheads, a show that brought in mixed-to-favorable reviews and unfortunately only ran for a single season. The …

We Gather Together

What are you thankful for? OK, you all know one of my all-time favorite shows is Christy (read my earlier thoughts here). The show had a short life, but they did manage to make one feature-length holiday special, "The Sweetest Gift," which originally aired on November 24, 1994. As it leads up to Thanksgiving and …

Holy Guest Star, Batman

Mr. Johnson's back... When Batman was on TV in the 60s, it seemed like every star in Hollywood lined up to take their turn at being a villain, and one of these was Van Johnson. Early in Season Two, he played the Minstrel, a devious lute player who sets his sights on the Gotham City Stock Exchange …

The Binge Goes On

Aaaaand we're still quarantined in California. I won't give my opinion of certain people in charge of my state except to say, "Question everything," and "Consider the source." We do have light at the end of the tunnel, of course, but staying inside is definitely having its effects. A couple of weeks ago my dad …

Bingeing In the Time of Coronavirus

Hi, all, hope everyone had a good Easter! I originally was supposed to go back to work tomorrow, but heh heh, no, I'm not, because I got temporarily laid off until the schools go back to normal. Whenever that is. Of all the states in the United States, California's among those which have gotten hit …

Go Team

*click* *adjusts rabbit ears* In my humble opinion, the most iconic villain of the original MacGyver series was Murdoc, played by Michael Des Barres. He appeared on the series a total of nine times, and for one reason only: MacGyver (Richard Dean Anderson) was the only target master hitman Murdoc couldn't murder. Well, that, and he lived …