Top 10 movies based on TV shows
JoBlo, a website that respects Fight Club as much as I do, has a great list of the Top 10 movies based on television shows. For the most part, I agree with it. Except there is one major oversight: What about The Muppets? The Muppet Movie didn’t make the list and, quite frankly, I’m baffled. I think it should totally replace The Naked Gun, which weighs in at #4. What-ever. The rest of the list looks good, however. It includes everything from last year’s Serenity to Wayne’s World to The Untouchables.
I’m going to list his Top 10 after the jump, but I highly recommend you go on over and read it and then come back and tell me if you think they forgot something. If you say Dukes of Hazzard or Starsky & Hutch… so help me… I’ll reach through your computer and slap you!
10. Serenity (Firefly)
9. Twilight Zone: The Movie
8. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
7. Wayne’s World
6. South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut
5. Mission: Impossible
4. The Naked Gun (Police Squad)
3. The Blues Brothers
2. The Fugitive
1. The Untouchables
Oprah makes a deal with Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Alley is coming back to the small screen and Oprah’s got her. Harpo Productions has signed Alley for future TV projects. It could be a sitcom like Fat Actress, it could be a talk show, like the one she shopped around last year, but in whatever format, Harpo will be behind it. One definite possibility would be for Kirstie to appear in a show on OWN, the new Oprah Winfrey Network, which used to be Discovery Health Channel.
“Kirstie is a tremendous talent who is incredibly relatable and a true fan favorite, and we are thrilled to welcome her to Harpo,” said Tim Bennett, president of Harpo Productions. Recently, Kirstie tested that broad appeal by appearing on Oprah in a bikini, proving that she had indeed lost 75 pounds. (With Jenny Craig’s help, although she’s no longer working for JC).
The idea of Kirstie as a talk show hostess may be a bit of a stretch, though. She said, “I’m a great listener,” but to me she’s always been more of a talker. Also, she’s an actress — remember Cheers? Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan? not so much Veronica’s Closet. Stiil, if it were up to me, I’d put her into a scripted show. Kirstie also said, “I’m a good comedian. And I won’t lie, I live a beautiful life. So I hope to bring those elements together to offer something totally fresh for the television audience.”
Whatever the project, it’s likely to be given a good launch. Ms. Winfrey has been like Midas with her golden Harpo Productions, getting both Dr. Phil and Rachael Ray into successful talk shows.
TV Obits: Wald, Bliss, Huntsman, Dahlbeck, Rescher
A roundup of TV people from in front of the camera and behind the scenes who have passed away.
- Malvin Wald: He is best known for writing the screenplay to The Naked City, which later became a TV series and pretty much spawned later police dramas such as NYPD Blue and Law and Order. He also wrote for The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, Daktari, Combat, Playhouse 90, and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. He died at age 90 in California.
- John Bliss: He played Principal Pal on Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide and Mr. Pickering on Andy Richter Controls the Universe, and also appeared in Dallas, Joey, Get Smart, Father Murphy, as well as the movies Intolerable Cruelty, Art School Confidential, and The Thing with Two Heads. He died of an abdominal aneurysm at age 77 in Los Angeles.
- J. Paul Huntsman: He was the post-production coordinator on the pilot episode of Crime Story, and was a sound editor on several movies over the years, including The Firm, The Karate Kid, The Illusionist, Starsky & Hutch, Bring on the Night, Manhunter, The Peacemaker, Pay It Forward, K-PAX, Thief, Eddie and the Cruisers, Major League, The Fabulous Baker Boys, and dozens of others. He died of cancer at age 55 in Glendale, CA.
- Eva Dahlbeck: She was a regular on the Swedish series The Markurells of Wadkoping and appeared on several episodes of Foreign Intrigue, as well as several Ingmar Bergman films. She later became a well-known writer. She died of Alzheimer’s complications at age 87 in Stockholm.
- Gayne Rescher: He was a cinematographer on several big screen movies such as Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and Murder, Inc, and TV movies and miniseries such as The Day After, Get Smart Again, Space, Murder Me, Murder You, Lucky/Chances, Windmills of the Gods, Pearl, Something For Joey, and many others. He died at age 83 in Gig Harbor, WA.
Tom Cruise visits Trek set
Don’t you just love the web? News traveling so fast, ideas extrapolated and speculated upon based on the simplest of facts. That said, here’s a sweet little tidbit that I found amusing. Tom Cruise was spotted on the Los Angeles set of the new Star Trek feature film. He reportedly was visiting writer/director JJ Abrams. The two men, you’ll recall, collaborated on Mission Impossible 3.
This exclusive, courtesy of JFXOnline, revealed that Tom stuck around the set for a couple of hours. Prior to this sighting, there had also been talk last fall that Abrams had wanted to enlist the superstar to make a brief cameo appearance in the revamped Star Trek opus, telling the story of how creator Gene Roddenberry’s original characters came to be. How Captain Kirk made it out of the Star Fleet Academy (in The Wrath of Khan he said he cheated on his Kobyashi Maru simulation test), as well as the first time Kirk met the half-Vulcan, half-human Mr. Spock.
Tom Cruise’s representatives Arnold Robinson, denied the rumors of his appearing in the film, and Paramount hasn’t said much since pushing the opening for the film to May 2009.
I’d like to think that Cruise’s visit — which was more than just a hit-and-run “hello, how are you?’” — means that he actually filmed a quick scene. After all, how cool would it be if he popped up in the feature. I’m not saying they have to cast him in a big part, but couldn’t he appear as a one of those anonymous redshirts that beamed down to a planet and wound up killed in the line of duty? I’d pay to see that. See, doesn’t Tom look good in red?