Ps - Actors

“They Didn’t Give Me My Slice”

they didn’t give me my slice

“They Didn’t Give Me My Slice” – Bio

James Todd Spader
Born February 7, 1960
American Actor

“They Didn’t Give Me My Slice” – The Practice – 3 Emmy Awards

James Spader is best known for portraying eccentric characters.

These characters appear in films (“Sex, Lies, and Videotape” (1989), the controversial psychological thriller “Crash” (1996), and the erotic romance “Secretary” (2002), as well as television roles (“The Practice” and its spin-off “Boston Legal,” for which he won three Emmy Awards).

He currently stars as high-profile criminal Raymond “Red” Reddington in the crime drama “The Blacklist.”

“Hope Is A Good Thing”

Hope is a good thing

“Hope Is A Good Thing” – Bio

The Shawshank Redemption
Released 1994
American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont, starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, and adapted from the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

“Hope Is A Good Thing” – Shawshank Redemption

Chicago Sun-Times film reviewer Roger Ebert argued that The Shawshank Redemption is an allegory for maintaining one’s feeling of self-worth when placed in a hopeless position.

Andy Dufresne’s integrity is an important theme in the story line, especially in prison, where integrity is lacking.

Isaac M. Morehouse suggests that the film provides a great illustration of how characters can be free, even in prison, or unfree, even in freedom, based on their outlooks on life.

“Hope Is A Good Thing” – Shawshank Redemption – Letter

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Dear Red,

If you’re reading this, you’ve gotten out. And if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don’t you? I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. I’ll keep an eye out for you and the chessboard ready. Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well.

Your friend, Andy

“My Mom Just Died”

Garden State
Released 2004
American romantic comedy-drama film.

“My Mom Just Died” – Note

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Garden State is a 2004 American romantic comedy-drama film, written and directed by Zach Braff and starring Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, and Ian Holm. The film centers on Andrew Largeman (Braff), a 26-year-old actor/waiter who returns to his hometown in New Jersey after his mother dies. Braff based the film on his real life experiences.

“My Mom Just Died” – Grammy Award

Garden State received positive reviews upon its release and has garnered a cult following. It was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival.

The film also spawned a soundtrack for which Braff, who picked the music himself, won a Grammy Award.

“And Away We Go”

and away we go

Grave Sites – Jackie Gleason

Jackie Gleason
Born February 26, 1916 – Died June 24, 1987
American Comedian, Actor, Musician

Grave Sites – Jackie Gleason – Note

Jackie Gleason is buried in Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Cemetery in Miami, Florida.

Despite its size, Jackie Gleason’s tomb is surprisingly anonymous. His name is inscribed on his sarcophagus lid, but you have to walk up into the tomb to see it.

From the outside, the only inscription is the four words that were Gleason’s signature parting line, “And away we go.”

Grave Sites – Jackie Gleason – Brooklyn

Jackie Gleason was born in Brooklyn, New York.

In one of the many tributes that the world has extolled upon him is a sign that welcomes you to Brooklyn.

… how sweet he was …

“Or It’s Genius”

“Or It’s Genius” – Bio

Billy Bob Thorton
Born August 4, 1955
American actor, filmmaker, singer, songwriter, and musician

First of all

We have to do itand second of all

it’s either the worst idea I have ever made

and my career is over

or it’s genius

“Tabloid Nation”

“Tabloid Nation” – Bio

“Tabloid Nation”
Episode 15, Season 4, Release date: April 8, 2008
Boston Legal

“Tabloid Nation” – Note

… just think for yourself …

… still relevant today, if not more …

… television stations just want the ratings …

… they manufacture division …

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I remember the movie, “Network” by Paddy Chayefsky.

It depicted the extremes and perversities that television would resort to for the sake of ratings.

It was a film way ahead of its time, and yet now it seems dated given the depths to which television has sunk.

I doubt even Chayefsky could ever have imagined putting contestants on a program to eat worms or raw animal parts, or women humiliating themselves to marry fake millionaires.

One network made a deal for OJ Simpson to do a Prime Time Special on how he might have killed his ex-wife.

Television is a noble beast, isn’t it?

Well, the shame is it once was.

To many it still should be.

Television took us to the moon.

It let us cry together as a nation when a beloved president was assassinated.

Its unflinching and comprehensive coverage of Vietnam served to end that war.

Television gave us Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Rod Serling, Ernie Kovacs.
We had shows like The Defenders, All in the Family.

One could argue that the steep decline of TV began with a show called A Current Affair which introduced tabloid journalism.

There used to be standards of excellence in television.

I’m not talking only about Emmys and Peabodys, but not so long ago broadcasters had a real sense of responsibility.

They took their statutory obligation to operate in the public interest very seriously.

Now the networks look for our guilty pleasures and morbid curiosities and pander to those with the hope that they’ll get us addicted.

Once you get people hooked, you’ve got ’em!

And you have to get people hooked because everything today is ratings, demographics, market share, money.

Even the news divisions are now profit centers which means that if good-looking, white-toothed anchors have better TVQs than credentialed journalists, you get the eye-candy!

And if positive coverage of the war in Iraq reaches more households, you get Fox News.

In fact today you can switch back and forth between the right-wing news and the left-wing news.

Whatever happened to Huntley? Brinkley? John Chancellor?

To news that was just the news?

Now we have partisan junk appealing to the lowest common denominator which brings us currently to the program at issue, Dr Ray!

Mr. Palmer said his client couldn’t possibly have seen this coming.

Well, that simply isn’t true.

This tragedy was inevitable.

It’s practically scripted!

It’s happened before.

Talk show ambushes have gone awry leading to murder or suicide.

This isn’t a first.

But here’s what’s truly horrifying.

A tragedy occurred here, a woman was killed, but for the show – for the show – the real tragedy was that the killing didn’t happen on the show!

That would have been the ratings blockbuster.

That would have been the big score everybody was hoping for.

But they had to settle for the next best thing which was that the murder became news.

The nightly news was perfectly happy to do the job for them.

They gave Dr. Ray all the promotion it could possibly want airing sensational clips and graphics from the show again and again and again.

You see how it all works so beautifully together!

The girl was killed!

The show benefits!

The news benefits!

And we eat it up!

Psychologically damaged people are paraded on stage to be exploited, ridiculed, taunted.

Of course this is what we get!

And we stand to get a lot more of it because it sells.

And it costs almost nothing to produce.

And what’s not to love?

Here we have an emotionally unstable ex-boyfriend with a history of violence, armed with a marriage proposal certain to be rejected in front of the world.

And the fact that an innocent young woman ended up butchered was good business for all.

Just business.

Well, so is a lawsuit.

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The most memorable part of the movie Network was when Howard Beale started shouting on national television, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

And the country joined in with him.

You need to join in now.

You need to go back to that room and say you’re not going to sit quietly and let these networks assault decency for profit.

You’re not going to stand for the exploitation of the disenfranchised.

You’re sick of the networks debasing a medium they’re supposed to be guardians of.

Don’t take it anymore.

Please. Please. Get mad as hell!

And don’t take it …

anymore

“What I Wish”

“What I Wish” – Bio

The Blacklist (James Spader)
Premiered September 23, 2013
American crime thriller television series.

“What I Wish” – Monologue

Have you ever sailed across an ocean, Donald?

On a sailboat surrounded by sea with no land in sight, without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come?

To stand at the helm of your destiny?

I want that one more time.

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I want to be in the Piazza del Campo in Siena, to feel the surge as ten racehorses go thundering by.

I want another meal in Paris at L’Ambroisie in the place des Vosges.

I want another bottle of wine and then another.

I want the warmth of a woman in the cool set of sheets.

One more night of jazz at the Vanguard.

I want to stand on summits and smoke Cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can.

Walk on the Wall again.

Climb the Tower.

Ride the River.

Stare at the frescos.

I want to sit in the garden and read one more good book.

Give me that – Just one time.

Most of all I want to sleep – I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy.

Give me that. Just one time.

That’s why I won’t allow that punk out there to get the best of me, let alone the last of me.”

“There Are So Many”

“There Are So Many” – Bio

“James Leer” – “Wonder Boys” (Tobias Vincent “Tobey” Maguire)
Born June 27, 1975
American Actor, Film Producer

“There Are So Many” – Dialogue

Hannah Green: James will know about George Sanders.

James Leer: George Sanders?

Hannah Green: Mr. Crabtree was saying how George Sanders killed himself, only he couldn’t remember how.

James Leer: Pills. April 25, 1972, in a Costa Brava hotel room.

Terry Crabtree: How comprehensive of you.

Hannah Green: James is amazing. He knows all the movie suicides. Go ahead, James. Tell him.

James Leer: There are so many.

Hannah Green: Well, just a few. The big ones.

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James Leer:

Pier Angeli, 1971 or ’72, also pills

Donald “Red” Barry, shot himself in 1980

Charles Boyer, 1978, pills again

Charles Butterworth, 1946, I think. In a car. Supposedly, it was an accident, but, you know, he was distraught

Dorothy Dandridge, pills, 1965

Albert Dekker, 1968. He hung himself. He wrote his suicide note in lipstick on his stomach

William Inge, carbon monoxide, 1973

Carole Landis, pills again. I forget when

George Reeves, “Superman” on TV, shot himself

Jean Seberg, pills, of course, 1979

Everett Sloane – he was good – pills

Margaret Sullavan, pills

Lupe Velez, a lot of pills

Gig Young, he shot himself and his wife in 1978

There are tons more

Hannah Green: I haven’t heard of half of them.

Terry Crabtree: You did them alphabetically.

James Leer: It’s just how my brain works, I guess.

“Now Sit Down”

“Now Sit Down” – Bio

12 Angry Men
1957 American Courtroom Drama Film
Directed By Sidney Lumet

“Now Sit Down” – Note

This trial film tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or acquittal of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt, forcing the jurors to question their morals and values. In the United States, a verdict in most criminal trials by jury must be unanimous.

The film is notable for its almost exclusive use of one set: out of 96 minutes of run time, only three minutes take place outside of the jury room.

12 Angry Men explores many techniques of consensus-building and the difficulties encountered in the process, among a group of men whose range of personalities adds intensity and conflict.

No names are used in the film; the jury members are identified by number until two of them exchange names at the very end. The defendant is referred to as “the boy” and the witnesses as “the old man” and “the lady across the street”.

12 Angry Men – “Now Sit Down” – Library of Congress

In 2007, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

The film was selected as the second-best courtroom drama ever by the American Film Institute during their AFI’s 10 Top 10 list, and is the highest courtroom drama on Rotten Tomatoes’ Top 100 Movies of All Time.

The A.F.I.’s Top 10 List is as follows:

To Kill A Mockingbird
12 Angry Men
Kramer vs. Kramer
The Verdict
A Few Good Men
Witness For The Prosecution
Anatomy Of A Murder
In Cold Blood
A Cry In The Dark
Judgement At Nuremberg

“Gaining Character”

The Big Kahuna
Released 1999
American comedy-drama film adapted from the play Hospitality Suite.

“Gaining Character” – Note

This is quite possibly Danny DeVito’s best performance. This clip takes place at the end of the movie between Phil and Bob. I recommend watching the whole film to truly appreciate the discussion about character and honesty.

“Gaining Character” – Dialogue

It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or ‘How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down

That doesn’t make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep

If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids … Find out what his dreams are – just to find out, for no other reason

Because as soon as you lay your hands on a conversation to steer it, it’s not a conversation anymore – it’s a pitch

And you’re not a human being – you’re a marketing rep

I’m saying you’ve already done plenty of things to regret, you just don’t know what they are

It’s when you discover them, when you see the folly in something you’ve done, and you wish that you had it do over, but you know you can’t, because it’s too late

So you pick that thing up, and carry it with you to remind you that life goes on, the world will spin without you, you really don’t matter in the end

Then you will gain character, because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself across your face