"1963"

Actor Alain Delon, whose life was every bit as dramatic and eventful as his films, passed away last month at 88. He was among the last stars standing from that fertile period in the swinging sixties when French films were all the rage. His beginnings were hardly promising but he rose to dizzying heights on […]

Watching Matthew Miele’s “Alan J. Pakula: Going For Truth” (2019), more a heartfelt memorial tribute than a standard doc, waves of nostalgia swept over me, not just for Alan J. Pakula’s best films from half a century ago, but for the bygone days when artists like him could thrive; when good, meaty scripts were still prized and Hollywood invested in them.

It was gratifying, if not particularly surprising, to see Cillian Murphy capture the Best Actor Oscar this year. He’d just starred in the year’s most critically acclaimed film, “Oppenheimer,” which also took Best Picture. It was a big performance in a very big movie.

It was 60 years ago when a mind-blowing 73 million viewers tuned in to the top variety program on television, the Ed Sullivan Show, and first experienced the four lads from Liverpool known as the Beatles. That seismic event, which included follow-up appearances on the next two Sullivan shows that month, launched the band on a trajectory of success not even their most ardent early fans could have imagined. And it happened so fast. 

I wonder how many people under forty learned of Alan Arkin’s passing last month and thought,  “Oh, that’s sad, it’s that funny old guy from the ‘Kominsky Method’!” Of course, they might also remember him from two hits made in this century: “Little Miss Sunshine” (2006), which brought him a late-career Supporting Actor Oscar, and Ben Affleck’s “Argo” (2012), which also earned him a nomination.