There’s a good chance that, growing up, you’ve fantasized about being a private investigator. Fed by a lifetime of TV, movie, and literary P.I.s, I know I have – and still do. The mind of Andy Barker (Andy Richter), however, has been elsewhere.

Andy’s an accountant, and a very good one, but he’s so unaware of the noir mythos that when someone mentions the movie “Chinatown,” he asks, “Is that with Jackie Chan?” Blissfully married to the adoring Jenny Barker (the quirkily deadpan Clea Lewis), he’s more than happy taking all his walks on the mild side. Still, when he moves into the strip-mall office that once belonged to the aging and more than slightly crazed retired tough guy private dick Lew Staziak (the late, great Harve Presnell), he finds himself beset with clients who have more need of Jim Rockford or Phillip Marlowe than a Certified Public Accountant. With the questionable help of Staziak and two of his office neighbors – zany video store proprietor Simon (Tony Hale of “Arrested Development”), who provides Andy with movie knowledge and little else, and flag-waving Afghan-American restaurateur Wally (veteran actor Marshall Manesh) – he sets about righting wrongs and fighting bad guys. His only weapons: common sense, high morals, and his vast knowledge of accountancy.

READ THE REST AT BULLZ-EYE.COM

I was very sorry to hear earlier this morning of the death at age 79 of a personal favorite of mine, Edward Woodward. Although he may still be best known for his roles in the acclaimed fact-based war drama, “Breaker Morant,” the espionage/crime-vigilante TV series, “The Equalizer,” and by our friends in England as the cynical, super-tough spy “Callan,” his role in what was once a fairly obscure cult film all but buried by its studio, the 1973 “The Wicker Man,” is getting the lion’s share of attention in most of his press obituaries, that’s including the very touching one issued by the BBC this morning.

“The Wicker Man” has been one of my favorite movies since I was teenager and remains so now — not even the worst imaginable remake can touch that film, and that proposition has now been tested. Still, my admiration of the actor Woodward goes well beyond one single role. He was the kind of performer you could rely on to be great in anything and so he was on countless television programs. A master of understatement who knew when and how to go big (the oft-spoiled ending of “The Wicker Man” being a case in point), he was a real virtuoso whose un-showy approach probably doomed him to being underrated to a certain degree. Still, he didn’t seem to mind and judging from the press accounts I’ve been reading, he was a real gentleman and as fun to be around as his best known characters were definitely not. He was also, by the way, an accomplished Shakespearian stage actor and a fair-to-middling pop singer. It’s a shame he rarely got to do either on screen, though his voice can be heard to powerful effect during the final scene of “Breaker Morant.” (If you don’t mind learning the fate of his title character, or already know it from history, you can see the conclusion here.)

Two of his more devoted fans appear to have been Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, who were smart enough to cast Woodward in “Hot Fuzz,” and you can read their thoughts at Wright’s blog and via a message board post by Pegg. (Big h/t to Beaks.) Wright’s piece is really lovely and I strongly recommend you read all of if . However, here’s one line that tickled me, in the spirit of “it’s funny because it’s true.”

I also remember telling him that Quentin [Tarantino] was a huge fan of his film ‘Sitting Target’ (another great soundtrack – btw) and he looked shocked. I’m not sure anyone had ever complimented him on it. He replied “Well, you must tell your friend he is very strange indeed”.

And so it goes, another great lost. I do want to echo Edgar Wright’s entreaty that, especially you’ve never seen it, you watch the 1973 “The Wicker Man” as fast as possible and avoid any place where spoilers about the ending might be found, which seems to be about 99% of what’s been posted about it recently. (I tried to avoid giving too much away in my 2000 review linked to above.) Woodward’s portrayal of a repressed, bitter, humorless, but also decent, principled, and compassionate man is, to me, very much what acting is all about. So, why are we surprised to hear about what a funny and regular guy he was in real life? He was acting — extraordinarily well.

Greg of Cinema Styles has more. Highly recommended.

Originally posted at Premium Hollywood.

An important chunk of entertainment history left us yesterday with the death of Larry Gelbart at 81. Gelbart was gifted both working alone and as a collaborator with other writers. It probably helped that relatively early in his career he labored alongside Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Neil Simon on comedian Sid Caesar’s classic early variety shows. In the sixties he graduated to Broadway and the movies. With Burt Shevelove, he cowrote the book for the Broadway musical/Zero Mostel vehicle, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (later filmed by Richard Lester) and the hard to find all-star cult British comedy, “The Wrong Box.” A Chicago-born graduate of L.A.’s Fairfax High (right across the street from Cantor’s Deli), he lived in England for a time, working with another nice Jewish boy named Marty Feldman at the height of his English television fame.

He became much better known in the seventies as the primary writer during the early, funnier and more politically pointed days on the television version of “M*A*S*H.” I get to write about him because he made a mark in movies that’s too important to ignore, writing several good ones, and some not so good. He’ll probably be most commonly remembered for his work on “Oh, God” with George Burns in the title role, and what is probably Dustin Hoffman’s best performance in “Tootsie,” which is something of a comedy classic. He also co-wrote with Sheldon Keller the vastly underrated and all but impossible to see spoof of early Hollywood (specifically Warner Brothers) films, “Movie, Movie,” directed by Stanley Donen and starring George C. Scott, Eli Wallach, Trish van Devere, and Barry Bostwick. (A likely model for “Grindhouse,” in that it was also a double-feature complete with fake trailers.) It more than made up for the regrettable but profitable “Blame it On Rio,” written by Gelbart and also directed by Donen, which starred Michael Caine, Joseph Bologna and an extremely young Demi Moore.

In the nineties, he divided his time between Broadway plays like “City of Angels,” a musical spoof of classic hard-boiled detective novels, and pointed TV movies like “Barbarians at the Gate” — a tongue in cheek version of a nonfiction book about the buyout of Nabisco — and 1992’s “Mastergate,” an unbelievably witty parody of the hearings that invariably follow major Washington scandals.

Mr. Gelbart never stopped writing until almost the end, and was easily one of the most respected and beloved writers in all of show business. 81 isn’t exactly young, but we could’ve used a few more years of his presence. It’s a sad weekend for the world of funny.

Below, a great moment from “Tootsie.”

[This posted appeared originally at “Premium Hollywood.”]

But this one is somehow different.

* First, I’d like to start by officially introducing the latest addition to the blogroll. More a Legend Than a Blog is emitted by the fertile mind of my good friend, film lover and music-maven CZR, who is actually the only other person to have ever blogged here other than yours truly (under a different name). His site is a treat and he deserves a heartily warm welcome to the cinephile (and music) blogosphere.

CZR’s latest takes on the “Ten Characters” meme, which I’m still tardy on myself. (Brian Doan tagged me some time ago, but I only noticed he had done so about a month after the fact!)

* Over the weekend, a couple of posts by me appeared over at Premium Hollywood regarding weekend box-office, etc. There will be more of this to come in the near future, and that may cut into my blogging here to some degree. I’m definitely planning to preserve this spot as a place for more personal and/or esoteric musings and I’ll look into a way to connect my work at both places somehow, but posts here may become even more sporadic. We shall see.

* And, in other, other news, A veritable geek storm has erupted over an item at the Hollywood Reporter reporting a Star Trek and Twilight inspired reboot, or something, of the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer franchise, only without Buffy creator Joss Whedon, sans Buffy’s erstwhile “scooby” friends (no Willow!!!! Aaaagh!!!!!!), and, if I read it right, without Buffy.

A bit of backstory: Fran Rubel Kuzui, director of the original, pleasantly mediocre, movie version of the franchise once upon a time fashioned a perfectly respectable, pleasantly lightweight autobiographical indie romantic comedy, Tokyo Pop (or that’s how I remember it…I haven’t seen it since it’s 1988 release, when I was but a highly precocious toddler). In typical Hollywood fashion, on her second (and, so far, final) feature as a director, most accounts hold that Rubel and company seriously refashioned Whedon’s original screenplay from a serio-comic actioner to an out and out teen comedy with random changes made to the screenplay from a number of sources, including, according to Whedon, co-star Donald Sutherland (who you will never see in any other Whedon project, it’s safe to say).

Since then, Rubel Kazui has held on to some of the rights, and fans of the Buffy TV show saw her name at the front of every episode…and almost nothing else about her existence that I know of. It’s safe to assume that she had zero input on the television show and received the credit as part of her compensation for the rights. Now, as most of you probably know, a major plot thread of the TV show was Buffy’s trouble-plagued romance with a (mostly) good guy vampire named Angel, setting the hearts of fans of Sarah Michelle Geller and David Boreanaz seriously aflutter. Hence, the Twilight connection — though lips that touched blood never touched those belonging to movie-Buffy Kristy Swanson.

So, with those Trek and Twilight grosses pointing the way, Kuzui and Vertigo Entertainment, which usually specializes in remaking Asian films for the American market, is trying to restart the franchise, apparently using a loophole from the original concept of there being a new slayer in every generation. As a fan of the show, trust me when I say this is nowhere near as clever as the loophole J.J. Abrams and company came up with to stay on (most) Trekkies’ good sides. Overall, this idea strikes me as if the Coca-Cola company had put out New Coke as a non-carbonated non-cola. Buffy without Buffy Summers, and the Whedonverse, without Whedon = box office gold?!? Nah.

Assuming it ever happens, of course. Whedon is an extremely savvy third-generation show biz writer who has already pulled off the unheard of feats of retrieving a lost screenplay concept and remaking it as his own TV show, and then turning another quickly-canceled television show into a major, if not immediately profitable, Hollywood film (Serenity). He is usually protective of his properties, to the extent that he has any control. I’m guessing that this one is almost certain to generate very interesting behind-the-scenes maneuvers.

As always, on Whedon-related matters Whedonesque is very much on top of the story.

UPDATE: Michael Ausiello has managed to elicit a four word response from Joss Whedon, whose currently working on his horror film collaboration with Drew Goddard, “The Cabin in the Woods.” Those four words are:

I hope it’s cool.

H/t Whedonesque.

UPDATE, the second: The aforementioned Brian and CZR each have some worthwhile thoughts on Buffy-less Buffy, or whatever it is.

I haven’t posted anything about Joss Whedon’s sci-fi look at “consensual slavery” since March, but I just want to quickly mention that, whatever the show’s flaws, the last two episodes have been overall pretty terrific and hopes are high for a sharp season finale. Because of very low ratings — ameliorated to an unknown extent by good  DVR numbers — it may well also turn out to be a series finale…sort of.

(One episode, done on the cheap, appears to be a basically a DVD-only deal at this point. There’s no reason to fear that the season will end on a cliffhanger, however. Whedon’s done at least one season finale I can remember — the borderline Bunuelian dream episode, “Restless” from Buffy, the Vampire Slayer – that was really a coda to the season’s main story and a very cryptic hint of things to come. I’m guessing the 13th episode, wherever it ultimately lands, will be in somewhat the same spirit.)

Whedon has brought out his writing big guns for the final three shows of the season/run, including his brother Jed and wife Maurissa Tancharoen, who appear to have been crucial to Whedon’s very successful web experiment, Dr. Horrible, and veteran TV writer and dormant writing blogger, Jane Espenson, most recently of Battlestar Gallatica but a deservedly well-known star in, you should pardon the expression, the Whedonverse. (She also wrote a hilarious episode of Andy Barker, P.I.)

The first episode of the final three was an increasingly clever and poignant stand-alone murder mystery in which the Dollhouse’s manager (Olivia Williams of Rushmore) uses the dollhouse technology to resurrect a friend who wanted to solve her own death. The unlikely premise worked despite the pretty apparent reality that Eliza Dushku just doesn’t yet have the acting tools available to play the kind of jaded, sharp-tongued upper-crust quasi-Anglo socialite the episode called for. The following episode resumed the show’s main arch, and we’ll leave it at that. (Plentiful spoilers are available just about anywhere else you turn, however.)

I will get a bit spoilery, though, and mention that another smart move was the all-too-literal mothballing of the obnoxious security chief played by Reed Diamond, of Homicide: Life on the Street. However, in one of the funniest moments of the entire (not terribly funny) series, he was impersonated to perfection by the doll, Victor, when some information was needed. Vowel-challenged actor Enver Gjokaj — oh, for the days when actors changed their names if they were even slightly hard to pronounce — has emerged as the show’s best acting surprise.

Speaking of acting, while star/producer Dushku can be very moving and effective, but has been a sore disappointment when called on to plays roles far outside her usual range, fellow fem-doll Dichen Lachman, who has numerous fans, has left me wondering what the fuss is about. However, Olivia Williams has been doing a great job finding her inner George Sanders, and Harry Lennix as the apparently well-intentioned ex-cop, Boyd, only gets more interesting in a potentially colorless role.  Also, the initially annoying Fran Kranz, who is scheduled to turn up in the horror film Whedon cowrote, The Cabin in the Woods is steadily improving as the resident head geek, an increasingly interesting, highly amoral, variation on past Whedon characters. It probably helps that he hasn’t had to call Boyd “manfriend” any time recently.

When Dollhouse first started and on through several episode, I was starting to even forget why it was I enjoyed Whedon’s shows to an absurd degree. I’m starting to be reminded.

If you want to catch up on past Dollhouse episodes, the last five (unfortunately not including the semi-reboot, “Man on the Street”) are still available via Hulu.

****

And for those who think they see a sexist subtext in Dollhouse despite, or perhaps because of, Joss Whedon’s well known feminist bonafides, here’s some actual text from John Hyatt, just pre-Slow Turning, on a similar theme, who I’m sure didn’t mean it quite the way it sounds to me today….

I hate to write this one. Andy Hallett passed on yesterday at age 33 after a long struggle with heart disease. He was known to fans of Angel originally as the suavely lovable demon karaoke singer/nightclub owner, psychic, and occasional stoolie originally known as “the Host,” and later revealed to be Lorne, aka Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan. He eventually became a full regular cast member on the show and, as Brian Doan says in his terrific remembrance, it’s conscience with a camp sense of humor.

Lorne, whose show-biz sensibilities were somewhere in between Scott Thompson of  “The Kids in the Hall” and a more benign George Sanders, was definitely one of the most popular supporting characters of Angel, a darker, sometimes noirish, spin-off of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer that, while sometimes highly uneven, occasionally threatened to become more interesting than the show which spawned it. He certainly got many of the funniest lines, but delivered them with a kind of ageless melancholy and was no simple comic relief demon.

During the show’s intriguing final season, creator Joss Whedon took him to some very dark places, particularly in  “Not Fade Away,” the brilliant final episode, and Hallett went to those places with an apparent ease that belied the fact that Lorne had been his first role. How sad that, as an actor, it turned out to be his one of just a very few.

Still, he is extremely well remembered by his coworkers and fans who, over the years, have had nothing but nice things to say about him personally, as well as making his character one of the most beloved in the “Buffyverse.” Note the literally hundreds of sincerely sad remarks on the thread announcing his death on the fan blog, Whedonesque.

Joe Reid of NPR has more.

UPDATE: Angel executive producer Tim Minear has a very nice video tribute up to Lorne/Andy Hallett featuring many of his highlights from the series over at Facebook.

From Ernie Kovacs, of course.

When it’s come up with friends, I’ve been mostly noncommittal about Joss  Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse — and I’ve barely mentioned it here since my first post about it back before Valentine’s Day. That was mainly because I was sincerely unsure about it; I don’t think I liked the early episodes all that much more than most people. Though it’s always held my attention and has improved a bit from week to week, it’s not like it still doesn’t have the capacity to drift off into the kind of nothingness that even the most brilliant TV creators are not immune from. (If anyone out there watched as much of David Milch’s Deadwood follow-up, John from Cincinnati, as I did, they know what I’m talking about.)

Clearly, however, the show has become more focused and, while it will never be a laugh fest (and it really shouldn’t be, considering the topic), it’s become less somber, more freewheeling, and found moments of apt humor. It’s also started to hint at some very interesting ideas. And the early buzz on the episode screening tomorrow night (Friday, 3/20) and guest starring FtY favorite (and Rattouille lead voice), actor/stand-up comic Patton Oswalt, seems to be justifying that fact that Whedon himself has been talking up this episode and the one after to anyone who’ll listen as in some sense the actual beginning of the show.

Such deliberate hyping raises the possibility of big disappointment, but based on the dramatically improved last two episodes — and it may not be a coincidence that the ratings rebounded some last week — I’m ready to suggest that folks reading here maybe consider tuning in and checking out tomorrow night’s episode and seeing what’s what.

And, now, two minor complaints with the show for anyone reading this who is already watching the show.

1. Is there any way we can tell the writers to stop having techie/creative putative genius Topher (Fran Kranz) addressing ex-cop Boyd (Harry Lennix) as “man friend”? It’s just wrong.

2. This is very inside Whedonism, but the set outside Ballard’s (Tahmoh Penniket’s) apartment looks to me  as if it’s been recycled from a set used in the pivotal Angel “Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been?” Anyone else spot that?

UPDATE: Well, now I’ve seen “Man on the Street” and while I won’t go to the lengths of pure “squee” being emitted by most online Whedon fans and some critics — I have some plot quibbles and some long range concerns about the new direction this spins the show in — it’s certainly a very solid hour of television that shows Whedon melding most of the best of his old style blend of humor and tragedy into a darker, but also slicker and sexier, world.

Without delving into big spoilers, the acting was also the best we’ve seen in the series so far with Patton Oswalt thoroughly exceeding my already high expectations in a part that definitely stretches his usual geek-boy roles. Olivia Williams, whose been a high point of each episode so far, is even more so here.

And, star Eliza Dushku — who actually has relatively little screen time this episode — actually does show actory stetching beyond her usual good-bad-tough-girl stereotype and gets one of the funniest lines (repeated twice for effect), to boot. Even Reed Diamond’s noxious security honcho has some of near humanity, as does that “handler” with the odd resemblance to Huey Lewis and other seemingly minor characters as Miracle Laurie’s good-hearted woman-next-door shine as well. This thing just may work.

The episode — which went down slightly in the ratings after a slight rebound a week or two back, probably because it aired opposite no less a geek cultural event than the series finale of Battlestar Gallatica — is currently viewable for free via both Hulu and Fox On Demand. All in all, I’d say it’s a good time to check to show out.

H/t, as always for this sort of thing, to Whedonesque.

I’m typically behind in writing a capsule review of a DVD set containing Age of Consent, the final film directed by Michael Powell for Bullz-Eye and just finished watching it this morning.

I can’t find the very negative reaction I know I saw, but Larry Aydlette loved it, and I’m more or less with him. Read his post and you’ll see my thoughts, to a large extent, though I’m perhaps a bit more reserved. It’s a small difference, but I loved the gag Larry mentions with the very charismatic dog and the collar, but also thought it was kind of in the wrong movie. And, because of some sound problems they encountered early on, it does get off to a slightly shaky, perhaps unintentionally New Wavish, start. However, once we arrive at the main locale near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, it’s an amazing film to look at; a haunting and thoughtful tale — even considering subject matter guaranteed to make some squirm — and definitely the opposite of a work of a director in decline. Powell definitely leaned toward the idea that the palace of artistry was paved with a certain amount of excess, but his commitment nearly always worked in his favor, even when his ideas were loopy. There’s a moment in this film when Helen Mirren’s young impromptu model asks James Mason’s late middle-aged artist if a painting he’s happy with is good. “It’s better than good; it’s alive.” Sums it up for me.

Some wonderful extras on the DVD too…and I can barely restrain myself from going to look at the other DVD in the set, which contains A Matter of Life and Death, the film which introduced me to the manifold wonders of Powell and Pressberger, which is good because I actually need to watch it.

And segueing from a favorite filmmaker to a favorite TV maker, in case anyone’s wondering what I thought of the opening episode of Dollhouse after writing about it on Friday, just check out my not too spoilery if typo-ish comments over at Brian’s place, which may expand over time. Let’s just say I’m willing to follow this one along for a bit, though it may not match past obsessions.

I’ll also add that, while Whedon fans have been comparing the elaborate main set to the offices of Wolfram & Hart, I’m seeing that but also a bit more of the House of Blue Leaves from Kill Bill.