#these are not hockey players these are Oscar nominated actors

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saturday night live - vancouver style

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 3, Episode 13, The Morning After Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Frakes: Welcome to The Morning After Job. Jonathan Frakes, Director.

John: John Rogers, Executive Producer.

Chris: Chris Downey, Executive Producer and Writer.

Frakes: And our star of the week, Mr. Spencer Garrett.

John: Did a great job.

Chris: Aw, how fantastic. Now, now, uh, Johnathan, then tell us where- where’d you first work with Spencer?

Frakes: He was on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation with the late, great Jean Simmons.

John: With who?

Frakes: C’mon, don’t start with me.

[John and Chris Laughing]

Frakes: And, uh, so I hadn’t worked with him in about 20 years, and then two episodes in a row. I did this show with him and a show called Good Guys with him. And he was just perfect. This burned out hockey player.

Chris: He really is.

John: He’s got a great range. 

Chris: Yeah, he plays-

John: He also played a lot of stuff in this.

Chris: He plays a lot of stuff. He plays rage, obviously. Plays fear, he plays arrogance.

Frakes: He’s a wonderful leading man, too. He’s got a great old ‘40s face.

John: Yup.

Chris: Now is- I guess his mom was an actor? Uh, I believe so.

Frakes: I wish I could pull her name. Yeah, still is. 

Chris: Yeah, I guess-

Frakes: The Duchess, he calls her.

Chris: Yes! [Laughing]

John: That’s like if you’ve ever- everyone who watches the show knows Mark Sheppard. Mark Sheppard fills up a room.

Frakes: Yes.

John: You go to Mark Sheppard’s house to have dinner, and his father’s there and Mark Sheppard is wallpaper.

[Chris Laughing]

Frakes: That’s right. Oh, his father’s the actor of the family.

John: Mark Sheppard’s father is just- fantastic, giant, British presence. Just really great. Um, what was the inspiration for this episode? Which is what I always ask during the credits.

Chris: Um, well, you know, it’s always-

Frakes: Tell the DVD story!

Chris: [Laughing] Oh, well, there is- there is a movie called The Morning After.

[Frakes Laughing]

John: Which is, uh, Jane Fonda.

Chris: Which is Jane Fonda- which, I believe she was either nominated or won an Oscar for. Uh, in which she wakes up next to-

Frakes: You sure that wasn’t Klute?

Chris: She’s a blackout drunk who wakes up next to-

John: Might’ve been Klute.

Chris: Wakes up next to a dead guy.

John: Yes.

Chris: And, uh, I actually tracked it down on VHS. It was not-

John: Wow!

Chris: Not very, not very helpful.

John: What, uh, what Russian- Russian grocery store did you find that in?

Chris: [Laughing] I don’t know. I don’t know where it was. Somewhere out here. Some, uh, you know, video stores that divide things by cinematographer.

[John Laughing]

Chris: Which is a great thing out in LA. Um, and, uh, I- I guess just the idea was- in doing what we call a gaslight episode. 

Chris: These are kinds of throwbacks to Mission Impossibles where we put somebody in a situation.

John: A tightly controlled situation, yeah.

Chris: A very tightly controlled situation where we’re- you know, the team is controlling all the information, trying to find something that is everybody's worst nightmare. And waking up next to the dead girl you picked up in a bar is every dude's worst nightmare. So that was-

John: You’re generalizing a lot there.

Chris: Well it's one of the guys-

Frakes: Just saying.

John: Just saying.

Frakes: Some.

Chris: -worst nightmares.

John: They came quick, that's all.

Chris: Yes.

John: And a little Order 23 actually.

Chris: Yes.

Frakes: Ooh there she is. The Italian is back!

John: The Italian is back.

John: The lovely Elisabetta Canalis proved to be a wonderful young woman, really charming and really found this character. This is great.

Frakes: And luckily for us, found her American accent.

[Laughter]

Chris: Yes.

John: No, the sort of surliness between the two of them was a lot of fun to play. And it was kinda fun because we debated naming her, and her just being The Italian was this kinda throwback to the 60’s spy movies, and it gave her a hook into the character, because her job is to just torment him.

Chris: Yes.

John: She's an outside force. She’s weather, so to speak.

Frakes: She's weather, but she was also very game, she loved this.

John: Oh yeah. Well this- nevermind the finale, we duct taped her to a chair!

Chris: Yeah.

John: And she's like, “No, no, duct tape me! I have no problem.” And we blew her up and we shot bullets at her, she's fantastic.

Chris: And we hadn't seen her in a while this season, so this was a really important scene.

John: It was a good reset cause we'd originally had another episode that might have popped her up and reset the story in the middle but it didn't work out with the story structure.

Frakes: It was smart to pepper her through the season, cause she's sort of a part of the family, and if you don't see her enough, you forget that.

Chris: Yes.

John: And we also were in another situation where we were not sure where the summer break would fall again. 

Chris: Right.

John: We didn’t know which episode was gonna wind up being the one we went out on. And this worked out, this was our new format, sorta putting the desk/table down there.

Frakes: This is actually a good call. The L.

John: Yeah, this- well it gave us the thing we had first year; it allowed us to shoot down that table, everyone’s at business, they're at work.

Frakes: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah leaning forward, engaged. When they were sitting in those couches, they tended to, like, sink and disappear.

[Laughter]

Frakes: Well it also does something to you physically as an actor; you have to sit more erect and your posture has to be-

John: We also shocked them, we put electric current through these seats just to wake them up.

Chris: And John I have to give you credit, I think you're the one that sorta pioneered the flash back and forth briefing scene. We kinda tend to do these-

Frakes: It was here. This was the one.

John: No, there was another episode where we did it on the first, and-

Chris: We did it in the first season, and what we typically do is we kinda unload all the exposition and then we start the con, and-

John: Yeah I actually like this, and whenever we run into - in the writing room - a really chunky first or second act, this is the first tool out of the toolbox.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Like can we crosscut in time, as we plan, as we execute.

Frakes: As we lay the plan and exposition.

Chris: And it makes it so much more energetic and dynamic, and I think this is the way we’re gonna do it a lot in the future.

John: I'm trying to remember the first episode we did that in.

Chris: I think it was Juror #6 Job.

John: Yes! Where, as he explained what he was doing in the chess game-

Chris: As he explained the assignments we zhoomed to the people doing the assignment, and we zhoomed back to the next guy.

John: Yeah. There's nothing- there's no law that you have to obey linear time in television. And also this character is based on- at least his violence is based on Terry O’Reilly who is my favorite Bruin.

Chris: Oh, sure.

John: And one of my favorite things is you can go on YouTube and find fights of Terry O'Reilly on YouTube, and they're just unspeakable [laughs].

Frakes: So that's who she’s referencing in this next beat with Spencer, yeah, “I know you from-”

John: Yeah, exactly.

Chris: And this is great, we shot this at the convention.

Frakes: We discovered this location, we shot the shit out of this location, it's so easy.

John: It's the convention center. It's doubled as the airport a couple times, it looks like an airport!

Chris: Yeah, and our special effects people put a plane in the back.

John: Yeah.

Chris: And John and I love this-

Frakes: Boom! Boom! Boom!

John: Now wait-

Chris: That's a beautiful-

John: Beautiful zhoom, but how was-

Frakes: Well I had to out Dean Devlin, Dean Devlin!

John: How was he in sight line for that, I just realized that?

Frakes: That's how the camera works!

Chris: They saw him, they 're up high!

John: That's a great shot by the way, look at that eye. Just one eye peeking over it's a great shot, it's beautifully done.

Frakes: And there’s from Aloha Air, they're there, they're in the airport.

John: Yeah, it's amazing if you tightly constrain your shot how much business you can put through it.

Frakes: Given the number of extras we’re allowed.

John: Our 20 extras turn into 40. “Now take off the stewardess uniform! Now put on a skirt! Now walk through again!” Yeah.

Frakes: “Change luggage! Another ticket!”

John: And that's- by the way, a great bit there that Beth does, just deciding to poke out while he's making the phone call. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: She's really working on being a Doctor Who companion in this episode, she's really working the cute-

Chris: And there's the great Gerald Downey.

Frakes: Gerald Downey.

Chris: Who is not my brother!

Frakes: Another recurring member of the family.

Chris: But I feel a member of my TV family, certainly.

John: Yes, it broke our scheduling that we were not able to get both FBI agents. But we did establish that he was off doing- that he was doing very well.

Chris: Yes, doing well.

John: And it really started from throwaway joke in the first season-

Frakes: Oh he had the pentagon job, the pentagon translating job?

John: Yeah he was doing-

Chris: Doing krav maga in Quantico.

[Laughter]

Chris: Which is an Israeli martial art.

John: We did- first season we wanted to start establishing the bigger world in the Leverage universe, and those guys happened to be the first two. And we just loved the actors so much that we started feeling bad for the characters. 

Chris: Yeah.

John: So we made the plot point that they start doing better every time we interact with them.

Chris: I think we kind of talked about in the arc of the overall series, every time the Leverage team brings them in and sort of hands these bumbling FBI agents a collar, that they move up the ranks until the final episode you see them being sworn in as director of the FBI.

Frakes: What about your buddy Michael Mahon, you gonna give him some love?

Chris: Oh let me give some love to Michael Mahon. I cast him on King of Queens - twice - as sort of an oily lawyer businessman.

Frakes: Oddly enough, something we use around here!

[Laughter]

John: That is in the Leverage wheelhouse.

Chris: And I knew in conceiving this character of the fixer lawyer that he would be perfect, and he was.

John: This, by the way, was so old school and one of the fun things about doing this show is we are taking absolutely Mission Impossible old school, and take parts of the conversation and cut them together. 

Chris: Yes.

John: Which you can do fairly seamlessly with electronic technology now-

Chris: Yeah we're not taking any liberties with technology like that.

John: No. Yeah, it's just fun, it really is, there is no difference between this and some dude cutting up reel to reel in Mission Impossible.

Frakes: What has she got? Bam! Recorded the whole thing.

John: Yeah. Exactly. No problem, great little mini gloat there. This was the cut, what are we gonna do, how are we gonna do it, and we bounced.

Frakes: And you do it.

John: Yeah.

Frakes: Did get us through this exposition of Act 1.

Chris: And there you go, and we're gonna set up-

John: And there's our-

Frakes: Our UPM.

Chris: Our UPM.

John: UPM, James Scura. 

Chris: Who is known as the-

Frakes: The Frenchman!

Chris: Yeah, I think the Frenchman.

John: He's the Frenchman.

Frakes: He's the assassin.

Chris: Long-haired bearded guy.

John: Now he is the assassin this episode, he is married to Kari Whurer-

Chris: Yes.

John: Who is the assassin in the other-

Chris: The Reunion Job.

John: The Reunion Job! so in our heads they're like a very bad Mr. and Mrs. Smith. 

[Laughter]

John: In the Leverage-verse they're the kind of B-level assassins that always try to get each other jobs. The Leverage-verse is a cruel place.

Frakes: Never too soon to do the 360!

John: Never too soon.

Chris: And this is a great 360.

John: I'd like to- oh and if you're playing the Leverage RPG, I'd like to use both those characters, I'd like to say. She's great as the groupie in this and it's fun, another thing that she could not have done in the first season, but we've established: Parker can do the short con. She's gotten those skills. She can't do the long con. You know, but Aldis in theory can do the long con, but he always goes over the top- pardon me: Hardison always goes over the top. And Eliot’s the next best.

Frakes: She knows a bar!

Chris: Knows a bar right near her place. And here we land on: boom!

John: Yeah right there, nice timing on that turn and we popped to him. When a girl like that says she knows a bar? You go to the bar.

Frakes: Go to the bar, yeah.

John: You go to that bar, yeah. Nice shot through the- oh wow that is a pretty shot.

Chris: And some nice closing time music from Joe LoDuca, our composer.

John: Yeah, really nice. Then and- good drunk by Spencer Garrett.

Frakes: I gotta say he pulled it out, he really did.

Chris: He did.

John: Again, we talk on another episode-

Frakes: You're afraid of going full tar. But you can't go- gotta go full drunk.

John: Never be afraid of going full drunk. You know what a good thing to do if you're playing drunk, by the way? Is, as an actor, close your eyes and spin for 30 seconds, and then start the scene.

Frakes: Oh good technique.

John: That is- that really helps, good for your physicality.

Frakes: So you're one of those guys who pulls their nose hairs when they wanna cry, too?

John: No, if I were playing drunk I would just get drunk. I'm playing drunk now and I'm drunk. Oh this was a lot of fun, we've been wanting some stereography for ages.

Frakes: Now where does this come from? It's a color combo thing?

Chris: Well our research showed a lot of terrorist groups use- actually use photographs to send coded messages. When you decode the photograph it breaks down into language.

Frakes: When you break down the pixels?

John: Yes, when you break down the pixels, they break down to the binary code, the binary codes are different enough, as soon as there's a difference, it’s encryption.

Frakes: Oh look at Beth here!

John: She's great, digging in on this.

Chris: She's awesome here.

John: And I like them-

Frakes: Setting the con, rebuilding Nate's apartment.

John: Yeah exactly. First time we’re in Nate's bedroom. I don't know why there's a praying mantis in there. 

[Laughter]

John: It's really disturbing, I'm not gonna lie to you.

Frakes: I gotta say, there's not just one praying mantis as you recall. There's a callback.

John: Yeah, and take the picture, always take the picture. And yeah, you can see the pictures in- the books in theory that are on his shelf.

Frakes: Never been done before.

Chris: No, dosing the glass? First time.

John: Just the little roll, that was a nice shot.

Chris: Time tested.

John: And then play to the camera: I'm done, I'm done, and now we go. I like Gina in these black outfits.

Chris: Yeah.

John: I just noticed that we started putting her more in these black outfits this year and it was nice. Well it's black and black because now we have Nate in thief gear, it’s very iconic.

Chris: Yeah, and if I could be a little pretentious for a moment, and I'll indulge myself.

John: Please, go ahead.

Frakes: You gonna talk about the mise en scène? 

Chris: I'm gonna talk about the color scheme. 

John: Oh alright.

Chris: We talked about colors being important here and we kinda used red as the color of rage, which is our character’s- our bad guy's fatal flaw, so you'll see red play a lot in his scenes, and some of the other scenes.

John: That's actually- we talk about how different writers approach stuff, a lot of times Chris is the guy in the room who will ask like, “OK, what's this bad guys problem? What's his fatal flaw? What's his emotion? What's the hook?” Everyone writes from different places.

Chris: This guy has a temper, and that's his weakness.

John: And sometimes it just-

Frakes: I didn't think that was too pretentious.

Chris: Thank you!

John: No, and it wasn't too pretentious at all. Great makeup! Great makeup by the makeup department here, fantastic. The little bit of blue there, the marks on the neck. That's an act out.

Chris: That's an act out!

Frakes: You wanna come back and see what happened to Beth.

John: I would like to know, I would like to know. A little disturbing, I have to admit. I'm fond of Beth, so that's a little disturbing.

Chris: And Spencer's fantastic here, he is really just going through all of what you would do.

John: And we do our flashback here rather than later, no it's a nice bit of work. This was a complicated little episode.

Frakes: Different pieces.

John: Unlike most episodes where there's only one timeshift, there's three. There's the shift forward in the set up, there's the shift back in this exposition, and at the end there's the standard flashbacks.

Chris: Well you had to flashback here because you wanted the audience- you didn't want the audience thinking she's actually dead for very long. And you knew that they were gonna key into that.

John: Also making sure like, well why wouldn't he check her pulse? Well-

Chris: He did!

John: We’re making sure he can't.

Frakes: He did that's why she put the piece of leather on her wrist.

Chris: And now who do you call? And this is the question guys ask each other. Who are you gonna call in this situation?

John: Your lawyer! Gotta call your lawyer.

Frakes: You got your guy, right I've got a guy. Gotta set that call.

John: I will also say, to a great degree, this is why you wrote the episode. 

[Laughter]

Frakes: For these two doing this?

John: You wrote the episode so the boys could be cops.

Chris: The B story in this was an homage to Cops.

Frakes: Bad boys, bad boys.

Chris: Bad boys, bad boys, playing in our heads.

John: Don't sing it! If you sing it we have to pay.

Frakes: Boy did they want to sing it in this scene, though.

Chris: Oh they wanted to.

John: I know, Jesus. People don't know - that's fifty grand, boom.

Chris: And that's a beautiful shot right there. 

John: The mirror shot? Really nice.

Chris: As we find her in the bed, and then find him looking at himself in the mirror. Oh that’s great.

John: Now I’d do a cop show with the two of them, just two surly Boston cops? Could do 13 episodes. We should do that show when we’re in the off season.

Frakes: And no time in the hair department!

John: Cause he's in the cap.

Frakes: Hats go on.

John: Hats go on. There you go. Yeah, we could do that in the hiatus show, we just do the cop show.

Chris: Yeah, and this scene here- we had, I guess, a strep throat outbreak during this episode. 

John: Yes that’s right!

Chris: And there were a couple of things we didn't get to, and I believe this was shot a couple episodes later, really late at night, like three in the morning, and they did a great job.

John: Yeah, no, and just-

Chris: And I love them putting the hats on!

John: The hats, both turning.

Chris: And we’re off.

John: And it’s interesting, because they still always play the hostility cause they annoy each other.

Frakes: They can barely stand to be in the same room, but they're fantastic together.

John: But the physical mirror is one of those giveaways. There's a great bit in The Underground Job where he comes in for the high five and Eliot's annoyed and he goes, “For morale!” Which is a call back to when they were in the woods, and Chris actually has Eliot break into a smile, you know? They’re not- oh that's great. “Next time you can get a firetruck!”

Chris: I think I wrote that on set, I think that was a replacement.

Frakes: I think you did write that on set.

John: You know what, that's like in Inside where he's like, “That's fantastic, you’re great, can we get out of here?”

Chris: Yeah, yeah, I think that was exactly it.

John: The mocking tone is flawless. And strategizing, these are two people at the top of their game trying to figure out exactly how to handle something.

Chris: It was nice to put the two of them together, you know, kind of reminiscing. It was a nice little kind of romantic beat, here.

John: Yeah, they do have a shared history, that's what originally drew them together, you know.

Chris: Yeah.

Frakes: That's sorta what's hanging over both these characters heads, is their shared history?

John: Yeah, and then in the end of the season it collides.

Chris: But here she's sending him off.

John: Yeah, and she'll always be better at the con. She's always giving him little confidence moments, little confidence beats and Gina does a lot of that with physicality that's not in the script. Great encountering bureaucracy moment here.

Frakes: And this is a funny scene, actually.

Chris: And they did a great job of just underplaying the debate between the two of them.

John: Yeah.

Chris: Just throwing it away.

John: Just the-

Chris: The harried prosecutor.

John: Eliot, once again, not happy with the lack of prep Hardison has done, Hardison, once again, overestimating his ability to pull off the con on the fly.

Chris: This is just them, you know-

John: Bickering!

Chris: Improving bullshit. 

Frakes: This is Blake, whose wedding Tim had just been at.

John: Oh that's right!

Frakes: She was fabulous as a lawyer.

Chris: She was great.

John: And they're out. See we've done, we've- oh and now.

Frakes: Oh no, not the convict.

John: If you’re a young writer remember, the much better solution to we screwed up is we succeeded too well.

Chris: We succeeded too well, we convinced them so well that we now have to take a prisoner back with us.

John: There's really no way to go wrong with we succeeded too well.

Frakes: Also, we see the scene doesn't seem too long cause it has the second beat.

John: Yeah that's right, you'd be out by now, you'd be in the car.

Frakes: “Idiot, now we gotta take this guy to the car with us!”

John: And he winds up being a clue path, by the way. Because he's at the same grand jury. 

Chris: Yes.

John: It’s actually- this all hangs together pretty beautifully, I gotta say.

Chris: And now here we go, you've found the dead girl in the bed, your substitute lawyer is here.

John: And your lawyer with the gloves, as one has!

Chris: When you’re the fixer lawyer, you have them.

John: You have gloves!

Chris: Yes. And by the way, there’s no-

Frakes: He's been in messy situations before.

John: He's got a wood chipper.

Chris: By the way, I went to law school; there's no class in fixer law.

John: Really?

Chris: I wish there was.

John: Yeah, you would have gone into that instead of the white collar defense law that you were into?

Chris: I would have gone into that. I would have gone into fixer law, that's much more interesting. 

John: Isn't that close, though?

Chris: Oh well, not with rubber gloves.

[Laughter]

John: Oh, worst client you ever had? Worst client. I don't think you've said it on the DVD.

Chris: Oh, well, I think it was the guy that looted the trust funds of Holocaust survivors.

John: Wow!

Frakes: Ohhh.

Chris: And he was actually a lawyer, too.

John: Yeah, wow.

Frakes: Here we go, here's the beginning of our cop sequence.

Chris: Oh I love this, this is my wife's favorite scene in the whole episode. 

[Laughter]

Chris: She goes, “That guy in the cage, where did you get that guy?”

Frakes: Well I got him going, too! I said, “You can't do enough, try to get into this scene with these guys.” Remember when we were shooting this? I said, “Do anything you can to get into this scene, because they will not let you,” and he said, “Are you sure?” I said, “I promise you.”

Chris: ‘Just try, do everything you can.’

John: You never have to worry on a Frakes episode with him getting somebody to underplay something, that's not- why are there so many praying mantises?! Alright the Irish whiskey just kicked in, I need a little bit more. I love the realization, the head snap that she does here. I adore- “Oh, what the hell?”

[Laughter]

John: Zero to Parker. In .5 seconds with Nate calling audibles.

Frakes: Yeah, and of course we've all got one of these.

Chris: Of course, it's Leverage! You don't have one of these?

John: And of course she does, yeah. Why wouldn’t she?

Frakes: I could use it. This one fits!

John: We never explain that.

Chris: And by the way, it’ll set up a locked off comedy frame, like we talked about in the previous episode.

John: Yes, exactly. Can't go wrong with that. And now they got the call.

Frakes: I had a field day with these guys.

John: Oh yeah.

Chris: What was nice was that Eliot gave Hardison shit for over investing them, and now we can switch it, now all of a sudden Eliot’s the one over invested.

Frakes: Yeah.

John: Eliot has his own soft spots that he’s-

Frakes: Kids! You don't put kids in jeopardy around him.

Chris: You don’t put kids in jeopardy.

John: And that's one of the tricks on the show is making sure- because there's a great saying that every private eye book is a private I - and I'm pointing at myself - book. So it’s very easy to write these characters to be very cool, but without flaws. And so it's very important to constantly remind- each one has their own specific set of flaws that run, that throw a spanner into the works.

Chris: Oh how fun was this?

Frakes: Really fun.

John: Oh guys, how much time did you spend on the cops pastiche, guys? How much money did you spend on this? Two characters?

Frakes: Boom!

Chris: Shot pretty quickly, too, because it’s all handheld.

Frakes: Two characters, two handhelds.

John: These characters are in the plot, how? They're related to the main storyline, how?

Frakes: Derek Sitter!

John: You're not answering any of these questions, are you?

Chris: Derek Sitter and Erin McGarry.

Frakes: They're in the plot because we stopped to save them!

John: Alright, alright, it's a gimme, I'll give it to you.

Chris: And they went for it, too.

John: The dude with the bat.

Chris: Derek especially got thrown into the deep end.

Frakes: His feet got ripped up, his hands. There was real blood by the end of this scene.

Chris: That was real blood, and he was like in character.

John: Yeah. “Sit your ass on the bumper.” That's great; just he puts on the dad voice right there. Just, “I have had enough of this shit.”

[Laughter]

Chris: And there's always the moment in the episode of Cops where it all seems to be calmed down, but there's some moment of disrespect, and the guy jumps back in.

Frakes: “Don’t you talk about my woman!”

John: Oh and down!

Frakes: That's where the blood came!

John: Big takedown by Aldis Hodge, there you go. I love also, by the way, this is plainly in the bartender's view, he's just used to this. He works-

Chris: Locked off comedy frame folks!

[Laughter]

John: There she goes! And by the way, how lucky are we to have an actress like Beth Riesgraf who will get her as in that harness and do that for us? That's not a stunt girl.

Frakes: Here's a cue!

Chris: How great is he?

John: Look at his face light up, there you go, and the hand shake- the awkward handshake. Yeah, that bartender works there, that bartender knows what's going on.

Chris: He knows the deal.

John: Yeah well cause Cora told him

Frakes: He knows who lives upstairs.

John: Exactly, they saved the bar. That's also tied into my theory of the bar where Fitzy, the old guy at the end of the bar, was a contract killer for the Irish mob back in the 50s, and now he kinda just keeps everything calm here. 

[Laughter]

John: He seems innocuous, but you watch, he's got dead eyes. 

Chris: Oh, but I'm so glad we were able to keep this storyline alive.

Frakes: With Downey?

Chris: Of his flirtation with her, and he’s just so sweet.

John: This is one of the frustrating things about making television, real human beings are attached to roles. And so availabilities! You know, budgets, schedules. You know, we wanted to bring Tara back this year and Jeri got another show and couldn't come back. You know, it always makes you happy when you can kinda bend reality to fit the show.

Frakes: See that look on Downey's face? That's something everyone feels when they finish playing a scene with Beth.

John: They always have.

Frakes: It is.

John: She's a blithe spirit.

Chris: And this is great, this is a great shot right here in the window. This is done- this is a great special effects shot, look at that.

John: Yeah we put the glare in, right.

Chris: Yeah.

John: And also the reflection, that reflection is CG, too, if I’m correct.

Chris: Now the bat he's carrying was once a dog.

John: Yes, originally it was a dog.

Frakes: Budget eliminated the dog and the trainer and the amount of hours we could use them.

John: Turns out dogs are ridiculously expensive.

Chris: It’s crazy, I think dogs- I learned that dogs are more expensive than trains.

John: Yes.

Chris: Trains, apparently dirt cheap in Portland. Dogs? Ridiculously expensive.

John: Nice push in on that to help set up in a static shot that things are changing, that's a nice choice.

Chris: Oh I love this, this is great. And this is the two of them going mano y mano.

Frakes: This is a great scene, this is a Godfather scene, or a Goodfellas scene.

John: Yes, yeah. This is- Tim really enjoys these too.

Frakes: He also loves when a good actor shows up. He loves to go toe to toe with a good one.

John: This was like in Double Blind when O’Keefe-

Chris: Michael O’Keefe?

John: Michael O’Keefe came in.

Frakes: And the three hander you had at the end of the season.

John: Yeah, you can’t get him out of these scenes, cause actors- and they tend to shoot these- they want to go long, they wind up doing the whole scene a couple times, as long as you set up to get the coverage. We’re very lucky.

Chris: It's a great objective, I mean he's gotta convince a guy that he killed somebody that he doesn't remember.

John: Yeah, I mean prosecutors in the south do this all the time.

[Laughter]

John: Well- the letters, the emails, go to the website!

Chris: Oh. “Close your eyes.”

John: What's that? Oh, “Close your eyes.”

Chris: I love “Close your eyes.”

John: What I love is he's trying to get him to remember and what he's doing is hypnotizing him. He's basically planting these memories into place.

Chris: He’s planting memories.

Frakes: He’s closing the blinds.

Chris: Yes, and I have to give Tim credit because he said, “I wish there was a little something more in this scene where I'm doing something to put it in his head.” And I added it later and it really worked well.

John: The choking?

Chris: I added the just closing your eyes and putting yourself back in the scene. Because we talk about the unreliability of memory all the time.

John: All the time, yeah. A lot of times when we’re talking about credit and who did what, and who should get the credit for stuff they show. 

[Laughter]

Chris: Unreliability.

John: Memory is unreliable, it’s really- that's why it's safer to default to us. Spencer's great, great way to play this in the closeup.

Frakes: Also a man comfortable with a glass in his hands.

Chris: Here we go, look at this shot! How did we- how many blocks was that?

Frakes: That was four- three blocks.

John: Three blocks on a zhoom.

Chris: That’s great.

Frakes: Three piece, three piece ninja.

John: Three piece ninja.

Frakes: Look at this guy, lost his shoe.

Chris: Hit him with the bat, and wait for the locked off frame- there!

[Laughter]

John: Oh nothing funnier than being taken out of a locked off frame.

Frakes: That's twice in this episode.

John: This was- I remember actually this- when you were writing this, you were in the- you were in the office, the writers room is right next to the office Chris and I share, because we’re a cable show, and we were breaking something else and you came in and you did not have the linkage.

Chris: I needed the linkage.

John: And we wanted- this was one of the ones where we needed to tie it in. And this is why you have a writers room, cause you never know when someone's gonna come up with- oh you know, this is how to do it. It's good to have ten brains. And again you can do a show with these two as FBI agents. We’re just oh so lucky.

Frakes: Blessed.

John: Yup.

Frakes: This is a long shot.

Chris: That is a long shot, right into the back room.

Frakes: From the exterior door, through the bathroom area, and back room.

John: I think we said it- I had fought building this set. I did not want to build this set; I thought we would never be back there. And the number of great long shots we've had moving back and forth between those sets? It's well worth it, worth it.

Chris: Well Jonathan, it was in the bar episode.

John: Yeah, it was in Bottle Job, we built it.

Chris: That was in your job.

John: Yeah, it was in Bottle Job.

Frakes: Alan Smith in the house.

John: Alan Smith is in the back, lurking, drinking. Drinking, Lurking. All those verbs. And- but it was just gonna be a standalone set and then wound up- and then this is also where your experience as a lawyer is handy because I never would have come up in a million years - you need the deposition, he needs to see his handwriting.

Chris: You need his agreement that he made with the government in order to convince the guy that you can make a deal and get him out of this.

John: Yeah, he needs to see the deal, he wouldn't believe any lawyer who didn't have the deal would be the person he could talk to.

Frakes: Red tie, symbolic red tie.

Chris: Symbolic red tie.

John: This was fun eventually-

Chris: Oh and this is-

John: Yeah she plays a great hardass prosecutor.

Chris: Another of my favorite scenes. And this is good cop, bad cop.

Frakes: When she puts on the glasses, whenever she puts on the glasses.

John: It works!

Frakes: You know she's good to go.

John: Those are great glasses, too. The sort of bored, the sort of just move it along here.

Frakes: [Unintelligible] and wiser girl for me.

Chris: And I love the way it was blocked, too, because you had Tim sitting, and you had the great shot to the blinds, and I mean you really had that kind of like Verdict/Godfather kind of feel.

Frakes: It did feel Godfather.

John: When you have three, by the way, you have to change one person's level, that's how you do a three hander. There's actually a great shot in Laura, which is where the actors are stacked up on different vertical levels, and that's how they handle a four hander, and they have people move in and out of those levels.

Frakes: Wow.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: I do occasionally know what I'm talking about.

Frakes: You referenced Laura?

John: You know, the noir thing, we’re very heavy into noir this year.

Chris: Here we go!

John: And then they fight! And that's what I love is-

Frakes: He just- this is the beat where Tim goes behind, which is wonderful.

John: But whenever you can make the mark- and Apollo told us this, whenever you can make the mark feel like he's the audience rather than the guy being worked-

Chris: Yes, absolutely.

John: They want to be involved in it, they don't want to feel like you're left out of it.

Chris: You don't feel like you're being conned by two people that are fighting each other and one of them is on your side.

John: Exactly. If they’re working you, you're being conned. If you’re seeing it, they let you do your own work. No, it's really spectacular, yup. And then-

[Laughter]

John: Just the little note to ‘hey this actually ties into the entire plot for the season’.

Chris: Yes. And worked out nicely in the end.

John: Yes! Yeah, absolutely.

Chris: And she looks great in that power suit, boy.

John: I will say that we didn't have the absolute ending con written yet, that was the great thing with you coming in like, “What do we need to have in that office?” and I'm like, “I don't know yet! we haven't written the finale!” we wound up cobbling the entire finale together, the plot of it-

Chris: Oh I mean it was all planned from the beginning, right John?

[Laughter]

John: Oh c'mon we don’t lie to them. They’re well past that by now.

Frakes: Oh wait, how do you tell these guys are cops?

John: Shoes.

Chris: They got cop shoes!

John: This is actually based on a thing that used to happen to me in New York. When I used to go to Times Square I'd get mistaken for a detective, cause I wore cop shoes.

Frakes: You still do.

John: I don't still-

Chris: And paramedic shirts!

John: Not paramedic shirts then. But when I lived in New York-

Chris: Were you ever mistaken for a paramedic for your shirt?

John: No. 

[Laughter]

John: Oh you know, people gave me a television show and everything, you've had pilots, you know what the process is like. Your own show, top lining, Jonathan, you know. 

Frakes: Ohhh.

John: Anyway, yes it's cop shoes are a dead giveaway.

Chris: There we go, here's our action act, now this is where all hell’s gonna break loose.

Frakes: Dave Connel again, props.

John: Yeah, that’s a beautiful light. That looks like the verdict, too, right there, very nice. Yeah, we grabbed this on the fly was her trying to maneuver him. And a lot of that is playing the catcher, she's kinda just put people in play in different locations.

Chris: Yeah, and that was also tricky here was, since everyone was more or less in the same location, it's just keeping track of who was where.

Frakes: Who could see what, and who would hear what.

John: I don't think this foyer actually existed originally, we kinda cobbled it together like, “Oh, remember the other times you've seen us walk through here? This is here. You just haven't noticed it before.”

Frakes: “It's a little bigger than it used to be.”

John: Yeah, exactly.

Frakes: Big enough to shoot in now.

John: Yeah, exactly. Now that's a beautiful shot, that's a movie shot right there. And then look! “I trust you, that person is the antagonist and you're my friend.”

Chris: And here we go!

John: And he's not good. Let's face it, he’s not a good assassin.

Frakes: Oh that slow mo.

Chris: Oh that was good.

Frakes: Remember this night, Chris?

Chris: Oh god, how many times did we do the windows?

Frakes: We had to walk away.

Chris: Yeah, we had to leave.

Frakes: Went over to the bar and shot a scene and came back.

John: Nice slide slam by the stuntie, by the way.

Chris: Oh she did great.

John: Nice work. And then Gina dodging squibs all over the place.

Chris: Yeah, this is fantastic.

Frakes: This is actually a good sequence.

John: This is a great sequence! This is act four- by the way, you can do this, this is not magic; hacking this is eminently doable.

Chris: Yeah, clone the phone to track them.

Frakes: That's the bump!

John: Yup.

Frakes: I have a bump.

John: You have a what? John, please, no.

[Laughter]

John: The- oh he's shooting the candles, now he's just angry, now he's not getting the job done now he's just- yeah.

Chris: Well we are gonna explain that it's not his chosen profession, he got the job from his wife.

John: That's right.

Chris: Who sent it over to him.

Frakes: Now’s the moment I've been waiting to ask, I have both of you in the room. I was on the set with Chris Downey, who I've done two shows with now, who I've learned to trust.

John: Yup.

Frakes: I’ve been in many rooms with you, we've had many conversations. I said to Downey “Whose idea was this with the wire and the water running down the wire?”

John: The water dripping down the wire? That’s mine.

Frakes: Did you get that?

Chris: I said that!

John: I'm sure Downey said that. He knows, because he had read the script that I had originally wrote it in for a movie that will never get made and he was like “I love this bit!”

Chris: I love that - it’s an awesome bit!

John: And we wound up just turning the lights off cause the flicker was too tough to do.

Frakes: Believe me, what we went through to get the water down the wire.

John: I know, and then, but this is one of those things where you're like, “Oh, we'll be able to do it in post.” And it turns out no, you can't do it in post. But- 

Frakes: We got bad information.

Chris: It was supposed to be a strobe fight.

John: Yeah, it was supposed to be a strobe fight. But you know what? This is just as great. 

Chris: This is great.

John: This is great. He's Batman.

Chris: Aaaaand-

John: And the locked POV, and- boom!

Chris: There we go.

John: And down. Yeah, and then the spinning flashlight.

Frakes: Dean Devlin did this?

John: No, Marc Roskin did this, and shot the hell out of it, really nice.

Frakes: Do you remember us in here with these wires and the water bottle in the ceiling?

Chris: Yeah, I know.

[Laughter]

John: Yeah, that’s- by the way, why I wrote it in a movie. Cause it’s a sequence that you need, like, movie time to do. You can’t do that on a TV show - that's fucking crazy! I don’t know why the hell you thought you could do it in that episode.

Frakes: I said to Chris, “Whose idea is this?” He said, “It’s Rogers! It’s Rogers! It’s Rogers’ idea! It’s great, it’s gonna work!”

Chris: I did. I loved it.

John: I did, I was wrong, I was drunk. Don’t trust me, that only ends in tears.

Chris: I thought it was great.

John: Oh, that's so sweet. You actually had a kiss, originally.

Chris: I originally had a kiss, but you said that was too much.

John: You know, I just don’t think she’s physically intimate enough for that. But if she’s gonna kiss anybody, it's him.

Frakes: Bam!

Chris: Oh here we go- boom, great stunt.

Frakes: Rockford.

Chris: Gut punch.

John: There you go, not afraid to use the bat.

Frakes: Worked better than that dog would have worked.

[Laughter]

John: That would've been like- where's Hardison?

Chris: The dog was supposed to jump out and attack him.

John: Now he’s really pissed, he’s blowing up the offices.

John: He's just having a bad day!

Chris: He's really going crazy on Pottery Barn.

Frakes: Everything that explodes.

John: “Maybe shrapnel from a vase will get in your eye and you'll die!” It's just- he's shooting blind now.

[Laughter]

Frakes: “You don't think I brought enough bullets! I’m French!”

John: “I’m French!” Maybe he's got-

Chris: Why do we think he's French?

John: I don't know! I don't remember. Oh, lovely overhead shot. Oh, and the French hate to get wet, there you go.

Chris: They don't like to get wet when they're shooting.

[Laughter]

Frakes: “That's it, I'm done, I'm wet.”

Chris: We had-

Frakes: “You turned the water on, I'm leaving. It’s bad for my gun.”

Chris: We had a little bit here that also helped the finale, cause we had Eliot come in and- I thought he did- he played this really nicely, saying this is the way Moreau does things. 

John: Yeah.

Chris: Which I think, people are paying attention, kind of helps foreshadow the end.

John: Here is the thing. We did know that Eliot would know Moreau from the beginning of the season. And so there is a lot of stuff during this season that you can go back and watch now that you'll see it indirectly.

Frakes: You can attach it to him.

Chris: That was a little clue right there.

John: And then him panicking, as one does.

Frakes: That’s it, I don't trust any of you, I'll take my chances.

John: And it was interesting, at one point somebody asked, “Why is he running?” Somebody just shot you up, man! You're gonna run, absolutely.

Chris: He's gonna he's not gonna give up Moreau; he’ll take his chances in jail.

John: And that was one of those great times, too, “How the hell do we get him out of there? Wait, is there an elevator in that hallway?”

Frakes: Yes!

John: Yeah, and we never shoot it, we never use it, but it's been in that set since day one. Or day one of this set, which is season 2.

Chris: Now we gotta figure out where we’re all gonna go.

John: They gotta call an audible, ok.

Frakes: Glasses off, now she’s gonna get this. 

Chris: Now she's all business.

John: Glasses on is a role, the glasses off is Sophie using her giant brain.

[Laughter]

John: I don't remember what the- yeah there you go, and that was great cause we get to do the whole everyones coming up with a plan and they're in different places.

Chris: And he's gonna drive. Cause now that they're back to being bickering brothers again.

Frakes: Bickering brothers, exactly.

John: Now the danger’s passed, they can go back. I remember we wrote Eliot particularly brutal in that fight too, it's just- this is what he does when other people aren’t around.

Chris: Right. 

John: He moderates his violence when there's other people around, but when they're not, he's as ruthlessly efficient as one can be.

Chris: Mike Mahon, again, as the fixer lawyer.

John: “Where the hell were you?” And here's the-

Frakes: This is a good scene, I like the cutaways in this scene, what he sees and how he's been conned.

John: How he's perceiving it.

Frakes: Yeah.

John: There was an interesting new story today where a guy got conned out of between 6 and 20 million dollars by computer consultants. He brought his laptop in and- allegedly, the people examining the laptop told him he was the victim of a giant conspiracy and they got him to pay. He had a lot of money, he had inherited a lot of money, and got him to pay a ridiculous amount of money for 24/7 computer security. And they did it by controlling information and convincing him that he was the subject of a conspiracy.

Chris: Oh, so kind of a gaslight.

John: They gaslit him! They did the thing we do.

Chris: Teah.

John: And, well, they're real con people they're turned out- but anyway, what's interesting is how- when we do our research, how far you can drive someone in a tight situation with little information, you know, you really- all you have is what you see.

Chris: Yeah, and now he plays this- I mean, again, we talked about how many shades that Spencer has to play in this episode, and here it's just panic and rage all in one.

John: All at the same time.

Chris: And we did it a bunch of times and he brought it every single time.

Frakes: Oh he did bring it.

John: And great shit eating grin by Beth there, that's a nice- this is a big part of what Dean calls the gloat, is the part of the episode where you have to make the bad guys suffer. We must gloat and the bad guy must suffer.

Frakes: Schadenfreude. [pronounced shoo-den-freud]

John: Is that the word for it? Schadenfreude [pronounced correctly]. I like [shoo-den-freud] cause he's about to start shooting people.

Chris: Here's our guys.

John: And of course they would be, of course you wouldn't question two cops who were arresting him.

Chris: No, the guys going batshit in court, two cops in the hall are gonna go grab him.

Frakes: Good thing they were there.

Chris: And then, “Moreau wants to talk to you.” Now he's really gonna lose it.

John: And then go for the gun.

Frakes: I never use a gun, slow mo.

John: Nice lock. And the taser, which we pay off in the season finale.

Chris: Oh she loves the taser.

John: She loves the taser. She's beginning to realize she loves the taser a bit too much.

Chris: She is a little self aware.

Frakes: Right here she realizes it.

John: And the neck crack. 

Chris: And there’s a smile!

John: I love the neck crack, she just enjoys tasering people, that's just a good day for her.

Chris: And remind people that Eliot doesn't like guns.

John: Exactly. Although we did not know at this point whether we were gonna do the gunfight. We talked about saving the gunfight for season 5 and we wound up using it here, because we had never had a villain that was so tightly tied to him before, so it made sense.

Frakes: This is funny, this is a oner.

Chris: This is a great shot, what a great shot.

John: And a great how to tell a story in one shot. Conservation of energy and momentum.

Frakes: Few producers will let you do it; Dean did.

Chris: Now where did she- did she stop and buy the bow? I know people have asked me that, but she comes prepared with a green bow wherever she goes.

[Laughter]

John: I think she has gift wrapping in her car.

Chris: She has gift wrapping in her car!

John: Cause she likes to give people little gifts. Sometimes it's their own wallet.

Chris: Oh, and that's great.

John: And this is- this became kinda an iconic shot in the show just the three [unintelligible] just, you know, her enjoying it too much. This was a big fan favorite.

Chris: And now-

Frakes: Here it comes.

John: And now the showdown. The place is trashed, and this really-

Chris: Oh and I gotta give credit to our- Becca Molino, who just dressed this office, and I love- you'll see it in the backshot, but the kind of Warhol-like shot, that lithograph she did of-

John: Oh, of him, yeah.

Chris: Of him, it was great.

John: Him at the height of his fame as a hockey player, yeah, really nice. And this is a great- this is a great screw you scene. Now what's interesting is there's a reason her back is to you later in the scene. We shot- we wrote two pieces of dialogue, one where she lays in that they're going off on their own, and one where we laid in that she was working for Moreau.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Because we had not broken the season finale at this point, and we were kinda in the writers room-

Frakes: Luckily we shot her facing away!

Chris: Yes we did. Lucky we made that call.

John: But to be fair, this is a thing- you know, in a writers room there are multiple humans and you don't always- you know, it's nice when creators say, “I knew what was going on from moment one.” On 99.9% of shows, that's bullshit. And we were in a dead tie in the room at this point, like is she working for Moreau or isn't she? And so we pushed. We pushed the bet to the finale which was two weeks later, we were breaking it then.

Chris: Well ultimately it just didn't get us anything. I mean her being in cahoots with him kind of meant that it split the focus on the bad guys, and what was she doing that was different from this big bad guy?

John: Exactly, we got down into plotting the first half of the season finale-

Chris: It sounded great as the ending of this! Oh my god!

John: This was the summer season finale, this was fantastic.

Chris: And here was great this was another- Derek Frederickson, our-

John: The fifth Beatle.

Chris: The fifth Beatle does a great job here.

John: And again, absolutely true. Great way to transmit information if you're trying to overthrow the government, or plan some sort of insurrection, do that. Don't mention you heard it here though, don't tell the FBI that. Tell them you picked up on Boing Boing or Cory Doctorow, something like that, an already known subversive human.

Chris: And now he says sayonara to-

John: Yeah, this is, again, one of those places where Nate- the Nate of first season wouldn't have made this speech. Nate’s been to prison, Nate’s a hardass, Nate’s a thief, Nate plays by his rules now, and is cut loose in thief world. And now she makes the phone call.

Chris: Boy, good call that her back was turned, huh?

John: Well it gave you a nice silhouette.

Frakes: It’s a better shot.

Chris: Jonathan, you must've known that we were gonna go back and change it, right?

Frakes: Unfortunately you added this last scene.

John: What do you mean unfortunately?

Chris: Well, we were a little short.

[Laughter]

John: Things happen.

Chris: It was so fast paced. But I think it worked.

John: Yeah, what was this scene? Cause the sounds off when we watch these.

Chris: Oh this is the- you know we don't have to go after Moreau. This is just kinda reiterating to the audience that this is a war of choice, not of necessity. That now that The Italian is out of the way-

Frakes: Yeah, you've chosen to be in it and we haven’t.

Chris: Yes, yes.

John: Which is why later on we have him then saying, “I'm asking you,” instead of him bullying them into it.

Chris: Yes, exactly.

John: And this a part of the fact that Nate’s hubris is- when Nate’s in the game, he loses track of the goal line, he just needs to win. It's what made him a good investigator, but not necessarily the best guy to lead a crew.

Chris: And I gotta say, to go out on the summer season, I would prefer to go out on our guys than on a bad guy.

Frakes: Yeah, fair enough.

Chris: So it kinda worked out, even though we were a little short.

John: Also I like the fact we had Sophie start drinking this year. She never really drank a lot, but you know, she's a thief. To me, they are a lot like stand up comics. They work in bars at night, you know, they hang out that way. That's a great- that's the last image of the summer, right there.

Chris: That’s it.

Frakes: Damn.

Chris: Frakes!

Frakes: What fun.

John: What a pleasure!

Chris: What fun. I had to wait two seasons to do this.

Frakes: To get back. Because the first time we worked together, The Wedding Job- too funny.

[Laughter]

John: Too funny, let’s not rehash.

Frakes: That’ll never happen again!

John: There you go, alright say goodnight to the folks.

Frakes: Thank you for coming.

Chris: Thank you.

John: Put another DVD in, they get funnier as we get drunker.

[Laughter]

Frakes: Can we watch one more, dad?

John: No we can't!

Frakes: C’mon!

John: You gotta direct another show!

Frakes: I wanna watch the whole season tonight!

John: Alright we’ll put them in, fine.

[whileiamdying]

Ryan O’Neal, Who Became a Star With ‘Love Story,’ Dies at 82

He was a familiar face in movies and on TV before his breakout performance opposite Ali MacGraw in the 1970 blockbuster. But it was overshadowed by years of personal problems.

Ryan O’Neal’s performance opposite Ali MacGraw in the hit 1970 movie “Love Story” made him an instant star. Credit...Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

By Aljean Harmetz

Dec. 8, 2023

Ryan O’Neal, who became an instant movie star in the hit film “Love Story,” the highest-grossing movie of 1970, but who was later known as much for his personal life and health problems as for his acting in his later career, died on Friday. He was 82.

His son Patrick O’Neal confirmed the death in a post on Instagram. It did not give the cause or say where he died.

Mr. O’Neal was a familiar face on both big and small screens for a half-century. But he was never as famous as he was in the immediate aftermath of “Love Story.”

He was 29 years old and had spent a decade on television but had made only two other movies when he was chosen to star in Arthur Hiller’s sentimental romance, written by Erich Segal (who turned his screenplay into a best-selling novel). His performance as Oliver Barrett IV, a wealthy, golden-haired Harvard hockey player married to a dying woman played by Ali MacGraw, garnered him the only Academy Award nomination of his career.

He had played the town rich boy, Rodney Harrington, for five years on the prime-time soap opera “Peyton Place.” But in 1970 Hollywood was not that interested in television actors, and he had been far from the first choice to star in “Love Story.”

“Jon Voight turned the part down. Beau Bridges was supposed to do it,” he told a reporter in 1971. “When my name came up through Ali, they all said ‘No.’ Ali said, ‘Please meet him.’”

“So we met in one of those conference rooms where everybody sits half a mile away from everybody else,” he continued. “Weeks later, they asked me to test. Then I didn’t hear anything until they finally called and said, ‘Will you give us an extension of a week to make up our minds?’”

In the end, Ms. MacGraw persuaded Paramount to cast Mr. O’Neal. He was hired for $25,000 (a little more than $200,000 in today’s currency), and his movie career was ignited.

Before he became a movie star, Mr. O’Neal played the town rich boy, Rodney Harrington, for five years on the prime-time soap opera “Peyton Place.” Credit...Bettmann/Getty Image

It never burned quite as brightly again, although he maintained a high profile throughout the 1970s, appearing in films like “Barry Lyndon” (1975), Stanley Kubrick’s elegantly photographed adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel about a poor 18th-century Irish boy who rises into English society and then falls from those heights; and “A Bridge Too Far” (1977), Richard Attenborough’s epic tale of World War II heroism.

He also demonstrated his knack for comedy in three films directed by Peter Bogdanovich. He co-starred with Barbra Streisand in “What’s Up, Doc?” (1972), a screwball comedy inspired by the 1938 Cary Grant-Katharine Hepburn movie “Bringing Up Baby”; with Burt Reynolds in “Nickelodeon” (1976), a valentine to the early days of moviemaking based on the reminiscences of Raoul Walsh and other directors; and, with his 9-year-old daughter, Tatum, in the best known of the three films he made with Mr. Bogdanovich, “Paper Moon” (1973).

In “Paper Moon,” set in the Midwest during the Depression, Mr. O’Neal played a small-time swindler hornswoggled by a cigarette-smoking orphan who just might be his illegitimate daughter. Tatum O’Neal won an Academy Award for that performance — she remains the youngest person ever to win one of the four acting Oscars — and for a while it appeared that Mr. O’Neal would become the patriarch of an acting dynasty.

When Tatum starred as a Little League pitcher in “The Bad News Bears” (1976), she became the highest-paid child star in history, with a salary of $350,000 (the equivalent of about $1.9 million today) and a percentage of the net profits. Her younger brother Griffin seemed poised for stardom as well when it was announced that he would appear with his father in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1979 remake of “The Champ,” the 1931 tear-jerker about a washed-up former boxer and his son.

Mr. O’Neal’s Oscar-winning co-star in Peter Bogdanovich's period comedy “Paper Moon” (1973) was Tatum O’Neal, his daughter. Credit...Everett Collection

But Mr. Zeffirelli ended up making the film with Jon Voight and Ricky Schroder instead, and Griffin O’Neal’s career never got off the ground. He did have one starring role, in the 1982 film “The Escape Artist,” but that film was not a success. When he was next in the public eye, five years later, it was not for his acting but for his involvement in a boating accident that killed his friend Gian-Carlo Coppola, the son of the director Francis Ford Coppola. He was convicted of negligent operation of a boat but acquitted of manslaughter.

The O’Neal family would go on to have many more problems with the law, with drugs and with one another.

Mr. O’Neal, who was well known in Hollywood for his temper — when he was 18, he spent 51 days in jail for a brawl at a New Year’s Eve party — was charged with assaulting his son Griffin in 2007. Those charges were dropped, but a year later he and Redmond O’Neal, his son with the actress Farrah Fawcett, were arrested on a drug charge. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to undergo counseling, while Redmond entered rehabilitation but continued to struggle with addiction.

Tatum O’Neal had her own highly publicized drug problems and was estranged for many years from her father, who she said physically abused her when she was a child.

Mr. O’Neal’s fame was beginning to slip by 1978, when Paramount offered him $3 million to star in “Oliver’s Story,” a sequel to “Love Story.” He accepted, even though his distaste for the project was clear.

“There’s something cheap about sequels,” he told a reporter, “and this one’s a complete rip-off.” When the movie was released, the critics agreed.

Mr. O’Neal with Farrah Fawcett in 1981. They began their highly publicized on-again, off-again relationship when she was still married to the actor Lee Majors. Credit...Steve Sands/Associated Press

His days as an A-list star were soon over, although he continued to work steadily in the 1980s and ’90s. His more memorable movies in this period included “Partners” (1982), in which he played a heterosexual police detective who goes under cover with a gay partner, played by John Hurt; “Irreconcilable Differences” (1984), as a successful Hollywood director whose 10-year-old daughter, played by Drew Barrymore, sues him for divorce; and “Tough Guys Don’t Dance” (1987), a crime drama written and directed by Norman Mailer. He also co-starred with Ms. Fawcett in the short-lived 1991 television series “Good Sports.”

Most of Mr. O’Neal’s later work was on television, including a recurring role on the series “Bones.”

Patrick Ryan O’Neal was born in Los Angeles on April 20, 1941, the elder son of Charles O’Neal, a screenwriter, and Patricia Callaghan O’Neal, an actress. At 17 he joined his nomadic parents in Germany and got his first taste of show business as a stunt man on the television series “Tales of the Vikings.”

He never took an acting lesson, but his striking good looks, as well as the anger that seemed to boil just below the surface, helped win him roles on television not long after he returned to Los Angeles.

Mr. O’Neal in 2015. The last major role he played, four years earlier, was himself, on the reality show “Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals.” Credit...Ryan Stone for The New York Times

His marriages to the actresses Joanna Moore and Leigh Taylor-Young ended in divorce. Ms. Taylor-Young, his co-star on “Peyton Place,” told an interviewer that their marriage never recovered from the success of “Love Story,” which she said brought “a type of life which is not suitable for Ryan’s personality.”

Mr. O’Neal was romantically linked with many actresses, but it was his on-again, off-again relationship with Ms. Fawcett, which began when she was still married to the actor Lee Majors, that garnered the most attention. The couple never married but were together for almost 20 years before they separated in 1997. They later reconciled and were living together when Ms. Fawcett died of cancer in 2009. In 2012 he published a book about their relationship, “Both of Us: My Life With Farrah.”

Mr. O’Neal’s survivors include his daughter and a son, Patrick, a sportscaster. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

In 2012, Mr. O’Neal revealed that he was being treated for prostate cancer. That diagnosis came 11 years after he contracted chronic myelogenous leukemia, which eventually went into remission.

The last major role Mr. O’Neal played was himself. In the summer of 2011, he and his daughter starred in a reality show, “Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals,” on Oprah Winfrey’s cable channel, OWN. The series left the impression that the two had ended their long estrangement, but Mr. O’Neal later told an interviewer that it painted a false picture.

“We’re further apart now than we were when we started the show,” he said.

Peter Keepnews and Orlando Mayorquin contributed reporting.

[stfusoren-blog]

INTRODUCING SOREN LUNDQVIST, just your average local, swedish boy trying his goddamn best every single day... also hi i’m hana. pst. she/her.

i wrote his intro post as his wikipedia page which would have all of the public information about soren in it so it’s kinda... long and wordy whoops. but i’ll write a quick bit of basic stuff here for y’all who don’t want to read the whole thing lmao

he is 22 and will be playing noah czerny on nova’s trc adaption (it’s his first major english speaking role)

he is very swedish! his parents kind of have this crazy legacy in sweden and europe and his brother has won oscars for his foreign films and directing. soren is the first to try to do any american projects. so he’s v famous in sweden and europe, just not here. 

he’s spent the last 8 years of his life in michigan for boarding school and college! (go wolverines lmao) he also played lots of hockey. the boy’s got a booty.

soren is very much bisexual but kind of closeted kind of not. meaning he hooks up a lot but he doesn’t really date so coming out isn’t an idea for him at all.

im hockey trash so if you want to know how to say his last name watch THIS

and his accent is faint but it sounds like THIS or if you are also hockey trash, watch this for his natural speaking pattern in english kill me

hmu if you would like to plot!!

anyways

here we gooo

Soren Lundqvist

Born                   Sören Nils Jakob Ekman-Lundqvist

                            July 2nd, 1995 (22 years old)

                            Gothenburg, Sweden

Residence           Los Angeles, California

Occupation          Actor

Years active         2000 – present

Parent(s)               Alicia Ekman (mother)

                              Nils Lundqvist (father)

Relatives               Elias Lundqvist (brother)

                               Maja Lundqvist (sister)

Sören Nils Jakob Ekman-Lundqvist (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈsœːrɛn ˈlɵndkvɪst]; born July 2nd, 1995) is a Swedish actor. He is best known for his roles in his brother Elias Lundqvist’s Academy Award winning films Vaggvisor (Lullabies) and Det Här är Mina Sista Steg (These Are My Last Steps).

In 2017, Lundqvist was casted in the Nova television series adaptation of Maggie Stiefvater’s series The Raven Cycle as Noah Czerny, his first major English speaking role.

Early life

Soren Lundqvist was born in Gothenburg, Sweden on July 2nd, 1995. He is the youngest son of directors and actors Alicia Ekman and Nils Lundqvist. He has two siblings: Elias and Maja, a director and model respectively.

A friend of his mother casted Lundqvist in his first film at the age of five. He played Björn, a young son of an estranged couple in Världen från tre fötter Tall (The World from Three Feet Tall). Already famous due to his family’s legacy, Lundqvist was shy in the eyes of the Swedish media, leading to his parents pulling him from acting after his debut.

After serious acting training under the guidance of his parents and various teachers, Lundqvist returned to acting at age ten, appearing in various Swedish television shows that made him a quick household name.

At fourteen, Lundqvist was sent to study at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan where he played for a nearby hockey club while studying theater. This is where he met longtime friend Benny Jackson.

Career

Sweden

Upon his return to acting in 2005, Lundqvist cameoed in various Swedish television series, most notably Wallander for 12 episodes. Lundqvist was commonly cast in various Swedish BBC series afterwards as recurring characters.

In 2009, Lundqvist and his sister Maja starred in a passion project spurred on by Elias, who had won his first Academy Award two years earlier. Vaggvisor (Lullabies) was inspired by their home, Sweden, and how long the summer days are. Elias’s cinematography earned him another Academy Award in 2010 for Best Director and Best Foreign Film. The filming process really allowed Lundqvist to show off his acting talents. Elias explained in interviews that, “the movie was completely improvised. I sat my siblings down one night and told them about the vision I had and everything just clicked.” The film followed Maja’s unnamed character taking care of her younger, fearless, dreaming brother portrayed by Lundqvist when faced with the sudden responsibility in the wake of poverty, a topic rarely touched on in Swedish films.

In 2011, Lundqvist starred in another one of Elias’s films. Det Här är Mina Sista Steg (These Are My Last Steps), a coming of age film spurred on by Lundqvist’s character creating a new identity in Stockholm while dealing with his sexuality, eating disorders, and abandoning the past. The film created international buzz and was nominated for Best Foreign Film.

That following year, Lundqvist returned to Sweden to film another drama. When interviewed at the premiere, Lundqvist stated that he missed the language after years of studying in the United States.

The United States

In 2017, Nova’s television adaptation of the best-selling book series The Raven Cycle cast Lundqvist as Noah Czerny. Surprisingly, this is Lundqvist’s first major project in English, citing lack of familiarity of the language as a reason for avoiding the projects previously.

Previously, Lundqvist has cameoed in various music videos for American and European artists. Most notable are his cameo in Such a Boy by Astrid and an upcoming video for the Lumineers.

Education

Lundqvist attended Interlochen Center of Arts in Interlochen, Michigan from 2009 to 2013 before going on to attend University of Michigan with longtime friend and current roommate Benny Jackson.

He graduated in May of 2017 with a degree in Drama and minor in Theatre Performance. At University of Michigan, Lundqvist starred in many school productions and musicals while playing hockey for the Wolverines. 

Lundqvist is fluent in five languages: Swedish (his mother tongue), Norwegian, English, French, and German. He has studied Russian in college as well, though he has expressed that he is nowhere near fluency yet.

Personal life

Hockey

Lundqvist played club hockey with the Grand Traverse North Stars while he attended Interlochen Center of the Arts from 2009 to 2013.

In 2012, Lundqvist announced that he was committed to play hockey for University of Michigan. That same year, Lundqvist made his first international appearance for the Swedish International U18 Men’s Team at the IIHF World U18 Championships where Sweden won silver.

In 2013, was drafted in the 117th overall in the Fourth Round of the 2013 NHL Entry Draft by the San Jose Sharks. Lundqvist was projected to go higher than that by scouts, ranked around 20th overall and 18th for North American skaters. However, the uncertainty of whether or not Lundqvist would continue with his hockey career after playing for University of Michigan was unclear for many NHL teams who chose not to waste their draft pick on him, similar to Jamie Benn to the Dallas Stars. Lundqvist appeared again at the 2013 IIHF World U18 Championships where Sweden won silver again.

At University of Michigan, Lundqvist helped the team appear in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012 in the 2016 tournament with other notable future NHL players such as Zach Werenski and Dylan Larkin on the team.

While in attendance at University of Michigan, Lundqvist has gone on to attend the San Jose Sharks development camps and training camps during the summers. He has been called up to make three appearances in the NHL. Lundqvist has not signed his Entry Level Contract and has not expressed certainty on the subject. 

Despite sharing a surname with famous NHL goalie Henrik Lundqvist and the SHL’s Joel Lundqvist, they are not related. However, there are many stories where Lundqvist pretended to be Henrik’s son while attending New York Rangers games in Detroit in order to sneak into the locker room. The two are family friends.

Family

His parents are legendary Swedish directors. Lundqvist and his siblings were expected to follow in their footsteps and have done so. Elias is an Academy Award Winning director while Maja is a model for brands such as Burberry and Chanel.

In 2013, Lundqvist found his brother unconscious from a drug overdose after coming home from Michigan for the summer. Elias was hospitalized and has not released a film since.

Lundqvist currently shares an apartment in Los Angeles with Benny Jackson. The two met at Interlochen in 2009 where they have roomed with each other since. The two attended University of Michigan together. Benny Jackson has a role on KU’s The Lunar Chronicles.

[ingilizce-turkce]

Love Story Filminin İngilizce Tanıtımı

Love Story Filminin İngilizce Tanıtımı

Love Story (1970) is a sentimental, romantic tearjerker film from director Arthur Hiller about a tragic couple. The melodramatic soap-opera, tremendously popular and a financial success (the top-earning film of the year) but panned by critics for its sappy content, was based upon Erich Segal’s best-selling short novel of the same name. The film’s tagline, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” appeared slightly differently in Segal’s novelization: “Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry.” An inferior sequel was produced later in the decade – Oliver’s Story (1978) pairing a still-grieving Ryan O’Neal with Candice Bergen.  The catchy, haunting, piano-plinking score won the Best Original Score Oscar (the film’s sole award) for Francis Lai from its seven Academy Awards nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Ryan O’Neal), Best Supporting Actor (John Marley), Best Actress (Ali MacGraw), Best Director (Arthur Hiller), and Best Original Story and Screenplay (Erich Segal).  Told as a flashback, this is an uncomplicated love story between two star-crossed lovers-students, Harvard pre-law hockey player Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neal) and Radcliffe music student Jenny Cavilleri (Ali MacGraw). Oliver narrates the opening line of the film, looking back: What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?

Their love triumphs over different economic-class backgrounds (he is a “preppie millionaire,” she a smart-mouthed “social zero” from a blue-collar Italian/American family). Their main obstacle to romance is that his rich, powerful and snobbish father, Oliver Barrett III (Ray Milland) objects and threatens to cut off funding: “Oliver, if you marry her now, I’ll not give you the time of day.” To which the younger, bull-headed Oliver defiantly asks: “What offends you more, Father, that she’s Catholic, or poor?” He ultimately responds: “Father, you don’t know the time of day.” The two young lovers marry anyway and first move into a small apartment in Cambridge before Oliver is hired by a New York law firm and they move to the city.  The film’s two most touching and remembered scenes are their prolonged kissing scene and the montage of the couple tossing snowballs at each other. After meeting many obstacles and making sacrifices, she is diagnosed as terminally ill when she is tested for pregnancy, and dies in his arms at the hospital in a tear-inducing closing. She makes a last request of him: “You, after all – you’re going to be a merry widower.” “I won’t be merry,” he responds. She replies: “Yes, you will be. I want you to be merry. You’ll be merry, okay?”  In the final scene, Oliver quotes his late wife, when speaking to his father about their past misunderstandings. After his father tells him he’s sorry that she has died, Oliver responds in the last memorable line of the film, quoting an earlier remark of Jenny’s:  Love means never having to say you’re sorry. He then walks out into a snowy Central Park to contemplate what life might have been in a touching finale, as the award-winning musical score builds in the background.  By Author Erich Segal By the author of one of the best selling novels of all times – Love Story will touch your heart deep down and will make you feel like an unwritten character of Segal living it all from inside. Erich Segal is an international best selling author who has crafted various novels such as Oliver’s Story, Only Love, The Class, Doctors and many more. This perfectly written love story has more than 21 million devotees and once you read it too you’re next.

[onecountrycom-blog]

Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood and More Nominated For Teen Choice Awards

Blake Shelton, Carrie Underwood and Thomas Rhett are only a few country names among the first wave of nominees announced for the 2018 Teen Choice Awards. Blake, Carrie and TR are vying for Choice Country Artist against fellow country singers Kane Brown, Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris, while Maren and FGL are nominated in all-genre categories. FGL grabbed a nod for Choice Music Group and Maren along with Zedd and Grey grabbed a nod for Choice Collaboration for the "The Middle." Fans can vote for their favorite at TeenChoice.com or by tweeting the category hashtag with the nominee’s name. Fans can vote up to 10 times per day in each category until June 19. "The Teen Choice Awards" air live Aug. 12 at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. Choice Country Artist (#ChoiceCountryArtist) Blake Shelton Carrie Underwood Kane Brown Kelsea Ballerini Maren Morris Thomas Rhett Choice Music Group (#ChoiceMusicGroup) 5 Seconds of Summer Fifth Harmony Florida Georgia Line Maroon 5 Migos Why Don’t We Choice Song: Male Artist (#ChoiceSongMaleArtist) Charlie Puth – “Attention” Childish Gambino – “This Is America” Drake – “God’s Plan” Ed Sheeran – “Perfect” Justin Timberlake (feat. Chris Stapleton) – “Say Something” Kendrick Lamar (feat. Zacari) – “Love” Choice Collaboration (#ChoiceCollaboration) Bebe Rexha (feat. Florida Georgia Line) – “Meant to Be” Bruno Mars (feat. Cardi B) – “Finesse (Remix)” Taylor Swift (feat. Ed Sheeran & Future) – “End Game” The Weeknd & Kendrick Lamar – “Pray for Me” (“Black Panther” soundtrack) Zac Efron & Zendaya – “Rewrite the Stars” (“The Greatest Showman” soundtrack) Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey – “The Middle”  

FULL LIST OF NOMINEES: 

Movies

Choice Action Movie Avengers: Infinity War Justice League Maze Runner: The Death Cure Pacific Rim: Uprising Tomb Raider   Choice Action Movie Actor Chris Evans, Avengers: Infinity War Dylan O'Brien, Maze Runner: The Death Cure Henry Cavill, Justice League John Boyega, Pacific Rim: Uprising Robert Downey Jr., Avengers: Infinity War Tom Holland, Avengers: Infinity War   Choice Action Movie Actress Alicia Vikander, Tomb Raider Amy Adams, Justice League Elizabeth Olsen, Avengers: Infinity War Gal Gadot, Justice League Scarlett Johansson, Avengers: Infinity War Zoe Saldana, Avengers: Infinity War   Choice Sci-Fi Movie Black Panther Blade Runner 2049 Rampage Ready Player One Thor: Ragnarok   Choice Sci-Fi Movie Actor Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther Chris Hemsworth, Thor: Ragnarok Dwayne Johnson, Rampage Mark Ruffalo, Thor: Ragnarok Ryan Gosling, Blade Runner 2049 Tye Sheridan, Ready Player One   Choice Sci-Fi Movie Actress Danai Gurira, Black Panther Letitia Wright, Black Panther Lupita Nyong'o, Black Panther Naomie Harris, Rampage Olivia Cooke, Ready Player One Tessa Thompson, Thor: Ragnarok   Choice Fantasy Movie A Wrinkle in Time Coco Peter Rabbit Star Wars: The Last Jedi   Choice Fantasy Movie Actor Anthony Gonzalez, Coco Gael García Bernal, Coco James Corden, Peter Rabbit John Boyega, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Mark Hamill, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Oscar Isaac, Star Wars: The Last Jedi   Choice Fantasy Movie Actress Carrie Fisher, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Daisy Ridley, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Mindy Kaling, A Wrinkle in Time Oprah Winfrey, A Wrinkle in Time Reese Witherspoon, A Wrinkle in Time Storm Reid, A Wrinkle in Time   Choice Drama Movie A Quiet Place Midnight Sun Murder on the Orient Express The Greatest Showman Truth or Dare Wonder   Choice Drama Movie Actor Hugh Jackman, The Greatest Showman Jacob Tremblay, Wonder Leslie Odom Jr., Murder on the Orient Express Patrick Schwarzenegger, Midnight Sun Timothée Chalamet, Lady Bird Zac Efron, The Greatest Showman   Choice Drama Movie Actress Bella Thorne, Midnight Sun Daisy Ridley, Murder on the Orient Express Julia Roberts, Wonder Lucy Hale, Truth or Dare Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird Zendaya, The Greatest Showman   Choice Comedy Movie Daddy's Home 2 I Feel Pretty Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Love, Simon Overboard Pitch Perfect 3   Choice Comedy Movie Actor Dwayne Johnson, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Eugenio Derbez, Overboard Jack Black, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Kevin Hart, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Mark Wahlberg, Daddy's Home 2 Will Ferrell, Daddy's Home 2   Choice Comedy Movie Actress Amy Schumer, I Feel Pretty Anna Faris, Overboard Anna Kendrick, Pitch Perfect 3 Hailee Steinfeld, Pitch Perfect 3 Karen Gillan, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Rebel Wilson, Pitch Perfect 3  

Television

Choice Drama TV Show Empire Famous in Love Riverdale Star The Fosters This is Us   Choice Drama TV Actor Cole Sprouse, Riverdale Freddie Highmore, The Good Doctor Jesse Williams, Grey's Anatomy Jussie Smollett, Empire K.J. Apa, Riverdale Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us   Choice Drama TV Actress Bella Thorne, Famous in Love Camila Mendes, Riverdale Chrissy Metz, This Is Us Lili Reinhart, Riverdale Maia Mitchell, The Fosters Ryan Destiny, Star   Choice Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Show iZombie Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments Stranger Things Supernatural The 100 The Originals   Choice Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Actor Bob Morley, The 100 Dominic Sherwood, Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments Finn Wolfhard, Stranger Things Gaten Matarazzo, Stranger Things Joseph Morgan, The Originals Matthew Daddario, Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments   Choice Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Actress Eliza Taylor, The 100 Emeraude Toubia, Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments Katherine McNamara, Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments Lana Parrilla, Once Upon a Time Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things Rose McIver, iZombie   Choice Action TV Show Arrow Gotham Lethal Weapon Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Supergirl The Flash   Choice Action TV Actor Chris Wood, Supergirl Damon Wayans, Lethal Weapon David Mazouz, Gotham Grant Gustin, The Flash Lucas Till, MacGyver Stephen Amell, Arrow   Choice Action TV Actress Caity Lotz, DC's Legends of Tomorrow Candice Patton, The Flash Chloe Bennet, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Danielle Panabaker, The Flash Emily Bett Rickards, Arrow Melissa Benoist, Supergirl   Choice Comedy TV Show Black-ish Fuller House Jane the Virgin Modern Family The Big Bang Theory The Good Place   Choice Comedy TV Actor Andy Samberg, Brooklyn Nine-Nine Anthony Anderson, Black-ish Elias Harger, Fuller House Hudson Yang, Fresh Off the Boat Jaime Camil, Jane the Virgin Rico Rodriguez, Modern Family   Choice Comedy TV Actress America Ferrera, Superstore Candace Cameron Bure, Fuller House Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin Kristen Bell, The Good Place Sarah Hyland, Modern Family Yara Shahidi, Black-ish, Grown-ish   Choice Animated TV Show Bob's Burgers Family Guy Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir Rick and Morty Steven Universe The Simpsons   Choice Reality TV Show Keeping Up with the Kardashians Lip Sync Battle MasterChef Junior The Four: Battle for Stardom The Voice Total Divas   Choice Throwback TV Show Dawson's Creek Friends Gossip Girl One Tree Hill That '70s Show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air   Choice TV Personality Chrissy Teigen, Lip Sync Battle Derek Hough, World of Dance DJ Khaled, The Four: Battle for Stardom Hailey Baldwin, Drop the Mic Kelly Clarkson, The Voice Meghan Trainor, The Four: Battle for Stardom  

Music

Choice Male Artist Bruno Mars Drake Ed Sheeran Louis Tomlinson Niall Horan Shawn Mendes   Choice Female Artist Ariana Grande Camila Cabello Cardi B Demi Lovato Dua Lipa Taylor Swift   Choice Music Group 5 Seconds of Summer Fifth Harmony Florida Georgia Line Maroon 5 Migos Why Don't We   Choice Country Artist Blake Shelton Carrie Underwood Kane Brown Kelsea Ballerini Maren Morris Thomas Rhett   Choice Electronic/Dance Artist Calvin Harris Marshmello Martin Garrix Steve Aoki The Chainsmokers Zedd   Choice Latin Artist Becky G CNCO Daddy Yankee J Balvin Luis Fonsi Maluma   Choice R&B/Hip-Hop Artist Cardi B Childish Gambino Drake Khalid Nicki Minaj Post Malone   Choice Rock Artist Imagine Dragons Panic! At the Disco Paramore Portugal. The Man twenty one pilots X Ambassadors   Choice Song: Female Artist Ariana Grande, "No Tears Left To Cry" Camila Cabello (feat. Young Thug), "Havana" Demi Lovato, "Sorry Not Sorry" Dua Lipa, "New Rules" Halsey, "Bad at Love" Taylor Swift, "Look What You Made Me Do"   Choice Song: Male Artist Charlie Puth, "Attention" Childish Gambino, "This Is America" Drake, "God's Plan" Ed Sheeran, "Perfect" Justin Timberlake (feat. Chris Stapleton), "Say Something" Kendrick Lamar (feat. Zacari), "Love."   Choice Song: Group 5 Seconds of Summer, "Youngblood" Imagine Dragons, "Whatever It Takes" Maroon 5, "Wait" Panic! At the Disco, "Say Amen (Saturday Night)" Portugal. The Man, "Feel It Still" Why Don't We, "Trust Fund Baby"   Choice Collaboration Bebe Rexha (feat. Florida Georgia Line), "Meant to Be" Bruno Mars (feat. Cardi B), "Finesse (Remix)" Taylor Swift (feat. Ed Sheeran & Future), "End Game" The Weeknd & Kendrick Lamar, "Pray for Me" ("Black Panther" soundtrack) Zac Efron & Zendaya, "Rewrite the Stars" ("The Greatest Showman" soundtrack) Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey, "The Middle"  

Other

Choice Comedian Ellen DeGeneres James Corden Jimmy Fallon Kevin Hart Lilly Singh The Dolan Twins   Choice Male Athlete Adam Rippon J.J. Watt LeBron James Red Gerard Shaun White Stephen Curry   Choice Female Athlete Chloe Kim Lindsey Vonn Mikaela Shiffrin Mirai Nagasu Serena Williams U.S. Olympic Women's Ice Hockey Team Read the full article

[thrashermaxey]

Fantasy Hockey Oscars

  Inspired by Sunday night’s Academy Awards, which I didn’t watch, I will attempt to put a fantasy hockey spin on the old classic. There will be no red carpet fawning or lists of the best and worst dressed players, that stuff is for The Hockey News.

  Costume Design

  Rest assured, those awful Toronto Maple Leafs white uniforms (sponsored by Wite Out and Benjamin Moore Paints) they wore during Saturday night’s outdoor game did not make the list. There are four Original Six franchises amongst the nominees. This award is subjective and very much in the eye of the beholder.

  Western Conference Nominees

  Chicago Blackhawks

St. Louis Blues

Winnipeg Jets

  Eastern Conference Nominees

  Detroit Red Wings

Montreal Canadiens

Toronto Maple Leafs

  Winner – Toronto Maple Leafs. Just a classic look with that old school maple leaf on the front. Take how great those jerseys look, along with how bright the future appears to be and you’ve got a winning combination in Hogtown.

  Best Performance in a Comedy

  Western Conference Nominees

  Brock Boeser (Vancouver Canucks) – 61-29-26-55 (next best on team has 46 points), tied for 10th in NHL with 10 power-play goals, 23 power-play points, second highest rookie scorer

  Patrick Kane (Chicago Blackhawks) – 66-24-38-62 (next best on team has 45 points), fifth most shots on goal in NHL (236)

  Eastern Conference Nominees

  Josh Bailey (New York Islanders) 62-16-48-64, ninth in league with 28 power-play points

  Mathew Barzal (New York Islanders) 66-18-49-67, top rookie scorer, two more points than John Tavares

  Mark Stone (Ottawa Senators) 55-20-40-60 (next best on team has 47 points)

  Winner – Mark Stone. The Senators season has been a circus with talk of dealing their franchise player, trading of veterans and poor attendance numbers. Through it all, Stone has weathered the turmoil and is four points away from a career best campaign with 18 games remaining on the slate.

  Foreign Language Film

  Western Conference Nominees

  Leon Draisaitl (Germany, Edmonton Oilers) – 61-21-37-58

  William Karlsson (Sweden, Vegas Golden Knights) – 65-35-24-59, tied for third in NHL goal scoring, leads league in plus/minus (plus-39)

  John Klingberg (Sweden, Dallas Stars) – 65-7-48-55, leads NHL in defence scoring

  Anze Kopitar (Slovenia, Los Angeles Kings) – 66-27-44-71

  Patrik Laine (Finland, Winnipeg Jets) – 65-35-23-58, tied for third in league goal scoring, first in power-play goals

  Eastern Conference Nominees

  Nikita Kucherov (Russia, Tampa Bay Lightning) – 64-33-52-85, tops league in points, seventh in shots on goal (229), tied for fourth in NHL power-play points (31)

  Evgeni Malkin (Russia, Pittsburgh Penguins) – 62-36-43-79, tied for fourth in NHL power-play points (31)

  Alexander Ovechkin (Russia, Washington Capitals) – 65-40-32-72, leads NHL in goal scoring and shots on goal (279), 117 hits

  Andrei Vasilevskiy (Russia, Tampa Bay Lightning) – 38-12-3, 2.41 goals-against average, 0.926 save percentage, leads NHL in shutouts (7), third in saves (1591)

  Jakub Voracek (Czechia, Philadelphia Flyers) – 66-14-57-71, tied for fourth in NHL power-play points (31)

  Winner – Nikita Kucherov. Admittedly, there was a heavy Russian presence in the nominations. Kucherov has 21 points in his last 14 games. He will have to fend off Connor McDavid among others down the stretch if he is going to win his first scoring title, but the Russian has a strong supporting cast to help bring the title home.

  Directing

  Western Conference Nominees

  Gerard Gallant (Vegas Golden Knights) – first in Pacific Division, 89 points

  Peter Laviolette (Nashville Predators) – first in West, 93 points

  Paul Maurice (Winnipeg Jets) – second in Pacific Division, 87 points

  Eastern Conference Nominees

  Bruce Cassidy (Boston Bruins) – second in Atlantic Division, 88 points

  Jon Cooper (Tampa Bay Lightning) – first in NHL, 94 points

  John Hynes (New Jersey) – fourth in Metropolitan Division, 74 points

  Winner – Gerard Gallant. When you take an expansion team to the top of the division in your first year, you’re gonna win some hardware

  Hairstyling Lifetime Achievement Award

  Awarded post-humorously to Jaromir Jagr. You haven’t been gone long, but we already miss your flowing mullet.

  Sound Mixing (Complaints Falling on Deaf Ears Award)

  Western Conference

  Jeff Carter (Los Angeles Kings) – 11-3-3-6, averaged 28 goals and 66 points over each of the last three seasons

  Oliver Ekman-Larsson (Arizona Coyotes) – 64-9-23-32, league worst minus-35, making him unusable in roto leagues where plus/minus is a category

  Duncan Keith (Chicago Blackhawks) – 66-1-27-28, minus-18, 22 penalty minutes, 32 hits, eight power play points, 40.5 average draft position in Yahoo

  Eastern Conference

  Max Pacioretty (Montreal Canadiens) – 64-17-20-37, minus-16, snaps string of four straight 30 goal seasons, 31.0 average draft position in Yahoo

  Justin Schultz (Pittsburgh Penguins) – 47-3-15-18, 12 penalty minutes, seven power-play points

  Shea Weber (Montreal Canadiens) – 26-6-10-16, prior to this season, averaged 48.5 points per year over the last four campaigns

  Winner – Max Pacioretty. Tough season for Patches, Habs fans and fantasy owners alike.

  Short Film (Animated)

  Western Conference Nominees

  Jake Allen (St. Louis Blues) – 19-19-2, 2.83 goals-against average, 0.904 save percentage

  Cam Talbot (Edmonton Oilers) – 22-26-2, 3.12 goals-against average, 0.903 save percentage

  Eastern Conference Nominees

  Craig Anderson (Ottawa Senators) – 18-20-5, 3.29 goals-against average, 0.900 save percentage

  Brayden Holtby (Washington Capitals) – 29-14-4, 3.00 goals-against average, 0.908 save percentage

  Matt Murray (Pittsburgh Penguins) – 23-13-2, 2.82 goals-against average, 0.909 save percentage

  Carey Price (Montreal Canadiens) – 15-22-6, 2.98 goals-against average, 0.904 save percentage

  Winner – Carey Price. The Price was wrong this year. The consensus top-ranked goaltender in fantasy hockey heading into the season had his fantasy owners animated this year and dropped many fantasy teams out of contention early in the campaign. This season is well off his usual fantasy excellence. Over the previous four campaigns combined, Price has a 2.16 goals-against average and 0.928 save percentage.

  Documentary (Feature)

  Western Conference Nominees

  Connor Hellebuyck (Winnipeg Jets) – 34-10-8, 2.40 goals-against average, 0.922 save percentage, six shutouts (second in NHL)

  Carter Hutton (St. Louis Blues) – 16-7-3, leads league in both goals-against average (2.02) and save percentage (0.934)

  Pekka Rinne (Nashville Predators) – 35-9-4, 2.33 goals-against average, 0.927 save percentage, six shutouts (second in NHL)

  Eastern Conference Nominees

  Frederik Andersen (Toronto Maple Leafs) – 32-17-5, 2.74 goals-against average, 0.920 save percentage, leads league in saves (1722), five shutouts

  Tuukka Rask (Boston Bruins) – 26-11-4, 2.28 goals-against average, 0.919 save percentage

  Andrei Vasilevskiy (Tampa Bay Lightning) – 38-12-3, 2.41 goals-against average, 0.926 save percentage, leads NHL in shutouts (7), third in saves (1591)

  Winner – Andrei Vasilevkiy. The top fantasy goaltender this season. Great value if you were able to draft the 16th ranked (pre-season) Yahoo goaltender.

  Actor in a Supporting Role

  Western Conference Nominees

  Dustin Brown (Los Angeles Kings) – 65-19-26-45, plus-24, 156 hits

  Evander Kane (San Jose Sharks) – 64-21-24-45, tied for fifth in NHL shots on goal (236), 131 hits

  Jonathan Marchessault (Vegas Golden Knights) – 62-22-43-65, third in NHL plus/minus (plus-32)

  Eric Staal (Minnesota Wild) – 66-34-31-65, tied for fifth in NHL goals, 182 shots on goal, three short-handed points

  Eastern Conference Nominees

  Mathew Barzal (New York Islanders) – 66-18-49-67, top rookie scorer

  Sean Couturier (Philadelphia Flyers) – 66-29-34-63, plus-26, 195 shots on goal

  Vincent Trocheck (Florida Panthers) – 63-24-33-57, 110 hits, 220 shots on goal

  Tom Wilson (Washington Capitals) – 61-11-18-29, second in NHL penalty minutes (154), eighth in hits (185)

  Winner – Vincent Trocheck. A mild upset, but the under-rated Panther contributes in just about every roto category there is.

  Actor in a Leading Role

  Western Conference Nominees

  Brent Burns (San Jose Sharks) – 66-10-42-52, second in NHL shots on goal (271)

  Nathan MacKinnon (Colorado Avalanche) – 57-31-46-77, averaging 1.35 points-per game, tops in league

  Connor McDavid (Edmonton Oilers) – 65-30-49-79, new face of the NHL

  Tyler Seguin (Dallas Stars) – 65-34-26-60, fifth in NHL goals, third in shots on goal (260)

  Blake Wheeler (Winnipeg Jets) – 65-18-56-74, second in NHL in power play points (34)

  Eastern Conference Nominees

  Taylor Hall (New Jersey Devils) – 61-30-42-72

  Nikita Kucherov (Tampa Bay Lightning) – 64-33-52-85, tops league in points, seventh in shots on goal (229), tied for fourth in power-play points (31)

  Evgeni Malkin (Pittsburgh Penguins) – 62-36-43-79, tied for fourth in power-play points (31)

  Alexander Ovechkin (Washington Capitals) – 65-40-32-72, leads NHL in goal scoring and shots on goal (279), 117 hits

  Steven Stamkos (Tampa Bay Lightning) – 66-27-50-77, plus-23, tied for fourth in NHL power-play points (31)

  Winner – Alexander Ovechkin. Still the king. Multi-category stud still wears the crown atop the fantasy hockey throne in rotisserie leagues.

  Best Picture

  Which team looks as though they will go all the way and have their names etched on the Stanley Cup after all is said and done this season.

  Western Conference Nominees

  Nashville Predators – 93 points (most in West), plus-46 goal differential

  Vegas Golden Knights – 89 points, plus-45 goal differential

  Winnipeg Jets – 87 points, plus-45 goal differential

  Eastern Conference Nominees

  Boston Bruins – 88 points, plus-51goal differential

  Pittsburgh Penguins – 80 points, two-time reigning Cup champs

  Tampa Bay Lightning – 94 points (most in East), plus-58 goal differential

  Washington Capitals – 81 points, less pressure

  Winner – Tampa Bay Lightning. The Bolts have what will prove to be the right mix of depth, high end talent, veteran experience, skilled youth and goaltending. It will be difficult to get past the Penguins, but the final pieces were put in place when they acquired J.T. Miller and Ryan McDonagh.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/eastern-edge/fantasy-hockey-oscars/

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10 Surprising Facts About I, Tonya

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10 Surprising Facts About I, Tonya

With Oscar nominations for Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Film Editing, the fourth wall-demolishing biopic about Tonya Harding’s life and figure skating career through the infamous attack on Nancy Kerrigan in 1994 is the scrappy little outsider of this year’s awards season. Which is fitting, as I, Tonya has a punk rock edge that should make audiences question the way they view the usual, stuffy biopics (and the truth itself).

Written by Steven Rogers and directed by Craig Gillespie, the movie stars Margot Robbie as Harding, Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gillooly, and Allison Janney as Harding’s mother, LaVona Golden. It also stars a lot of early 1990s fashion and Olympic-sized drama. Here are 10 fun facts about I, Tonya.

1. CRAIG GILLESPIE WORKED WITH NANCY KERRIGAN ON A 1993 CAMPBELL’S SOUP COMMERCIAL.

Before making movies, Craig Gillespie worked as an art director for several advertising companies, and just as Kerrigan’s star was rising higher, she starred in one of his commercials that showed that eating soup gives you the strength to gut-check an ice hockey player. What are the odds that he’d make a movie about her attackers 25 years later?

2. I, TONYA HIRED ONE OF KERRIGAN’S CHOREOGRAPHERS.

For training and choreography, the film turned to Canadian figure skater Sarah Kawahara. Kawahara was the first skater to win an Emmy for choreography, for her work on a Scott Hamilton special in 1997, and she won again for choreographing the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. She’s also worked with dozens of top-level skaters in her career, including with Kerrigan for the 1995 TV event Nancy Kerrigan Special: Dreams on Ice.

3. ALLISON JANNEY USED TO BE A COMPETITIVE SKATER.

Allison Janney, who scored an Oscar nomination for playing Harding’s mother LaVona Golden, grew up with Olympic ambitions, figure skating as a teenager until she accidentally ran into a glass door and sliced a tendon in her leg. She gave up competitive skating and went to college to become an actor instead.

4. THE ROLE OF TONYA HARDING’S MOTHER WAS WRITTEN FOR JANNEY.

Screenwriter Steven Rogers is a longtime friend of Janney’s, and he’s written several roles with her in mind, but she was never cast in any of them until now. Unlike the other real-life counterparts from the film, Rogers was never able to track down LaVona Golden to interview her, so her portrayal is built from old documentary footage and creative license.

5. THEY USED BEER TO GET HARDING’S HAIR RIGHT.

Lead hair designer Adruitha Lee made four wigs for Robbie to wear, designing them using products and dyes from the time. Her secret weapon for getting that crispy, crunchy look? Cheap beer. “You’re not going to get that bang to stand up like that with just mousse,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.

6. EVEN THE PARAKEET HAD TO AUDITION.

The production auditioned three different birds to see which one would remain calmest while perched atop Janney’s fur coat-covered shoulders. “I tried a couple of birds, and I picked Little Man, which is not his real name, but that’s what I called him,” Janney told The Huffington Post. “I knew it was my job to make it look like I had a relationship with the bird, that we’d been together for a long time. I couldn’t look ruffled, if you will, by anything this bird did. And believe me, he did a lot. I mean, you saw him trying to eat out my ear.”

7. MARGOT ROBBIE STRUGGLED THROUGH AN INJURY ALL THROUGHOUT FILMING.

While tackling the physically demanding ice skating elements of the shoot, Robbie herniated a disc in her neck and says she would have quit the production had she not been a producer on it. “Because I was a producer, I was like, ‘We can’t afford that. Just shoot me up with some steroids, and let’s keep going,’” she said during a SAG-AFTRA interview. Robbie, who earned a Best Actress Oscar nod for the role, got an MRI at the end of each week to assess whether she could keep filming or not.

8. HARDING’S CONTACT INFORMATION CONVINCED ROGERS TO WRITE THE MOVIE.

Rogers was inspired to do something with the story after seeing a skating documentary, but he didn’t get invested until he tried to reach out to Harding for the first time. He dialed the contact phone number for her agent as listed on her professional website, and it went to a Motel 6. At that point, Rogers decided that he would stick with the project no matter where it took him.

9. THE SCREENWRITER LEANED INTO THE REAL STORY’S LACK OF TRUTH.

What do you do if you’re writing a movie based on real events, but no one can agree on exactly what happened? Rogers conducted interviews with both Harding and Jeff Gillooly, but, “Their stories were so wildly contradictory,” Rogers told Gold Derby. “I thought, ‘That’s my in.’ I’ll just show everybody’s point of view, and then let the audience decide what they want to decide … Everyone’s trying to control the narrative…They’re all telling themselves what they need to know to be able to live with themselves.”

10. ROBBIE DIDN’T KNOW THE EVENTS OF THE MOVIE REALLY HAPPENED.

The rivalry between Kerrigan and Harding was all over the news leading up to the 1992 Olympics, and the attack on Kerrigan became a national scandal ahead of the 1994 games in Lillehammer, but Robbie didn’t know about it until after she read a script she thought was fictional. You can’t really blame her, though: Robbie is from Australia, and she was 4 years old when the attack happened.

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Hockey Oscars: Best actor, actress and picture in puck movies

The Academy Awards are Sunday, and once again despite having nine Best Picture nominees there isn’t a single sports film among them. EDDIE THE EAGLE WAS ROBBED!

But seriously, sports movies rarely get Oscar love. The last one nominated for Best Picture was “Moneyball,” and that was a movie about nerds and math and stuff. Other than that, it’s pretty much a bunch of boxing movies.

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You’d think that latter fact would help hockey movies, but alas, they’re usually snubbed, outside of a couple of nominations.

So your friends at Puck Daddy have decided to hand out some Oscars of our own to hockey movies throughout history. Please keep in mind that some of these are hockey movies, and some of these are movies with hockey in them that we feel, well, capture the spirit of the thing.

Enjoy!

Best Supporting Actor: Liev Schreiber, GOON

Ross “The Boss” Rhea is both the spiritual center of the raucous comedy “Goon” as well as its shark from “Jaws.” He’s forever looming as the fight Doug Glatt knows he’s headed for, an imposing bad-ass with a handlebar mustache and a mullet.

But Schreiber gives him a memorable world-weariness, talking about bleeding for the fans through his Newfoundland grumble of a voice. His diner conversation with Glatt might be the film’s highlight.

(Honorable Mention: Strother Martin, SLAP SHOT; Powers Boothe, SUDDEN DEATH; Mike Myers, MYSTERY, ALASKA)

Best Supporting Actress: Marguerite Moreau, D2: THE MIGHTY DUCKS

  The “Velvet Hammer” herself.

As Connie Moreau, she was like a team ambassador to Gordon Bombay and generally skated into everyone’s hearts. Especially Guy Germaine:

We’ll give her the award for “D2,” simply because there’s no beating her delivery of “I’m no lady, I’m a duck!” Moreau went on to have a heck of an acting career, including the role of Katie in WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER, co-starring her cut-off jean shorts.

(Honorable Mention: Lindsay Crouse, SLAP SHOT; Patricia Clarkson, MIRACLE.)

Best Costume Design: YOUNGBLOOD

  While other movies gave us memorable jerseys – looking at you, “The Mighty Ducks” – there’s no topping the goalie masks in “Youngblood.” Specially the nightmare fuel skeletal mask worn by Heaver, a.k.a. John Wick himself, Keanu Reeves.

(Honorable Mention: D2: THE MIGHTY DUCKS; MIRACLE.)

Best Animated Feature: INSIDE OUT

It is a hockey movie? Not in the traditional sense. But hockey plays a large enough role that it counts, if only because it gave the world the San Francisco Fog Horns and their Q*bert-like mascot.

(Honorable Mention: MIGHTY DUCKS THE MOVIE: THE FIRST FACE-OFF.)

Best Screenplay: Nancy Dowd, SLAP SHOT

  One of the most memorable things about SLAP SHOT was that this gloriously vulgar exploration of masculinity was written by a woman. She was inspired by Ned Dowd, her professional hockey-playing brother who played for the Johnstown Jets whom the Charlestown Chiefs are based on.

The screenplay brilliantly ties together the vital nature of sports for small towns, the vital nature of sports for broken men and the vital nature of sports for the proliferation of unprintable jokes about sexuality. Just a perfect slice of 1970s life.

(Honorable Mention: Kevin Smith, CLERKS; Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg, GOON)

Best Visual Effects: STRANGE BREW

The adventures of Bob and Doug McKenzie features a classic hockey scene in which they take on Elsinore Brewery Stormtroopers. But this wasn’t just a drunken Canadian comedy – it’s a film that will make you believe a dog can fly.

(Honorable Mention: THE LOVE GURU, SUDDEN DEATH)

Best Director: Gavin O’Connor, MIRACLE

O’Connor does two things extraordinarily well in MIRACLE.

The first is coaxing a tremendous performance out of Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks, one whose contemplative moments are as effective as his inspirational ones. The second is filming some of the most realistic hockey footage ever seen on film, to the point where “make it look like ‘Miracle’” is a mantra for many professional hockey broadcasts.

Imagine what the ratings would look like if the NHL could capture the kinetic energy of the game on camera like O’Connor did with his ice-level action? In the sense that there would actually be ratings?

(Honorable Mention: George Roy Hill, SLAP SHOT; Erik Canuel, BON COP, BAD COP)

Best Actress: Moira Kelly, THE CUTTING EDGE

  Playing the wet blanket is never the easy role. So while D.B. Sweeney gets to be the charming ex-hockey player bumbling his way in figure skating, Kelly has to be the ice princess he eventually thaws during their training. She makes the 1992 romantic comedy work, as well as it could.

(Honorable Mention: This probably isn’t going to shock you, but lead roles for women aren’t exactly commonplace in hockey films. It’s not like we’re going to toss Jessica Alba in THE LOVE GURU here just to fill space.)

Best Actor: Kurt Russell, MIRACLE

  Oh, we know how divisive this is going to be.

How is this not Jean-Claude Van Damme in SUDDEN DEATH, right?

OK, the real issue here is Paul Newman in SLAP SHOT vs. Russell in MIRACLE. And there’s no really good answer. Newman is having the time of his life as Reg Dunlop. One moment he’s heartfelt, then he’s a father figure, then he’s an imp, channeling the movie’s intoxicating chaos through those stone-cold blue eyes.

He’s Paul [expletive] Newman. He had charisma to spare.

So does Russell, in nearly every other role, and that’s the point: He dials it waaaaay back as Herb Brooks. He packs on a few pounds and drapes himself in tweed. He submerges himself into this complicated workaholic, and there isn’t a moment you’re not buying his singular focus or his provocative tactics.

As Roger Ebert put it: “‘Miracle’ is a sports movie that’s more about the coach than about the team, and that’s a miracle, too.”

How many people walked into MIRACLE thinking it was going to be about the ragtag Americans who beat the Soviets, and walked out thinking Russell deserved an Oscar for what he just accomplished?

(Honorable Mention: Newman, SLAP SHOT; Roy Dupuis, THE ROCKET)

And finally …

Best Picture: SLAP SHOT

It’s no contest, really.

MIRACLE is a tour-de-force for one character. GOON, for all its virtues, owes a debt to SLAP SHOT and can’t quite get its off-ice relationships to the 1977 classic’s lofty emotional heights.

Which is to say that SLAP SHOT makes you feel something. Maybe it’s joy, as you listen to the trash talk and watch the Hanson Brothers energize the film with their bloody antics. Maybe it’s unease, as you watch Reg Dunlop working behind the scenes to save the Chiefs. Maybe it’s heartache as you watch Ned and Lily. Maybe it’s catharsis as you watch Ned skate to “The Stripper.”

SLAP SHOT is remembered for being a time capsule for hockey in the 1970s – gory play, ugly goons and nestled in its niche. But those who remember it like that don’t dig far enough beyond that surface, to see that it also represents other aspects of hockey’s legacy: The blue-collar aesthetic; the camaraderie; the honor among thugs; and the way the game can make families out of strangers, whether it’s in a locker room or on a fan bus of supporters.

And so we’ll remember Denis Lemieux explaining penalties and the Hansons putting on the foil and trying to listen to the [expletive] song and Dickie Dunn trying to capture the spirit of the thing. But the reason it endures, from repeat viewings at home to mandatory viewings on the team bus, isn’t just for the comedy high points – it’s for being a damn good film.

(Honorable Mention: GOON, MIRACLE)

Selections by Puck Daddy’s Ryan Lambert and Greg Wyshynski, a.k.a. the Academy.

—

Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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