Police have arrested the suspect in the fatal shooting of a man Wednesday morning at World Changers Church International in College Park. Floyd Palmer, 52,…
I’ve watched Leonardo DiCaprio die a dozen times as Jack Dawson in Titanic , each time cursing that Rose ( Kate Winslet ) for not sharing the Floating Debris of Life with her doomed lover. With every frail tweet of that rescue whistle, every whispered ” Come baaaack! ” I’ve wondered: Did Jack really have to die? Now we have our answer. The good folks on The Discovery Channel’s MythBusters must have shared my nagging concerns, because they put Jack’s Titanic death scene to the test. Could two human beings have fit on Rose’s makeshift raft, and therefore survived to live happily ever after sketching nudie pics of each other forever in Paris?? Granted, Jack was a streetwise, card-playing, jig-dancing sensitive artiste with probably zero physics training, so he probably wouldn’t have thought to tie Rose’s life jacket to the bottom of the debris to give it enough buoyancy to hold the two of them. But if he hadn’t had to shove over to let stupid Rose cling to the entire thing Jack wouldn’t have had to chill, literally, in the freezing waters, and maybe then he wouldn’t have died of sinking like a beautiful popsicle to the bottom of the ocean. Or as you fancypants science types call it, hypothermia. “With all we’ve learned, I think Jack’s death is needless,” co-host Jamie Hyneman tells James Cameron , who appears in the episode. Cameron’s response? “The script says Jack dies. He has to die.” DAMN YOU, CAMERON. [ MythBusters via Thompson on Hollywood ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Police are investigating the death of 28-year-old actor Johnny Lewis, whose credits include AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem , The Runaways , Lovely Molly , TV’s Drake & Josh , The O.C. , and American Dreams following the apparent murder of his elderly landlord in Los Angeles. Lewis was best known for playing Kip ‘Half Sack’ Epps on Sons of Anarchy . The body of 81-year-old Katherine Chabot Davis was found inside her Los Feliz home, where Lewis was renting a room. Per reports, Lewis fought with at least two people at the site before taking a fatal fall. According to TMZ, authorities believe “Lewis was either on PCP or meth at the time of the murder. The two people who fought Lewis before he fell to his death from a roof told cops the actor exhibited ‘superhuman strength.'” More details of the sad, bizarre incident here . [ TMZ ]
Dr. Conrad Murray is writing a tell-all book. Hey, he has to pass the time wasting away in jail somehow. The number of publishers who care is not high, however. “Dr. Murray spends most of his days writing what he [says] is a tell-all book about what really happened in the final days of Michael Jackson’s life,” a source to him says. “Murray believes that the public will want to hear about the time he spent with Michael … he says that Michael confided his inner-most secrets about his true feelings.” “[MJ talked] about his family, the child molestation trial and his three children. Murray contends that Michael’s kids viewed him as a family member and loved him.” True or not, it all boils down to Murray’s boredom. And cash flow problems. “This is all about money for Murray though … he is flat broke and desperately needs the cash ,” the source adds. “He feels that the book could help rehab his image.” Jackson’s former physician was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of the music great and was sentenced to four years in jail. Attempts to portray himself as a sympathetic figure would be hard enough, but add in the fact that Murray has shown no remorse and it’s darn near impossible. Dude even ripped Katherine Jackson , Michael’s mother, for not being there for him. ” Conrad Murray is extremely arrogant and doesn’t accept responsibility for the death of Michael Jackson. He truly believes he has done nothing wrong,” the insider says. As a result, when contacted by reps about potential interest in releasing the book by Murray, publishers’ collective response so far has been, “no thanks.” Let’s all cry a river for that, shall we?
The drama that has unfolded since the death of hip-hop singer Nate Dogg is going into overdrive. Nate Dogg’s children are furious their stepmother has…
As Hollywood processes the apparent suicide of filmmaker Tony Scott reports — included a report that he jumped to his death wearing the lucky (faded) red baseball cap that he first donned on the set of his blockbuster his Top Gun — I prefer to dwell, not on Scott’s tragic death, but his life in movies. In Roger Ebert’s review of Scott’s essential True Romance , the critic wrote: “This is the kind of movie that creates its own universe, and glories in it.” I actually think that assessment applies to most of Scott’s work and is what made him special as a filmmaker. Even when his movies weren’t cohesive — Domino or The Hunger come to mind— they were still worth watching and impossible to dismiss because they were filled with provocative ideas, images and themes that amounted to something more than a collection of scenes, acts and dialogue. Below, my list of Scott’s best movies. If you have a different list in mind, check out our Movieline poll where you can vote for your favorite Scott movie. 1. True Romance (1993): Quentin Tarantino usually gets the lion’s share of the credit for this adrenaline-stoking orgy of action and violence because he wrote the script, but it was Scott who shaped QT’s words and the performances of a killer cast — Christian Slater (at his peak), Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken (both memorable), Brad Pitt and an undiscovered James Gandolfini — into a sexy, bloody rocket ride that, almost 20 years later, still thrills and still influences filmmakers. 2. Top Gun (1986): Arguably the movie that defines American confidence — and cockiness — during the Reagan era. Full of hard bodies, fast aircraft and Tom Cruise’s beautifully aerodynamic smile, Top Gun makes you feel, as the line goes, “the need for speed.” Scott was working on a sequel before his death, and Cruise was supposed to play a role in it. I was looking forward to seeing where Scott was going to take this idea. 3. Crimson Tide (1995): This movie has been given short shrift in the obituaries of Scott that are accruing, but it is not to be missed. Crimson Tide is that rare thing: an intelligent popcorn movie. Like the U.S. nuclear sub Alabama on which the movie is set, Crimson Tide runs fast and deep–and yet inside its sleek Hollywood hull are a lot of smart and thorny ideas about leadership, compliance and the ramifications of nuclear war. Scott makes the most of Michael Schiffer’s screenplay and memorable performances by Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington. 4. Enemy of the State (1998): A prescient film and a fine example of Scott’s fascination with the technological — and by extension, social and cultural — revolution that took place during his career as a filmmaker. Almost three years before the Bush administration’s reaction to 9/11 had Americans questioning how much of their First Amendment rights they were willing to sacrifice for national security, Scott gave us this over-the-top look at our surveillance society run amok. Technology is as much the star here as Will Smith, but the actor who steals the show is Gene Hackman, who pays clever homage to his performance as surveilliance-expert Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film, The Conversation. 5 . The Hunger (1983): Scott’s first feature film is a mess, but it’s worth watching again, if only for the memorable opening scene (below) in which ultra-hip vampire couple David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve catch Goth pioneers Bauhaus performing “Bela Lugosi Is Dead” at a nightclub, where they pick up their next meal: Ann Magnuson. The concert-to carnage sequence plays like the creepiest MTV video ever. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
As Hollywood processes the apparent suicide of filmmaker Tony Scott reports — included a report that he jumped to his death wearing the lucky (faded) red baseball cap that he first donned on the set of his blockbuster his Top Gun — I prefer to dwell, not on Scott’s tragic death, but his life in movies. In Roger Ebert’s review of Scott’s essential True Romance , the critic wrote: “This is the kind of movie that creates its own universe, and glories in it.” I actually think that assessment applies to most of Scott’s work and is what made him special as a filmmaker. Even when his movies weren’t cohesive — Domino or The Hunger come to mind— they were still worth watching and impossible to dismiss because they were filled with provocative ideas, images and themes that amounted to something more than a collection of scenes, acts and dialogue. Below, my list of Scott’s best movies. If you have a different list in mind, check out our Movieline poll where you can vote for your favorite Scott movie. 1. True Romance (1993): Quentin Tarantino usually gets the lion’s share of the credit for this adrenaline-stoking orgy of action and violence because he wrote the script, but it was Scott who shaped QT’s words and the performances of a killer cast — Christian Slater (at his peak), Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken (both memorable), Brad Pitt and an undiscovered James Gandolfini — into a sexy, bloody rocket ride that, almost 20 years later, still thrills and still influences filmmakers. 2. Top Gun (1986): Arguably the movie that defines American confidence — and cockiness — during the Reagan era. Full of hard bodies, fast aircraft and Tom Cruise’s beautifully aerodynamic smile, Top Gun makes you feel, as the line goes, “the need for speed.” Scott was working on a sequel before his death, and Cruise was supposed to play a role in it. I was looking forward to seeing where Scott was going to take this idea. 3. Crimson Tide (1995): This movie has been given short shrift in the obituaries of Scott that are accruing, but it is not to be missed. Crimson Tide is that rare thing: an intelligent popcorn movie. Like the U.S. nuclear sub Alabama on which the movie is set, Crimson Tide runs fast and deep–and yet inside its sleek Hollywood hull are a lot of smart and thorny ideas about leadership, compliance and the ramifications of nuclear war. Scott makes the most of Michael Schiffer’s screenplay and memorable performances by Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington. 4. Enemy of the State (1998): A prescient film and a fine example of Scott’s fascination with the technological — and by extension, social and cultural — revolution that took place during his career as a filmmaker. Almost three years before the Bush administration’s reaction to 9/11 had Americans questioning how much of their First Amendment rights they were willing to sacrifice for national security, Scott gave us this over-the-top look at our surveillance society run amok. Technology is as much the star here as Will Smith, but the actor who steals the show is Gene Hackman, who pays clever homage to his performance as surveilliance-expert Harry Caul in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film, The Conversation. 5 . The Hunger (1983): Scott’s first feature film is a mess, but it’s worth watching again, if only for the memorable opening scene (below) in which ultra-hip vampire couple David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve catch Goth pioneers Bauhaus performing “Bela Lugosi Is Dead” at a nightclub, where they pick up their next meal: Ann Magnuson. The concert-to carnage sequence plays like the creepiest MTV video ever. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
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