Eddie Murphy was the surest of bets in the 1980s. At the age of 19, he single-handedly yanked "Saturday Night Live" back from the brink of cancellation after the departure of the original cast, and was all of 21 when he shot to big-screen stardom opposite Nick Nolte in Walter Hill's action-comedy classic, "48 Hrs." His second feature, "Trading Places," was also a critical and commercial hit, while his stand-up LP "Eddie Murphy: Comedian" went platinum. By 1984, Murphy was so hot, Paramount inserted him into the finished Dudley Moore comedy "Best Defense" in the hopes that he could enliven the deathly unfunny film with his ad-libbed brilliance. It didn't work, but no one held it against Murphy. The movie was just that bad.
There was no question that Murphy had turned into one of Hollywood's biggest stars overnight, but his first two hits had been two-handers. He had yet to carry a film on his own.
There was no question that Murphy had turned into one of Hollywood's biggest stars overnight, but his first two hits had been two-handers. He had yet to carry a film on his own.
- 9/11/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Gloria Katz, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of “American Graffiti” who helped polish the final “Star Wars” script, died on Sunday. She was 76.
She died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment confirmed Katz’ passing in a tweet on its official account, writing, “Very sad news to report tonight. Gloria Katz, who wrote Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom for us with her husband Willard Huyck, has passed away. Our deepest condolences to Mr. Huyck and loved ones.”
Katz co-wrote 1973’s “American Graffiti” with her husband Willard Huyck and director George Lucas. In addition to an Academy Award nod, “American Graffiti” won the National Society of Film Critics Award and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for best screenplay.
Later, Katz and Huyck re-teamed with Lucas to revise his fourth and final draft of 1977’s “Star Wars,” including shaping and...
She died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles following a battle with cancer. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment confirmed Katz’ passing in a tweet on its official account, writing, “Very sad news to report tonight. Gloria Katz, who wrote Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom for us with her husband Willard Huyck, has passed away. Our deepest condolences to Mr. Huyck and loved ones.”
Katz co-wrote 1973’s “American Graffiti” with her husband Willard Huyck and director George Lucas. In addition to an Academy Award nod, “American Graffiti” won the National Society of Film Critics Award and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for best screenplay.
Later, Katz and Huyck re-teamed with Lucas to revise his fourth and final draft of 1977’s “Star Wars,” including shaping and...
- 11/29/2018
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
Gloria Katz, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter who co-wrote “American Graffiti” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” died Sunday following a battle with ovarian cancer. She was 76.
Katz co-wrote “Graffiti” with her husband of 50 years, Willard Huyck, and director George Lucas. The three went on to win the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay, and were nominated for an Academy Award.
“Graffiti” was the beginning of a long association between the couple and Lucas, which continued when Katz and Huyck worked uncredited as script doctors on his 1977 blockbuster “Star Wars.”
Also Read: Yes, That Was That Dead Villain in 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' - Here's What it Means
The pair later co-wrote the Steven Spielberg-directed “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “Howard the Duck,” directed by Huyck, and “Radioland Murders,” all...
Katz co-wrote “Graffiti” with her husband of 50 years, Willard Huyck, and director George Lucas. The three went on to win the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Screenplay and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay, and were nominated for an Academy Award.
“Graffiti” was the beginning of a long association between the couple and Lucas, which continued when Katz and Huyck worked uncredited as script doctors on his 1977 blockbuster “Star Wars.”
Also Read: Yes, That Was That Dead Villain in 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' - Here's What it Means
The pair later co-wrote the Steven Spielberg-directed “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “Howard the Duck,” directed by Huyck, and “Radioland Murders,” all...
- 11/29/2018
- by Ross A. Lincoln
- The Wrap
Producer and screenwriter Gloria Katz died Sunday in Los Angeles at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after a battle with ovarian cancer. She was 76.
Katz was born in Los Angeles on October 25, 1942. She attended Uc Berkeley and went on to UCLA where she received a masters in film. Her husband William Huyck met George Lucas at USC and the three later became a trio of collaborators.
Katz teamed with her husband and Lucas on many projects. She is best known for co-writing the Lucas-directed classic American Graffiti starring Ron Howard. The film earned Katz, her husband, and Lucas an Oscar nomination in 1974 for Best Screenplay.
In addition to the coming-of-age comedy, Katz and her husband collaborated on numerous projects including the Steven Spielberg-directed Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. She also co-wrote Messiah of Evil, Lucky Lady, French Postcards, Best Defense, and Howard the Duck, which were all directed by Huyck.
Katz was born in Los Angeles on October 25, 1942. She attended Uc Berkeley and went on to UCLA where she received a masters in film. Her husband William Huyck met George Lucas at USC and the three later became a trio of collaborators.
Katz teamed with her husband and Lucas on many projects. She is best known for co-writing the Lucas-directed classic American Graffiti starring Ron Howard. The film earned Katz, her husband, and Lucas an Oscar nomination in 1974 for Best Screenplay.
In addition to the coming-of-age comedy, Katz and her husband collaborated on numerous projects including the Steven Spielberg-directed Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. She also co-wrote Messiah of Evil, Lucky Lady, French Postcards, Best Defense, and Howard the Duck, which were all directed by Huyck.
- 11/29/2018
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
‘Bob’s Burgers’ understands courtroom drama better than its serious minded contemporaries.
Atrial is theater with purpose. We can skip around it. We can willfully ignore it. However, we cannot escape it. Jury trials are the performance of justice in pursuit of justice. Our adversarial legal system is many things but through its focus on the persuasion of a jury of one’s peers it must by its very nature lure the finders of fact to a side through the showmanship of reason. Television trial sequences are doubly so. Sometimes on screen persuasion takes the form of heated drama a la Law & Order and other times, as the case with Bob’s Burgers “A Few ‘Gurt Men,” it is comedy.
The setup for the episode is simple. The Belcher kids are involved in a mock trial simulation at school. Gene, as the prosecution, is beyond excited and Louise, as the defense, is...
Atrial is theater with purpose. We can skip around it. We can willfully ignore it. However, we cannot escape it. Jury trials are the performance of justice in pursuit of justice. Our adversarial legal system is many things but through its focus on the persuasion of a jury of one’s peers it must by its very nature lure the finders of fact to a side through the showmanship of reason. Television trial sequences are doubly so. Sometimes on screen persuasion takes the form of heated drama a la Law & Order and other times, as the case with Bob’s Burgers “A Few ‘Gurt Men,” it is comedy.
The setup for the episode is simple. The Belcher kids are involved in a mock trial simulation at school. Gene, as the prosecution, is beyond excited and Louise, as the defense, is...
- 3/30/2017
- by Francesca Fau
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Rob Leane Dec 7, 2016
Get your hands on some glorious geeky loot this Christmas, including Game Of Thrones Monopoly!
From Funko Pops to geeky accessories, there’s nothing nerdier than receiving a random slice of movie or TV memorabilia at Christmas time. So, even if there is no space left in your home for merchandise and swag, you’ll hopefully find something you love on this list, for yourself or someone nerdy in your life...
See related Close To The Enemy episode 4 review Close To The Enemy episode 3 review Close To The Enemy episode 2 review Close To The Enemy episode 1 review Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Death Star Ice Cubes
That’s no moon, it’s a space station-shaped ice cube! Rogue One – A Star Wars Story is set to be this Christmas’s biggest movie, and what better way could there be to mark the occasion than constructing your...
Get your hands on some glorious geeky loot this Christmas, including Game Of Thrones Monopoly!
From Funko Pops to geeky accessories, there’s nothing nerdier than receiving a random slice of movie or TV memorabilia at Christmas time. So, even if there is no space left in your home for merchandise and swag, you’ll hopefully find something you love on this list, for yourself or someone nerdy in your life...
See related Close To The Enemy episode 4 review Close To The Enemy episode 3 review Close To The Enemy episode 2 review Close To The Enemy episode 1 review Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Death Star Ice Cubes
That’s no moon, it’s a space station-shaped ice cube! Rogue One – A Star Wars Story is set to be this Christmas’s biggest movie, and what better way could there be to mark the occasion than constructing your...
- 11/22/2016
- Den of Geek
In honor of the 2014 summer movie season, Team HitFix will be delivering a mini-series of articles flashing back to key summers from years past. There will be one each month, diving into the marquee events of the era, their impact on the writer and their implications on today's multiplex culture. We continue today with a look back at the summer of 1984. I turned 14 on May 26, 1984, just as the summer movie season was getting started. These days, the summer movie season seems to begin in mid-March, and I think it's because studios want real estate that they can own. And it feels like the appetite for event films is something the audience has year-round now, so if you're able to make something that excites the audience, why not find a place for it where it's not going head to head with all the other giant event films of the year? For the purposes of this piece,...
- 6/2/2014
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
Every summer has a dominant blockbuster, but it’s not every year that the season’s biggest movie inspires a legitimate mania. Ghostbusters, which surrounded some of the funniest guys on the planet with expensive — though slightly cheesy — special effects, was a certifiable phenomenon. In 1984, your classmates, your teacher, your pen-pal in Nairobi, even your half-deaf grandmother knew the emphatic, enthusiastic chanted response to the winking question, “Who you gonna call?” Thirty years later, everyone still knows the answer.
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis played the trio of disgraced parapsychologists who pick the perfect time to go into...
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis played the trio of disgraced parapsychologists who pick the perfect time to go into...
- 4/18/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW.com - PopWatch
So many Goonie-Goo-Goos, so little time.
Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, Adam Sandler, and Russell Brand were among the throng of comedy nerds turned superstars who came out Saturday night to pay homage the man who gave the world Axel Foley, Gumby Dammit!, the Klumps, Jimmy “Thunder” Early, and on and on. Spike TV’s two-hour Eddie Murphy: One Night Only taped Saturday in Beverly Hills (it airs Nov. 14 at 10 p.m. on Spike), and if the carpet-length display of Murphy’s moniker in gold letters wasn’t enough to honor the man, the accolades inside certainly were.
Besides Sandler, Rock,...
Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, Adam Sandler, and Russell Brand were among the throng of comedy nerds turned superstars who came out Saturday night to pay homage the man who gave the world Axel Foley, Gumby Dammit!, the Klumps, Jimmy “Thunder” Early, and on and on. Spike TV’s two-hour Eddie Murphy: One Night Only taped Saturday in Beverly Hills (it airs Nov. 14 at 10 p.m. on Spike), and if the carpet-length display of Murphy’s moniker in gold letters wasn’t enough to honor the man, the accolades inside certainly were.
Besides Sandler, Rock,...
- 11/4/2012
- by Nicholas White
- EW.com - PopWatch
So many Goonie-Goo-Goos, so little time.
Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, Adam Sandler, and Russell Brand were among the throng of comedy nerds turned superstars who came out Saturday night to pay homage the man who gave the world Axel Foley, Gumby Dammit!, the Klumps, Jimmy “Thunder” Early, and on and on. Spike TV’s two-hour Eddie Murphy: One Night Only taped Saturday in Beverly Hills (it airs Nov. 14 at 10 p.m. on Spike), and if the carpet-length display of Murphy’s moniker in gold letters wasn’t enough to honor the man enough, the accolades inside did.
Besides Sandler, Rock,...
Chris Rock, Jamie Foxx, Adam Sandler, and Russell Brand were among the throng of comedy nerds turned superstars who came out Saturday night to pay homage the man who gave the world Axel Foley, Gumby Dammit!, the Klumps, Jimmy “Thunder” Early, and on and on. Spike TV’s two-hour Eddie Murphy: One Night Only taped Saturday in Beverly Hills (it airs Nov. 14 at 10 p.m. on Spike), and if the carpet-length display of Murphy’s moniker in gold letters wasn’t enough to honor the man enough, the accolades inside did.
Besides Sandler, Rock,...
- 11/4/2012
- by Nicholas White
- EW.com - PopWatch
Atlanta (Feb. 7, 2012) – Bounce TV (http://www.bouncetv.com), the nation’s first and only over-the-air broadcast television network for African-American audiences, has acquired the television rights to more African American-skewing motion pictures in two individual, multi-year licensing agreements with Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution and Paramount Home Media Distribution. Among the titles Bounce TV lands in their agreement with Warner Bros Domestic Television Distribution: The Academy Award® winning Bird, directed by Clint Eastwood; the original Shaft (1971); Richard Pryor starring in Greased Lightning and The Mack with Max Julien; Bill Cosby & Sidney Poitier in Let’s Do It Again and 1997’s Rosewood. Bounce TV’s agreement with Paramount includes such titles as Critical Condition starring Pryor; Diana Ross in Mahogany as well as her classic 1972 performance as Jazz great Billie Holiday in Lady Sings The Blues; two Eddie Murphy comedies Best Defense and Vampire In Brooklyn, and Denzel Washington starring in the 1990 comedy Heart Condition.
- 2/7/2012
- by DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor
- Deadline TV
If you grew up watching Eddie Murphy chomping on a cigar as Gumby or getting gunned down in a hail of bullets as Buckwheat on Saturday Night Live, or better yet, dropping F-bombs as the cool-cat star of 48 Hrs., Trading Places, and Beverly Hills Cop, it’s hard to wrap your head around the fact that there’s a whole generation out there that has no clue just how funny and dirty he once was.When they think of Eddie Murphy — if they even think of him at all — it’s as the donkey from the kiddie franchise Shrek, or...
- 11/6/2011
- by Chris Nashawaty
- EW.com - PopWatch
This week's Inventory list on The A.V. Club is about famous actors being cut out of movies, like Adam McKay removing an entire subplot from "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" and completely excising Kevin Corrigan, Maya Rudolph and others from the film in the process (He cut out so much, in fact, that he was able to turn the deleted scenes into a straight-to-video bonus feature, "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy").
An article on Vulture suggests opportunities for a companion piece in the near future. In short, the "Meet the Parents" sequel "Little Fockers" is so troubled that "Dustin Hoffman might consider a last-minute reprise of his role as Bernie Focker in an effort to funny-up the comedy, which has already wrapped production." In other words, if Hoffman signs on to join the film, he'd be doing what we're going to dub "The Reverse 'Anchorman'": instead...
An article on Vulture suggests opportunities for a companion piece in the near future. In short, the "Meet the Parents" sequel "Little Fockers" is so troubled that "Dustin Hoffman might consider a last-minute reprise of his role as Bernie Focker in an effort to funny-up the comedy, which has already wrapped production." In other words, if Hoffman signs on to join the film, he'd be doing what we're going to dub "The Reverse 'Anchorman'": instead...
- 8/4/2010
- by Matt Singer
- ifc.com
An AICN reader who lives near the production of The Walking Dead sent some pictures of the upcoming TV series and they look, in a word, crazy fucking awesome. Check them out below.
It's worth noting that this is a TV Show.
Bet he's not delivering the mail.
Did you know that Eddie Murphy scored his first million from a short cameo in Best Defense? Tank trivia!
Frank Darabont is currently directing the series in Atlanta (he's in one of the shots donned in a Hawaiian shirt). Andrew Lincoln plays Rick Grimes (the one in the tank), a sherriff who organizes a band of survivors. AMC released the first official pic of Lincoln as Grimes yesterday (check it out here). For more pics from production, head here.
Source: AICN...
It's worth noting that this is a TV Show.
Bet he's not delivering the mail.
Did you know that Eddie Murphy scored his first million from a short cameo in Best Defense? Tank trivia!
Frank Darabont is currently directing the series in Atlanta (he's in one of the shots donned in a Hawaiian shirt). Andrew Lincoln plays Rick Grimes (the one in the tank), a sherriff who organizes a band of survivors. AMC released the first official pic of Lincoln as Grimes yesterday (check it out here). For more pics from production, head here.
Source: AICN...
- 6/17/2010
- HugAZombie
The Academy Awards are this Sunday and while most of Hollywood is getting ready for the big event, the academy is working to make sure that there are no losers. Most are hoping to win the golden statue, but those who don't, it is being reported that they'll receive a unique consolation prize valued at over $85,000. Take a look at the list below to see what will be included in this year's gift basket. * Gourmet artisan chocolate creations from Chocolatines by Sweet Endeavours that will sweeten the bitter Oscar loss with a 16-piece Contempo Collection, Chocolate-dipped Bacon, Matcha Sesame Bark, Mini Lux Turtles and Diamond Collection Champagne Ganache * Fancy Feast's "Celebrate the Moment" gift package including a FlipCam Mino, Tiffany crystal-studded cat collar and an assortment of Fancy Feast Appetizers for Cats * Hgtv Green Home Mattress Collection by Serta * The Oral-b Pulsonic slim and sleek electric toothbrush * $4,000 limited edition (only...
- 3/2/2010
- WorstPreviews.com
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