Category: Showbiz Stories
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Director Dick Donner Just Died; He Was A Lovely, Lovely Man And A Real Pleasure To Work For
Back in the 1990’s, my partner at the time (Gil Adler) and I were hired to take over HBO’s horror anthology “Tales From The Crypt“. That third season was supposed to be the show’s last but Gil and I managed to turn the ship around. We reinvigorated the show but — more importantly — we…
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Of Movie Monsters & “Franken-Christians”
In my time, I’ve written a few horror movies. I’ve written or produced (or written AND produced) franchises like Freddy Krueger, Children Of The Corn, Tales From The Crypt… I’ve helped create really good monsters and some really crap monsters. After all, in a horror movie, the whole point IS the monster. Good monsters endure,…
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Netflix Broke Hollywood But, Then, Hollywood Had It Coming
The end of the pandemic means entertainment can finally get back fully onto its feet and start entertaining us. For Hollywood however, getting back onto its feet is already proving a challenge. That’s because what Netflix had started to break before the pandemic slammed into Hollywood, the pandemic finished breaking for good. If you now…
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Beware The “Franken-Christian”
In my time, I’ve written a few horror movies. I’ve written or produced (or written AND produced) franchises like Freddy Krueger, Children Of The Corn, Tales From The Crypt… I’ve helped create really good monsters and some really crap monsters. After all, in a horror movie, the whole point IS the monster. Good monsters endure,…
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Alpha Dogs Don’t Have To Be A-holes
Larger-than-life show biz alpha dog SCOTT RUDIN announced publicly today that he’s “stepping back”, having suddenly realized apparently that decades of acting like the biggest asshole in every room he was in has a downside. In my 35+ years in the show biz trenches, I’ve worked with and for many creative people equal in stature…
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Sylvester Stallone Has ALWAYS Behaved Like A Trump Voter — I’ve Seen It UP CLOSE
[NOTE: For a much deeper dive into the whole story, please check out the “How NOT To Make A Movie Podcast: The Making Of Bordello Of Blood” either via the link above or from wherever you go to find the podcasts you love!] Heroes run TOWARD burning buildings, bent on saving people. Zeroes, on the…
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Horror Movies & Christianity: A Match Made In…
To be honest, I’m not sure there’d even BE horror movies without Christianity. I used to do a show for HBO called Tales From The Crypt. Among my executive producers — my bosses — were some of the biggest filmmakers working: Joel Silver (the Lethal Weapon movies, the Die Hard movies among other Big Budget…
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Beware The “Franken-Christian”
In my time, I’ve written a few horror movies. The whole point of a horror movie, of course, is the monster. Good monsters endure, bad ones get forgotten instantly. I’ve written for a few “good” monsters — Freddy Krueger, for instance (I co-wrote a bunch of episodes of the “Freddy’s Nightmares” syndicated TV series back…
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“TRUMPOCALYPSE: THE MOVIE” — Let’s All Play Casting Director!
Take this to the bank: a movie or two WILL be made about the Trump presidency. A few will nibble at the periphery of the experience, capturing the graft and the grift. Some will try to capture its essence economically but that won’t satisfy. One really had to experience the overwhelming “everyday” of it —…
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The Donald Trump Players Presents “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” — Starring Real Life Crazy People
Even crappy reality shows like Donald Trump presidency live and die on the success of their casting choices. And no one has been more “sensitive” to how important casting is to the success of his reality show than Donald Trump. Trump knows that it takes a criminal to play a criminal; actors can only ever…
A L Katz