Barrie Ingham

British-born stage and screen actor, Barrie Ingham, who made an appearance in both film and television incarnations of Doctor Who, has passed away.

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Samuel Goldwyn Jr – 1926-2015

Legendary Hollywood producer, Samuel Goldwyn Jr, has passed away.

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Anita Ekberg – 1931-2015

Anita Ekberg, the female star of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, has passed away.

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Rod Taylor – 1930-2015

Aussie-born Hollywood actor Rod Taylor, star of Hitchcock’s The Birds, and The Time Machine, has passed away.

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Edward Herrmann – 1943-2014

Gilmore Girls patriarch, American actor Edward Herrmann, has passed away.

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Luise Rainer – 1910-2014

Academy Award winning actress Luise Rainer has passed away.

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Every year, bloggers and media companies around the world spend months talking about, examining and dissecting every nuance of what has become Hollywood’s “Awards Season”, a time of the year which usually kicks off around November and lasts through until the Oscars, in Late February or early March. For an industry that’s awfully self-involved most of the time anyway, one could argue that a five month season of back-slapping and handshakes is probably not long enough, but since the Academy’s Governor’s Ball took place only the other week and the Oscars themselves not until February 22nd, it’s time to ask: is Hollywood’s Awards Season too long?

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Mike Nichols – 1931-2014

Legendary American film director Mike Nichols, who helmed such classics as The Graduate, Silkwood and Working Girl, has passed away.

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Mark Wahlberg will return to our screens once again in yet another remake on 10th November. Casino remake The Gambler pays tribute to the 1974 original, directed by Karel Reisz and starring James Caan.

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Renee Asherson – 1915-2014

English stage, television and film actress Renee Asherson has passed away.

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Australia has played host to some of the biggest and most successful Hollywood blockbusters and has been the preferred filming location for hundreds more.

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Back in 2001, a relatively unknown director by the name of Peter Jackson set about releasing a trilogy of films based on JRR Tolkein’s wildly popular fantasy novel, The Lord Of The Rings. I doubt there’s a person alive today who isn’t at the very least aware of this, if they haven’t seen the movies. Anyone who has sat down to watch the Extended Editions of the three films, The Fellowship Of The Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of The King, will know how difficult the filming process was, how monumentally challenging it was, and how it inevitably revolutionized the way Hollywood studios went about franchising their IP’s to capitalize on what Jackson accomplished. Not only did Lord of The Rings catapult Tolkien’s works back into popular culture, it elevated Jackson to the upper echelon of Hollywood elite. The fact that The Return of The King took home every Oscar it was nominated for during the awards season in 2004, capped off what had been perhaps the pinnacle of Jackson’s directorial career to that point.

Of course, Jackson was a hero in his native New Zealand, feted by all and sundry – hell, he was even granted a New Zealand knighthood, the highest honor that country could bestow. He became a poster-boy for geeks and nerds everywhere, although in fairness, the LOTR trilogy transcended its exclusive dominion of “subculture” and entered the mainstream, a feat not too many fantasy projects have accomplished.

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Gerard Parkes (in The Boondock Saints) – 1924-2014

Gerard Parkes, a Canadian actor best known for his appearances in Fraggle Rock and the Boondock Saints franchise, has passed away.

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Marvel has a lot to answer for.

In many ways, Hollywood has always taken advantage of the Next Big Thing, what with the glut of war films, romance films, heady dramatic films and all manner of pulp-inspired dreck flooding cinemas since the industry came into being over a century ago. Today, there’s a larger problem rife within Hollywood’s dollar-sign-lovin’ suit-brigade. In the last decade, the rise of Marvel Studio’s enormously successful Cinematic Universe, inhabited by easily identifiable heroes like Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk, et al, has bloated the coffers of the industry’s main players, the fallout being that the flow on effect – to Sony’s Spider-Man franchise (which is ailing badly, creatively speaking) and Fox’s X-Men franchise (which isn’t) – has been to boost the profile of these “tentpole” releases, as well as the swollen budgets and box-office receipts.

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Elizabeth Pena – 1955-2014

American actress Elizabeth Pena, who appeared in films such as Jacob’s Ladder and Rush Hour, has passed away.

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