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Lenny Lipton, the New York-native who wrote the lyrics to what became Peter, Paul and Mary’s popular folk song “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” died on Oct. 5 from brain cancer at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his wife told The New York Times. He was 82.

In 1959, Lipton was a 19-year-old physics major at Cornell University. Feeling inspired after reading Ogden Nash’s poem “The Tale of Custard the Dragon,” he borrowed the typewriter of his schoolmate Peter Yarrow — one-third of the Peter, Paul and Mary trio — to scribe a creation of his own. But when Yarrow saw Lipton’s poem abandoned at the keys, he decided to put it to music, becoming the well-known 1963 song “Puff, the Magic Dragon.”

Lipton received a co-writer credit on the track, which was an instant hit among listeners. Through royalties, Lipton generated enough money to move to the Bay Area in California,...

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Lenny Lipton, who wrote the poem that became the Peter, Paul and Mary hit “Puff the Magic Dragon” and developed technology used for today’s digital 3D theatrical projection systems, has died. He was 82.

Lipton died Wednesday of brain cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his son Noah told The Hollywood Reporter.

While studying engineering as a freshman at Cornell University, Lipton, inspired by a 1936 Ogden Nash poem, “The Tale of Custard the Dragon,” wrote a poem in 1959 on a typewriter owned by another physics major at the school, Peter Yarrow.

Yarrow discovered the poem — about a boy named Jackie Paper and his imaginary dragon friend in a land by the sea — in the typewriter and years later used it for the lyrics to “Puff the Magic Dragon.”

Yarrow’s Peter, Paul and Mary recorded the song in 1962. It was released...

The all-star celebration of the enduring legacy of Country Music Hall of Fame legend Roger Miller continues with a preview of two more outstanding cuts from the upcoming double-lp, King of the Road: A Tribute to Roger Miller. Encompassing two divergent styles of Miller’s songwriting styles, “Dang Me” and ‘The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me” represent, respectively, Miller’s first novelty hit – a Number One country and Top Ten pop tune – and one of the earliest examples of his gift for crafting mournful country ballads. On the former,...

Perhaps based on the success of Disney’s Pete’s Dragon remake, Fox Animation has decided to greenlight Puff the Magic Dragon, an animated/live-action hybrid film based on the popular Peter, Paul and Mary song of the same name. It’ll be directed by Mike Mitchell (Trolls, Shrek Forever After).

Details are limited at the moment, but the folk song, written by Peter Yarrow and Lenny Lipton, is based on the 1959 poem, which in turn was inspired by the poem “Custard the Dragon” by Ogden Nash, as /Film notes. The song tells the story of an ageless dragon named Puff, who lives in Honalee, a fictional city by the sea. His friend is Jackie Paper, but he eventually grows older and loses interest in his adventures with his fictional friend. These days, the property is the sore subject of controversy regarding whether or not it’s referencing smoking weed.

American treasure and crown jewel in Gene Wilder's spectacular oeuvre Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory turns 45 this week. To celebrate, not only have we justly singled out the crime that was Gene Wilder getting passed over for an Oscar, but we're also giving fans an anniversary-based roundup of obscure facts and trivial bits about everyone's favorite vaguely sinister candy factory. 1. Wilder only accepted the role on one condition In a letter to director Mel Stuart, Wilder wrote that he'd read the script and would take the part on the condition that, "When I make my first entrance, I'd like...

American treasure and crown jewel in Gene Wilder's spectacular oeuvre Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory turns 45 this week. To celebrate, not only have we justly singled out the crime that was Gene Wilder getting passed over for an Oscar, but we're also giving fans an anniversary-based roundup of obscure facts and trivial bits about everyone's favorite vaguely sinister candy factory. 1. Wilder only accepted the role on one condition In a letter to director Mel Stuart, Wilder wrote that he'd read the script and would take the part on the condition that, "When I make my first entrance, I'd like...

Two New England attorneys are saying they've been in touch with more than 40 alumni of an affluent Rhode Island boarding school that allege staff members or other pupils sexually assaulted them during the 1970s and 1980s. People spoke Wednesday with Eric MacLeish, one of the two lawyers behind a press conference held on Tuesday in which four graduates of the St. George's School in Middletown accused school officials of covering up years of systemic abuse. "I have never run across anything like this," MacLeish, who has spent his career representing victims of childhood sexual abuse, tells People; he's a St.

“Speak low, darling speak low”, the Kurt Weill/ Ogden Nash song as sung first by himself and finally by Nelly, the protagonist of this film, played by Nina Hoss, is the thematic refrain that weaves through this deeply moving movie entitled “Phoenix”.

Kurt Weill sings “Speak Low” from 1948’s “One Touch of Venus” by Odgen Nash and S.J. Perelman starring Ava Gardne.

Arising from the ashes of Auschwitz and Berlin, a ghost of a woman returns to claim her inheritance and her husband if he is still alive. Aided by Lene, a Jewish attorney and c a kindred spirit from her past, who escaped the Shoah by fleeing to London and Nelly who experienced it to the farthest reaches of horror, together might start anew in Israel; Lene has already found the apartment for them there.

Nelly’s face, destroyed and then reconstructed after she was shot and left for dead, makes her unrecognizable. She seeks and finds her husband who tries to make this woman into the Nelly he knew. She knows but he does not. A fleeting reminiscence of Almodovar’s movie here, “ The Skin I Live In ” where a renowned plastic surgeon reconstructs the face of his wife upon someone he has abducted, so Johnny tries to remake his wife but holds back his near falling in love with what he believes to be his own creation.

This film is rife with references. If you recall “One Touch of Venus” whence cometh this Kurt Weill song, the statue of Venus comes alive when kissed. In “Phoenix” as well, the Jewish former cabaret singer returns to life when she finds the beloved husband she left behind but remembered every day as her reason for living through the camps.

However, his kiss is a Judas kiss as this dark story unfolds to the point where she sings “Speak low”. This is a complex, Hitchcockian tale of a nation’s tragedy and a woman’s search for answers which builds toward an unforgettable, heart-stopping climax. Again a reference, this time to “ Vertigo” where the switching of women strikes a chord.

See Nina Hoss singing here .

The classic, 2014 Academy Award winning “Ida” by Pawel Pawlikowski’s also pairs two women together in their search for post-war answers in Poland. Ida finds her own way as her aunt – and Lene as well – in Lene’s words “feel more drawn to our dead than to the living.”

For all these points of reference and comparison which came to my mind as I watched “Phoenix” with bated breath, this film is unique in expressing how these survivors attempt to rebuild their lives which have been horribly broken by death, suffering and loss.

Christian Petzold directed Nina Hoss previously in “Barbara” and “Jerichow” along with her screen-husband Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld) a gorgeous actor able to charm and curse simultaneously. We hate him but we also love him. Ronald Zehrfeld says, “…when Johnny sees Nelly in front of him, you think, Ok, now he has to recognize her! But either he doesn’t trust his feelings or doesn’t allow himself to feel these emotions. Because ‘It’s impossible! She’s dead! And I won’t allow myself to fee this because my future depends on me passing her off as my wife. ‘ For him, it’s clear that, if he ever wants to breathe again, feel himself again or make music again, then he has to get out of Germany. And that’s possible only with Nell’s help – with the help of Nelly’s imposter, as he sees her. And on the other hand there are his feelings of guilt ….”

The rapport of the director with his actors is apparent in the patient unfolding of both characters with their traumas, their hopes, their guilt as they try to process the horrors they have survived.

Nina plays a woman who is vulnerable and fragile at the same time as she is defiant and stubborn. In the throes still of trauma of surviving the concentration camp and being shot in the face which must be reconstructed, without a vocabulary to describe all she has experienced, she seeks her husband in the burnt-out city of Berlin. She feels that only he can bring her back to life. In her search to find him, she finds herself again and tells her only friend Lene, ‘Johnny made me back into Nelly. Sometimes I get really jealous of myself – of how happy I was.

Interview with Christian Petzold and Nina Hoss by Nikolay Nikitin, hosted by the Goethe Institut in Toronto during its international debut at Tiff 2014 is here.

Aside from “The Third Man” which takes place in postwar Vienna and the 2012 film by Australian Cate Shortland, “ Lore”, and “Ida” which actually takes place in the 60s, there are not many outstanding films about what happened in Germany (and Austria) after the war.

“Phoenix” is an instant classic which will withstand the judgement of time. We’ll see if it is the German submission for Academy Award nomination, a well-deserved accolade. It could well win the Oscar for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film.

The film has played in the 2014 film festivals of Toronto, Vancouver, London, Romeand Seattle.

Sundance Selects opened “Phoenix” on July 24 in New York. It will open in L.A. on Friday, July 31 and then rolls out nationwide. International sales agent, The Match Factory, has licensed the film

Argentina - Alfa Films S.A

Australia - Madman Entertai

Austria - Stadtkino-Filmv

Benelux - A-Film Benelux

Brazil - Imovision

Canada - Films We Like

Canada - Eyesteelfilm

Denmark - Camera Film A/S

Finland - Future Film Oy/

France - Diaphana

Germany - Piffl Medien Gm

Germany - The Match Facto

Greece - Seven Films

Hungary - Cirko Film Kft.

Italy - Bim Distribuzio

Japan - New Select Co.

Latin Ameri- Palmera Interna

Norway - Arthaus

Poland - Aurora Films

Portugal - Leopardo Filmes

Slovenia - Demiurg

Spain - Golem Distribuc

Sweden - Folkets Bio

Switzerlan - Look Now! Filmd

Taiwan - Swallow Wings F

Turkey - Calinos Films

U.K. - Soda Pictures

U.S. - IFCFilms/ Sundance Selects...

‘Dracula’ 1931 actress Carla Laemmle dead at 104 (photo: Carla Laemmle ca. 1930) Carla Laemmle, a bit player in a handful of silent movies and at the dawn of the sound era — e.g., the horror classics The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and Dracula (1931) — and a niece of Universal Studios co-founder Carl Laemmle, died on June 12, 2014, at her Los Angeles home. Laemmle, who had reportedly been in good health, was 104 years old. Born Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle on October 20, 1909, in Chicago, Carla Laemmle was less known for her movie work than for having survived most of her contemporaries and for her family connection to the Universal mogul — her father, Joseph Laemmle, was Carl’s brother. ‘Dracula’ actress was a member of Carl Laemmle’s ‘very large faemmle’ "Uncle Carl Laemmle, Has a very large faemmle," once half-joked poet Ogden Nash, in reference to Laemmle’s penchant for hiring family members. As Laemmle’s niece,...

Jay Records, with the support of The Kurt Weill Foundation, digitally released the first complete recording of composer Kurt Weill and lyricist Ogden Nash's score to the 1943 musical One Touch Of Venus on October 7, 2013, and the sterling recording had its physical CD release on May 13, 2014. Originally announced over ten years ago, fans eagerly anticipated the album for years. Luckily for us listeners, the recording was well worth the wait.

The York Theatre Company continues the 2013-2014 season with the world premiere of the new musical, Inventing Mary Martin, conceived, written and directed by Stephen Cole, with music supervision and arrangements by David Krane, music direction by Lawrence Goldberg, co-directed and choreographed by Bob Richard, and original music and lyrics by legendary composers Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers amp Oscar Hammerstein, Vernon Duke amp Howard Dietz, Kurt Weill amp Ogden Nash, Nol Coward, Irving Berlin, Jule Styne amp Carolyn Leigh, Howard Dietz amp Arthur Schwartz, and Tom Jones amp Harvey Schmidt, among others. The four-member cast will feature Cameron Adams, Jason Graae, Lynne Halliday, and Emily Skinner.THe company just met the press and BroadwayWorld takes you inside the special presentation below...

The York Theatre Company continues the 2013-2014 season with the world premiere of the new musical , Inventing Mary Martin, conceived, written and directed by Stephen Cole, with music supervision and arrangements by David Krane, music direction by Lawrence Goldberg, co-directed and choreographed by Bob Richard, and original music and lyrics by legendary composers Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers amp Oscar Hammerstein, Vernon Duke amp Howard Dietz, Kurt Weill amp Ogden Nash, Noel Coward, Irving Berlin, Jule Styne amp Carolyn Leigh, Howard Dietz amp Arthur Schwartz, and Tom Jones amp Harvey Schmidt, among others.

Kill Your Darlings

Directed by John Krokidas

Written by John Krokidas and Austin Bunn

2013, USA

With Kill Your Darlings, writer/director John Krokidas seeks to decipher what inspired a young Allen Ginsberg to write some of the most influential words of the 20th century and audaciously capture the spirit of discontented youth. In the beginning, Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) suffers in isolation, living with his father poet Louis Ginsberg and a mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who is descending into mental illness. Dutifully following his obligations, he is able to stand a life of quiet desperation up until a point. He is accepted into Columbia University and leaves home in hopes of finding an immortal voice in academia. Radcliffe’s bright, excited and wide-eyed Ginsberg is an innocent boy who longs to be a part of the world that to his dismay wants nothing to do with most of what makes him unique.

He's happy. He's friendly. He's a monster. And he's only wearing Half-a-Pantaloon, though very proudly so. The hero of this new short film by Together - a creative duo comprised of Hector Herrerra and Pazit Cahlon - will, however, learn the perils of such behavior.Half-a-Pantaloon is a tongue-in-cheek public service announcement that presents the perils of wearing shorts when trousers are de rigueur. Born out of the unremitting pant-snobbery of its creators, Half-a-Pantaloon warns that even the most talented and charming monsters may suffer the consequences of certain sartorial blunders.Half-a-Pantaloon is the second installment of the Beastly Bards project, Togetherâ•˙s collection of animated silly rhymes. The writing is inspired by the style of poets like Edward Lear and Ogden Nash, and the animation applies a...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

A Late Quartet

Directed by: Yaron Zilberman

Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, Catherine Keener, Mark Ivanir, Imogen Poots

Running Time: 1 hr 45 mins

Rating: R

Release Date: November 2, 2012 (Chicago)

Plot: A musical team (Hoffman, Walken, Keener, Ivanir) struggles to keep their focus while preparing their performance of Beethoven’s Opus 131 string quartet in C# Minor.

Who’S It For? Classical music knowledge is not necessary to engage in the drama of this movie. Most of all, A Late Quartet requires patience, both for its glaring flaws and for its smaller concept.

Overall

Like the Jamaican bobsled team in Cool Runnings or a group of acrobats, a string quartet is a concise team that requires focus from all involved performers working at their full potential in order to achieve their complicated goal. Such a harmony can be challenged by natural elements, or in the case of this movie’s professional group,...

Roslyn Kind: Coming Home

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College

April 28, 2012

Roslyn Kind is an authentic song artist and entertainer. The audience at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts was treated to a full hour-and-a-half of her fine voice and lively presence. Using her magnificent instrument, she beautifully rendered songs, "standards" and otherwise. Her infectious self-delight never faltered as she sang, conversationally spoke of growing up in a nearby Brooklyn neighborhood, and engaged with the audience as if the theater were her living room.

Ms. Kind is that breed of entertainer which sophisticated night-lifers would make it their business to see at the lavish "rooms" of old: El Morocco and the Persian Room in New York, or the Chez Paree in Chicago (all now long gone into history). Today we must to settle for the cabaret and the concert hall, and we are fortunate that...

“No one relaxes in March,” Ogden Nash once wrote, and that’s especially true of Tina Fey: She had been reportedly flirting with Paul Weitz’s rapidly coalescing drama Admission, an adaptation of the Jean Hanff Korelitz novel, and now Vulture hears that not only is the 30 Rock star a cat's breath away from committing to it as her next film, but that Owen Wilson is weighing whether to come aboard, too.In Admission, Fey would play an Ivy League admissions officer named Portia Nathan whose relationship with a 17-year-old recruitment prospect threatens to unravel her personal, romantic, and professional lives. Wilson, we hear, would play a teacher at an alternative high school who falls for Fey. The Admission script is from Karen Croner, best known for One True Thing starring Meryl Streep a dozen years ago. Croner also has a new movie prepping with Uma Thurman based on this book.

Natalie Merchant was still a teenager when she strolled into the community college radio station in Jamestown, New York, arms loaded with albums and eight-tracks she wanted to hear. She met DJs Steven Gustafson and Dennis Drew, and together with Robert Buck and John Lombardo, they formed the band 10,000 Maniacs. They came out with their first record, "Secrets Of The I-Ching," in 1981.

In 1987, the Maniacs released "In My Tribe," selling more than two million copies in the U.S. alone. The band's eclectic lyrics and Merchant's voice, which shimmers, smolders and soothes like a glass of cabernet, captivated alternative-rock fans. In the 1990s, Merchant launched a successful solo career, touring constantly and selling millions of albums over the next dozen years on the Elektra label, including quintuple-platinum "Tigerlily," her solo debut released in 1995.

In 2003, Merchant married documentary filmmaker Daniel de la Calle and had a daughter; she and de la Calle later divorced.

Ryan Lambie Jun 14, 2019

Script rewrites. Exacting directors. Terrible twists of fate. We look back through the ages to bring you 26 nightmarish film shoots…

The lavish lifestyles of Hollywood’s more famous actors and filmmakers may hint at a world of glamour and cash, but as this list proves, the process of actually putting a movie together is rarely dignified. What follows is a lengthy catalogue of ill-advised location choices, tantrums, dreadful acts of God, spiked bowls of soup, dangerous lions, bruised egos, broken bones, and shattered dreams.

For the prospective filmmaker, this article could be read as a cautionary tale of just how badly a production can go--though in order to keep the tone relatively light, we’ve excised those film productions that ended in tragedy (you’ll have to look elsewhere to discover the sad stories behind Twilight Zone: The Movie and The Crow).

Nevertheless, we suggest you pour...

Script rewrites. Exacting directors. Terrible twists of fate. We look back through the ages to bring you 20 nightmarish film shoots…

The lavish lifestyles of Hollywood’s more famous actors and filmmakers may hint at a world of glamour and cash, but as this list proves, the process of actually putting a movie together is rarely a dignified process. What follows is a lengthy catalogue of ill-advised location choices, tantrums, dreadful acts of God, spiked bowls of soup, ruined studios, bruised egos, broken bones and shattered dreams.

For the prospective filmmaker, this article could be read as a cautionary tale of just how badly wrong a production can go – though in order to keep the tone relatively light, we’ve excised those film productions that ended in tragedy (you’ll have to look elsewhere to discover the sad stories behind Twilight Zone: The Movie and The Crow).

Nevertheless, we suggest you...

Us football star and actor known for his Police Academy role

Some fans of the popular Police Academy films might be surprised to discover that the actor playing the gentle florist turned recruit Moses Hightower was someone who inspired an entire college campus to wear T-shirts stating "Kill Bubba Kill", echoing the words chanted by thousands of supporters in Michigan State University's Spartan Stadium. Bubba Smith, who has been found dead aged 66, was one of American college football's most legendary defenders, a figure who inspired awe on the gridiron. Playing against that image earned him a long career in film, television and advertising, most notably for Lite Beer.

His beer commercials often paired him with the equally fierce Dick Butkus, but the most memorable was one he did alone, in which he extolled the virtues of Lite Beer, then tore the can open with his bare hands. "I also love the easy-opening cans,...

Eminem’s at it again with the celebrity disses in “A Kiss,” a track off his forthcoming album Hell: The Sequel. But are they even that bad, compared to some of the more ridiculous s— he’s doled out? Below, I’ve listed some of the Chrysler enthusiast’s more egregious celeb disses. And it’s not even all of ‘em! (I know you guys have been on the edges of your seats waiting for my opinions on Eminem.)

Lady Gaga (“A Kiss”)

Tell Lady Gaga she can quit her job at the post office

She’s already a male...

Ogden Nash wrote: “I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all.” But slap a picture of a tree on a billboard, Mr Nash, and everyone's a winner. For as we noticed earlier, Terrence Malick's Tree of Life poster is but the latest addition to a grand modern tradition of arboreal movie artwork. We round up some of the best below.

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As today's Google doodle celebrates 71 years of The Wizard of Oz, we present 71 things you might not know about the musical classic starring Judy Garland

1) So frightening was Margaret Hamilton's performance as the Wicked Witch of the West that most of her scenes were heavily edited or cut entirely.

2) When the script was written, the part of the Wizard had been earmarked for Wc Fields.

3) Judy Garland's white dress was actually pink as it was easier to shoot in Technicolor.

4) A sequel using the original cast was mooted, but scrapped after Garland became such a big star and Hamilton expressed doubts over the feasibility of such a project.

5) The film has numerous lines in Premiere magazine's poll to find the 100 Greatest Movie Lines. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" came in at No 24.

6) "There's no place like home" came in at No 11.

7) "Toto, I have...

Mike Coppola/FilmMagic A fish out of water no more, it’s another boy for Iron Chef Cat Cora, 42, and wife Jennifer! The couple welcomed son Nash Lemuel Cora at 4:41 p.m. on Sunday, July 19th according to her rep. Baby boy weighed in at 7 lbs., 5 oz, and measured 20 inches in length.

Nash Lemuel’s name is inspirational for Cat and Jennifer on many levels; Meaning “the adventurer,” the couple thought it would be an appropriate moniker given the miles their fourth son logged in utero!

In addition, they note that Nash will share a name with the poet Ogden Nash as well as scientist John Forbes Nash, whose life is depicted in the film A Beautiful Mind. They go on to note that Lemuel — Hebrew for ‘Gift from God’ — is Cat’s maternal grandfather’s name.

The pregnancy was announced in March. Nash joins little brothers Thatcher Julius,...