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In our nostalgia-mad monoculture, remakes and reboots are everywhere. But Hollywood has always been in the game of regurgitating existing media, even back in the early 20th century when a young John Wayne was slumming it in B-movie territory. The Duke didn't become a screen icon overnight: He had to pay his dues for a good 10 years, making dozens of what were known as "poverty wow" Westerns — low-budget, low-production-value oaters produced by small studios such as Republic Pictures and Monogram Pictures. Throughout the 1930s, these were the films that gave Wayne his start in Hollywood, before director John Ford rescued him from relative obscurity by casting him in his seminal 1939 Western "Stagecoach" (much to the young actor's surprise).

Prior to breaking through with "Stagecoach," Wayne starred in some of his worst films, including 1933's "The Telegraph Trail," with its unenlightened depiction of Native Americans, and 1934's "'Neath the Arizona Skies,...

Mark Russell, the sly satirist who skewered America’s political elite for more than a half-century by blending stand-up comedy with biting song parodies, died Thursday. He was 90.

Russell died at his home in Washington of complications from prostate cancer, his wife, Alison, told The Washington Post.

Perhaps best known for his series of one-man PBS comedy specials that aired from 1975-2004, Russell also served as one of the hosts of the popular 1979-83 NBC reality program Real People, and he wrote a syndicated column for the Los Angeles Times for several years.

However, he was most at home in front of a live audience, and he spent two decades on the speaking circuit, hitting his peak in 2000 when he racked up 100 appearances in 100 different cities.

“Mark Russell was a D.C. institution who did the hardest thing a comic can do … relentlessly and righteously mock his neighbors,” Jon Stewart said in a statement.

Composer Bear McCreary discusses a few of his favorite movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Wolf Man (1941) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s Wolf Man movie power rankings

Host (2020)

Gremlins (1984) – Glenn Erickson’s 4K Blu-ray review, Tfh’s 30th anniversary celebration

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Total Recall (1990)

Robot Monster (1953) – Joe Dante’s trailer commentary

Cat-Women Of The Moon (1953)

The Man With The Golden Arm (1955) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary

The Ten Commandments (1956) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

The Swarm (1978) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

The Howling (1981) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings

Batman (1989)

Dick Tracy (1990)

Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003) – Mike Schlesinger’s trailer commentary

Chinatown (1974) – Ernest Dickerson’s trailer commentary

The Professor And The Madman (2019)

Hollywood Boulevard (1976) – Jon Davison’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Do The Right Thing (1989) – Allan Arkush...

Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.

A former vaudevillian, the great comedian Fred Allen found his fame in radio but was unable to navigate a suitable transition to TV (“Television is a medium,” he once observed, “because it is neither rare nor well done.”). He made a few casual appearances in movies but only once, in 1945, did he take full advantage of that particular medium.

That film, one of the “lost” trailers featured in our Great Global Trailer Search, was, until its recent home video revival, very nearly a lost film in itself. More’s the pity because It’s in the Bag, Allen’s sole starring vehicle, is an overlooked comic gem.

A surreal-screwball farce fueled by Allen’s perpetually perplexed sad sack persona and out-of-left-field set pieces (like a nightmarish trip to the movies that predicts the vertiginous pitfalls of a crowded Imax theater), It’s in the Bag recalls the anything goes Paramount...

When I started out, a pretty girl did not go into comedy. If you saw a pretty girl walk into a nightclub, she was automatically a singer. Comedy was all white, older men. It was Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Bob Hope, Shelley Berman, Red Skelton ... even Amos and Andy were white men, which is hilarious if you think about it. Phyllis Diller was happening right before me. But even Phyllis was a caricature, and I didn’t want to be a caricature. I was a college graduate; I wanted to get married. Related: Joan Rivers Dies at 81 Hollywood's Notable Deaths

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Werner Herzog's documentary about a triple murder in Texas is a compelling reflection on capital punishment

Many film-makers cut their teeth directing documentaries before moving on to features. Relatively few continue making them in tandem with their fiction work. Louis Malle is perhaps the most notable example of a director who did, and there is a fascinating and fruitful interplay between the two aspects of his career stretching from his first movie, Le Monde du silence, the film of marine exploration he co-directed with Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1956, to his final film, Vanya on 42nd Street, in 1994, where it is hard to say whether it's a documentary about an Andre Gregory production of Chekhov in New York or a fictional film built around the play.

Born a decade after Malle and a key member of the German new wave that followed the French one, Werner Herzog's career has taken him along a similar path.

The subtitle of Werner Herzog‘s searing documentary Into the Abyss — A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life — sets up expectations for a film that is equal parts harrowing and uplifting. Yet as dutifully even-handed as Herzog‘s presentation is, it’s nearly inconceivable to imagine the director’s obvious appreciation for human life washing away the utterly shattering nature of the story at hand. It’s this precisely downbeat message — that, no matter how treasured human existence can often times be, the dark will always overshadow the light — that I took away from the film. And it shredded me to pieces.

Comparisons to Truman Capote‘s seminal piece of true-crime storytelling, In Cold Blood, have already been noted by several critics, and the similar vibes are indeed undeniable. The crime at the center of Herzog‘s examination of the death penalty and its ramifications is apparently just as...

For Werner Herzog, filmmaking has always been a life or death pursuit. The 69 year old director nearly died at least five different times making his 1982 film "Fitzcarraldo" -- and that was just one movie in an almost forty year career! When you ask Herzog "How's it going?" at the start of an interview and he replies "Well, I'm still alive," it's not just a cute line; it's a personal accomplishment.

The struggle for survival in a mad world is a prominent theme in a lot of Herzog's work and it's crucial to the director's latest film, the documentary "Into the Abyss." Herzog travels to Texas where he interviews the survivors of a horrific triple homicide. He speaks with the victims' families, reverends, and even convicted killers, one of whom, Michael Perry, was scheduled to be executed just eight days after Herzog's visit. The subject matter -- an unthinkable and pointless...

It's more than upsetting to think that there's a great number of people that only see prolific filmmaker Werner Herzog as an eccentric filmmaker, with a "funny way" of saying things and a category of films all his own. We can't lie, they're not entirely wrong, and it can't be denied that his dynamism and bizarre experiences are basically why internet memes were conceived. But we'd hope that the artist wasn't completely seen as a cartoon (even if his recent casting as a villain in a Tom Cruise vehicle makes that line of thinking onerous) and that his work was properly considered. Aside from the fact that he's made very fine movies in his lifetime even without the quirky flourishes ("Nosferatu the Vampyre" is aurally frightening while "Fitzcarraldo" is sincere and extremely moving) his aberrant perspective gives his ideas a unique beauty. Take the case of "Cave of Forgotten Dreams,...

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Werner Herzog is an incredibly prolific filmmaker. This man makes inspiring documentaries faster than I cook meals (seriously, an hour and a half to cook a Spanish Omelette. I only wish I were joking). Into The Abyss: A Story Of Life, A Story Of Death, is yet another in a long line of compelling films about less than ordinary subjects, given what I like to refer to as “The Herzog Flare”.

Herzog joked before the film started that technically “Into The Abyss” could have been the title of any of his documentaries, and he’s certainly right there. His documentaries have a way of transcending the surface of the issue and always come out as rather profound, something many filmmakers wish they were capable of.

Now, I must admit, when it comes to seeing Herzog documentaries in special screenings, it seems I am cursed, I...

"Into the Abyss, [Werner] Herzog's latest extraordinary documentary, looks at first like the kind of true-crime shocker you can easily find on cable television," writes Ao Scott. "It explores a particularly senseless triple homicide that took place in Conroe, Tex., a decade ago, and consists almost entirely of conversations with people close to the killings, including Michael Perry, who was convicted of killing one of the victims. He is interviewed as he awaits execution, and the ethics of the death penalty, which Mr Herzog avowedly opposes, is among the film's concerns. But Into the Abyss — which, Mr Herzog noted as he introduced a screening of it, 'could be the title of quite a few of my films' — is less a piece of political advocacy than a somber inquiry into familiar Herzogian themes of death, violence and time."

Also in the New York Times, Michael Cieply talks with Herzog and his producer,...

The elevation of TV writers and producers to auteur status is a fairly recent phenomenon, but savvy sorts have long known the name of Nat Hiken. A writer for Fred Allen and Milton Berle during their radio days, Hiken moved to TV as a writer on Four Star Revue and The Martha Raye Show before co-creating the Sgt. Bilko character with Phil Silvers. Then Hiken created his masterpiece: the cop sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? Set in the Bronx, Car 54 starred Joe E. Ross as a squat, dim-witted patrolman and Fred Gwynne as his lanky, book-smart partner. The ...

Photograph by Erin Patrice O'Brien

Photograph by Erin Patrice O'Brien

Inspired by Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock's bold new documentary about the ubiquity of branding messages in our daily lives, we embark on our own no-holds-barred exploration of the relationship between content and advertising.

Photograph by Erin Patrice O'Brien

Since This Is America, There's Got To Be A Cheerleader. In This Case Her Name Is Claire, A Junior At Costa Verde High

in California who's nervous about her first day at school. The other girls seem too pretty, too cool, and too mean, and if Claire fails to keep her superpowers undercover (the same powers that saved the world at the end of season one of Heroes), "the Company" may kill her, savage her family, and take over the planet. So, to make her feel better, her dad (who's a superhero himself, of course, but has some seriously...

Warner Bros. Home Video is sitting on one of the most loved libraries of classic cartoons you could imagine. In many ways, their shorts are superior to Disney’s given the freedom the animators had for decades and the memorable characters generated as a result. At first they released the Golden Collection box sets which were a nice mix of material but they wound that down. Instead, they’ve now opted for a series under the Looney Tunes Super Stars umbrella with the first two releases coming late last year.

While these are welcome discs with cartoons we’ve not previously had available, it is still not the ultimate library we want (and the characters deserve). The two discs -- Foghorn Leghorn & Friends: Barnyard Bigmouth and Tweety & Sylvester: Feline Fwenzy – each offer up two hours of cartoons but are a hodge-podge selection.

Foghorn Leghorn was created by Robert McKimson in 1946 and starred in 28 cartoons,...

Comedy writer Coleman Jacoby has died. He was 95.

Jacoby passed away in New York last month after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Initially an artist, he began writing jokes after moving to the Big Apple and went on to pen comedy for Bob Hope and Fred Allen.

He worked extensively for Jackie Gleason and Art Carney with writing partner Arnie Rosen. He also contributed to The Phil Silvers Show.

Jacoby, who married twice, is survived by one daughter.

American voice actor Allen Swift, born Ira Stadlen and known as the voice of Tom's owner in "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, died April 18, according to the Telegraph of London. He was 86. Swift took his professional name from two of his favorite satirists, Fred Allen and Jonathan Swift, and did work in the early '50s on "Howdy Doody," voicing various characters including Tooter Turtle, Clint Clobber, and even Howdy. He also did voices in Gene Deitch's early '60s "Tom and Jerry" cartoons and recently guest-starred on "Law & Order."In a letter to the website CartoonBrew.com, Deitch, Swift's longtime friend and collaborator, said, "Allen [had] been suffering with a series of health calamities for several years, since he fell and broke his hip while walking his dog. From that moment, one thing led to another."Swift is survived by, among numerous other relatives, his son: the Broadway actor, mimic,...

Aaron Ruben has died at the age of 95. The veteran TV producer-writer passed away at his Beverly Hills home on Saturday following complications from suffering with pneumonia, according to CBC News. Having cut his teeth writing for Dinah Shore, George Burns and Gracie Allen's show, and Fred Allen as well as Milton Berle's 1947 to 1948 radio series, he moved into TV production during 1954. The star went on to direct Caesar's Hour (more)...

Some days it's just too easy to select a Pic of the Day, and Brett Ratner posted a slow pitch this morning that was straight across the plate to Twitter-Wood. He may even make you wish that you had a magical leprechaun companion as well.

Meanwhile, it's been a long day since Oscar nominations for 2010 were announced, and I've got even more reactions that are retweeted below from Neil Gaiman, Eli Roth and Omar Doom. Check those out after the jump along with Snooki's response to rumors about nude photos of her being shopped around and a "Mad Men" actor who was none too thrilled to find out someone commandeered his iPod. It's all in Twitter-Wood for February 2, 2010.

Twitter Pic of the Day:

@BrettRatner My little Leprauchan! http://tweetphoto.com/10232373

-Brett Ratner, Director ("Rush Hour," "X-Men: The Last Stand")

Snooki pt. 1: @ElizabethBanks Wow. @Sn00ki has graphic nude photos being shopped?...

The Academy Awards nominations for 2010 hit close to home for the comics world this morning -- and not just because sci-fi and animated films like "Avatar," "District 9" and "Up" made it into the Best Picture category. Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" adaptation earned a Best Animated Feature Film nod, and Kevin Smith's former sound collaborator ended up with a Best Sound Editing acknowledgment.

Even if they don't have a horse in the race for the Oscars, most creators still had opinions to share, though. You can find retweeted reactions to "District 9," "Up" and "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" actress Anna Kendrick's nomination for "Up in the Air" after the jump. And even if the Oscars don't interest you, you can check out what Dave Gibbons thought of "Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut" and discover which big-name writer took a taxi to McDonald's yesterday.

It's all in the Twitter...