Happy Independence Day! ...

Just a few years ago, Glenne McElhinney was working as a mechanic in the automotive industry. Today, she is a chronicler of LGBT history and the director of a new documentary, On These Shoulders We Stand. The film, which explores the struggles of the gay and lesbian community in postwar Los Angeles, will have its world premiere as part of Outfest 2009.McElhinney has led San Francisco-based Impact Stories since 2007. What began as “a modest oral history project” has quickly grown into an effort to collect, preserve and celebrate California’s significant and unsung contribution to LGBT ...

Harve Presnell, star of stage and screen, passed away Tuesday at the age of 75. He is best known for the Broadway and film versions of The Unsinkable Molly Brown and for playing Daddy Warbucks in several productions of the musical Annie, as well as William H. Macy's father-in-law in Fargo. ...

Mollie Sugden, the unforgettable Mrs. Slocombe on the long-running BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?, passed away yesterday at the age of 86. ...

It has been four long years since the knights, knaves and ladies of Monty Python’s Spamalot stormed Broadway and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Ordinarily, it only takes a couple of years for Broadway musicals to make it to California, but the producers of this comical extravaganza first took the show to Las Vegas and, in the process, prohibited it from being performed on the west coast. Thankfully, the embargo has been lifted. The show will open at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles for a two-month engagement starting July 7.This spoof of all things ...

Every Thursday in July, Turner Classic Movies celebrates "Hollywood's greatest year", 1939. Thirty-nine films (naturally) will be broadcast as part of the 70th anniversary tribute, and the festivities kick off tonight with the brand new documentary titled (naturally) 1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year.Classics scheduled for the month include Beau Geste, Dark Victory, Gone With the Wind, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, The Women and Wuthering Heights, plus the TCM premieres of Stanley and Livingston and Of Mice and Men. Visit TCM.com for showtimes. ...

Academy Award winning actor Karl Malden, star of over 50 films as well as The Streets of San Francisco and American Express commercials on TV, passed away today at the age of 97. ...

If you missed the magical gay musical Were the World Mine at film festival near you, fear not! It is now available on DVDand it is definitely worth watching on a midsummer night.I have to confess that Shakespeare usually leaves me cold — probably the side effect of watching too many poor productions of the Bard’s works. Still, when it’s done well, Shakespeare’s genius can come through. Such is the case with Were the World Mine, Tom Gustafson’s enchanting take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, based on his own award-winning short Fairies.Timothy (the dream-worthy Tanner Cohen ...

For the month of July, the Movie Dearest Monthly Wallpaper is celebrating the best of Vintage Musicals, classic black and white tuners that have never lost their luster.Such legendary couples as Fred & Ginger, Mickey & Judy, Bojangles & Shirley and Nelson & Jeanette join with Gene, Lena, Ruby and Maurice (not to mention a certain Busby) for a full month of classic musical memories.Just click on the picture above to enlarge it to its 1024 x 768 size, then right click your mouse and select "Set as Background", and you're all set. If you want, you can also ...

Crush object: Cary Grant, actor.- The epitome of cinematic class and sophistication, he was born Archibald Leach. Following stints as a stilt walker in a traveling theatrical troupe and an actor in light Broadway comedies, he came to Hollywood and was rechristened Cary Grant.- Stardom came quickly, with such hits as Blonde Venus, She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel. In a string of beloved "screwball" comedies, including The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, Holiday, His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story, he perfected the art of the befuddled romantic leading man.- A favorite of Alfred Hitchcock, ...

Gee, what audience are they going after with the ads for Away We Go?It’s not that audiences who liked Juno, Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine won’t enjoy watching Maya Rudolph’s perfectly nuanced performance as Verona, a mother-to-be unsure of where she should be. Anyone with a pulse should love Rudolph (daughter of the late singer Minnie Riperton) as she runs the gamut from depressed to aghast to amazed to euphoric, sometimes in the same scene. As her bearded and equally aimless boyfriend Burt, John Krasinski (The Office) is what he is, an all-purpose, somewhat-bland everyman who’s ...

When Wicked returns to Tempe's Gammage, we'll have reason to celebrate. Playing Glinda is Katie Rose Clarke, who was so moving in the production of The Light in the Piazza that toured. If you missed that gorgeous production but managed to catch the show on PBS (filmed from its Broadway production after Kelli O'Hara left), you also got to see the talented Texas native playing the emotionally challenged Clara.In her long reign as the Good Witch of the North in training, Clarke has made a wonderful impression on audiences and critics alike. She is able to act ...

Idol worship: Don Ross, writer/director/producer.- He paid his dues writing scripts for such TV series as Hart to Hart, The Colbys and Matlock.- Turning to features, he contributed the screenplays to Single White Female, Love Field, Boys on the Side and the 1996 remake of Diabolique.- His directorial debut, The Opposite of Sex, netted him two Independent Spirit Awards, for Best First Feature and Best Screenplay.- Since, he has written and directed Bounce and Happy Endings, produced All Over the Guy and scripted the hit Marley & Me. His next film, Love & Other Impossible Pursuits, will be ...

The Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror Films went bats for The Dark Knight, bestowing the blockbuster with five Saturn Awards last night, including a Best Picture prize in the Action/Adventure/Thriller category. As for the science fiction, fantasy and horror Best Pictures, winners were (respectively) Iron Man, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Hellboy II: The Golden Army, while WALL-E and Let the Right One In triumphed in the animated and international races.Acting honors went to Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr., as well as Changeling's Angelina Jolie, Knight's Heath Ledger, Button's ...

To call the award-winning indie Lovely by Surprise "unique" would be an understatement. The film, scheduled for release on DVDand through download on June 30, is a hugely original take on familiar themes of parental abandonment, wish fulfillment and the artistic/literary process.Movie Dearest fave Carrie Preston (of Straight-Jacket and Ready? OK!, and arguably the best thing about the recent Duplicity) gives a remarkable, nuanced performance as Marian, a talented writer struggling to finish her first novel. The book centers on two developmentally-stunted, underwear-clad brothers, Humkin (Michael Chernus) and Mopekey (Dallas Roberts, who gay viewers may ...

The King of Pop is dead: multi-Grammy Award winning superstar Michael Jackson died today at the age of 50. ...

Farrah Fawcett, iconic sex symbol of the 1970's as one of the original Charlie's Angels, lost her battle with cancer today. She was 62. ...

Wow. A big change (perhaps the biggest) in the Oscars is coming next year. In a surprise announcement yesterday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will double the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten films beginning with the 2010 Oscars (honoring films released this year).Citing a desire to recognize more films (and harkening back to the early days of the Academy, which saw up to 12 Best Picture nominees in some years), this new ruling will have major repercussions in all aspects of Oscar watching, from campaigning to predictions to the telecast of ...

An onstage reunion of Evita co-stars and Tony winners Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin is always cause for celebration. The opening night June 23rd of An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles certainly didn't disappoint.From the moment they stormed out onto the elegantly ghost light-strewn set to the tune of Stephen Sondheim's "Another Hundred People" from Company, both performers held the audience tightly in their grasp. The two-hour set featured a liberal helping of Sondheim, as well as the best of Rodgers & Hammerstein. The R & H selections ...

Crush object: Casper Van Dien, actor.- Early television roles included stints on One Life to Live and Beverly Hills, 90210.- 1997 was his big year: he played James Dean in the TV biopic James Dean: Race with Destiny and sci-fi hero Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers.- Other high profile film roles included Tarzan in Tarzan and the Lost City and Bram Bones in Sleepy Hollow. He also played American Psycho Patrick Bateman in The Rules of Attraction, but all his scenes were cut.- He starred in the prime time soap Titans as well as the drama Watch ...