Paramount Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection
Robin Williams as Popeye, Wesley Ivan Hurt as Swee’Pea and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl in 1980’s Popeye.
Robert Altman directed Williams who stepped in for original star Dustin Hoffman and Shelley Duvall in the film. The Hollywood Reporter s critic deemed it a disappointment, but the movie went on to box office success.
Popeye, which turns 40 this month, owes a debt to another beloved character: Little Orphan Annie. Producer Robert Evans desperately wanted to make
Annie for Paramount. But when it went to Columbia, he was determined to make his own comic strip musical, and learned that Paramount owned
The Myth of the Loose Butthole
Ralf Geithe via iStock
Every person who engages in anal sex fears that they will one day possess a bashed and battered asshole, one that’s not as bright and tight as it used to be. I can admit that I was once a part of that camp, fearing that every time I bottomed, I was causing permanent damage to my precious b-hole. But, as is true with most generalizations, you come to realize it’s (mostly) a bunch of BS.
I became particularly invested in this topic after working with a sexual wellness company that launched a service called Text-a-Sexpert, in which a fellow sex educator and myself would answer people’s personal sex questions via text message. Almost instantly, I was taken aback by the volume of folks who wrote me desperate that their holes were or would soon become loose as a result of receptive anal intercourse.
The Man Who Went Backstage
Mike Nichols stopped performing and became immortal
Mike Nichols was one of a vanishingly small number of directors to have done distinguished work on both stage and screen, and one of an even smaller number to be widely known by name to the public at large. But like Alfred Hitchcock, who became nationally famous only when he started hosting a TV series, Nichols first acquired his celebrity for another reason. From 1957 to 1961, he and Elaine May were a hugely popular stand-up comedy team, appearing on TV and radio and cutting bestselling albums of the sketches in which they satirized the foibles of middle-class America in the Eisenhower era. Not until 1963 did Nichols direct his first Broadway show, Neil Simon’s
This month saw the premiere on HBO Max of
Let Them All Talk, a film that sees three capital-
g great actressesâMeryl Streep, Candice Bergen, and Dianne Wiestâset loose on the luxury ocean liner Queen Mary 2, with Lucas Hedges and Gemma Chan in very endearing supporting roles. Directed by Steven Soderbergh (
Sex, Lies, and Videotape;
Erin Brockovich), the film is principally about a Pulitzer-winning author, Alice (Streep), reuniting her two oldest friends, Roberta (Bergen) and Susan (Wiest), for an elegant crossing to England, where sheâs won another prize.Â
Along the way, Aliceâs nephew, Tyler (Hedges), falls in love with her agent (Chan); Roberta reveals to Susan how Aliceâs work has ruined her life; and Alice studiously conceals her real motive for the voyage. The largely improvised dialogueâshaped by backstories and outlines from writer Deborah Eisenbergâreveals some wonderful performances: As a woman peering rather anxiously over the wa