A few people have asked about how I put this trip together and how it was organized, and I thought that this would be a good post to explain that as the past day has been about travel coordination. When Gretchen and I decided to go, we talked about the places we wanted to visit, knowing we would want to …
An e-mail from an old friend, the filmmaker John Hanson, came out of the blue Wednesday, the day before the newspapers all said we were going to have a northern lights display tonight. The front page headline in the Bismarck Tribune on Wednesday blared “Solar storm to create Northern Lights.” Whoa. Not so fast. The correction at the bottom of …
I’ve been intrigued by the movie “Fargo” ever since the cast and crew came to town years ago to shoot some of the scenes here. More accurately, north of here. I hung around the edges of the production for a couple of days, shooting television news stories, not knowing a classic American movie was being made. A new book called …
Dorette and I love to attend the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival every spring. On Thursday, we saw the new Russian-made movie “Vronsky,” complete with English subtitles. The flick is set in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. It imagines the aftermath of Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina” from the point of view of Anna’s lover, Count Vronsky, several years after …
Five years ago came the news that my memoir, “I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers,” was going to be a major motion picture. Two young screenwriters, Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue, had developed a beautiful script. The directors of the movie “Little Miss Sunshine” had signed on. There was significant buzz in Hollywood and in the Madigan household. …
Meryl Streep just picked up another Academy Award nomination this week, her 89th. Something like that. This time it’s for her role as Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham in The Post. Tom Hanks, who plays the Post’s editor, Ben Bradlee, was snubbed, as they say. The story revolves around the newspaper’s publication of the Pentagon papers, classified documents detailing U.S. …
When the Red River Valley Fair rolls around each year about this time in West Fargo, N.D., a rare moment of nostalgia sometimes comes over me. Sometimes. Allow me to paraphrase Marilyn Hagerty each (and every) Christmas Eve. Excuse me, please. But I must go back. If only for five minutes and only in my thoughts, I have to go back. When I think …
Today is Don Rickles’ birthday. It’s also my mother’s birthday, but that’s another story and another post. Don Rickles died a month ago. If you’re like me and you always wanted see him live but never did and you feel cheated, the next best thing may be to watch the terrific John Landis documentary “Mr. Warmth.” Johnny Carson was the first to call …
The Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival is under way, with more than 350 movies being shown over 16 days at several venues. If I could do it over, I’d work in the movie industry as a writer or technical professional. I still recall a movie I saw as a North Dakota farm kid, “The Bridges at Toko-Ri,” starring William …
It seems as if we’re losing a lot of entertainment industry folk this year. The latest, Academy Award-winning actress Patty Duke, who died early Tuesday morning at the age of 69. I had the great pleasure of spending a few minutes of television time with her a couple of years ago. Patty Duke won fame playing a young Helen Keller in “The Miracle …
The 88th annual Academy Awards presentation is coming up. I look forward to it every year. For me, it marks the beginning of the end of winter. Or, at least, the beginning of the last half of winter — or something. I enjoy the Oscars, not because I’m so into movies or rich people handing over awards to other rich people. And …
I get very excited whenever a new Coen brothers movie is about to open. I’ve been a fan ever since doing a television story on the Minnesota natives and their first feature film, “Blood Simple,” back (unbelievably) in 1984. Minnesotans in the movie business were big news back then. The Coen brothers still are. I’ve seen most of their films, …
The excellent, new biography “The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney,” by Richard A. Lertzman and William J. Birnes, got me thinking about an interview I did with the film legend some years ago. My experience with the 5-foot, 3-inch screen star was not at all a pleasant one, so if you like and admire Mickey Rooney it might be …