Hugh Martin
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" songwriter Hugh Martin has died. He was 96.
Martin is best known for composing the score to the 1944 musical Meet Me In St. Louis, in which Judy Garland famously performs the song that became a seasonal classic. Martin and songwriting partner Ralph Blane received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for writing the film's "The Trolley Song."
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Liza Minelli
Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy Legend Award winner Liza Minnelli finally joins Robert Osborne's illustrious guest list on Saturday's episode of Private Screenings (10/9c, TCM). I watched her film the chat in the New York's West Village back in June, looking remarkably limber just a few months after knee replacement surgery. She was about to head out on tour to support her album Confessions, released this past September. Earlier this week, fresh from a San Francisco concert, the diva talked to me about her new album and her conversation with Osborne about growing up with legendary parents Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli and some of their equally famous friends. (AMC is also airing 10 of her parents' films — including An American in Paris and Gigi — plus Liza's Cabaret on Saturday and Tuesday...
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The Good Guys - Colin Hanks, Bradley Whitford
The Good Guys (Friday, 9/8c, Fox)
Not a great week for quirky crime-fighters. First FX gives the wonderful Terriers the boot, and now we come to the end of the line for Fox's genial but low-rated buddy-cop spoof. We will miss Bradley Whitford as gone-to-seed Dallas detective Don Stack, especially his bushy 'stache. The final episode brings back Gary Cole as Stark's legendary former partner, Frank Savage, and we also meet the ex-partner of Stark's sidekick Jack Bailey (Colin Hanks). Jack's former partner, played by American Pie's Chris Klein, has done well, now the assistant chief of the department, called in when a Mafia informant is murdered and a dirty cop is suspected. Surely not...
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Question: When Pedro Almodovar won the best original screenplay Oscar for Talk to Her (2002), the announcer said as he was walking up to the stage that it was his second nomination, the other being for best director for the same film. But didn't he win an Oscar for All About My Mother (1999) in the foreign-language-film category? I know that the nominees in that category are actually the countries where the films were released and produced, but why does the director get to accept the award, not the producers? Do Oscar winners who are absent the night they win still get to receive their statuettes even if it's long after they won? And finally, what happens if your Oscar is stolen or broken — can you get a new one?
Answer: Wow, you are full of questions! The director gets to accept the award because the Academy say
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