Entertainment Overnight -- Remember When

Entertainment Overnight -- Birthday Edition

Happy birthday, Shelley Winters, born this day, 1920.



This, boys and girls, is what TV used to look like, believe it or not.

Route 66 Endangered---And What You Can Do

I saw this news just broke yesterday:

U.S. Route 66 on national list of 11 endangered historic places

Seems the National Trust for Historic Preservation just came out with its list of endangered historic places---and Route 66 is on it.

A proposal has been made, to help save it, by making it a National Historic Trail, officially. To do this, to  support Route 66 becoming a National Historic Trail, the trust has set up an online petition. You can go to it here and sign up/sign on:

I Support a National Historic Trail Designation for Route 66!

Thank you in advance for your support, for signing.

Now, let's do this!

I Don't Like Where It Looks Like We're Headed

Apocalyptic movies began and, if anything, seem to keep growing in numbers. "Mad Max", for me, seemed to be either the first or one of them. In the meantime, they've grown in number.

This one, "Ready Player One", from Steven Spielberg, is due out next year.



It makes me fear for our future, for our collective futures.

What the Last Week Wrought on the World

Naimey, by the way, is in Niger.

And this doesn't include Nepal or Sierra Leone or Bangladesh or California's blistering heat wave and the wildfires there and across the Western US.

Do You Really Know All the Weather Events Taking Place This Week Across the Planet?

Let's evaluate what has happened and what''s going on of late, shall we?

The United States' fourth largest city and a good section of Southeast Texas is under water and will be for some time.

Flooding stretches for miles in east Texas 

- Videos - CBS News

There have been and are floods and flooding over a large swath of Bangladesh and Sierra Leone.  More than 1000 were killed in those mudslides in Sierra Leone, according to Al Jazeera, while at least 1200 have been killed in the Bangladeshi floods.

Floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal kill 1,200 and leave millions homeless

At least 41 million people affected in floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, UN says

Back in another part of the US, a blistering heat wave gripped California this week with firefighters, statewide, tackling massive wildfires that forced thousands of people to flee their homes.

LADWP sees highest demand ever as Angelenos roast in record-breaking heat wave

And people want to ignore or deny what the scientists have said, are saying about man made climate change and how much carbon dioxide we're pumping into the atmosphere, warming the planet?

Really?

Links:

How Climate Change Likely Heightened 

Hurricane Harvey's Fury

Global Warming May Play Role in Hurricane Intensity

Warmer oceans could produce more powerful superstorms

Beginning National Gun Violence Awareness Month

Gun Violence Awareness Month: June

Today begins National Gun Violence Awareness Month and thank goodness. All across America, along with here in Kansas City, more locally, we need to be aware of and pay attention to gun violence and the shootings and killings. We need to be aware of it, certainly, but more importantly, we need to do something about it. We shouldn't normalize this. We shouldn't just say or think this is the way it is and the way it must be. No other educated, industrialized nation in the world lives like this. We shouldn't, either.

We need to see, need to know the statistics about guns and shootings and the violence in America and then we need to say "Enough!" and work to put an end to it. Here are just a few local headlines on it all.

Shooting spree shakes up 

South Kansas City neighborhood

4 children inside KC house hit by gunfire from drive-by shooter

Police investigate shooting 

at Austins Bar and Grill

KCMO drive-by shooting caught 

on personal dashcam

And the shootings and killings are all up in America, across the nation.

Shootings, homicides in Chicago 

both higher than start of violent 2016

Chicago's murder rate soars 72% in 2016; 

shootings up more than 88%

Chicago murders up in January 2017 

compared to last year

Denver's homicides hit 

a 10-year high in 2016 

Violent crime in L.A. jumps for third straight year

Mother of 3-year-old, killed in crossfire, was the ‘backbone’ of close-knit family

4-year-old boy killed in rolling Kansas City gun battle

MetroLink passengers take cover as bullets hit train in St. Clair County

12-year-old boy shot in St. Louis, rushed to hospital

'It happened again,' father says after 2nd son murdered in New Orleans

Man shot at prayer vigil in St. Claude neighborhood: New Orleans police

Recess guarded by cops after killing outside school: 'They should be able to play'

Two juveniles, ages 12 and 13, arrested 

in connection to fatal shooting

Boy, 6, found shot dead in stolen car 

on day of 1st grade graduation

Then, compare us to the rest of the world when it comes to guns and shootings and killings. It's insane.

U.S. Leads World in Mass Shootings

Compare These Gun Death Rates: 

The U.S. Is in a Different World

U.S. Has More Guns - And Gun Deaths - 

Than Any Other Country

Here's a stunner:

More Than 6 Million Americans 

Own Ten or More Guns

We have to recognize that this is no way to live. We have to recognize that America has far, far too many guns.

And what can be done? 

Like it or not, agree with it or not, Australia seemed to have led the way on this issue.

Strict gun laws ended mass shootings in Australia

Australia data shows gun controls a huge success 20 years after mass shooting

Don't get me wrong, here, either. I wish a gun/weapons ban could be passed here and that it would work but I think that ship has sailed, figuratively speaking. We have far too many weapons now in the country to make that work. We also seem to have a different, very different kind of "Wild West" mindset regarding guns no other nation has, sadly, unfortunately.

There are some good statistics on guns in America, however. Here's a big one, for me, anyway.

Fewer and Fewer Americans Own Guns

Just three percent of adults own 

half of America's guns

Fewer Americans Own Guns, 

But Those Who Do Own More Than Ever

Another:

Most Americans don't own a gun, 

and want more gun control

So what do we do? What can we do?

We have to do at least two things and those are, first, let our governmental representatives know we are against the NRA, the National Rifle Association and the weapons manufacturers having their way with our nation and our laws. We have to let them know that they can't sell all weapons, everywhere to everyone at all times. We don't need or want automatic weapons on our streets, made available to anyone and everyone that can buy them and we certainly also don't need or want armor-piercing bullets available on our streets. Neither has a place in a modern society.

Then, second, we must vote. We must vote for sanity in our gun laws. We have to vote for people who are not just blindly behind, again, the NRA and the weapons manufacturers. We can't be "all guns, all the time." That kind of thinking has gotten us more shootings and killings, per capita, than any other of the industrialized nations, far and away.

Entertainment Overnight -- Where Sagging Pants Came From

It's not well known but the current trend of sagging pants didn't come from prisons or anywhere else.

It came from Walt Disney.

Entertainment Overnight -- Cavett

Tbe apex of late night talk shows.

Entertainment Overnight -- Manhattan

Entertainment Overnight -- Walken

As the video description tells, this pieces all of Christoper Walken's movie dance scenes together into one glorious remix set to "Everybody Dance Now" by C+C Music Factory.

Move.

Entertainment Overnight -- MTM

MTM

She sang, she danced, she did comedy, she did serious drama and acting. She did it all and wonderfully, beautifully.






Thank you for all of it.

You'll be missed. Very missed.

Rest in peace and godspeed to you.

Highway to Hell

Republicans, swept into power, controlling all of Congress, now about to end Obamacare and supporting Russia's Vladimir Putin; know-nothing, emotional, insecure, vindictive Donald "The Chump" Trump wins the presidency; Right Wing, Eric "Pretty Boy" Greitens wins the Missouri Governor's office, still vowing and pressing to foist "Right to work" laws on Missourians so we can all work for less for the already-wealthy and corporations and they can further bust Unions and all the rest and now this.

Chargers are moving to Los Angeles 

after 56 years in San Diego

I tell you, the world is coming apart.

It's all going to Hell.

The common denominator in all of it is money. We are drowning in money. We're being bought. And sold. All over. Politically and in all other ways. I need to write a book. It would be titled "Money and Capitalism Are Smothering America."

Entertainment Overnight -- The Way Life Should Be

Good luck out there, y'all.

An Open Letter To Those Who Voted For Trump (Guest Post)

From the Los Angeles Times.

Dear Person Whose Voice Was Heard:

Well, you got your way. The people have spoken. And your guy won. I mean, he won by attracting support from well below half of those who actually voted — long live the electoral college — but still. A win is a win. No shutting down of a freeway in protest is gonna change that. So congratulations.

I have never been more wrong in my life than I was in predicting this election. I didn't think there was a chance in holy heck that Donald Trump could actually become president of the United States. Life will surprise you, though rarely like this.

It will probably come as little shock that I'm pretty upset about this whole thing. Actually, crushingly depressed is a better way to describe it. You know, I'm one of those arrogant liberal elites blinded inside my blue bubble who likes my presidents classy and competent. Crazy, right?

But I digress.

My purpose of this letter is merely to give you a heads up as to what exactly you have voted for here in going with your gut rather than your rational mind. To my mind, you have sided with unvarnished stupidity and hatred.

You've chosen a man who applied for a demanding job he knew nothing about and had never served in political office. Go back to when you were 16 working your first gig at Carl's Jr. and recall all of the mistakes you made. Now magnify that times 50 million in terms of pressure and difficulty and with the entire world watching. It's on-the-job training with the country serving as your shake machine.

Another thing you did is vote into office a person who flaunts without an ounce of self-awareness or irony the most buffoonish, disgusting trappings of American consumption and conspicuous wealth, a man who believes everything can be made exquisite if encrusted in solid gold. The world's enduring image of America is now Richie Rich.

While you can feel secure in the knowledge that you voted in lock-step with the evangelical community, it seems the purportedly devout have profoundly lowered their standards in backing a xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, fear-mongering, hate-spewing serial violator of women. But hey, nobody's perfect, right?

The thing is, you too knew all of this stuff and voted for Trump anyway. You rationalized it with every fiber of your being. You figured the media had it out for him and did everything it could to make him look bad. Plus, all of those women who accused him of sexual harassment and worse were making it up, weren't they?

Your guy may have said he could grab females by the you-know-where, but come on, can't a guy joke around? Anyone who objected was just being politically correct, which in this case meant overly supportive of diplomacy and decency.

You voted for a guy who promised to build walls rather than bridges and launch immigration squads to cleanse the United States of imaginary Muslim terrorists. Because there are already too many foreigners here anyhow, right? And they're taking our jobs, dammit!

So let's again just be clear about what you've elected: A middle-school bully with no respect for humanity or tolerance for anyone who isn't white. You chose to conveniently, willfully ignore — or perhaps applaud — Trump's belief that it's virtuous to use loopholes to avoid paying taxes and even more righteous to entirely shield your returns from public view.

Your choice for president was transparent in his embrace of a fascist dictator named Vladimir Putin and supportive of Putin's influence on the election through hacking and leaks. And here is another news flash: If you're working class, your hero has no use for you. In fact, he thinks you're a sucker.

You know what you've done? You've rolled the dice and endangered all of the social progress we've made in this country over the past 50 years. Congratulations.

Sore loser? Oh you bet I'm a sore loser. The sorest loser ever. So let's get a few things straight:

I'm not interested in unifying for the good of the country any more than you were for President Obama.

I don't want to hear your complaints when your revolution flops on arrival, given how you've chosen the worst imaginable man to lead it.

Don't ask me to heal, accept, embrace, reassess or chill. It's you who screwed up. It isn't my responsibility to cushion the blow.

Good luck. We're all going to need it.

Ray

--------

RAY RICHMOND has covered Hollywood and the entertainment business since 1984. He can be reached via email at ray@rayrichco.com and Twitter at @MeGoodWriter.

Copyright © 2016, Glendale News-Press

Too. Many. Guns.

Too many guns, America. Way, way too many guns.

Some headlines from the weekend: 

6 injured people at Houstonshopping center shooting

9 killed, 45 wounded in shootings in Chicago over weekend

Fifth Person Dies In Washington Mall Shooting

Police: 3-year-old among 8 people shot in east Baltimore

1 dead, three wounded in University of Illinois shooting

Charges filed in fatal shooting near Millennium Park over weekend

Mother killed, 4-year-old daughter wounded in Joliet shooting

Stray bullet kills 3-year-old girl riding in car 'in the wrong place at wrong time' with her family

Good Morning! (Over a Few Decades)

Entertainment Overnight -- In and Out

In and out of New York Harbor, in 2 movies, years, decades apart.

Entertainment Overnight -- Best

One of the best, if not the best, intro to a movie ever.

Entertainment Overnight -- Coming Soon

This looks fantastic. Seems Steven Spielberg will have knocked it out of the ballpark, once again.


And it's not Mark Rylance's best genre but it's still Mark Rylance.


Coming July 1.

More here:  The BFG (2016) - IMDb