Stop the Hate: 49 Celebrities Honor 49 Victims of Orlando Tragedy

They had names. They had faces. They had stories. They were not just victims. Forty-nine celebrities -- including Jane Fonda, Connie Britton, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gerard Butler, Lady Gaga and Cuba Gooding Jr. -- pay eloquent tribute to the fallen in this 18-minute video launched by the Human Rights Campaign. Take time to watch it all in one sitting. And even if you start crying, watch it until the end.

July 4th viewing tip: Neil Simon mini-marathon

If heavy rains dampen your plans for parading or picnicking on Independence Day, and you’re in the mood for an indulgent wallow in ‘60s and ‘70s nostalgia, you might be mildly amused by the line-up of comedies based on Neil Simon plays that Turner Classic Movies has to offer. Barefoot in the Park (11:30 am EDT) may be especially entertaining for anyone who doesn’t remember, or who never knew, just how sleek and sexy Jane Fonda and Robert Redford were back in the day (circa 1967, when this movie was released) before they became activists as well as actors. Please don’t misunderstand: I’m not criticizing either star for his or her politics. Rather, I’m indulging myself a bit by gazing back through rose-colored glasses. Hell, I can remember exactly where I first saw Barefoot -- the old Fox Theatre on Elysian Fields in my hometown of New Orleans -- and how hot Jane Fonda looked (even before she undraped for Barbarella) to a hormonally inflamed adolescent.

The July 4th mini-marathon on TCM also includes 1963’s Come Blow Your Horn (7:30 am EDT), with Frank Sinatra as a ring-a-ding-ding chick magnet; 1975’s The Sunshine Boys (9:30 am EDT), with Walter Matthau and George Burns as long-feuding ex-vaudevillians; and 1968’s The Odd Couple (3:30 pm EDT), arguably the finest and funniest of the many pairings of Matthau and Jack Lemmon. I haven’t seen any of these movies in decades – though I frequently reviewed the plays on which they’re based while covering dinner theaters, community playhouses and summer stock in the '70s and '80s. And I'm more than a little curious to see how they hold up so long after Simon ruled the Great White Way (and, to a lesser degree, movie theaters and drive-ins everywhere) as the undisputed King of the One-Liners.

Also on the program: 1977's The Goodbye Girl (1:30 pm EDT), an original Simon script later adapted into a Broadway musical, with Richard Dreyfuss giving an Oscar-winning performance that, for better or worse, forever defined his prickly on-screen persona. (Yes, even more so than Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.) I hope he -- and, for that matter, Neil Simon -- will have a very happy holiday. And, dear reader, I hope you do the same.

Blogging Oscar, 8:54 pm

Enjoyed the montage of scenes depicting writers in the movies. (Lord knows, I've always been able to relate to the scene in Julia where a frustrated Jane Fonda throws her typewriter out the window.) But after the well-deserved Adapted Screenplay win by William Monahan for The Departed, that lame "horse race" bit with the chintzy wooden-horse icons was pretty shameful. Kudos to Tom Hanks for his not-so-subtle critique with the most sarcastic rely I've ever heard him give a stupid question in public.

R.I.P. Peter Boyle (1935-2006)

If you came of age while protesting against the Vietnam War, then Joe (1970) was your worst nightmare, starring Peter Boyle as a badass bogeyman. As Joe Curran, a flag-waving, beer-swilling, gun-loving, foul-mouthed factory worker who hated hippies, minorities and homosexuals with a genuinely scary (and ultimately homicidal) fury, Boyle made the sort of indelible impression that can instantly turn an actor into an icon.

To be sure, he later displayed impressive versatility in a wide variety of movie and TV roles, playing everything from a tap-dancing Frankenstein's Monster to a savvy Senate campaign advisor to everybody’s favorite curmudgeonly paterfamilias. But I must admit that I never got over my first impression of the guy as the hardhat from hell. (If you’ve never seen Joe – think Archie Bunker with no redeeming qualities, and ready access to deadly weapons, and you’ll get the idea.) And that impression was only reinforced when I saw his Emmy-nominated performance as Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1977 TV-movie Tail Gunner Joe. Indeed, I couldn’t help thinking when I saw Boyle more recently as the viciously racist grandfather in Monster's Ball that, hey, there’s Joe Curran again – older but no wiser, and still as nasty as he wants to be.

Given Boyle’s real-life political leanings – he was a self-described “conservative radical” who performed in ‘70s anti-war revues with Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland – I guess he’s a textbook example of a great actor: Someone who can successfully and stunningly turn himself into something he’s absolutely, positively not.

Here is a link to an enlightening 1970 New York Times interview with Boyle that ran while Joe was all the rage. And here is his Associated Press obit.