Monday, November 29, 2010

RIP Leslie Nielsen and Irvin Kershner

Farewell to two class acts:

By now, you can turn on just about any media outlet and see/hear clips from Leslie Nielsen's appearances in the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker comedy classics AIRPLANE! and THE NAKED GUN series.

As for director Irvin Kershner, he's fated to be eulogized as the director of numerous franchise sequels--such as RETURN OF A MAN CALLED HORSE, ROBOCOP 2, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN and, especially, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (probably the most gripping and adult STAR WARS entry--then George Lucas decided to pull the series back towards a more family-friendly approach from RETURN OF THE JEDI through the prequel trilogy).

Kershner's earlier work included THE HOODLUM PRIEST, UP THE SANDBOX (Barbra Streisand as a dissatisfied housewife), A FINE MADNESS (Sean Connery as a nonconformist poet) and THE FLIM-FLAM MAN (George C. Scott as a Southern con artist).

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