Free Republic

Snip It's hard to tell today how the satire in The President's Analyst landed when it was released at the end of 1967. It's reputed to have bombed at the box office despite more than decent reviews; Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times compared it favorably as a comedy to The Graduate and Bedazzled (two contemporary satires that time has treated very differently), but I can't read Ebert's affable review ("modern and biting, and there are many fine, subtle touches") without suspecting that he was swept up in the groovy zeitgeist, unwilling to go all squaresville and rain on the...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- James Coburn, who played tough-guy roles in such films as "Our Man Flint'' and "The Magnificent Seven,'' and who won an Academy Award with his portrait of a dissolute father in "Affliction,'' died Monday. He was 74. Coburn died of a heart attack at home while listening to music with his wife, said his manager, Hillard Elkins. Coburn won his best supporting actor Oscar for the 1998 film after overcoming a 10-year struggle with arthritis that left one hand crippled. Born in Laurel, Neb., on Aug. 31, 1928, Coburn studied acting in Los Angeles...