Free Republic

Richard Schickel, the longtime film critic for Time magazine who also wrote 37 books, mostly on film, and directed a number of documentaries on film subjects, died on Saturday in Los Angeles of complications from a series of strokes, his family told the Los Angeles Times. He was 84. “He was one of the fathers of American film criticism,” his daughter, writer Erika Schickel, told the Times. “He had a singular voice. When he wrote or spoke, he had an old-fashioned way of turning a phrase. He was blunt and succinct both on the page and in life.” He wrote...

Marlon Brando may have possessed the greatest talent of any American actor of the past 100 years, but for most of his career, he wasted that talent. Charley Malloy: Look, kid, I -- how much you weigh, son? When you weighed one hundred and sixty-eight pounds you were beautiful. You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast. Terry Malloy: It wasn't him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, "Kid, this ain't your night....

Just how was Mia Farrow able to block the use of her images from Woody Allen's movies in a documentary salute to the famous director? Weeks before Turner Classic Movies was set to premiere ''Woody Allen: A Life in Film,'' the actress told the channel to cut her clips from the show (which airs at 7 p.m. May 4). Farrow told writer-director-producer Richard Schickel he could use no shots of her from any of her 13 films with Allen, her ex-lover. Though Farrow has no control over Allen's movies, she does have the right to nix the use of her...