Popeye News

The first rule of stand-up comedy is that everything, even the most personal misfortune, can become material and inevitably does.

OF ALL THE NAMES mercilessly slung about when attempting to describe the pitch and character of Sallie Ford's wondrously unique voice - Joanna Newsom, Billie Holiday, Patsy Cline, and bafflingly enough, Amy Winehouse - none of them come close to her true vocal equal: Olive Oyl.

We have become a planet of human insects, each of us trained to perform a particular task, driving to work in long lines that stretch for miles along the highway like ants marching single file.

A weatherman. That's what Robert Altman might have become had he pursued meteorology, an early interest in life.

Truly, I am madly, deeply in love with the film version of "Where the Wild Things Are." Not since Robert Altman took on "Popeye" a generation ago, and lost, has a major director addressed such a well-loved, all-ages title.

Clue: The Departed , which must have been around Martin Scorsese's thirtieth picture, and did win the directing Oscar, cost $90 million --so don't go that way.

I've spent the weekend with Mitchell Zuckoff's latest, an "oral biography" of the great directo r, bon vivant and "family" filmmaker Robert Altman.

Yesterday we brought you the news that producer Avi Arad and Sony Pictures were going to develop a sequel to the 2007 comic based movie Ghost Rider , and now another cult icon will hit the big screen.

Marvel's top dog Avi Arad has his dance card full with his studio working to bring many of the Marvel Comics properties to the big screen, but one I didn't see coming was Popeye.

Yesterday we keyed you in on some updates regarding a whole slew of Marvel properties from Ghost Rider to Daredevil .A Well within that Variety article was a lot of information thrown around concerning all the reboots of franchises and tying most of them back to Marvel Studios founder and chief creative officer of Marvel Entertainment, Avi Arad .

From Mork to Peter Pan, he has entertained. From Vietnam to Heaven, he has moved.

Cruella De Vil is not the first cartoon character to be fleshed out for the Hollywood box-office. And Glenn Close isn't the first top star to donate her body.

What would Popeye look like if he were a real life human? Probably nothing like Robin Williams Six time Academy Award-winning special effects makeup artist Rick Baker apparently decided to sculpt a real-life version of the famous cartoon sailor man.

Friends and neighbors are coming forward about the mental state of Shelley Duvall, who co-starred opposite Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" and Robin Williams in "Popeye." Several Blanco, Texas residents have voiced their concerns for the actress because she spends night after night patrolling her backyard, convinced her home is a portal for aliens.

Caption: Jack Nicholson and Paul Rudd on the film set of an untitled James L. Brooks Project at the Widener Office Building Philadelphia, Pennsylvania .... JACK NICHOLSON's THE SHINING co-star SHELLEY DUVALL has been exposed as an alien-obsessed crazy lady in a U.S. tabloid expose.

Robin Williams gets naked in "World's Greatest Dad." Really, really naked. "I shaved because if you don't, it's, like, animal-rights issues," says the heretofore hirsute, Oscar-winning superstar.

MacIntyre Dixon will join the cast of off-Broadway's The Fantasticks , assuming the role of Henry.

MacIntyre Dixon will join the cast of off-Broadway's The Fantasticks , assuming the role of Henry.

MacIntyre Dixon will join the cast of off-Broadway's The Fantasticks , assuming the role of Henry.

MacIntyre Dixon will join the cast of off-Broadway's The Fantasticks , assuming the role of Henry.