By far the best Guilty Pleasure of all the “Rocky” films, “Rocky IV” is a time capsule of 1980’s Reagan-era patriotism meets action hero cheesiness that’s hard to resist. In the long pantheon of cinematic action movie stars, Sylvester “Sly” Stallone is a rarity. Stallone won a Best Screenwriting Oscar…

It’s been 25 years since River Phoenix died in the early hours of Halloween Day in 1993. It dawned on me while I was at the West Hollywood Halloween Carnival, which is just a couple blocks away from the Viper Room club where River died. His death was caused by…

For many moviegoers, it may seem like Drew Barrymore has been around forever. The youngest scion of the venerable Barrymore acting dynasty, Drew became a household name at the age of seven after her scene-stealing supporting role in E.T. (1982). After a troubled adolescence, Drew not only got her acting…

With the advent of Labor Day so close, it could not have been more ironic that actor Geoffrey Owens, who formerly played “Alvin” for five seasons on “The Cosby Show”, would be publicly shamed for now having a job bagging groceries at a Trader Joe’s in suburban New Jersey. The…

My “little” sister is named Kathleen. She is not actually younger than me, she’s 5 years older as a matter of fact. Our father used to refer to her as my “little” sister as a way of differentiating her from my other older sister Carrie. It was also his sly…