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Posted: |
Apr 13, 2019 - 1:51 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Cassel's second television series was a sitcom called "Good Company", in which Jon Tenny played an aspiring artist at an ad agency who heads up a group that includes his ex-girlfriend copywriter Lauren Graham. Among the other office workers was Seymour Cassel, playing "Jack O'Shea". Beginning in the fall of 1995, CBS was looking for a sitcom to fill the 9:30 PM slot on Mondays between its popular sitcom "Murphy Brown" (#18 in the ratings) and its popular 10 PM medical drama "Chicago Hope" (#23). The goal was to keep viewers from switching over to ABC's "Monday Night Football" (#5) or NBC's "Monday Night Movie" (#14).
The romantic comedy "If Not for You", with Elizabeth McGovern and Hank Azaria lasted only four episodes. "High Society," about two outrageous, campy, and decadent women in New York, Jean Smart and Mary McDonnell, ran for 13 episodes. Then came "Good Company," which premiered on March 4, 1996 and lasted for only 6 episiodes before it too was cancelled. (CBS found the show it was looking for the next year, in "Cybill," which actually beat the fading "Murphy Brown" in the ratings.)
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Posted: |
Apr 13, 2019 - 3:25 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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At the young age of 15, "Max Fischer" (Jason Schwartzman) has made quite a name for himself at RUSHMORE, a snooty prep academy. He is president of the school's French, calligraphy, and beekeepers clubs, captain of the debate and fencing teams, and founder of the astronomy, and trap and skeet shooting clubs. Max Fischer is an ideal student, except that his grades suck. He spends perhaps too much time directing the Max Fischer Players in his stage adaptation of "Serpico." Put on Sudden Death academic probation by Rushmore's short-fused headmaster "Dr. Guggenheim" (Brian Cox), the last thing Max needs is another distraction. That's when he falls naively in love with widowed first grade teacher "Ms. Cross" (Olivia Williams).
Seymour Cassel plays Max's father, "Bert Fischer," in this 1998 comedy-drama from director Wes Anderson. Mark Mothersbaugh's score shared space with a number of songs on the London Records soundtrack CD.
Jason Schwartzman and Seymour Cassel in RUSHMORE
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Posted: |
Apr 13, 2019 - 3:44 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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The story of Roger Maris' and Mickey Mantle's 1961 race to break Babe Ruth's single-season home run record is told in the made-for-cable movie 61*. Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane co-starred as Maris and Mantle, respectively. Two famous New York sportswriters are portrayed by actors who resemble them but are referred to by fictional names. Richard Masur's character, "Milt Kahn," is based on New York Post columnist Milt Gross, while Seymour Cassel's character, "Sam Simon," is based on New York Daily News columnist Dick Young. It was Young, in fact, and not Commissioner Ford Frick (played by Donald Moffat), who first talked about putting an asterisk next to Maris's home run record.
Long-time baseball fan Billy Crystal directed the film, which premiered on HBO on 28 April 2001. Jellybean Records released separate CDs of songs and Marc Shaiman's score.
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Posted: |
Apr 13, 2019 - 4:48 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Besides MIDNIGHT COWBOY and AMERICAN GIGOLO there aren’t many mainstream movies centered on straight male prostitutes. SONNY can be added to the list. Set in New Orleans over the course of a few weeks in 1981, the film follows fresh-out-of-the-Army "Sonny" (James Franco), who never knew his father and whose mother, "Jewel" (Brenda Blethyn), is a whore past her prime. Sonny returns to the house on Bourbon Street where Jewel lives with her cordial loser of a companion, "Henry" (Harry Dean Stanton). Seymour Cassel plays "Albert" in the 2002 film.
Nicolas Cage directed the film. In younger days, Cage had considered playing the lead role himself, but as the years passed, he decided he was too old for the part and selected the property, written by John Carlen, for his directorial debut. Clint Mansell's score was released by Citadel.
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Posted: |
Apr 14, 2019 - 1:10 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Seymour Cassel appeared in another short-lived television series in 2006's "Heist", which revolved around professional thief "Mickey O'Neil" (Dougray Scott), who created a team of experts to try to pull off the biggest heist in history — to simultaneously rob three jewelry stores on Rodeo Drive during Academy Awards week. Cassell played one of the gang members, "Pops."
NBC inroduced the show in March 2006 in the 10 PM Wednesday slot occupied by "Law & Order," before moving it to 9 PM to replace the failed Pentagon/military series "E-Ring". There, the hard-to-follow serialized story-telling of "Heist" faced off against CBS's procedural "Criminal Minds" (#27 in the ratings) and the more popular serialized story of ABC's "Lost" (#18). "Heist" was cancelled after 5 episodes had aired.
Seymour Cassel, Marika Dominczyk, Dougray Scott, Steve Harris, and David Walton in "Heist"
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Posted: |
Apr 14, 2019 - 1:49 AM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Although Seymour Cassel made plenty of studio films, it was clear that his greatest pleasure and fulfillment came from the independent films he made with John Cassavetes. In speaking of the first of those films, he said:
"SHADOWS wasn't so difficult to get made. It was just, when John had the time. He was a working actor, a television star. EDGE OF THE CITY (1957) had just come out, with him and Sidney [Poitier] and Jack Warden, so John would work to make a living and also to put money into what he wanted to do. We tried doing a couple of films, one with Paramount, and one with Stanley Kramer, and then he just decided, "I'm going to borrow the money on my house". He took a job at Universal and spent the money on the film.
"People thought John was crazy, spending his own money. And yet they admired him for it. Many people came out and said, 'Boy I'd love to make a film that way.' Well, borrow some money, get some people together -- you can get people to work for nothing, just treat them right, treat them as human beings, not stars, give them all an equal share, make them feel a part of what they're doing. There's no big secret to it. But people just didn't have the guts. I met a lot of directors, friends of John's, people I admired--say Don Siegel. But Don had grown up in the studio system. He wasn't going to go over and move a chair, grab a camera, just get it into place and shoot it, that wasn't his style.
"Independent film is film that has thought in it. There's no independent thought in studio films. It's collective thought. These things you get from Hollywood are no more than computer games, where you might as well have a little wired handset that you could blow up this truck if you want instead of that one. That would at least allow audience participation. With independent film, simply because they don't have the money to make a big-budget film, they're forced to make a story that's important to them, that they would like to see on film, a personal story that people can relate to, about people, where you can see the love of the characters. That's true of the best films I've done, certainly John's films."
Alex Rocco, Rico Cattani, Roger C. Carmel, and Seymour Cassel in "Batman" (1966)
Seymour Cassel in IN THE SOUP (1992)
Seymour Cassel and Rosie Perez in IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU (1994)
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