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Just over a week ago, we had to share the sad news that director George Armitage, best known for bringing the world Grosse Pointe Blank and Miami Blues, had passed away at the age of 82. Armitage got his start in the entertainment industry at the start of the 1970s, writing the film Gas-s-s for producer Roger Corman and then going on to write and direct Private Duty Nurses and write Night Call Nurses, also for Corman. By the end of the ’70s, he had written and directed the films Hit Man and Vigilante Force, as well as the TV movie Hot Rods, and wrote the scripts for the film Darktown Strutters and an episode of the TV series Monty Nash. Oddly, he did not earn any writing or directing credits in the 1980s – but, of course, this was not for a lack of trying. In fact, Kevin Tenney, the writer...

George Armitage, the director of Grosse Pointe Blank and Miami Blues, as well as a close collaborator of Roger Corman’s, has died. He was 82.

George Armitage entered the business in the ‘70s but it took a while to find his footing. That came with 1990’s Miami Blues, which starred Alec Baldwin as a criminal fresh out of prison posing as a cop with a stolen police badge. Armitage would develop his mixture of crime and comedy later that decade with 1997’s Grosse Pointe Blank with John Cusack and Minnie Driver.

Even though he was a buddy of Corman’s, it does feel like George Armitage is too rarely mentioned in the list of notable directors who got their start working under him. But we can’t ignore where he got his start. George Armitage met Roger Corman at just the right time in the 1960s. In 1971, Corman hired him to write Gas-s-s,...

George Armitage, who co-wrote and directed the Alec Baldwin-starring Miami Blues and helmed another 1990s black comedy, Grosse Pointe Blank, starring John Cusack, has died. He was 83.

Armitage died Feb. 15 in Playa del Rey, California, his son, Brent Armitage, announced.

As was the case with many others, Armitage got a big career boost in the early 1970s from legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman at New World Pictures.

Armitage also wrote and directed MGM’s Hit Man (1972), starring Bernie Casey and Pam Grier, and United Artists’ Vigilante Force (1976), starring Kris Kristofferson and Jan-Michael Vincent. Both those films were produced by Roger’s brother, Gene Corman.

Miami Blues (1990), based on the series of Hoke Moseley books by author Charles Willeford, featured Baldwin as Frederick J. Frenger Jr., who steals the badge and gun of a veteran cop (Fred Ward as Moseley) and embarks on an outrageous crime spree with a hooker...

Roger E. Mosley, best known as the helicopter pilot Theodore “T.C.” Calvin in the CBS television series Magnum P.I., died early Sunday morning. No cause of death was given.

Mosley was on the original Magnum P.I. for its eight-year run, appearing in 158 episodes, then came back to the rebooted CBS series for a cameo as a different character.

Born in Los Angeles, he lived in the Watts neighborhood and attended Jordan High School

In addition to Magnum P.I., he appeared on the television shows Love Boat, Night Gallery, Sanford and Son, Kung Fu, Kojak, McCloud, The Rockford Files, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, Starsky and Hutch, You Take the Kids, Night Court, Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, Walker, Texas Ranger, Rude Awakening, Las Vegas, Fact Checkers Unit and many more.

Mosley’s film credits included several Blaxploitation films, including The Mack, Hit Man, Sweet Jesus, Preacherman, Darktown Strutters and The River Niger.

The most unforgettable moment from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, out of dozens of contenders: Mary sits at the bar with her newsroom co-workers, drinking their sorrows away. They've had a grim day – her cranky boss Lou Grant just attended his ex-wife's wedding, while he's still reeling from the divorce, so the others tagged along for moral support. Pompous anchorman Ted Baxter tries to lighten the mood with a knock-knock joke. Lou growls, "Ted, this better be a pretty funny knock-knock joke. I lost a wife today." It's a godawful joke.

Having cut his teeth on one hand by the chaotic poetry of Terrence Malick and David Lynch’s first films, and the other by gonzo ‘70s exploitation efforts like “Terminal Island,” and “Darktown Strutters,” production designer Jack Fisk knows how to complement a film’s tone and story. His expertise has established Fisk as a creative draw for cinephiles on par with the work of a celebrated actor or director. “Badlands,” “Mulholland Drive,” “Tree of Life,” “There Will Be Blood” are just a few examples of his oeuvre in which the environments are just as memorable as the events that take place within them. Read More: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2016 So it's fitting that Fisk’s most recent project is “The Revenant,” for which he earned an Oscar nomination this morning. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy has become notorious for its physically demanding shoots in Canada,...

Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan have made a career out of messing with our heads and giving us one gore-soaked terror tale after another. Now they're looking to screw your kids up, too! Read on for details.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Melton and Dunstan, the writing team behind four of the seven Saw films, are moving into family-friendly territory as they have been tapped to adapt Disney's live-action family film The Stuff of Legend.

The project, which is based on a graphic novel written by Mike Raicht and Brian Smith and illustrated by Charles Paul Wilson III, revolves around a band of toys that journeys into a dark realm to rescue their owner from the infamous Boogeyman. Animator Peter Candeland (All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, "Aladdin") is attached to direct the film, which is being produced by David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman through their Disney-based Mandeville Films.

More as it comes.

New World Action Pictures! week kicks off at Trailers from Hell, with filmmaker David DeCoteau introducing "Darktown Strutters," directed by William Witney (a Tarantino favorite). Veteran western and serial director Witney began his career as a bit player in 1934, cashed in his Hollywood chips with this penultimate, extremely cartoony and uncharacteristic effort. New World picked it up from Roger Corman's brother Gene who produced it with Tennessee financing but was unable to find a distributor. When it proved a bit too bizarre for the general blaxploitation market, Nw reissued it two years later as Get Down and Boogie, to similarly meager boxoffice returns. For years this was considered Witney's last feature, but in recent years a German-us western called Showdown at Eagle Gap has surfaced on video from Echo Bridge.