I have mentioned my friend Danny Roebuck several times on this blog. He produces movies and is a well-established actor. While we were still under full Covid protocols but much later on in the pandemic, Danny was trying to finish a film that he was making and needed to do a pickup scene. It was originally set in a magic shop, but that was not easily available, so he wound up using our house with a bunch of our magic props in the background. While we all stayed masked and followed the proper protocols, it was just really nice to have people in our house again.
That was awhile ago, and we recently got a showing at Danny’s of the initial cut. When you have friends who do creative projects that they are going to show off, it is always a great relief when they turn out to be good. His film, Lucky Louie, turned out to be wonderful and heart-warming. It is so hard to know what to say when you don’t really like it. Thankfully that was not a problem. Both my husband and I really enjoyed it.
Sadly, the star of the film passed away just after the end of shooting. Basil Harry Hoffman had a five decade long career as an actor, and he wrote two books on the subject. He worked with top film directors like Peter Bogdanovich and Carl Reiner. Some of his films include All the President’s Men, My Favorite Year, The Box, The Electric Horseman, Night Shift, Lucky Lady, Switch, The Milagro Beanfield War, Rio, I Love You, The Pineville Heist, Ordinary People and The Artist. He also did tons of television, with appearances on Kung Fu, The Rockford Files, Sanford and Son, Police Woman, Columbo, Kojak, M*A*S*H, Barney Miller and he played the fingerprint technician on Ellery Queen and Principal Dingleman on Square Pegs. He was on the Board of Directors of Screen Actors Guild where I also used to work. He was an acting coach, loved acting, and got to do it to the end of his days. He was also kind and it’s wonderful to see him do such a wonderful role where he gets to show off his acting chops in this touching movie.
We also got to see part of another film he produced, The Hail Mary. Trying to finish films under Covid is extremely difficult. The version we saw looked good, although still needs some post-production, and I don’t think they have an official release date yet.
Danny’s films have messages of faith and redemption without being cheesy or poorly produced. I really appreciate that he brings his skills an actor and producer to create such positive and uplifting films.
I like monster and horror films. I used to be terrified of them when I was younger, but now I love them. For Danny, a major collector of primarily Universal monster memorabilia, and an actor who actually enjoys sitting in the makeup chair as they apply the prosthetics, being cast in the new Munsters movie from Rob Zombie was a dream come true. He is playing Grandpa, who is actually The Count (Dracula) one of the great Universal monsters. The cherry on top was that it is being released by Universal. Being in a Universal monster movie was a lifelong dream for him.
Sadly, just after he got cast, Covid hit, and the film had to be delayed for a year. The frustrating part was that during all that time, the details about it, including the casting, were being kept secret, so we could not tell anyone. The film promotion machine has geared up, and we got to see a whole bunch of set photos that Danny took. It looks great, and I am so looking forward to seeing the movie itself.
