movies
Rex Reed Dead: Film Critic Was 87
Rex Reed, the film critic and author whose pithy reviews and provocative Hollywood interviews established him as a bad boy of entertainment journalism, died Tuesday morning, his rep told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 87.
Reed died at his home in Manhattan after a short illness, according to friend William Kapfer, the rep said. He lived since 1970 in a New York apartment in the Dakota that he bought for $30,000.
The Louisianian penned film reviews and columns for the New York Observer since the newspaper’s start in 1987 (he was laid off for a spell in 2017 before being rehired), and his final review was for the film Truth & Treason in November.
Earlier, he spent 13 years as an arts critic for the New York Daily News and five with the New York Post.
Reed was not the typical dowdy or frumpy critic. With his nasally drawl and fashionable attire, he was front and center in a profession where most writers of his time were behind-the-scenes personalities who shied from public exposure. His hauteur could be endearing or off-putting.
Some considered him to be representative of “New Journalism” — his 1966 piece about an angry Ava Gardner for Esquire made it into Tom Wolfe’s noteworthy 1973 anthology — while others decried him as being a celebrity monger. (He was a judge on The Gong Show in the 1970s, after all.)
Indicative of his flamboyant persona, Reed portrayed Myron, who becomes Myra (Raquel Welch) after undergoing a sex-change operation in a dream sequence, in Myra Breckinridge (1970), adapted from Gore Vidal’s salacious novel. His involvement, however, did not stop him from giving the film a negative review.
He also appeared on the big screen in Jules Dassin’s The Rehearsal (1974), as himself in Superman (1978), with Laurence Olivier in Inchon (1981) and with Ryan O’Neal and Shelley Long in Irreconcilable Differences (1984).
In 1986, Reed and former Entertainment Tonight reporter Bill Harris assumed the aisle seats occupied by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on the syndicated At the Movies program after the original pair had left for a similar Disney-produced show.
A notorious name-dropper and gossip — he was a regular on The Dick Cavett Show and The Tonight Show in the 1970s — Reed delighted in interviewing and profiling actresses, especially Bette Davis, Myrna Loy, Angela Lansbury and Melina Mercouri.
“The old broads are the ones that interest me the most,” he once told Newsweek. “Nothing bores me more than these mini-skirted girls with nothing on their minds.”
(After Gardner complained about the piece he wrote about her, Reed responded: “Every word of it is true, and it was written in as flattering a way as it is possible to write something when the subject will not let you ask questions, take notes or give any semblance of a dignified interview. Also, she was completely drunk.”)
Although Reed was never accused of being a populist, he excoriated filmmakers whom he perceived as overpraised or wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes. He was no fan of David Lynch, for example. Blue Velvet, he wrote, was “one of the sickest films ever made. It should score high with the kind of sickos who like to smell dirty socks and pull the wings off butterflies, but there’s nothing here for sane audiences.”
More recently, he endured criticism for how he described Melissa McCarthy, Renée Zellweger and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in his reviews.
He also stirred controversy about the 1993 Oscars when he claimed that presenter Jack Palance mistakenly had called out the wrong person for best supporting actress, naming My Cousin Vinny‘s Marisa Tomei. Reed was vilified, but he stuck to his story, espousing a “massive cover-up” as late as 1997.
Rex Taylor Reed was born on Oct. 2, 1938, in Fort Worth, Texas. His father, Jimmy, worked on oil rigs in and around the Gulf of Mexico, and the family moved around a lot.
At Louisiana State University, Reed was editor of the literary magazine and a columnist, critic and editorial writer for the campus newspaper. He also won a national short-story contest as a senior before graduating in 1960 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
Distraught by life in the South, Reed figured that the only way to escape his parochial childhood was to write his way out. He applied for a writing job at The New York Times but was only offered a position as copy boy, which he turned down.
So, he supported his intermittent writing sales by performing as a jazz singer on a local TV show, working as a pancake-house cook, selling records at Bloomingdale’s and acting in summer stock in Butte, Montana.
He moved to New York and got a publicity gig at 20th Century Fox but was laid off in a round of budget cutbacks he said was related to the Cleopatra debacle.
In Europe with friends, Reed finagled his way into the Venice Film Festival in 1965 and interviewed Buster Keaton and Jean-Paul Belmondo. He got $125 from the Times for a Keaton article and $150 from the Herald Tribune for a Belmondo story, igniting his career.
Reed was the author of eight books; the first four, collections of profiles, were 1968’s Do You Sleep in the Nude?, 1969’s Conversations in the Raw, 1974’s People Are Crazy Here and 1977’s Valentines & Vitriol. Of the first, Nora Ephron said, “It is impossible to read this book without wondering how on Earth Reed gets his subjects to say the things they do.”
Reed also was a novelist whose first effort, 1986’s Personal Effects, was optioned for a NBC miniseries. And as a devotee of Broadway musicals, he wrote liner notes for such performers as Liza Minnelli, Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Mel Tormé and Barbara Cook.
In 1993, he was inducted (along with James Carville and Supreme Court Judge John Minor Wisdom) into the Louisiana Hall of Fame.
Reed never married. “I don’t have ‘relationships,’ except friends,” he told the Times in 2018. “I don’t know, love is not something that I’ve been really good at. I think people are intimidated by people with opinions.”
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Another hockey book adaptation has entered the chat.
Netflix is currently building out its cast for the series adaptation of Hannah Grace’s Icebreaker book that kicks off the Maple Hill series. This in addition to their show The Sticks that is also currently in the works.
For everything we know about Netflix’s Icebreaker book adaptation so far, read on.
When will Netflix’s Icebreaker series adaptation come out?
A release date has not yet been set. The show has begun to assemble its cast.
Who will lead the Icebreaker show at Netflix?
Daisy Jelley (Poser, How To Have Sex) will portray Anastasia “Stassie” Allen, and Connor Simos (Subversion) will portray Nate Hawkins in the college hockey drama series.
Who else is in the cast of Netflix’s Icebreaker adaptation?
Gabriel Tierney (Rivals, Enola Holmes 2), Auliʻi Cravalho (Moana), newcomer and professional athlete Peter Berry, Chaneil Kular (Best of the Best, Sex Education), Devin Craig (Sex Lives of College Girls, Maize) and Aidan Shaw (We Were Liars, Heated Rivalry, Finding Her Edge) have joined the ensemble cast.
Tierney will play Aaron; Cravalho will portray Lola; Berry is Robbie; Kular will play JJ; Craig will portray Henry and Shaw is Russ.
What is Hannah Grace’s Icebreaker book about?
Stassie is a transfer athlete gunning for Olympic gold. Nate is the campus star chasing the NHL. When an accident forces their teams to share one rink, Anastasia Allen and Nate Hawkins collide—and discipline gives way to obsession, because the only thing more dangerous than wanting to win is wanting each other.
Who else is behind Netflix’s Icebreaker series?
Jade Halley Bartlett (Road House, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Miller’s Girl) created and executive produced the series. Amanda Lasher (Gossip Girl, The Bold Type, Togetherness) serves as showrunner, writer and excutive producer. Grace also executive produces along with Alex Cooper, Matt Kaplan and Mina Lefevre for Cooper’s Unwell Productions.
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One of the biggest executive questions about Paramount following its pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery — who will lead streaming — may have been answered.
Cindy Holland is leaving Paramount where she was Chairman of Direct-To-Consumer since the Skydance-Paramount merger having served as an advisor to Skydance CEO David Ellison prior to that. She announced her departure in a company memo, which you can read below.
The move leaves HBO’s Casey Bloys as the likely streaming head of the combined Paramount-WBD.
“Cindy is one of the most exceptional executives in our industry — a force of nature whose impact on Paramount over the past year has been significant,” Paramount CEO David Ellison said. “Under her leadership, P+ reached new heights, Pluto TV underwent its most significant transformation in a decade, and we strengthened our content and sports portfolio – all while the business exceeded the ambitious goals we set. Just as importantly, she built an exceptional team and a strong foundation for the future. Cindy has been a trusted partner to me and so many others, and I couldn’t be more grateful for her leadership, her relentless drive and everything she’s done for our company.”
Here is Holland’s memo:
When I joined David’s team in January 2025, we proceeded to set three goals: i) advise on the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, ii) integrate and transform Paramount+ & revive Pluto TV, and iii) build an unparalleled team in this industry. In just over 12 months, I’m proud to say we accomplished all three and it’s been a joy to work closely with all of you.
Together with the Product team, we drove significant strategic and organizational change across DTC — building a new foundation for growth on both services, while investing in greater depth and breadth of programming and delivering strong revenue, profit, and subscriber growth for the division.
As David readies for the next phase of his vision, we’ve discussed my role and the future of the combined businesses. David is optimizing for HBO stability as we move into this next chapter, and I fully support that. I know this team has the leadership and expertise to manage through the transition and the next phase of the company, and to this end today will mark my last day here.
As I reflect on my time here and all that we’ve built together in this short time, what stands out most to me is this team. I have never been more proud of a group of people. What we’ve accomplished together is remarkable — landing quarter after quarter while navigating extraordinary uncertainty and change with resilience, focus and ambition. We grew Paramount+ to an all-time subscriber high, delivered the best retention in the service’s history, and drove double-digit growth in both engagement and revenue. We built an extraordinary content pipeline, greenlighting more than 40 new and returning series and setting all-time records with Landman, the most-watched series in Paramount+ history, and Dutton Ranch, the service’s biggest original series debut ever. We transformed live sports into a powerful streaming growth engine, securing landmark agreements with UFC and Zuffa Boxing and expanding our WNBA and UEFA Champions League rights – with UFC Freedom 250 becoming the largest-ever audience for an exclusive live event on Paramount+ and UFC 329 setting a new platform record for peak concurrent streams for an exclusive live event. And we undertook Pluto TV’s biggest product transformation in a decade, dramatically increasing registered viewing and VOD consumption while delivering strong financial performance across the business. These are extraordinary accomplishments – but what makes me proudest is how we achieved them: together, with an unwavering commitment to our audiences, our creative partners and one another.
I joined Paramount because I believe in these businesses, and because I believe wholeheartedly that the combination of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery serves the best interests of artists and audiences worldwide. I’m looking forward to seeing what you all accomplish together in this next, momentous chapter.
Cindy
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While President Trump was holding a press conference at the White House this morning and extolling the AI-related work of Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, a promo for tomorrow night’s South Park episode dropped. It was less salutary.
Here’s the logline for Episode 6 of Season 29: “Butters is unhappy with the data centers that the billionaires are building in our backyards.”
The clip opens with an X-Pest exterminator guy ringing the doorbell at Butters’ home.
“I understand you’ve got some billionaires in your back yard,” he says.
“Yeah, there’s more of these stupid billionaires every day!” replies Butters.
The first image from the episode (see it above) shows Butters in what appears to be his back yard with the X-Pest exterminator guy, who has strapped on his tank of poison and has his sprayer wand at the ready.
The topic of data centers is a hot one across the country and especially in Hollywood, where unions and workers worry about job displacement and writers and directors express concern over what it might do to their art.
Among the biggest players in the data center land rush is, of course, Oracle CEO and Paramount-WBD deal financier Larry Ellison. South Park airs on Comedy Central, which is owned by Paramount. As in the past, the show’s creators are seemingly not afraid to bite the hand that feeds them.
Mark Ruffalo and others have decried the introduction of “really profoundly scary technology” into Hollywood and how AI might impact media outlets soon to be owned by Ellison and his son David.
“Larry is a classic Oligarch,” wrote Ruffalo. “They are crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power and concentrated dominance.”
Paramount, for its part, responded by accusing Ruffalo of using “antisemitic tropes” in his argument, especially when linking the Ellisons’ studio acquisition to Oracle’s work with the Israeli military.
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