The last time an American Pharoah caused so much commotion...

Bo Hopkins was intimidating Richard Dreyfuss, Wolfman Jack was on the radio, and George Lucas was cruising for his first big hit.

Awesome People Hanging Out Together

Marlon Brando and Bob Hope

Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein

Michael Jackson, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas

Michael Caine and Nancy Sinatra

But wait -- there's more.

I ♥ Tucker: The Man and His Dream at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

During the upcoming second weekend of We ♥ Jeff Bridges, the retrospective co-sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Houston Film Critics Society, it'll be my great pleasure and honor to introduce Francis Coppola's  Tucker: The Man and His Dream at 7 p.m. Friday at MFA. As I noted in my original 1988 review, Tucker is "a great American movie about great American dreamers." The movie "is not so much a biography as a celebration of Preston Tucker, the innovative automobile designer of the 1940s who dared challenge the supremacy of Detroit's Big Three with ''The car of tomorrow -- today!'' His car, in Coppola's view, was ''built too good,'' so, of course, Tucker had to be defeated. But he could not be destroyed...

"By all rights, Tucker should be a tragedy. But the movie, brimming with brash vigor and bursting with all-American pride, is bigger than one man's collision with the forces of greed. Coppola has borrowed a few well-selected pages from the handbook of director Frank Capra, another American visionary, who demonstrated in such classics as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life how to snatch a moral victory from the immoral overlords of The Establishment. Tucker is at heart an ode to American ingenuity, displaying a patriotism more unabashedly exhilarating than all the flag-waving at a dozen political conventions."

Not surprisingly, Coppola -- and producer George Lucas -- pretty much agreed with my take on the film when I interviewed them back in 1988.

BTW: You can see more of Jeff Bridges this weekend at MFA when my colleague Jared Counts of KUHF 88.7 FM Radio presents The Big Lebowski at 7 p.m. Saturday. And you can read my original 1998 review of that film here.

I ought to be in pictures

It's official: The People vs. George Lucas, a much-buzzed-about documentary about the creator of Star Wars, will have its world premiere next month in Austin at South By Southwest, one of the five or six best film festivals in the whole wide world. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to review this one, because... because... well, as I noted last year, I actually was interviewed for the film. And I have it on good authority that I made it into the final cut. It'll be my first appearance in a documentary since 1998's Junket Whore. No, really.

George Lucas: Threat or Menace?

I'm quoted here -- look around the 0:20 mark -- and I can't help thinking that when this documentary is released next year, some critics will try to read something into the fact that, if you look over my left shoulder, you'll see a photo of Francis Coppola. Trust me: It's just because the Starz Denver Film Festival folks very graciously arranged for the filmmakers to shoot an interview with me in a room at the Starz Film Center. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.

Blogging Oscar, 11:16 pm

A satisfying rush to conclusion. Forest Whitaker obviously heeded all the snippy critics who complained about his rambling remarks at other awards events, and brought along a very moving scripted acceptance speech to deliver when he was named Best Actor for The Last King of Scotland. (It was a bit sad, however, to note Peter O'Toole's expression -- as though the poor guy thought, "Oh, bloody Christ! Not again!" -- when he realized he was an eight-time loser.) Funny bandying among Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as they prepared to give Martin Scorsese his long-overdue Oscar for Best Director. And just a few minutes later, it was hard not to laugh at Scorsese's unabashedly incredulous expression -- Spielberg looked like he had to snap him out of a shocked daze -- when The Departed was announced as Best Picture.

I can't really complain about any of the Academy's choices. But damn! Why did it take such a long time to dole out the gold?

I suspect some cynics will dis Ellen DeGeneres' turn as Oscarcast host. But, truth to tell, I thought she was swell. And one more An Inconvenient Truth comment: Is this the first time the Best Documentary also copped the prize for Best Song?