The Grim Reaper is still hard at work. Just a week after Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died within hours of each other, veteran actor Karl Malden died at the age of 97. He had been a familiar face to theater-goers and TV watchers for decades, always a rock-solid presence even in minor roles. A Chicagoan of European roots (a Czech mother, a Serbian father), he moved to New York to pursue acting with the Group Theater, where he caught the eye of another upstart, director Elia Kazan. Some of Malden’s best screen work was done for Kazan, of course as Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), but also as ballsy Father Barry in On the Waterfront (1954) and very funny as the horny and frustrated Archie in Baby Doll (1956). He was also excellent as the clod who marries spitfire Jennifer Jones in Ruby Gentry (1953), the bullying dad who lived his dreams through his baseball-playing son in Fear Strikes Out (1957), and, together again with Brando, as a sadistic rancher in One-Eyed Jacks (1961). And then there’s All Fall Down (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), Cheyenne Autumn (1964), Billion Dollar Brain (1967), and, in another great performance, as General Bradley in Patton (1970). I have a soft spot for his role as a blind amateur detective in Dario Argento’s Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971), but, weirdly enough, never saw an episode of The Streets of San Francisco, a long-running ‘70s TV show that gave the actor a second (or is it third?) wind with new audiences. Malden may be gone, but he will remain a welcome presence in movies.

Not too sure if these are good news or bad news. The Academy of Arts and Sciences has recently announced that there will be ten (rather than the usual five) nominees for the Best Picture Oscar this year. Jeez, it’s hard enough getting five exceptional movies, now we’re going for ten? Does that mean that the voters will start reviewing the top-ten lists of critics instead of seeing which studio sends them the most gift baskets? And will audience members get to vote from their cell phones and eliminate the most boring entries? Then again, this could be a good thing. Maybe the Academy’s elitist shackles will loosen a bit and they will nominate some more offbeat works instead of just the glossy period pieces and phony-baloney biopics that get released at the end of every year like clockwork. Imagine an animated film (Pixar’s Up) or a horror movie (Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell) getting a crack at taking home the Best Picture Oscar. Recent winners have been pretty blah (Slumdog Millionaire? A Beautiful Mind?? Crash???), so with more choices there will be a bigger chance of netting a worthy movie outside the Academy’s usual safety zone. One thing I’m not thrilled about, though: There will be more clips and tributes to slog through, as if the Oscars already didn’t go on for long enough.

What a strange and sad day, yesterday. Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, two pop culture icons, passed away within hours of each other. Despite all his weirdness, Jackson was still an important musical artist, and his death came out of nowhere. Fawcett was 12 years older than him and had been suffering from cancer for years, yet it was her death that hit me the hardest. It had been such a ghastly contrast between the illness that took over her and the vibrant health that’s still projected in our memories. But, as I always say, let’s focus on how people lived rather than how they died. More than a few teenage boys surely nursed a crush on her from her heyday as America’s sweetheart as Jill Munroe in the 1970s TV hit Charlie’s Angels. The tawny mane, the great rows of smiling teeth, the Amazonian physique, the hint of Native American heritage that gave her valkyrie look something extra… She was a fine specimen, memorably displayed in her famous, red swimsuit poster. Her movie career was peculiar, starting out with decorative parts in Myra Breckinridge (1970), Logan’s Run (1976) and Saturn 3 (1980) and then, as if to prove that there was more to her than a feathery ‘do atop a luscious figure, taking a full-on turn into battered-women, noble-martyr territory. The Burning Bed (1984), Extremities (1986) and Double Exposure (1986) are like hardcore Lifetime Specials. Were the guys who had lusted after her being punished? But Fawcett would always be a lovely bird who would keep surprising us with her eccentricities on a talk show appearance or unexpected pools of feeling in an interview. She fought till the end. She’ll blend right in with the other angels up there.

I’m apparently in the minority, but I was not impressed by Richard Kelly’s 2001 cult hit Donnie Darko, which had the ghoulish luck of feeding off the bad vibes and despair of the audiences when it was released (just a month after 9/11). I disliked the film, and I disliked the director’s cut that followed, which pasted windy explanations over the so-called “ambiguity” of the original. Kelly’s follow-up, 2007’s Southland Tales, was as critically butchered as Donnie Darko had been critically heralded, but both of them seem to me to spring equally from a gifted but erratic and ruinously self-indulging cinematic sensibility. Kelly has been licking his wounds for a while, so what’s next? I was surprised to hear today about news of his involvement in a second Darko sequel, Donnie Darko 3. Three things. First: There was a Donnie Darko 2?! Second: Isn’t the filmmaker already busy with The Box, with Cameron Diaz? (Cameron Diaz’s Box? Now that I would watch.) And third: Why go backwards to your safe areas, when great artists march forward to explore the unknown? It may be just a rumor, of course. Cinema Blend argues that Kelly’s “post-Darko career has proven rather definitively that Donnie Darko was a fluke and though he came up with it, he really doesn’t understand why his movie was so good. The return of Richard Kelly may not be the cure this franchise needs. Actually what it needs is not to be a franchise. The original Donnie Darko was always just fine by itself.” But if they must make a sequel, I hope there’s a little cameo saved for Elmer Fudd.

Good news for all us noble vampire fans out there: Christopher Lee, has been bestowed with knighthood honors this past weekend as part of the Queen’s awesome-things-to-do-on-my-birthday list. “Contributions to the dramatic arts” was the official reason, but, really, I’m sure the Queen was geeking out about having Count Dracula, Saruman the White, and Count Dooku kneeling for her sword. In any case, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloodsucker. Lee has probably made more movies than any other British actor (or maybe more than any other actor, period), and is at 87 still a tall drink of plasma. He was such a staple of the Hammer horror movies, and has donned cape and fangs so often, that legend has it that a cop once pulled him over just to ask if he should be driving in the daylight. Kids know him for the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars movies, but to me he’ll always be the skulking monster (Dracula, the Mummy, the Frankenstein creature) bringing thrilling frissons to the overly tidy British society. The list of recommendations is a mile long: Dracula (1958), City of the Dead (1960), The Virgin of Nuremberg (1963), The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), The Devil Rides Out (1968), Death Line (1972), The Wicker Man (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), 1941 (1979), The House of Long Shadows (1983), Gremlins 2 (1990), Sleepy Hollow (1999), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Here’s hoping for another 200 more titles, Mr. Lee. Ah, I mean, Sir Lee.

David Carradine has just passed away at the age of 72. The details on his death are still iffy, so let’s instead focus on his life. He was part of Hollywood loyalty, sort of—the Carradines (father John, brothers Keith and Robert, nieces Ever and Martha Plimpton) were like the Barrymores of the B-movie circuit. Nothing wrong with that: Can any other actor say he worked with Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman and Quentin Tarantino? He’s still remembered, of course, as Kwai Chang Caine in the ‘70s series Kung Fu, but he’s been in dozens of stuff. He displayed solid presence as the union leader-turned-outlaw in Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha (1972), and had a great single scene as the drunk who gets shot by his brother Robert in Mean Streets (1973). Carradine alternated breezily between the high and low extremes of the medium. He would be very funny as “Frankenstein” the Roger Corman cheesefest Death Race 2000 one year and then deliver a beautifully modulated, heartfelt performance as Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby’s Bound for Glory the next. He can be a lot like Gary Cooper, a quality that must have attracted Bergman when he cast Carradine as Liv Ullman’s American brother-in-law in The Serpent’s Egg (1977) and that made him stand out as Cole Younger in Walter Hill’s The Long Riders (1980). With very few exceptions, like Larry Cohen’s terrific Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), the ‘80s and the ‘90s were grade-Z, direct-to-video purgatory for the actor. Then the wonderful resurrection in Tarantino’s Kill Bill (2003-2004), where you can virtually taste his joy in being able to be sly, magnetic and romantic once more. David Carradine had something of the eccentric poet about him, passing through cinema with humor and mystery. We’ll miss you, Grasshopper.

 Whenever eyes need to pop sublimely and corrupting must purr, we’ll have Peter Lorre. Seriously, was there ever a more vivid “character actor”? I first saw him in The Maltese Falcon (1941), where his provocative vamping as Joe Cairo managed to steal the show from a cast made exclusively of show-stealers. Then the great shock: Seeing him as the child killer in Fritz Lang’s M (1931): Plump, soft-faced, driven by demons, sad, horrific. I still get chills just from remembering him before the criminals, on his knees screaming about the helplessness of his crimes. And Lorre was reportedly also starring in a comic play at around the same time! Hollywood took notice, so whenever a whiff of Euro trash was called for, Lorre was brought over to bulge and quiver. I’ve never seen a film that didn’t profit greatly from even five or ten minutes of him. Remember his noisy exit from Casablanca (1942), dragged by guards while Rick stood by? His mad scientist cackling with glee in Mad Love (1935)? Or his Monsieur “Pig” sizing up Joan Crawford in Strange Cargo (1940)? Ah, that voice, a gurgle from the depths of decadence—pure music. It was marvelous even in imitation, like whenever a cartoon version of the actor popped up to terrorize Bugs Bunny. Lorre was funny and sinister and charming, but also very serious: He directed a movie, The Lost One (1951), which is the most serious lament for postwar Teutonic Europe before the German New Wave. He ended up in Roger Corman and “beach party” flicks, but his presence will never dim. Steve Buscemi is the closest we have to him today. A toast to these invaluable weasels.

I wonder if many fans of ultra-hardcore porn princess Sasha Grey will seek out The Girlfriend Experience and squirm their way through a chilly, artsy drama in which their goddess appears naked for half a second (and in a darkened room). But the ones really getting the blue balls will be apologists for Steven Soderbergh, who directed this wan misfire. Grey plays (“plays” being maybe too strong word, since she just mopes around making eyes at the camera) a high-priced Manhattan escort (her prices are in the fourth digits) with a relatively understanding boyfriend (Chris Santos) and a sudden pang of emotion toward her latest client, a married screenwriter. There’s no story, just a bunch of wandering in lofts, warehouses and restaurants, which Soderbergh cuts and shuffles in chronological order in a vain attempt to make things interesting. And since the story is set in 2008 before the presidential elections, there’s a lot of talk about “the economy” and “the bailout,” which I guess is meant to reflect the way the characters, the call-girl above all, use themselves as merchandise. An intriguing idea, but it’s lost in a morass of clumsy improvisation (only critic Glenn Kenny, as a deliberately repulsive “erotic connoisseur,” can ad-lib in a funny way) and misshapen scenes. Grey is a dark and mysterious camera subject, but she doesn’t bring much to the party emotionally. And Soderbergh, after his lumbering two-part epic Che, is left to find new boring ways to be “unpredictable.”