Books To Help You Remember The Great Elizabeth Taylor (NPR) / Elizabeth Taylor Memorial Program on 4/10 (TCM)

...It is still shocking to lose a woman who, besides being outlandishly gorgeous, was the very template for American celebrity as we understand it today. There will be many ways to grieve this loss — you can cry, you can rage at the moon, you watch some of her best on-screen moments, like her cackling "Angry, Baby" monologue in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf from 1966. Or...you can turn to books.

There have been many books written about Taylor (she even wrote three herself)... [Here are] three that...are most worth reading if you want to remember her talent, beauty, and drive.

1) "Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century" by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger
2) "How To Be A Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood" by William Mann
3) "My Love Affair With Jewelry" by Elizabeth Taylor

Most of us probably didn't grow up following Elizabeth Taylor's every move, but we all knew she was a true movie star and a remarkable actress - reasons enough to put a bio on our reading list.

Read the full article, with more in-depth info about each book, here.

And if you prefer to catch up visually, Turner Classic Movies is hosting an Elizabeth Taylor tribute in the form of a 24-hour movie marathon on April 10. More info, including the schedule of films, can be found here.

Cosmonaut Crashed Into Earth 'Crying In Rage' (NPR)

The space vehicle is shoddily constructed, running dangerously low on fuel; its parachutes — though no one knows this — won't work and the cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, is about to, literally, crash full speed into Earth, his body turning molten on impact. As he heads to his doom, U.S. listening posts in Turkey hear him crying in rage, "cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship." ...

"Starman" [by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony] tells the story of a friendship between two cosmonauts, Vladimir Kamarov and Soviet hero Yuri Gagarin, the first human to reach outer space. The two men were close; they socialized, hunted and drank together.

In 1967, both men were assigned to the same Earth-orbiting mission, and both knew the space capsule was not safe to fly. Komarov told friends he knew he would probably die. But he wouldn't back out because he didn't want Gagarin to die. Gagarin would have been his replacement.

If this book isn't already optioned, I'll eat my shoe. And then, with my mouth full, I'll thank you very much for the finder's fee - cash or check are both fine with me.

Read the full article here.

Begun, The Digital Age of Comics Has (NPR)

Marvel has gone out of its way to assure parsimonious fans (and nervous retailers) that today's experiment is just that, and that they're still figuring things out, particularly when it comes to pricing. DC, on the other hand, has signaled that they're prepared to barrel ahead, even hinting that several series will be going the same-day-download route soon.

I guess my only surprised is that anyone is still surprised by this. This is no different than the e-book/Kindle revolution - it's just happening later since comics fans had to wait until a device could show graphics in color. I'm not a huge comics reader but would definitely be interested in checking out some of the classic books I've missed, and am certainly more likely to do so on an iPad than head down to my local comics shop. You?
Begun, The Digital Age of Comics Has : NPR

Tom Cruise And Hollywood's Superstar Crisis (NPR)

...We haven't seen a Russell Crowe movie work, or any of these go-to, bankable stars, and Hollywood doesn't know quite how to respond to that problem. What does that mean, when movie stars can't open movies?

This article really just uses Tom Cruise as an example for the larger problem we're facing here in Hollywood - what comes after the star-driven vehicle? How about truly GOOD stories? Is that asking too much?
Find the link to the audio file and read the full article here.
Read the transcript here.