Samuel L Jackson

"Do you know my name?" Samuel L. Jackson's detective John Shaft asks people every chance he gets. "What's my name?" he insists, or "Remember me?" As if anyone could forget. Though it came out nearly 30 years ago, the original "Shaft"--directed by Gordon Parks, with Richard Roundtree as the New York private eye who was "Hotter Than Bond, Cooler Than Bullitt"--has never slipped from memory.

If you name a character Lazarus in a story about two people whose damaged hearts need reviving, you're well-served to cast Samuel L. Jackson. During a career in which the actor has raised righteous indignation to an art form, Jackson has proved time and again that the quality of the material is beside the point. The man is going to orate and you are going to listen. And you will listen.

Pity the poor Hollywood agent. In the '80s and early '90s, talent agents ruled the industry. Movie studios and television networks found themselves beholden to International Creative Management, the Creative Artists Agency and the time-tested William Morris Agency, the "big three" agencies that had a lock on most A-list stars. Agents made big money for both their clients and themselves, charging the TV networks, for example, huge so-called packaging fees to assemble talent for shows.

Sean Connery Connery grew up in Scotland near the Bruntsfield Links golf course but had no desire to play. But that changed when he was taught golf to look good enough to beat Gert Fröbe in a match in 1964's "Goldfinger. " "I got the bug," Connery later said. "Soon it would nearly take over my life. " Alice Cooper Cooper, who came to fame in the 1970s, battled booze before giving up drinking for the golf course. In fact, he wrote a book about it, "Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock 'n' Roller's Life and 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict.

Novel in concept and not without exploitative juice, "Lakeview Terrace" updates the bad-cop-neighbor premise of the early-'90s potboiler "Unlawful Entry" by adding a twist of color. Hey, there, attractive young interracial couple moving into that lovely, new, upscale suburban home, meet your worst next-door nightmare: a bigoted African American cop!

"The Caveman's Valentine" affords Samuel L. Jackson a showy and challenging role in George Dawes Green's adaptation of his 1994 thriller novel, but the film is highly uneven, too often defying credibility, especially in its reliance on coincidence, and too often it slips way over the top. As impressive as Jackson is and as thought-provoking as director Kasi Lemmons' movie is, it's ultimately satisfying neither as a genre piece nor as an art film.

Although it's the end of yet another long day of interviews in yet another city, Ken Carter is lively and eager to promote the movie he inspired. His snazzy blue tie remains neatly knotted on a white shirt that's as crisp as when it came from the cleaners. He greets visitors to his posh hotel room with eager smiles and firm handshakes, casually referring to the men as "sir."

Here is the particular brilliance of Quentin Tarantino: He can rip a horrific page out of history - for his latest, "Django Unchained," slavery in the antebellum South - put it through his favorite grindhouse mill, kick in biting comedy whose sheer audacity and searing irony demands laughter, and yet ... and yet ... never for a moment diminish or let us forget the brutal reality. What the writer-director did so caustically to Nazis in 2009's "Inglourious Basterds" - scalping (literally)

Here are some things you need to know about Quentin Tarantino. He pens his screenplays longhand, not on a word processor. "I can't write poetry on a computer, man," he says. If you're an actor, don't expect to improvise. Ever. "You hire an actor to learn the lines and say them," Tarantino says. Unless you're Samuel L. Jackson, who can wing it. OSCAR WATCH: 'Django Unchained' And if you're with the filmmaker and he stumbles upon one of his movies on cable TV, don't expect to go anywhere.