An aperitif before I begin Doctor Who's new season...

So Season Six of the rebooted Doctor Who premiered tonight on BBC America. In advance of watching that later this evening, and before my forthcoming recap (posting tomorrow or Monday), I thought I'd do a quick post about my favorite episodes of the series since it's been back on the air. I don't want to go too crazy, so let's call it a top, ooh, ten? Yes, that'll work, provided I consider two-parters as single entries on the list.

Oh, and assuming you've never seen the show, SPOILER ALERT! I'm going to be discussing episodes from throughout the run and can't avoid giving away details.

ADDENDUM #2: Mea Culpa!

I have a short set of additions to the list from yesterday's post and its sequel from earlier today. I'm not going to go into too much detail, here, because I'd hate to belabor the point, but I stumbled upon a few names today that I feel badly about leaving out! So, without any further ado:

ADDENDUM: I can't believe I forgot Betty!

As I was lying in bed last night, thinking (as I often do) about classic movies, I realized the biggest error of omission I made in yesterday's post about long-lived classic stars. While I haven't seen very many of this star's films, the quality of the ones I have seen and the reputation of those I have not surely should have qualified her for a place on the list.

I'm speaking, of course, about Betty Joan Perske, better known as Lauren Bacall.

Born on September 16th, 1924, Bacall started out as an occasional stage actress and fashion model before making one of the most sizzling debuts in film history, teaching a love-struck Humphrey Bogart how to whistle in To Have and Have Not (1944). Her off-screen pairing with Bogart was legendary, and they teamed up a few more times on-screen in the classics The Big Sleep (1946) and Key Largo (1948), and the less-successful (in my opinion) Dark Passage (1947). She starred alongside a number of other great stars, such as the man we feted yesterday, Kirk Douglas (in 1950's Young Man with a Horn), as well as Marilyn Monroe, Rock Hudson, and Gregory Peck, before experiencing a bit of a dry period in the '60s and '70s.

But Bacall hasn't simply faded away. She continues acting and providing voice work to this day, famously appearing in Danish provacateur Lars von Trier's films Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005), lending her voice to the American dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004), starring with Nicole Kidman in Birth (2004), and has at least two films slated for release in 2010 (according to her IMDb page, at any rate).

So, anyway, accept my apologies for leaving Betty Bacall off of yesterday's list. Still going strong at 86, Bacall is certainly one of the greatest classic stars we're fortunate enough to still have with us today.

The Best Classic Stars You Might Not Have Known Were Still Alive

Today is Kirk Douglas's 94th birthday. While I was aware that Kirk was still alive, I'm sure a good many people either didn't know or assumed otherwise. There really aren't too many stars from Hollywood's Classic Period (roughly 1918-1960, give or take a few years on either end) who are still alive and (relatively) well. But Kirk Douglas certainly qualifies, there. From his first film appearances in the wonderful noirs The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) and Out of the Past (1947), to his celebrated heroic turns in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960), to his work on films by such prestigious directors as John Sturges, Vincente Minelli, Joe Mankiewicz, and Billy Wilder, Douglas might well be one of the most acclaimed screen legends still with us -- even if I'll always remember him best for singing "A Whale of a Tale" in a red-and-white striped shirt in Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954).

Still, Douglas's longevity -- he most recently appeared in a TV movie, Empire State Building Murders, in 2008 -- got me thinking about the other classic-era stars whose long lives have taken them from the studio system's heyday through to the on-demand twenty-tens. After the jump, you'll find a list of a few such stars.

Movie List: By any other name...

From time to time, here on the blog, I'm going to come up with some fun themed movie lists for you all. I mean, it's not as if I'm doing anything else of value with my MA in Film Studies. These lists will draw from movies you'll probably know, movies you probably won't, good movies, bad movies, and everything in between. Hopefully you'll leave with a few films to add to your Netflix queue.

Our inaugural list was inspired by a brief conversation I had with Rebecca and Josh at a recent movie night. Today, we're going to look at movies whose titles are women's names! The only requirement: The titles can contain ONLY one woman's first or first and last names.