• Paul Scofield (1922-2008) - British actor (pictured) who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons and who was nominated again almost thirty years later for his supporting role in Quiz Show. He also co-stars in Frankenheimer's The Train, Branagh's Henry V, Zeffirelli's Hamlet, Hytner's The Crucible and Michael Winner's Scorpio, and he played the title role in Peter Brook's King Lear. He narrated the documentaries London and Robinson in Space and voiced the part of Akira Kurosawa in the documentary Kurosawa. He died of leukemia March 19, in West Sussex, England. (NY Times)
• Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008) - Oscar-nominated screenwriter of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Best known as a science fiction author, he wrote the novel-turned-film 2010, and his novels Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood's End are also currently being adapted. See Richard's full post for details of his death.
• Hugo Claus (1929-2008) - Belgian filmmaker, novelist and playwright. He wrote the screenplay for the 1958 Oscar nominee Dorp Aaan De Rivier and his directorial work includes the Berlin Film Festival nominee Vrijdag and an adaptation of his play De Verlossing. He died March 19 in Antwerp, Belgium. (BBC)

I haven't picked up an issue of Premiere Magazine in quite some time, but a friend of mine recently recommended I visit the publication's newly refurbished website. So I did. Pretty solid content across the board, I'm happy to opine -- but one particular article caught my eye, tickled my fancy, and squatted in my brain long enough to recommend it here.

Basically, a bunch of the Premiere writers were asked to come up with their picks for Most Overrated Film of All Time -- and while most of the sacred cows slaughtered here are pretty darn obvious ones, the opinions and explanations as to why each film was chosen, well, I thought they were fairly compelling. Frankly, I'm thrilled to see someone call Field of Dreams "just too on the nose," because it absolutely is.

Fully prepared for the onslaught of How Dare YE!! hate mail, the Premiere posse has wisely decided to add an equally pithy rebuttal in defense of each movie. So when someone has the audacity to impugn The Wizard of Oz, we sane people have a defender who'll say Dude, Please. I've placed the 20 titles under the jump, just to help spark discussion, but do not let that stop you from reading through the whole article. It might make you think a little differently about some of those Unquestioned Classics that everyone's afraid to admit they don't really dig. (Yep, 2001: A Space Odyssey is overrated; I said it and I'm proud.)