February 16, 2026

SONNY BUNCH: Robert Duvall, R.I.P.

It’s impossible to single out a lone defining performance by Duvall, who died Monday at 95 in his Middleburg, Virginia, home. He was in so many of the greatest films of all time that one loses track trying to count them. Where do you start? With To Kill a Mockingbird, I suppose, though his turn as Boo Radley doesn’t really give you a sense of what was to come. He’s one of those actors who had to age ever so slightly, who had to grow into that weathered face and earn that wry smile that suggested so much hidden knowledge.

That smile serves him well in the first two Godfather films, as consigliere to Don Corleone. The first time you see the movie you don’t know what it means when he grins at the mogul’s seamless transition of ethnic slurs, from guinea goombah to his “kraut-mick friend,” but you know it can’t be good. Duvall was lucky enough to have fallen in with that whole crew a decade into his career—Coppola, Lucas, and the other filmmakers who would change the world as we know it—so you have to mention The Conversation and THX 1138 and, of course, Apocalypse Now. Has there ever been a more quotable character with less screen time than Lt. Col. Kilgore? “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”; “Charlie don’t surf”; “Bomb them into the Stone Age, son.” He’s in the movie for maybe ten minutes and they’re all unforgettable, which is probably why he got his second Best Supporting Actor nomination for the role.

And then there’s Network, a movie I spent a lot of time with last year in the midst of all the drama surrounding CBS News and governmental pressures exerted on the broadcast networks and film studios alike. Duvall’s Frank Hackett is a vision of the future, the amoral corporate hatchet man whose only worry is getting the spreadsheet numbers up a few percentage points to make the shareholders happy at the annual meeting. If that means degrading the news division, fine. If it means killing the news division’s lead anchor, well, who is to say what’s right and wrong in this crazy world of ours? Of all the actors in that film—and there are a number of all-time greats, including Faye Dunaway and William Holden—I’ve always felt as though Duvall adapted best to the overlapping, rhythmic dialogue deployed by screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky in this film.

Also in 1976, Duvall played the Nazi colonel who set in motion the plan to kidnap Winston Churchill in The Eagle Has Landed, easily holding his own screen next to Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Anthony Quayle and Donald Pleasence.

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

LEFTIST VICTIMHOOD NARRATIVES SELDOM ARE:

Related:

Posted at 6:28 pm by Glenn Reynolds

RIP: Expansive Actor Robert Duvall, Dead at 95.

Every Robert Duvall performance is an unexpected one. Unlike many actors who have had the length of a career as long as his, his performances are unique and nuanced, diverse and always revelatory. Duvall’s roles as Tom Hagen in The Godfather and The Godfather II, Major Frank Burns in M*A*S*H, Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove, and Lt. Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now are the works that most people tend to reference as his most memorable performances. The ones that stick with me are Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies, Frank Hackett in Network, and Sonny Dewey in The Apostle.

Duvall said to American Cowboy magazine that Lonesome Dove’s Gus McCrae was the role that stuck with him the most. After he completed the 1989 television miniseries, Duvall said he was ready to retire.

I can retire now, I’ve done something I can be proud of. Playing Augustus McCrae was kind of like my Hamlet.

The world is grateful that he kept giving us Hamlet-level performances for another 30 years after that, until his last screen appearance in the 2022 period thriller, The Pale Blue Eye.

On Sunday, the Great Director called, and scene on his denouement. Robert Duvall has passed away at the age of 95.

One of the most versatile actors who ever lived:

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: Tenants in NYC public housing won’t be allowed to complain about city landlord at Mamdani’s ‘rental ripoff’ hearings.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “rental ripoff” hearings will not allow those in publicly operated housing to provide testimony. This is despite the fact that the government agency running the units has consistently been called the “worst” landlord in the Big Apple.

The first “rental ripoff” hearing, a pillar of Mamdani’s campaign when he ran for mayor, will take place on February 26. However, only those who are in privately owned buildings are allowed to offer testimony about bad housing conditions. There are around 500,000 tenants that live in housing controlled by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), but they won’t get to participate in the hearings, per the New York Post.

Private landlords were enraged about the city itself dodging questions about publicly-owned units while those renting out private units are encouraged to badmouth their landlords about such issues as “rental junk fees” for amenities and other concerns.

“The city’s own tenants — those living in public housing — are demanding a real plan to improve their living conditions,” said Humberto Lopes, CEO of Gotham Housing Alliance. “It appears the Mamdani administration woke up to their own hypocrisy.”

So much “gooder and harder” that I can hardly pop enough corn.

Posted at 4:50 pm by Stephen Green

LOL, JAKE TAPPER:

Posted at 4:28 pm by Glenn Reynolds

THE NEW SPACE RACE: NASA has a new problem to fix before the next Artemis II countdown test.

On Thursday, NASA’s launch team tested the seals by partially filling the core stage with liquid hydrogen. This “confidence test” ended earlier than planned when the launch team encountered a new problem that reduced the flow of fuel into the rocket. In a statement released Friday night, NASA said workers will replace a filter suspected to be the cause of the reduced flow before proceeding into the next WDR.

The confidence test ended as the launch team transitioned to “fast fill” mode for liquid hydrogen, when pressures and flow rates put the finicky seals through the most stress. However, NASA said engineers achieved several key objectives of the confidence test.

Isaacman wrote Saturday that the test “provided a great deal of data, and we observed materially lower leak rates compared to prior observations during WDR-1.”

Here’s the core problem, and it isn’t the hydrogen: NASA finally acknowledges the elephant in the room with the SLS rocket.

During the news conference, I asked about this low flight rate and the challenge of managing a complex rocket that will never be more than anything but an experimental system. The answer from NASA’s top civil servant, Amit Kshatriya, was eye-opening.

“You know, you’re right, the flight rate—three years is a long time between the first and second,” NASA’s associate administrator said. “It is going to be experimental, because of going to the Moon in this configuration, with the energies we’re dealing with. And every time we do it these are very bespoke components, they’re in many cases made by incredible craftsmen. … It’s the first time this particular machine has borne witness to cryogens, and how it breathes, and how it vents, and how it wants to leak is something we have to characterize. And so every time we do it, we’re going to have to do that separately.”

So there you have it. Every SLS rocket is a work of art, every launch campaign an adventure, every mission subject to excessive delays. It’s definitely not ideal.

It’s a hot mess that costs $4 billion per launch, not including substantial development costs.

Posted at 3:48 pm by Stephen Green

COLLEGE FOOTBALL BUYOUT MADNESS. There is too much money sloshing around in college football. I think it’s time for a minor league, and a return to “students who happen to play football.”

Posted at 2:17 pm by Robert Shibley