The great Karl Malden died Wednesday at age 97 in Brentwood and leaves behind a filmography dotted with classics such as "A Streetcar Named Desire" (for which he won an Oscar), "On the Waterfront," "Patton," "Birdman of Alcatraz," "One-Eyed Jacks" and "The Cincinnati Kid."

He, uh, also was in "Meteor."

A disaster film in every way, "Meteor" brought together the talent of Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda, Martin Landau, Malden and many others (too many in fact) to create a piece of inert space junk.

Think "Deep Impact" but even more shallow; imagine "Armageddon" without the special effects or the slow-motion astronaut strut.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the film and, well, nobody cares.

We now bring you the trailer for purely scientific reasons.

Malden is one of my favorite character actors. I loved "The Streets of San Francisco" too, with the killer theme song and the great banter between Malden's senior inspector and the young-gun partner played by Michael Douglas (and later Richard Hatch, of "Battlestar Galactica" fame). I'm also mesmerized by the 1977 "Streets" episode with Arnold Schwarzenegger as a dense immigrant bodybuilder who becomes an unintentional killer (he's like an Austrian version of Lenny from "Of Mice and Men," with massive pecs). Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up.

My Los Angeles Times colleague Dennis McLellan has written a fine obituary for Malden that does him justice (unlike this frivolous, fanboy-tilted blog post you're reading) and I encourage you to read it and check out the late actor's films if you haven't seen them, especially his stellar work opposite Marlon Brando in "Waterfront," "Streetcar" and the Brando-directed "One-Eyed Jacks."

-- Geoff Boucher

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I dropped by the Sunset Boulevard office of director McG yesterday to chat about "Terminator Salvation." I asked him about the late addition of a digitial-image cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie but he just grinned. "I can't give away all of the surprises." He told me he was headed to the Lakers' playoff game against Houston with the California governor in a few hours (that didn't end so well for the home team) a tidbit that left me wondering if the politician is already sizing up his post-Sacramento prospects in Hollywood, although it's not entirely clear that's his next career aspiration. Whether the old star is back on board for good, I see big things ahead for "Terminator." You can read about my visit to the set in this extended version of a story that appeared in last Sunday's Summer Sneaks issue of the Los Angeles Times. (The one in print was trimmed for space issues.)

Reporting from Albuquerque, N.M.

Director McG had a bit of sage advice last year for a visitor to the set of “Terminator Salvation,” which had set up shop in a vast hangar at Kirtland Air Force Base here. “If you go too far that way,” he said, pointing across the tarmac, “someone will shoot you.”

Knowing the boundaries and risking sniper fire — those are pretty good metaphors for anyone daring enough to add a new installment to the killer-robot franchise without either signature star Arnold Schwarzenegger or director James Cameron listed in the credits.

“Terminator Salvation” will arrive in theaters May 21 with new faces and a darker ethos than the earlier films in the series, but it is a companion piece to them, a pure sequel — or is that prequel? It’s difficult to say with a franchise that skips through time like some sort of “Back to the Future” with a body count.

This time around the stars are an unmasked Christian Bale, who is coming off the staggering success of “The Dark Knight,” and Aussie newcomer Sam Worthington, who, in an intriguing bit of Hollywood linkage, will star in Cameron’s eagerly anticipated 3-D epic “Avatar” at the end of the year.

The year is 2018 and mankind is being snuffed out by the malevolent machines of SkyNet. The man who is destined to lead the human resistance, John Connor (Bale), is now an adult but is struggling with his legacy and the suspicions of his ragged compatriots. He also is staggered when he meets Marcus Wright (Worthington), whose last memory is of being a death row prisoner before the apocalyptic attacks of SkyNet. Wright turns out to be a SkyNet-created cyborg model, but one that does not match the prophecies that have guided Connor his entire life. The distrusting pair set off on a quest to find answers and the path leads to Dr. Serena Kogen (Helena Bonham-Carter) and an ending that “will shock everyone,” McG promises. The cast also features hip-hop star Common, Moon Bloodgoode, Anton Yelchin and Bryce Dallas Howard, the daughter of filmmaker Ron Howard.

For former music video director McG (his birth name is Joseph McGinty Nichol, he grew up with the nickname) the film is a chance to establish himself in the special-effects blockbuster sector after directing films such as the glossy “Charlie’s Angels” and the plane-crash/football melodrama “We Are Marshall.” If this film clicks as Warner Bros. expects, McG will have a film franchise as well as his considerable success as a television producer with shows such as “Supernatural” and “Chuck,” as well as the four-year run of "The O.C."

“I do believe this a great opportunity for me,” McG said, “and we have a story to tell, state-of-the-art special effects and in Christian Bale nothing less than the most credible and intense action star in the world.”

The Library of Congress has added 25 more films to the National Film Registry, bringing the 20-year-old preservation list up to 500 films. Instead of being picked solely on the basis of lofty cinematic virtue, the movies on this list have been placed in the archive for their time-capsule value, which is why the sometimes jarring list can start with "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" and finish with the Zapruder footage of the JFK  assassination on that infamous November day in Dallas.

This year's 25 new entries include some classics -- "The Pawnbroker," "Sergeant York," "The Invisible Man" and, one of my personal favorites, "A Face in the Crowd," Elia Kazan's startling media fable from 1957. But the movie that is getting the most press coverage (including a tongue-in-cheek editorial published prominently in today's Los Angeles Times) is director James Cameron's killer-robot movie "The Terminator" from 1984. The main reasons are the fact that it is the only mainstream film on the list released after the Nixon administration and Arnold Schwarzenegger's career-defining monotone performance as a machine man. "I'll be back."  A short and simple line in the script but, wow, it certainly took the future governor to the top of the film industry.

You could argue that there are other sci-fi/genre films that deserved to be on the list ahead of "The Terminator" ("Forbidden Planet," "Superman" and "The Matrix" spring to mind) but it's certainly worthy by the parameters and precedents of the list. More than that, this is the silver anniversary of the movie, and the year of its revival, with "Terminator Salvation" hitting theaters this summer. And how much outrage can you muster when you're talking about a list that has "Porky in Wackyland" on it? (It's a 1938 Porky Pig short, not an Eli Roth movie, in case you were wondering.) If you did criticize the Registry for a blatant crime of omission, it would have to be for "Pulp Fiction." How could they leave that one out?

Anyway, congrats to Cameron, Schwarzenegger, the family of the late Stan Winston (the special effects pioneer who did some of his finest work in service of the "Terminator" franchise) and all the other people who gave us the great time-travel chase movie. To celebrate, let's revisit the trailer to the original "Terminator" film ... but first...

A QUICK TRIVIA QUESTION: What actor has the singular distinction of having been killed in the "Terminator" franchise, the "Alien" franchise and the "Predator" franchise? Answer at the bottom of this post ...   

(Note: There's also a tidbit here about the "Green Lantern" film project, check after the jump.)

The creature creators at Stan Winston Studio specialize in Hollywood miracles -- they brought dinosaurs to life for "Jurassic Park" and turned metal men into movie history with "Iron Man" and "The Terminator" -- but their next trick will be their toughest. The illustrious special-effects shop will try to hold on to its history even as it sheds its late founder's name and abandons his storied workshop.

Stan Winston, (at right) a four-time Oscar winner, died in June in Malibu at age 62 after a seven-year battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in bone marrow. He was universally eulogized as one of the true wizards of Hollywood. "The entertainment industry has lost a genius," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said at the time, "and I lost one of my best friends." Steven Spielberg and James Cameron spoke at the funeral, and across Hollywood there was reflection on what made Winston and his shop so special. "He came to special effects from a background of acting, which informed everything," director Jon Favreau said. "It was always about performance, not just puppetry."

Winston became a brand name in Hollywood decades ago (he won his first Emmy in 1973) and his namesake studio in Van Nuys became an industry landmark with its collection of aliens, robots and magical beasties. But now, just months after his death, neither Winston's name nor his workshop will be part of the day-to-day life of the company he left behind. All the latex masks and robotic critters have been crated up or already moved to a new facility in San Fernando that is much more modern but also far less charming. 

Stan Winston Studio will also give up the ghost by changing its name to Legacy Effects, a somewhat ironic moniker for a company that seems to be pushing away so much of its history. I recently dropped by Winston's maze-like old workshop, which sits on a gritty industrial stretch of Valjean Avenue in Van Nuys, and got a tour before most of its treasures were boxed up. Everywhere you looked there was movie history, both famous (there's a mottled, undead version of Tom Cruise from "Interview With the Vampire" standing in one corner) and nearly forgotten (it took me a long minute to recognize one of the robots from the 1981 Andy Kaufman movie "Heartbeeps" -- but that film did earn Winston his first Oscar nomination).

The real treasure of the company, though, is its talent, not its heirlooms. That's the main reason behind the name change. John Rosengrant, who started working with Winston on the set of "The Terminator" (1984), said that he and the three other partners who will lead the company forward all value the studio's towering tradition, but have decided it would be best to take a step out of its considerable shadow.

"This was not an easy decision," Rosengrant told me. "When Stan died we lost a friend, a mentor, a teacher, an inspiration -- the whole gamut. Everything he did and everything he represented, it's ingrained in us. It would be hard to do anything but 'the Stan way.' "

That's why no one was surprised when, in the days after the company's founder's death, one of Rosengrant's partners told Ain't it Cool News, the popular fanboy website, that the business would be renamed the Winston Effects Group. It seemed fitting and natural. But that name didn't stick for long. Instead, the partners informed the Winston family that they would rename the company. "We did receive the blessing of Stan's widow, Karen, but I'm sure there was mixed emotions for the family. I know there was mixed emotions for us."   

"The Terminator" will be back next summer, but the original killer robot, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a bit puzzled by this new model, at least so far.

"I still don't know how it will play out with this one," said the star-turned-politician, who said he was given a private screening of early footage from "Terminator Salvation" by producers of the franchise reboot directed by McG. "They showed me some footage, but I don't have a feel for the movie. I didn't see enough. I wasn't sure who the Terminator was. I don't know if there is one or if he's the star or the hero. These are the things that determine the success and how the strong the movie will be."

This will be the fourth of the "Terminator" films but the first without the Austrian-born muscleman who became a international film icon in the role of an assassination machine with cool sunglasses and a deadpan delivery. "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" in 2003 was Schwarzenegger's last starring role before he gave up Hollywood for Sacramento.

Schwarzenegger loves to talk Hollywood, and on Friday afternoon he chatted about his favorite recent movies -- he absolutely loved "Wanted," for instance, and he says Will Ferrell movies are so funny that he's getting "a six-pack" of abs from all the laughing -- and he addressed the tender topic of a new "Terminator" for the first time in any depth.

Audiences won't see anything as cool or slick as the T-800 of 2029, or the more advanced T-1000 model showcased in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day."

Rather, you'll see John Connor doing battle with older, muscle-models -- the machines that gave rise to Skynet  -- in the McG-directed "Terminator Salvation," the fourth film in the "Terminator" franchise. "Salvation," which is set to be released in May 2009, takes off from a place in which "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" doesn't exist, a future referred to in the first and second films where Skynet is coming into power.

"This is a reinvention. We’re starting over. It’s incredible that it’s post Judgment Day' and it’s a completely different thing," said Bryce Dallas Howard, who plays the wife of John.

"You get to see the original machines, greasy, brutal," McG says. "Ours is not a clean comfortable future, and you see these giant machines stomping through people for their nefarious purposes. There will be lots of hardware worship."

Before screening some exclusive Comic-Con footage for the packed crowd, McG tried phoning Christian Bale, who plays John and is currently promoting “The Dark Knight” in Japan. The call went to voice mail. "Bale, we’re here at Comic-Con. They want to congratulate you on 'Dark Knight' -- the crowd roared -- and now we’re about to show world premiere footage from our new movie. I give you 'Terminator: Salvation.'”

Lots of explosion ensued.

We saw the first interaction between John and his eventual father Kyle Reese, this time played by 19-year-old Anton Yelchin (remember, John will send Kyle back in time to protect John's mom Sarah -- just go with the time-jumping mythology.)

The action takes place in 2018. "Skynet’s not there yet," McG explained. "The machines haven’t come to a place of proficiency that we’re accustomed to. We see the becoming of Skynet and what it means to have dominance in a post-apocalyptic world."

One fan asked if Arnold Schwarzenneger will be back, and McG didn't confirm or deny. "Hopefully that statement in itself answers that question.... The T-800 is indeed part of the mythology of 'Terminator.'"

-- Denise Martin

Credit: Denise Martin