From 'The New York Times': 'Lights, Camera, Obits!'

Obituaries, by definition, stare fixedly in the rearview mirror. Worse, they begin, as they must, with the bleakest of all possible announcements: Someone has died. Not a juicy premise for a film, one would suppose. Add to that the nature of the enterprise: gathering facts, arranging them, pressing the keyboard with one’s fingertips, cutting a few words and adding a few others. Except for the phone calls, it’s an inward-looking process, at least for the reporters. How do you make drama out of that? [Vanessa] Gould had a few ideas up her sleeve.

Via the 'New York Times': From an Obit Writer, the Last Word on ‘The Last Word’

In her next life, Shirley MacLaine may come back as a movie critic — you never know. If she does (or even if she doesn’t), she won’t likely look back on “The Last Word,” released this month, as a current-life highlight.