Passages

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
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Re: Passages

#6776 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Oct 17, 2017 3:51 am

Cameron Swift wrote:Sean Hughes at 51. His standup success came a little before my time, so my memories of him are mostly as a team captain on panel show Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
Its been a long time since they were shown but Sean Hughes passing reminded me that there was that interesting period in the early 90s where stand up comics were getting their own multi-episode TV series run, usually on Channel 4. Sean Hughes had Sean's Show, and Paul Merton during the height of his 'surreal' period had The Paul Merton Show. Jo Brand got a self-titled show too. Jack Dee and Jeremy Hardy did a couple of one-off team ups. And of course there was the anarchic team of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer transferring their stage show into a series with very few changes.

Lots of these 'edgy' performers (as with Graham Norton in the chat show field) transferred over to the BBC over the course of the 90s to do work in the same vein but a bit 'safer' with the rougher edges sanded off, and one of the safest ways it seemed for comedians to get consistent and reliable work, and perhaps more importantly to keep themselves visible in the public eye, was to be on panel quiz shows either as a team captain (as Sean Hughes was for a while) or a regular semi-permanent guest spot. Of course Vic & Bob exploded the panel show even whilst working at the 'safer' BBC with their absurd Shooting Stars series! (Though they did pave the way for the likes of Keith Lemon currently, so I'm wary of entirely celebrating their legacy!)

There certainly would be an interesting piece to be written on that period of the 'alternative' stand up comedians becoming the new establishment (epitomised perhaps by Eddie Izzard becoming a political and campaigning figure whilst simultaneously going Transatlantic, almost embodying New Labour!), seeing how those they replaced fared (Bob Monkhouse adapted amazingly well, but Jasper Carrott and the more militant 80s figures like Alexei Sayle didn't seem to thrive as much), and how they all adapted to having been in some ways co-opted!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sat Nov 11, 2017 3:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

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cdnchris
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Re: Passages

#6777 Post by cdnchris » Wed Oct 18, 2017 9:16 am

Tragically Hip's Gord Downie

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mfunk9786
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Re: Passages

#6778 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Oct 18, 2017 10:21 am

cdnchris wrote:Tragically Hip's Gord Downie
Hug a Canadian today.

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Roger Ryan
Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2010 12:04 pm
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Re: Passages

#6779 Post by Roger Ryan » Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:00 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
cdnchris wrote:Tragically Hip's Gord Downie
Hug a Canadian today.
That final (televised) concert they performed was extraordinarily emotional - an amazing farewell.

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cdnchris
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Re: Passages

#6780 Post by cdnchris » Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:09 am

mfunk9786 wrote: Hug a Canadian today.
My Facebook feed is having one of the biggest melt downs today because of this. I never actually bought an album but even I was upset by this because the group was basically the soundtrack to my teen years.
Roger Ryan wrote:That final (televised) concert they performed was extraordinarily emotional - an amazing farewell.
It was a hell of a show. I was thankful they streamed it because I don't believe any station down here was airing it.

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Mr Sausage
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:02 pm
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Re: Passages

#6781 Post by Mr Sausage » Wed Oct 18, 2017 11:57 am

cdnchris wrote:
mfunk9786 wrote: Hug a Canadian today.
My Facebook feed is having one of the biggest melt downs today because of this. I never actually bought an album but even I was upset by this because the group was basically the soundtrack to my teen years.
I was never really a fan of their music, but the news made me a bit melancholy because they've always just been around, a ubiquitous and somewhat reassuring part of the culture for as long as I can remember. Or something. It's hard to phrase.

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rohmerin
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Re: Passages

#6782 Post by rohmerin » Thu Oct 19, 2017 7:33 am

Danielle Darrieux est morte !

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neilist
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Re: Passages

#6783 Post by neilist » Thu Oct 19, 2017 8:35 am


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Mr Sausage
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Re: Passages

#6784 Post by Mr Sausage » Thu Oct 19, 2017 8:46 am

neilist wrote:Umberto Lenzi.
He's never been a particularly good director, tho' there is a lot of silly fun to be had with Nightmare City. Seven Blood-Stained Orchids isn't a half-bad giallo, either.

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antnield
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Re: Passages

#6785 Post by antnield » Thu Oct 19, 2017 9:27 am


Jonathan S
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Re: Passages

#6786 Post by Jonathan S » Thu Oct 19, 2017 11:04 am

antnield wrote:Danielle Darrieux.
Adieu, Madame de...

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Professor Wagstaff
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Re: Passages

#6787 Post by Professor Wagstaff » Fri Oct 20, 2017 12:39 pm

Brent Briscoe, according to Jim Beaver's Twitter

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swo17
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Re: Passages

#6788 Post by swo17 » Fri Oct 20, 2017 12:40 pm


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rohmerin
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Re: Passages

#6789 Post by rohmerin » Fri Oct 20, 2017 12:43 pm

Argentinian film star Federico Luppi.

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dadaistnun
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:31 am

Re: Passages

#6790 Post by dadaistnun » Fri Oct 20, 2017 3:12 pm

Professor Wagstaff wrote:Brent Briscoe, according to Jim Beaver's Twitter
He was one of my favorite additions to the Twin Peaks cast. I especially love the way he plays the scene where he has to question his friend who has been accused of murder and his hands shake as he writes down his notes.

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Passages

#6791 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Oct 20, 2017 4:02 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:
neilist wrote:Umberto Lenzi.
He's never been a particularly good director, tho' there is a lot of silly fun to be had with Nightmare City. Seven Blood-Stained Orchids isn't a half-bad giallo, either.
Don't forget the notorious Cannibal Ferox, which was perhaps one of the few 'video nasties' to truly earn that title, as it pushes the Italian cannibal film to the ultimate extremes of queasily uncomfortable gore as a pure entertainment piece, at least compared to Cannibal Holocaust having some sort of larger moral message! Which kind of makes the real animal violence staged for the purposes of the film even less justifiable than it was in Ruggero Deodato's film. And of course it features the centrally shocking scene of a lady being suspended by metal hooks through her breasts which is certainly a uniquely inflammatory image! (Zora Kerova had some of the most notorious death scenes, even for the heady world of early 80s Italian gore cinema! See Anthropophagous and New York Ripper for the others) There's also a fantastic duelling commentary on the DVD for Cannibal Ferox between Lenzi trying to justify some of the more problematic scenes of the film (particularly the animal violence) and actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice, who played the main villain and hates the film with a passion, being candid about his drug-related motivations for taking a role in a film being shot in Leticia, an area that was at the heart of the cocaine trade of the time!

Lenzi also made the almost as notorious Eaten Alive! a couple of years earlier, though that's more in the tradition of his early 1970s cannibal film Man From Deep River (NSFW), which kicked off the subgenre and most obviously shows that Lenzi's cannibal films were all seemingly inspired by Richard Harris in A Man Called Horse (that's where the hook hanging scene in Ferox likely came from as well, as the 'ultimate' tribute to this wave of "First World Westerners meeting interchangeable 'primitive' tribe and learning about their often brutal customs" adventure/horror films).

On a different note both Man From Deep River and Eaten Alive! star Me Me Lai, who was the go to actress to portray the sympathetic native girl who falls in love with and helps our hero out (she also appeared in Ruggero Deodato's Jungle Holocaust from 1977), and who a few years later took on much the same kind of role as the duplicitous femme fatale heroine in Lars von Trier's first feature, The Element of Crime.

I still have not really explored Lenzi's earlier crime thrillers like Almost Human or The Cynic, The Rat and The Fist as yet though, or those giallos like Eyeball or So Sweet...So Perverse (with Carroll Baker and Jean-Louis Trintangant!), so there might be some interesting pieces to be discovered still!
rohmerin wrote:Argentinian film star Federico Luppi.
Of course Luppi is perhaps the most well known as the star of Guillermo del Toro's Cronos, as well as having supporting roles in The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. Though he also had a few good roles in films by Adolfo Aristarain: A Place In The World and Martin (Hache), and had the lead role in John Sayles' film Men With Guns.

Though I'd also like to note his title role in Fermat's Room, the slightly more intellectual take on the Saw films! (or Cube)
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sat Oct 21, 2017 4:25 am, edited 6 times in total.

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Passages

#6792 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Oct 20, 2017 9:18 pm

colin wrote:I still have not really explored Lenzi's earlier crime thrillers like Almost Human or The Cynic, The Rat and The Fist as yet though, or those giallos like Eyeball or So Sweet...So Perverse (with Carroll Baker and Jean-Louis Trintangant!), so there might be some interesting pieces to be discovered still!
I've seen a lot more of Lenzi's giallos and crime thrillers and such than his later gore and exploitation stuff.

His giallos are for the most part middle of the road. Eyeball is pretty tedious. Spasmo is notable for some uncharacteristically handsome cinematography and a few pleasant surreal flourishes (even if they are lifted from Bava) and almost nothing else. Knife of Ice I barely remember aside from its ludicrous and likely impossible final reveal. Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is, as I said, not half bad and easily the best of his giallos I've seen.

Of his crime thrillers, Orgasmo is just smarmy people tormenting each other for vague monetary reasons. Paranoia is one of those leisurely and forgettable mod thrillers with endless, unmotivated twists and turns and a few horror/giallo elements.

I can't say there's any Lenzi film I'm especially fond of--something I can say of Fulci, for instance (and we all know what I generally think of him).

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colinr0380
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Re: Passages

#6793 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Oct 21, 2017 4:44 am

Its difficult to recommend any of the films in the cannibal subgenre to anyone but those with the strongest stomachs (for both the real animal violence, staged gore and the slightly queasy attitudes on display), but they do sort of chart the extreme outer limits of a certain kind of jungle adventure film genre. But they're certainly an acquired taste!

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Minkin
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Re: Passages

#6794 Post by Minkin » Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:46 am

Old news, but didn't see it reported elsewhere on here:

Alexandra Kluge (Alexander Kluge's sister + star of Abschied von gestern) - back in June

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MichaelB
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Re: Passages

#6795 Post by MichaelB » Mon Oct 23, 2017 9:09 am

The great German-born British-Greek cinematographer Walter Lassally, who after starting out as the British New Wave's Raoul Coutard (in that he shot a fair number of the 1950s Free Cinema films before graduating to many of the key early 1960s kitchen-sink dramas) won an Oscar for Zorba the Greek.

(The link is in Greek, but he lived there, so I assume this is legit.)


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Re: Passages

#6797 Post by calculus entrophy » Tue Oct 24, 2017 12:00 am

Don Pedro Colley

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bearcuborg
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Re: Passages

#6798 Post by bearcuborg » Tue Oct 24, 2017 6:26 pm

Robert Guillaume...dead at 89 from prostate cancer.

Man, I loved Benson as a kid. I can still hum the theme song. I gotta catch up and see what the fuss over Sports Night was...one of these days.

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Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
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Re: Passages

#6799 Post by Drucker » Wed Oct 25, 2017 11:00 am


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hearthesilence
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Re: Passages

#6800 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Oct 25, 2017 12:19 pm

This is essential to any serious rock collection. As posted in the A.V. Club, when your nickname is “Fats” and you make it to 89, you’ve done pretty well.

Almost forgot, he puts in an appearance in Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can’t Help It.

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