Passages

[antnield]

Sol Saks, creator of Bewitched.

[domino harvey]

Gerard Smith from TV on the Radio dead at 34

[Perkins Cobb]

Screenwriter Kevin Jarre.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

That is horrible. And I've met one of the other photographers who was injured a few times, so the incident hit home for me as well.

(And I haven't seen Restrepo ... do I need to? I'm so anti-war that a doc focusing on the soldiers triggered some visceral resistance.)

I thought it was mediocre in every way, especially compared to something like Sokurov's Spiritual Voices and Confession.

I wonder how Armadillo compares to it?

[MichaelB]

You can rent Restrepo from iTunes, which seems to be one of the cheapest methods of getting to see it that doesn't involve piracy.

[Polybius]

Michael Sarrazin

That's a shame - he was excellent in They Shoot Horses, Don't They and I recently caught a screening of The Gumball Rally (which seems to have been an uncredited inspiration for Cannonball Run) in which he was obviously set up as the lead character, although he was slightly lost amongst the rest of the more colourful ensemble cast. (Nerdy point: I also find that film to be valuable for having a scene filmed in the same San Francisco location that the car chase in THX-1138 had been shot in, something which can be briefly seen in the attached trailer!)

I saw The Gumball Rally at a drive-in in '77 or '78, which seems quite appropriate now that I think of it. I also made that connection a few years later but (and we've all been here) nobody cared or wanted to hear about it.

If I recall correctly, this sort of thing (underground cross country races) was really something of a fad in the '70's.

I also always liked Michael's work as the youngest brother in Sometimes a Great Notion and as the deserter who apprenticed with George C. Scott's con man character in The Flim Flam Man.

[colinr0380]

Angela Scoular - married to Leslie Phillips she was in a small role in Chaplin's A Countess In Hong Kong; was both an official (On Her Majesty's Secret Service) and unofficial (the 60s Casino Royale) Bond girl; and appeared in a couple of British sex comedies (two of the Adventures of... films along with Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, which was recently released in the BFI Flipside collection).

[antnield]

John Sullivan.

[dad1153]

Restrepo director Tim Hetherington killed in Libya.

National Geographic Channel will show Restrepo this Monday night at 9PM ET (followed by a tribute to Tim).

[Tom Peeping]

Marie-France Pisier at 66.

[tavernier]

Marie-France Pisier at 66.

Goddammit!

[Oedipax]

That's terrible.

[GaryC]

Danish-born Australian director and actor Esben Storm.

Possibly the most neglected director of the Australian Film Revival, as not one of his six features has ever been released on DVD, as far as I can tell. His first feature, 27A, was an AFI Award-winner (Best Film; Best Actor - the late Robert McDarra). Much of his career was spent in television. I saw Deadly twenty years ago at the London Film Festival. I have an ex-rental VHS copy of In Search of Anna sitting in the pile - time to watch it now.

[Polybius]

Marie-France Pisier at 66.

Goddammit!

I am really sorry to read this.

[Perkins Cobb]

Marie-France Pisier at 66.

Drowned in her swimming pool. What a waste. Such a beauty.

[antnield]

Poly Styrene.

[manicsounds]

Yoshiko Tanaka, aged 55

In Japan the most famous for being in the 3 girl group, Candies, but to the west in her performance in Shohei Imamura's "Black Rain"

[fdm]

Phoebe Snow

[dad1153]

Hubert J. 'Hub' Schlafly Jr., inventor of the teleprompter.

[ellipsis7]

Every time a teleprompter smashes...

[Kirkinson]

For anyone who has lived in or around Chicago at some point in the last 35 years: Lynn Hauldren, the Empire Carpet Guy.

[Professor Wagstaff]

For anyone who has lived in or around Chicago at some point in the last 35 years: Lynn Hauldren, the Empire Carpet Guy.

Bummer. I'm not from the Chicago area, but we still have Empire Carpet commercials here in New Jersey (same tune plus the animated Hauldren). I was thinking how much I've always loved that infectious jingle just last night when it played during the news.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

He's been a Los Angeles daytime television staple for as long as I can remember too. Hopefully they'll keep airing the commercials that feature the little CGI version of him until eternity!

[dad1153]

Just this morning I saw his CGI avatar a couple of times during back-to-back "Maury" shows on PIX-11. R.I.P., "588-2300... Empiiire!" for life.

[zedz]

Poly Styrene.

Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard, but I think:

Very sad news. One of the greats of her age and, I'd argue, hugely influential on a lot of women that came afterwards. Plus, X-Ray Spex's very compact body of work (one great album, one great single and some stray b-sides - everything else is basically an inferior variation on those songs) still sounds as fresh and vital today as it did then, a claim many of her contemporaries cannot make.