Matt wrote: Mon Nov 03, 2025 11:44 pm
Going from her first TV credit to her final role, Diane Ladd had an incredible 66-year career. Her Marietta Fortune in Wild at Heart is one of my favorite go-for-broke film performances, but her role as Helen Jellicoe in "Enlightened" is quietly heartbreaking, especially the episode from her POV, "Consider Helen." It's very sweet that she got to perform with her own daughter several times in her career, getting Oscar-nommed twice for doing so. (Laura Dern also appears as an extra in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, so it's really sort of thrice.)
Post lipstick-smearing Wicked Witch role in Wild At Heart, Ladd also had a fun over the top role chewing the scenery in Dennis Potter's sci-fi(!) series Cold Lazarus. She's the Baron Harkonnen of that series.
And of course there is her amazing performance in the Corman-produced rip off of Jurassic Park (in which Ladd's daughter starred of course!) mashed up with Aliens, Carnosaur, where Ladd plays the mad scientist using human women to breed dinosaurs and then in an astonishing end to the character uses her talon claw-like fingernails to give herself a self-administered Caesarian section!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sun Jan 18, 2026 4:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Looking at Letterboxd, I was surprised that I’ve only seen nine Ladd films, several I don’t remember her being in at all (Joy, Christmas Vacation, 28 Days)… and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is always at arms length for me because I grew up on the sitcom and the more serious treatment of the material is a bit bizarro world for me, even though it came first! I didn’t really have that problem with MASH but I also didn’t watch that series as much as I watched Alice
And in Bruce Beresford's 1997 film Paradise Road with Glenn Close, Frances McDormand and Cate Blanchett, which was a late addition to the female POWs in WWII genre that includes 1956's A Town Like Alice and the early 1980s Tenko series (Collins turns up in the Glenn Close starring Albert Nobbs a few years after that).
Shirley Valentine turns up all the time on UK television (it kind of bookends the 'independent woman throwing off the shackles of expectations' 1980s with the Lewis Gilbert-Willy Russell created Educating Rita at the beginning of the decade), and often turns up on Channel 5, which also regularly show two other films in which she stars, From Time To Time (directed by Gosford Park and Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellows) and the nursing home set Mrs Caldicott's Cabbage War.
Just for once, her Doctor Who connections won't be front and centre in her obituaries. She played Samantha Briggs in "The Faceless Ones", and might have continued as a companion - this was the story where Polly and Ben left, leaving otherwise just Jamie in the TARDIS - but she declined. Her career would have been very different had she accepted. She probably would never have gone on to play the roles she's best known for, including Sarah in the first two series of Upstairs Downstairs and its spin-off Thomas and Sarah.
I remember his very interesting arrest for apparently offering sex work on the streets of Hollywood some years back. Director of probably the campiest and mind-numbing stupid James Bond film ever
Tamahori was around for the birth of the modern NZ film industry in the late '70s as a boom operator for films like Goodbye Pork Pie and the notorious TV miniseries The Governor. I attended a screening of a restored scan of the (underseen and underrated) Skin Deep (1978) at the New Zealand Film Archive a decade ago where they failed to matte the projection to 1.85:1 so his boom mic was clearly visible multiple times throughout.
When Geoff Murphy was making Utu in 1983 he wanted a Māori 1st AD and offered to job to Tamahori, despite his lack of experience. It's a testament to Tamahori's talent that he adapted so quickly to the role on a difficult and complicated shoot, spending the next few years as an in-demand assistant director before making the leap to directing commercials and features.
His career as a director was uneven to say the least - most NZ directors who make the leap to Hollywood are cursed to churn out mediocre and compromised work - but he was a crucial figure in the local film industry.
Lindsey Vickers' passing is a sad loss although its ironic that even whilst alive we never got to see his only feature film released in cinemas. The Appointment is a great example of the cinema of unease and one of the gems of the Flipside series.
alacal2 wrote: Sat Nov 08, 2025 10:45 am
Lindsey Vickers' passing is a sad loss although its ironic that even whilst alive we never got to see his only feature film released in cinemas. The Appointment is a great example of the cinema of unease and one of the gems of the Flipside series.
Two quintessential Flipside filmmakers in the space of a week (Watkins & Vickers). The Appointment remains a gem, as unnerving and as potent in it's nightmarish ambience as Fire Walk With Me.
I saw this on release knowing next to nothing about it, a rare occurrence for me, especially given that I was working as a projectionist at the time and was usually well informed about what we were playing. My friend and I felt like we’d been hit by a truck when it was over and promptly cancelled our usual Saturday night bar hopping.
Lenny Wilkins. One of only a handful of people to have both a Hall of Fame playing and coaching career. Played from 1960-75. So long ago, he suited up for the St. Louis Hawks, alongside Bob Petit and Cliff Hagan. 9x all star. Once was all star game MVP. Finished 2nd in MVP voting behind Wilt in '68.
Coached more NBA games than anyone. Had most coaching Wins when he retired. Has since only been surpassed by Don Nelson (by 3 W's) and Popovich. Wilkins always seemed like a gentleman, calm and professional. Back in '93, the Cavs and Hawks essentially swapped coaches with Wilkins joining Atlanta Hawks and Fratello taking over Wilkins Cavs.
My favorite Japanese actor of all time next to Mifune. An impossibly excellent filmography. I genuinely don't think I could even begin to choose a favorite role.
His performance in The Face of Another is brilliant. Just the way he seems dissociated from his own face, like it’s not a part of him. It stands out even in a filmography filled with great performances.
One of those actors I’ll watch anything he’s in. Not only did he work with all the great Japanese directors of the 20th century, he comfortably was able to jump from art house, to chanbara, to drama with mastery. I’ll watch one of his It Is Wonderful to Create interviews tonight where he’s clearly excited after a drink or two.
Mr Sausage wrote: Tue Nov 11, 2025 2:59 am
His performance in The Face of Another is brilliant. Just the way he seems dissociated from his own face, like it’s not a part of him. It stands out even in a filmography filled with great performances.
I think, in general, he may have the best face acting of anyone ever. He could do a lot with single frozen expressions. He was a bit the opposite of Mifune that way in the sense that he was the absolute minimalist of cinema acting. His simple slack jawed expression in the second film of The Human Condition is permanently sketched into my mind.
