criterionforum.org

'Flash Gordon' is great, I ended up watching it because 'The Empire Strikes Back' was sold out back in 1981, I wasn't happy at the time, but it turned out to be the better film.

Probably the most perfectly cast film in the sense that it seems almost impossible to conceive of anyone else playing most of the roles, from that Sam Jones chap they cast in the lead through to Ornella Mutti and Brian Blessed! And I wonder how many British kids were traumatised by that scene of Peter Duncan, at around the same time the unthreateningly bland presenter of the BBC children's show Blue Peter, going through some sort of gruelling trial of courage (an influence on a similar scene in Dune?)

Time to watch CQ

Mike Hodges has said how colorful and spirited a personality Dino De Laurentiis was during the making of Flash Gordon. Even though the film had a large budget, he described the set being very loose and fun and how De Laurentiis basically gave him total control to do whatever he wanted.

Henryk Górecki.

Sad news. The use of Górecki's Symphony No. 3 in the final scene of Peter Weir's Fearless is one of my absolute favourite marriages of sound and vision.

Man, the Afterlife Symphony Orchestra and Choir is having one hell of a recruiting year.

David Thomson on Dino De Laurentiis, though as per-usual with Mr. Thomson, it soon returns to his favorite subject "himself". (the self regard of this high-class gossip is astounding)

Our genious Berlanga is dead. May be he has finally met Mr. Marshall.

About De Laurentiis, few people remember that Silvana Mangano was his wife.

Cinematographer Bob Paynter, whose work ranged from 1950s British Transport Films classics like The Elephant Will Never Forget and Snowdrift at Bleath Gill to assorted Michael Winner and John Landis films - including Michael Jackson's Thriller.

Antares wrote:Ronni Chasen

Who was, it turns out, Larry Cohen's sister.

perkizitore wrote:Luis Garcia Berlanga

With none of his films on DVD in the U.S.

I've wanted to see The Executioner for so long now. Terrible he's died, but I suppose lucky for me that I don't have a personal connection to him. Still a sad loss, it appears he was still directing too.

Silent film star Baby Marie Osborne.

Mentioned at the bottom of David Bordwell's latest blog post, prolific director and actor in many of Johnnie To's films, Wong Tin-lam has died.

Norma Church Mailer, writer, model, widower of Norman Mailer and occasional actress (Forman's Ragtime, Toback's Exposed, the TV adaptation of her husband's The Executioner's Song).

Dino De Laurentiis, a life in pictures

Pamela Lane First wife of John Osborne, actress and inspiration behind "Look Back In Anger"!.

perkizitore wrote:Luis Garcia Berlanga

Sadly I've not had a chance to see any of his films yet, but here is a nice Senses of Cinema article on the director.

Animator Ryszard Czekała - whose films The Son and The Roll Call were included in PWA's Anthology of Polish Animation DVD set.

Huh. And I was just about to sit down and watch The Vampire Lovers.

dad1153 wrote:George Hickenlooper, director of "Heart of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse."

Painkillers and alcohol don't mix unless you are a character in a Hold Steady song, kids.

Mr Sausage wrote:Huh. And I was just about to sit down and watch The Vampire Lovers.

And don't forget her other great role as a thinly veiled Elisabeth Bathory figure in Countess Dracula.

I also remember her fondly for the regular news and comment columns that she used to regularly write for the Shivers horror magazine, from which a wickedly twinkling sense of humour always seemed to come across, and for an appearance she made back on Jonathan Ross's Mondo Rosso show way back in 1995, in which she was one of the most vocal supporters for a resurrection of Hammer Films (One moment I particularly remember from that appearance was her story about a scene from Countess Dracula of rolling in the hay with Sandor Elès, in which his fake moustache got lost in her exposed cleavage!) The film I often remember her talking about as a 'big, new Hammer' was usually just in the form of a title: "Dracula...Who?", but perhaps Hammer Mark 2's recent production of Let Me In might have been enough to make her happy (and I note that she appears to have had a role in the first production of the new Hammer Films, the internet distributed Beyond The Rave).

Compared to the stories you hear about Raquel Welch being incredibly dismissive about her Hammer films (although admittedly she was in the sillier ones, with little to do except look gorgeous in a fur bikini and fight off magnified lizards), it seemed that Ingrid Pitt really enjoyed being associated with those films she appeared in.