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Not necessarily pop-culture (although he did appear in that Oliver Stone documentary), but Hugo Chavez.

Well, shit

Talk about Chavez' death here, please.

Midnight Eye tribute to Donald Richie

Great filmmaker who never quite received serious attention here in the States. Probably since his most high profile film here is Amityville II (which is a lot better than its reputation sometimes suggests). But the first series of La Piovra alone should secure his legacy to those who are willing to dig into his filmography.

The Most Beautiful Wife is one among many great Damiano films that deserve greater recognition.

The Franco Nero starring How To Kill A Judge is also a pretty neat political thriller.

British documentarist Michael Grigsby, a Free Cinema pioneer (Enginemen, Tomorrow's Saturday) who went on to have a distinguished career in television.

Frank Thornton, a prolific British character actor, mostly in comedy, probably best known for Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served?.

Henry Bromell, TV producer (Homeland, Carnivale, Homicide: Life On The Street).

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Henry Bromell, TV producer (Homeland, Carnivale, Homicide: Life On The Street).

And writer-director of the excellent Panic (2001).

British horror author James Herbert.

Harry Reems.

A real shame to hear about James Herbert – an even bigger shame is that Herbert was never really treated that well in adaptations to the screen, especially compared with the voracious appetite the cinema and television has for Stephen King’s very similar works. Although I guess the way that most of his works are epic scaled probably prevents them from being made on a small to medium sized budget – you couldn’t easily recreate a post-nuclear war London or global catastrophes without needing a Roland Emmerich-sized production! And even if that was possible then you likely couldn't do the spectacular gore scenes that would also be necessary to properly capture the tone of the novels!

(Although I have often thought that Creed – the amoral paparrazi getting his just deserts story - would make a brilliant film, and could even benefit from getting transferred to a US setting. In my wildest imaginings I’d like to think of any film of that novel fitting in tonally with something like Polanski’s The Ninth Gate. Shrine could also neatly fit in with the current trend for The Last Exorcism-style religious horrors, though without the modern shakeycam element. I also think the alternate history novel set in a post-WW2 plague ravaged London – ’48 – could be done as a fantastic Indiana Jones-esque adventure film, full of American heroes out-motorbiking Nazi foes across London wastelands, with the British characters hanging around in eveningwear in ballrooms being vaguely duplicitous, and with an exploding Tower Bridge finale! Although if you want Indiana Jones-antics, The Spear probably fits best into the idea of the search for fabled Biblical artefacts while battling neo-Nazis!)

I guess because of budget and violence considerations it has mainly been his ghost stories that have reached the screen: The Survivor in 1980 (directed by David Hemmings and starring Robert Powell, Jenny Agutter and Joseph Cotton and relocated to Australia - a great film about guilt of surviving a plane crash that unfortunately relies too heavily on supernatural deaths in the mid-section. But it looks amazing throughout, using its widescreen very effectively); Haunted in 1995 (directed by Lewis Gilbert with Kate Beckinsale, Anna Massey and John Gielgud and very much taking cues from both The Haunting and The Innocents, unfortunately to its detriment. I much prefer the second book featuring the main character, the paranormal investigator David Ash, The Ghosts of Sleath, which is an excellent ‘dark underbelly of a seemingly idyllic village’ ghost story. The same (by this point much traumatised and extremely unlucky in love!) main character is also the subject of Herbert’s now final novel, Ash); and the recent BBC television adaptation of The Secret of Crickley Hall.

(EDIT: I forgot about that early 80s version of The Rats, but then I think forgetting that film is for the best!)

The one non-ghost story film so far was that mid-90s adaptation of Fluke starring Matthew Modine. Although it doesn't involve huge set piece action or visceral gore scenes that was quite a problematic book to adapt in its own way as it involves telling the story of a man killed in an accident getting reincarnated in the body of a dog and trying to keep himself together in order to save his family before the memories of his previous life are overwhelmed by his new doggy persona. While its not a bad film it is hard to untangle it from all the cinema tropes of the time, with it only feeling as if it got made because it involves a mix of cute-doggy antics popularised from the Beethoven films, Look Who’s Talking-style wacky voiceover and a moment where a father who had little time for his son finally gets to bond with him in a new form which kind of anticipates that Jack Frost film!

Floyd McRae, last living member of The Chords.

Risë Stevens, would have turned 100 in June.

Rufus T. Firefly wrote:Risë Stevens, would have turned 100 in June.

Carmen comes home.