Archive for the ‘Movies’ Category

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Clippings.

Friday, August 25th, 2023

Two things that popped up in my reading that I thought were worth sharing.

1. CrimeReads has a fairly good piece by Keith Roysdon (generally one of their less pretentious writers): “To Film and Thrive in L.A.: Three Lesser-Praised Friedkin Films Are Classics“.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen “To Live and Die in L.A.” and I’d kind of like to see it again. My feelings about “Sorcerer” are well known. I’ve never seen “Cruising” but I do want to as part of my “watch all of Friedkin’s films” project.

2. “Facts of Life: For Outdoorsmen and Ordinary Gentlemen” by Richard (The Scout Rifle Study) Mann.

I think there’s some pretty sound advice here. You should interpret that as “it agrees with my prejudices”. For example:

17: The greatest outdoor book ever written was The Old Man and the Boy. It was published in 1957 and written by Robert Ruark. If it does not make you feel something you’re broken.

And:

10: Never confuse a politician with a patriot, they’re not the same thing. Patriots will risk their life for their country and folks they don’t know. Politicians risk the lives of those they don’t know and then tax them for the privilege.

Posted in Clippings, Movies, Ruark | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 24, 2023.

Thursday, August 24th, 2023

Sliman Bensmaia. He wasn’t somebody I’d heard of before his obit was published, but he sounds like a person whose passing leaves a hole in the world.

Dr. Bensmaia was a neuroscientist. His specialty was the sense of touch, and how it worked.

Dr. Bensmaia was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University in the 2000s when the Defense Department, faced with a mounting number of wounded veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, committed $100 million to prosthetics research.
Scientists were making enormous strides in the field of brain-controlled prosthetics, but giving users of such devices a sense of touch was still largely uncharted territory. Patients could not actually feel what they were doing: whether a material was rough or smooth, if it was moving or stable, even where their limb was in space.
Dr. Bensmaia (pronounced bens-MAY-ah) saw his task as taking the next step: understanding how the brain receives and processes information through touch, which in turn could allow prosthetics to perform more akin to an organic limb.

…

He and his team would connect electrodes to areas of the monkeys’ brains, poke spots on their hands and then analyze where the brains received that sensory information, as well as how the animals reacted. They then used electrodes to simulate those pokes, in an attempt to mimic the experience.
“When you imagine moving your arm, that part of the brain is still active, but nothing happens due to the lost connection,” he told the magazine Wireless Design and Development in 2014. “The idea behind the project was to stick electrodes in the brain and stimulate it directly to produce some percepts of touch to better control the modular limb.”
Most scientists focus their labs on either pure or applied research. Dr. Bensmaia’s group — some two dozen undergraduates, grad students, postdocs and technicians — managed to do both. He employed neuroscientists, but also teams of engineers and computer programmers.
“He ran his lab like a small company,” David Freedman, a neurobiologist at Chicago, said in a phone interview.
Such coordination was necessary for the complicated work Dr. Bensmaia engaged in. The sense of touch involves a wide array of finely measured inputs — pressure, heat, movement, hardness — all of which are communicated to the brain through some 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synaptic connections.

…

In 2016, his team and a group from the University of Pittsburgh outfitted a 28-year-old man, Nathan Copeland, who had been paralyzed from the neck down, with a prosthetic arm that allowed him to feel through its finger tips.

Dr. Bensmaia was 49.

Terry Funk, noted professional wrestler.

He also did some acting, including “Road House”: IMDB.

Nancy Frangione, actress. Other credits include “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”, “In the Line of Duty: A Cop for the Killing”, and “Matlock”.

This isn’t quite an obit, but Stephen Wolfram wrote a really long (35,000+ words) remembrance of his friend Edward Fredkin. (Previously.)

Posted in Geek, Movies, Neuroscience, Obits, Sports, TV | 2 Comments »

Short movie snack.

Monday, August 21st, 2023

Remember that movie from back in March? The one that I won’t even name, because the trailer sent me into a state of apoplectic rage?

It opened this weekend…

…and finished fifth at the box office, having been beaten by “Blue Beetle” (a movie about a minor tier DC superhero), “Barbie”, “Oppenheimer”, and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”.

Heh. Heh. Heh.

Wikipedia cites the estimated budget for this pile of crap at $46 million, which means it needs to gross $92 to $138 million to break even. With an opening in fifth place, I’m thinking this is going to turn out to be one of this year’s biggest dogs, and I remain hopeful this will destroy the careers of everyone involved.

Posted in Bagatelle, Movies | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 14, 2023.

Monday, August 14th, 2023

Shelley Smith, actress. Other credits include the 1989 “Dragnet” revival, “Magnum P.I.” (the original), and “Cover Up“.

Linda Haynes, actress. Other credits include “Judgment: The Court Martial of Lieutenant William Calley”, “In Like Flint” (uncredited), and “Paper Moon” (the TV series: yes, there was a TV series based on the movie. It lasted 13 episodes.)

Posted in Movies, Obits, TV | 5 Comments »

Obit watch: August 10, 2023.

Thursday, August 10th, 2023

Robbie Robertson. THR. Pitchfork.

Their final performance on Thanksgiving in 1976 was documented by Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz, which was released in 1978 and is widely considered an all-time classic music documentary.

I haven’t seen “The Last Waltz” and kind of want to (it is available on Criterion) but I’ve seen it described as “Martin Scorsese interviews Robbie Robertson. Also, he interviews some of Robbie Robertson’s friends about how great Robbie Robertson is.”

In 2020, Scorsese produced Once Were Brothers, a documentary about the Band based mostly on Robertson’s accounts.

…

Some of the Band’s biggest songs were “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and “Up on Cripple Creek.” Music from Big Pink, 1969’s The Band, and 1970’s Stage Fright were critical and commercial hits, with Robertson taking the bulk of the songwriting credit and thus getting a larger share of the group’s money. Helm was consistently vocal in his claim that the majority of their songs had been written collaboratively and that Robertson’s publishing share was unfair. In the 2020 documentary Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, Robertson—one of two living members of the band upon its release—claimed that the others had not contributed due to their drug use.

I may be being a little unfair to Mr. Robertson, but it seems like everyone in The Band who wasn’t Robbie Robertson didn’t get along with him. When one person has an issue, okay, one person has an issue. But when the entire band has issues…

On a related side note, should I give pigpen51 a guest account here and leave writing the music-related obits up to him?

This is breaking news: Johnny Hardwick, who voiced “Dale Gribble” on “King of the Hill”. IMDB.

Edited to add: THR obit for Johnny Hardwick.

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, TV | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: August 7, 2023.

Monday, August 7th, 2023

Still on the road, heading home tomorrow (so it will be a travel day, but I expect to get in mid to late afternoon) so this will be quick and short.

William Friedkin. As I told Lawrence when he sent this to me, “Damn.” THR. I have an ambition to see all of his films, even though some of them are hard to get on home video.

And a few years back, I actually saw “Sorcerer” at the Alamo Drafthouse…with William Friedkin in attendance and answering questions from the audience afterwards. The one thing that stood out to me: he had no tolerance for people who Could. Not. Get. To. The. Point.

His most recent work was a new version of The Caine Mutiny, which has been accepted into the Venice Film Festival, which begins this month.

Want to see that.

Friedkin was wry about his mishaps and mistakes. Remembering how he had tossed a Basquiat drawing in the trash and turned down the chance to direct a video for Prince, he noted: “I’ve burned bridges and relationships to the point that I consider myself lucky to still be around. I never played by the rules, often to my own detriment. I’ve been rude, exercised bad judgment, squandered most of the gifts God gave me, and treated the love and friendship of others as I did Basquiat’s art and Prince’s music. When you are immune to the feelings of others, can you be a good father, a good husband, a good friend? Do I have regrets? You bet.”

Sharon Farrell. As the subhead notes, she was in the good “Hawaii 5-0”. But I use “good” with reservations, as she was a regular in the final season, which is generally considered to be pretty weak.

Other credits include “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” (“Chopper”), “Night of the Comet”. and “Harry O”.

John Gosling, keyboard player for the Kinks.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: August 5, 2023.

Saturday, August 5th, 2023

Still on the road with limited time to spare.

For the record: Mark Margolis.

Clifton Oliver.

Posted in Movies, Obits, Theatre | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 2, 2023.

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2023

Marc Gilpin, actor. Other credits include “The Legend of the Lone Ranger”, “Fantasy Island”, and “CHiPs”.

Posted in Movies, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: August 1, 2023.

Tuesday, August 1st, 2023

Paul Reubens, aka “Pee-wee Herman”. NYT (archived). THR. Tributes.

Angus Cloud, actor on “Euphoria”. He was 25.

Betty Ann Bruno has passed away at 91.

…Bruno graduated from Stanford University and had a long and successful career in local television, first as a political talk show producer, then as an on-air host and later a reporter for KTVU in the Bay Area. Starting in 1971, she spent more than 20 years with the station, becoming a familiar face to its viewers. Among the major stories she covered was the horrible 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm that killed 25 people and destroyed more than 3,200 homes — including hers.

She was a three-time News Emmy winner. But before all that, as a seven-year-old, she was one of the Munchkins in “The Wizard of Oz”.

Among only a handful of surviving Munchkin actors, Bruno in 2020 published a book called The Munchkin Diary: My Personal Yellow Brick Road, which was written during the Covid lockdown.

Affiliate link to The Munchkin Diary: My Personal Yellow Brick Road on Amazon.

Posted in Books, Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 31, 2023.

Monday, July 31st, 2023

As I write this, I am seeing reports from two sources that Paul Reubens, aka “Pee-Wee Herman”, has passed at 70. Here’s THR‘s very short preliminary story: expect an obit watch tomorrow.

Inga Swenson, actress.

…the Nebraska native — no, she was not born in Germany — was cast in 1963 as the spinster Lizzy in 110 in the Shade, based on N. Richard Nash’s play The Rainmaker. She received a Tony nomination for best actress in a musical for that performance, then landed another for her turn as Sherlock Holmes foe Irene Adler in the Hal Prince-directed Baker Street a year later.

Other credits include “Barnaby Jones”, “The Rookies”, “Earth II”, and “Vega$”.

Magnus White, cyclist.

White was a rising multidisciplinary star, winning a junior national championship in cyclocross in 2021 and earning a place on the U.S. national team. He competed with the team in Europe ahead of last year’s cyclocross world championships, and he was picked to represent the U.S. again at this year’s cyclocross worlds in the Netherlands.

He was 17, and died after being struck by a car on a training ride.

Devyn Reiley and Zach Colliemoreno were killed over the weekend in a plane crash at Oshkosh’s AirVenture 2023. Ms. Reiley was 30, Mr. Colliemoreno was 20. She was co-founder of the Texas Warbird Museum, and the daughter of former NFL player Bruce Collie.

Two other people, Mark Peterson and Thomas Volz, were killed in a second accident at AirVenture: their passing is also noted in the AVWeb article above.

Posted in 1970s, Cycling, Movies, Obits, Planes, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 28, 2023.

Friday, July 28th, 2023

Randy Meisner, formerly of the Eagles. (The NYT obit is still labeled as “A full obituary will appear shortly.”) THR.

Edited to add 7/29: full NYT obit (archived).

He left the band around the time “Hotel California” was released. Mr. Meisner also played with Poco, and later played “with the likes of Joe Walsh, Dan Fogelberg, Richard Marx, Bob Welch and James Taylor.”

“I was always kind of shy,” he said in a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, noting that his bandmates had wanted him to stand center stage to sing “Take It to the Limit,” but that he preferred to be “out of the spotlight.” Then, one night in Knoxville, he said, he caught the flu. “We did two or three encores, and Glenn wanted another one,” he said, referring to his bandmate, the singer-songwriter who died in 2016.
“I told them I couldn’t do it, and we got into a spat,” Mr. Meisner told the magazine. “That was the end.”

Bo Goldman, screenwriter.

Goldman was one of the handful of screenwriters — Paddy Chayefsky, Francis Ford Coppola, Horton Foote, William Goldman, Billy Wilder and Joel and Ethan Coen among them — to win Academy Awards for both original and adapted screenplay.

IMDB.

Jerome Coopersmith, theater and television writer.

Coopersmith wrote 30 regular installments and two feature-length episodes of CBS’ Hawaii Five-O from 1968-76. Among those was the notable 1975 eighth-season installment Retire in Sunny Hawaii … Forever, which featured Helen Hayes in an Emmy-nominated guest-starring stint as the aunt of her real-life son, James MacArthur.

“Retire In Sunny Hawaii…Forever” from “The Hawaii Five-O Home Page”. My memory is that this was a pretty solid episode, and I’m glad Mike Quigley agrees.

The dramatist adapted stories from Arthur Conan Doyle to write the book for 1965’s Baker Street, which was directed by Hal Prince and featured lyrics and music from Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. Starring Fritz Weaver as Sherlock Holmes and Peter Sallis as Dr. Watson, it ran for more than 300 performances on Broadway.

IMDB.

Lelia Goldoni, actress. Other credits include “Theatre of Death”, “The Lloyd Bridges Show”, and “Johnny Staccato”.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Music, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 21, 2023.

Friday, July 21st, 2023

Jim Scoutten, noted shooting sports commentator. Thanks to Pigpen51 for tipping me off on this one, but it took me some time to find something I could link.

Tony Bennett. THR. Well covered pretty much everywhere, so not a lot to say.

Carlin Glynn, actress. NYT (archived). Other credits include “Three Days of the Condor”, “Law and Order: Criminal Intent”, and “Resurrection” (an interesting sounding movie I had not heard of until recently: parts of it were filmed in the area around Cattleman’s Steakhouse in Fabens).

Josephine Chaplin. IMDB.

Dick Biondi, noted Chicago DJ. I never listened to Chicago radio, but the name does ring a bell with me.

Posted in Guns, Movies, Music, Obits, Radio | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: July 18, 2023.

Tuesday, July 18th, 2023

Harry G. Frankfurt, philosopher and author.

Professor Frankfurt’s major contribution to philosophy was a series of thematically interrelated papers, written from the 1960s through the 2000s, in which he situated the will — people’s motivating wants and desires — at the center of a unified vision of freedom, moral responsibility, personal identity and the sources of life’s meaning. For Professor Frankfurt, volition, more than reason or morality, was the defining aspect of the human condition.
Despite the ambition and inventiveness of this project — the philosopher Michael Bratman praised it as “powerful and exciting philosophy” of great “depth and fecundity” — Professor Frankfurt became best known for a single, irreverent paper largely unrelated to his life’s main work.
The paper, written in the mid-1980s under the same title as his eventual book, discussed what to his mind was a pervasive but underanalyzed feature of our culture: a form of dishonesty akin to lying but even less considerate of reality. Whereas the liar is at least mindful of the truth (if only to avoid it), the “bullshitter,” Professor Frankfurt wrote, is distinguished by his complete indifference to how things are.
Whether its purveyor is an advertiser, a political spin doctor or a cocktail-party blowhard, he argued, this form of dishonesty is rooted in a desire to make an impression on the listener, with no real interest in the underlying facts. “By virtue of this,” Professor Frankfurt concluded, “bullshit is the greater enemy of truth than lies are.”

That paper was republished as a book in 2005, On Bullshit (affiliate link), which became a best-seller. He also wrote On Truth (affiliate link) which seems to have been less successful.

Bold and daring in his ideas, Professor Frankfurt was somewhat aloof in style, with a dry wit and a strenuous aversion to pomposity. When asked what had inspired his interest in Descartes, the subject of his first book, “Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen” (1970), he admitted that he had liked that Descartes’s books were short.

For the record, and because Lawrence sent over an obit: Jane Birkin.

Over the weekend, my mother asked me: “How do you go from being a promising young journalist to being a swami?” I don’t have a good answer for that, but here’s the obit for Sally Kempton.

Robert Lieberman, director. Other credits include quite a few genre TV series, “Christmas in Tahoe”, “All I Want for Christmas”, and “Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy”.

Posted in Books, Media, Movies, Obits, Religion, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: July 7, 2023.

Friday, July 7th, 2023

Margia Dean, actress. She was 101.

Other credits include “I Spy”, the “Dick Tracy” TV series, and an uncredited appearance in “Mesa of Lost Women”.

For the historical record (this has gotten a lot of attention elsewhere), Coco Lee.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). You can also dial 988 to reach the Lifeline. If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 30, 2023.

Friday, June 30th, 2023

Alan Arkin. NYT (archived).

Arkin played guitar, piano, fife and vibraphone, and from 1957-59 he performed and toured throughout Europe with the folk-singing group The Tarriers, who had a hit “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” later made more famous by Harry Belafonte. (Arkin and the group sang it and another song in the 1957 film Calypso Heat Wave).

…

He tried his hand at starring in a sitcom, Harry, but the ABC show about a hospital wheeler-dealer lasted just seven episodes in 1987. In 2001-02, he played a judge who was soft on criminals on the A&E series 100 Centre Street.

He also played “Jerry Singleton” on three episodes of “St. Elsewhere”, and voiced “J.D. Salinger” on four episodes of “Bojack Horseman”. IMDB.

Unfortunately, I can’t find the bit from “The In-Laws” I really want to use, so how about this one?

And, of course…

Posted in Movies, Music, Obits, Theatre, TV | 1 Comment »

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