Perhaps surprisingly to some people, this is not a movie about blues music. “Devil” is a documentary about Ken Carter, a semi-famous Canadian stunt driver, and his attempt to jump a car from the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence River to the US side: a distance of about one mile.
It took five years just to get to the point where Carter was actually able and ready to make the attempt. And Fortier kept filming in spite of the setbacks: rain interfering with construction of the jump ramp, exploding rocket fuel tanks, Carter’s attempts to raise money…
I “watched” about 55 minutes of it yesterday while puttering around doing other things, and plan to finish watching it in the next couple of days. There is a twist at the end which I spoiled for myself, but I won’t do that to you. (If you search for “Ken Carter” or “The Devil at Your Heels” on Wikipedia, you’ll find the twist.) From what I saw, I think this is another Canadian documentary that’s worth your attention. It isn’t quite as bat guano insane as “Project Grizzly“, but it’s still fun.
The whole movie is also available in high-def on YouTube, again thanks to the NFB:
Somehow, while searching around looking for more stuff about Ken Carter and the jump, I ran across this article on AutoFocus, a Canadian auto news site, about Jacques Ostiguy. Ostiguy was a Canadian designer, noted for his work on the Chrysler Cordoba and for Bombardier (the company that made Ski-Doo snowmobiles).
I wanted to note this because I love this quote in the article:
(Content warning: article may not be 100% safe for work in some environments. There are no explicit drawings in the article itself, but some people might take offense at the headline.)
Also among the dead: Morgana King, who was somewhat famous as a jazz singer. She was better known, however, as Mama Corleone in the “Godfather” movies.
Herbert Sperling died in early July at a federal prison hospital near Boston. He’d been in prison since 1973.
Jonathan Gold, restaurant critic for the LA Times and Pulitzer Prize winner. NYT.
This hit me kind of hard, and I’m not exactly sure why. I don’t live in LA, I barely even consider California to be part of the United States these days, and the LAT website has become so obnoxious I rarely read it. At most, I was an intermittent follower of Gold’s.
I know obituaries generally concentrate on the positive about the subject – I’ve seen very few that say, “Christ, what an a–hole” – but the tributes to him make him sound like an incredibly kind and funny guy who loved food, and even more loved telling people about food.
Also, he was only 57: pancreatic cancer got him so fast most people didn’t even know he was sick, according to the obits. I’ve linked to them before, but The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research still gets four stars from Charity Navigator.
Also among the dead: Shinobu Hashimoto, screenwriter perhaps most famous for his work with Akira Kurosawa (including “Rashomon”, “Ikiru”, and “Seven Samurai”.
Annabelle Neilson. I can’t stand celebrity for celebrity’s sake, and I don’t worship celebrities in general. But there’s something about this story I find touching.
She eventually got over her heroin problem, became a model, and was introduced to fashion designer Alexander McQueen. She went on to become his model, muse, and girlfriend until his death in 2010.
Nancy Barbato Sinatra, Frank Sinatra’s first wife and mother of Nancy, Frank Jr., and Christina.
This is a fascinating and kind of sad obituary. They were married from 1939 until 1951, when Frank finally left her (after years of philandering) to chase Ava Gardner. In spite of that, they remained extremely close after the divorce until Frank’s death.
Pat Swindall, former congressman convicted of perjury, and who ended up losing his seat to Ben “Cooter” Jones.
Alan Johnson, choreographer. He did a lot of work for Mel Brooks, including choreographing numbers in “Blazing Saddles”, “Young Frankenstein”, and “Springtime for Hitler” in “The Producers”. (I would embed that here, but it’s already in the NYT obit.)
Half-Price Books had another coupon sale this week, and I picked up a few things that I feel like documenting here.
I picked up a lot of “popular culture”…stuff, I’d say, though other people might call it “crap”. Specifically, I got:
Volumes four, five and eight of Mannix, which puts me halfway towards having a complete run. We watched “A Ticket to the Eclipse” Saturday night, and Darren McGavin is quite creepy in it, even if he can’t decide what his accent should be. And speaking of Darren…
Hellfighters. John Wayne! Jim Hutton! On Blu-Ray, for $5 with the 50$ off coupon.
Tony Rome. Found cheap plus coupon, and I actually added this to the list a few weeks ago. Frank Sinatra PI film: the late Deanna Lund supposedly plays a “redheaded lesbian stripper”, though she’s not credited anywhere on the jacket copy.
Of course, I wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t picked up some gun books, too…
Saman Gunan, former Thai Navy SEAL. He volunteered as part of the rescue mission for the trapped soccer team, and apparently ran out of air while delivering fresh air tanks to the cave.
A large handful of interesting obits showed up over the weekend. I decided I’d save them and do a round-up today.
Officer Norberto Ramon of the Houston Police Department passed away on Friday. He had been undergoing treatment for colon cancer, but was told it had spread and was incurable. He intended to seek medical treatment in Oklahoma, but, as it turned out, this was right before Harvey hit Houston…