{"id":25658,"date":"2022-12-05T11:58:05","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T17:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=25658"},"modified":"2022-12-05T11:58:05","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T17:58:05","slug":"obit-watch-december-5-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=25658","title":{"rendered":"Obit watch: December 5, 2022."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/cliff-emmich-dead-payday-thunderbolt-lightfoot-1235274444\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cliff Emmich<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0256545\/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Other credits<\/a> include  &#8220;Invasion of the Bee Girls&#8221;, &#8220;The Incredible Hulk&#8221;, &#8220;Salvage 1&#8221;, and &#8220;Halloween II&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In honor of Mr. Emmich, the Saturday Movie Group watched &#8220;Thunderbolt and Lightfoot&#8221;, which I had never seen before. I like it, but it is kind of an odd film: sort of a weird blend of a road movie and a heist movie, with lots and lots of landscape. (No surprise there: this was the first movie directed by Michael Cimino. Arguably, one of the problems with &#8220;Heaven&#8217;s Gate&#8221; was Cimino&#8217;s obsession with landscapes, at the expense of plot, length, and coming in under budget.)<\/p>\n<p>Notes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Per Wikipedia, Clint Eastwood was available for this movie (which Cimino wrote specifically for him) because he turned down the lead in &#8220;Charlie Varrick&#8221;. I <strong>liked<\/strong> &#8220;Charlie Varrick&#8221;, but supposedly Eastwood didn&#8217;t find anything likeable in any of the characters. So the role went to Walter Matthau, who I think acquitted himself well. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charley_Varrick\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">But he found the movie incomprehensible.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>This is the second week in a row we&#8217;ve watched a movie with George Kennedy in a key role. (Last week, it was &#8220;Airport &#8217;75&#8221;.)<\/li>\n<li>I think Lawrence and I were both a little surprised by the vault scene. Both of us were wondering, &#8220;Are they going to put on ears?&#8221; And then, yes, the Eastwood and Kennedy characters put on both ear and eye protection before the real star of the movie comes into play.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imfdb.org\/wiki\/Thunderbolt_and_Lightfoot\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">IMFDB entry<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the day (before <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gun_Control_Act_of_1968\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GCA 1968<\/a>) you could purchase 20mm surplus anti-tank guns and shells. Today, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anzioironworks.com\/MAG-FED-20MM-RIFLE.htm\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anzio Ironworks<\/a> will sell you a single-shot 20mm for a mere $9,800, and a mag-fed one for $11,900. Add $3,200 for a suppressor.<\/p>\n<p>And as a fun historical note, suitable for use in schools: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanrifleman.org\/content\/shades-of-thunderbolt-lightfoot-the-20-mm-brinks-heist\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8217;s an article from <strong>American Rifleman<\/strong> about the real life heist that may have inspired &#8220;Thunderbolt and Lightfoot&#8221;<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/tv\/tv-news\/bob-mcgrath-dead-sesame-street-original-star-dies-1235274833\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bob McGrath<\/a>, longtime &#8220;Sesame Street&#8221; guy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/7PHib\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aline Kominsky-Crumb<\/a>, underground comic artist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cliff Emmich. Other credits include &#8220;Invasion of the Bee Girls&#8221;, &#8220;The Incredible Hulk&#8221;, &#8220;Salvage 1&#8221;, and &#8220;Halloween II&#8221;. In honor of Mr. Emmich, the Saturday Movie Group watched &#8220;Thunderbolt and Lightfoot&#8221;, which I had never seen before. I like it, but it is kind of an odd film: sort of a weird blend of a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,97,23,31,16,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guns","category-history","category-law","category-movies","category-obits","category-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25658"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25664,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25658\/revisions\/25664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}