Rest in Peace

[blocho]

Jim Brown, 87

American football player and actor.

As a football player, Brown is regarded by many as the best running back in football history. Brown had a celebrated collegiate career at Syracuse, during which he lettered in football, track, basketball, and lacrosse. He is still described as one of the best lacrosse players ever. After Syracuse, he played for the Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965, winning an NFL championship in 1964 and the MVP three times, including his rookie and final seasons. After that last season, Brown retired from football at his peak with the record for most career rushing yards and most career touchdowns. He still holds the record for most rushing yards per game and is third all-time among running backs in rushing yards per attempt.



After his playing career, Brown made one of the more successful athlete-to-acting transitions in Hollywood history. He made his debut in Rio Conchos in 1964 and went on to appear in The Dirty Dozen, Ice Station Zebra, 100 Rifles, The Running Man, Any Given Sunday, and several blaxploitation movies.

[Carmel1379]

Martin Amis, English writer (eg. 'Money', 'London Fields'), 73

With every work of fiction, with every voyage of discovery, you’re at some point utterly becalmed (like Conrad on the Otago), and you drop overboard and sink through the fathoms until you reach the following dual certainty: that not only is the book you’re writing no good, no good at all, but also that every line you’ve ever written is no good either, no good at all. Then, when you’re deep down there, among the rocks and the shipwrecks and the blind and brainless bottomfeeders, you touch sand, and can start to gird yourself to kick back up again...

His 14th novel was the inspiration for Jonathan Glazer's new film, which premiered at Cannes a day prior to the author's death.

[GruesomeTwosome]

Actor Ray Stevenson, 58

I knew him best (and pretty much exclusively) for his role on the HBO series Rome, which was a favorite of mine. He starred in the film Punisher: War Zone and had a role in the Thor films, and appeared in the Indian film RRR last year.

[rnilsson19]

[GruesomeTwosome]

RIP to a legend.

[blocho]

Leon Ichaso, 74

Cuban-American director and screenwriter. Ichaso had a long career as a TV director (episodes of Criminal Minds, The Cleaner, Miami Vice, etc.), but he's primarily known for a series of movies that explored the experiences of Hispanic Americans, especially Cuban exiles. These movies included Crossover Dreams, El Cantante, Piñero, Bitter Sugar, and his debut El Super, which has been on my watchlist for more than a decade. I haven't yet found a copy.

[blocho]

[Apu]

Bill Lee (1928 - 2023) - musician and father of Spike Lee. Composer of many of his son's films.

[Knaldskalle]

Jeez, what a day...

to them all.

[blocho]

Michel Cote, 72

Canadian actor. His two most prominent roles were as the fathers in C.R.A.Z.Y. and Father and Guns.

[Fergenaprido]

Michel Cote, 72

Canadian actor. His two most prominent roles were as the fathers in C.R.A.Z.Y. and Father and Guns.

loved (to hate) him in C.R.A.Z.Y.

[Mifune]

The Austrian actor Peter Simonischek (Toni Erdmann) has died at the age of 76.

[Mifune]

The German actress Margit Carstensen, known from countless films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, has died at the age of 83.

[St. Gloede]

Fantastic actress, sad to see her go.

[blocho]

Cynthia Weil, 82

American songwriter, who formed a prolific composing team with her husband, Barry Mann, across many decades. Among Weil's better known songs are On Broadway and You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.

[Good_Will_Harding]

Japanese screenwriter/author Yukiko Takayama – who became the Godzilla series’ first (and thus far only) solo female writer in 1975 when she penned Terror of Mechagodzilla and would return to collaborate on 1992's Godzilla vs Mothra – has passed away. She was 78 years old.

[hurluberlu]

Jacques Rozier, 96
Last director of French New wave !

[St. Gloede]

Sad news indeed, and was also sad reading about his situations these last few years. Godard was reportedly helping to pay his rent a few years ago.

Note: Luc Moullet is still alive.

[Torgo]

Barry Newman, 92, actor, known for 1970s car classic Vanishing Point and TV series Petrocelli.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235506906/

[OldAle1]

George Winston, 74, American musician. Winston's prime influences of jazz and folk tradiions combined to create what came to be known as "New Age" music, of which he was likely the best-known exponent.

[Ebbywebby]

A friend shared a Winston clip from YouTube called "Cat and Mouse"...look that one up. I had no idea he was that much of a keyboard whiz.

[OldAle1]

A friend shared a Winston clip from YouTube called "Cat and Mouse"...look that one up. I had no idea he was that much of a keyboard whiz.

Yeah he was kind of a genius in his way. I saw him live in Vermont around - 2010? I dunno - and what struck me is how precise he was - kind of the opposite of what one thinks of in jazz, there was little to no improvisation there, he played pieces from him albums more or less verbatim. He seemed very nerdy, very shy, like someone who had a love-hate relationship with audiences. I couldn't tell if he actually enjoyed performing or not, though the music was great and he certainly was putting himself into the notes.

[WalterNeff]

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, at age 80, died today. https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/golde ... 235641091/

[Good_Will_Harding]

Treat Williams dies at 71, in apparent motorbike accident.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv ... 235513850/

Not the most immediately recognizable actor out there, but I've always enjoyed seeing him turn up, from prestige pictures like Once Upon a Time in America, to campier fare like The Phantom. I actually just re-watched Deep Rising a few weeks ago (which definitely falls into the latter category) and he turns in a likable performance in the central role. RIP.

[blocho]

Treat Williams dies at 71, in apparent motorbike accident.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv ... 235513850/

Not the most immediately recognizable actor out there, but I've always enjoyed seeing him turn up, from prestige pictures like Once Upon a Time in America, to campier fare like The Phantom. I actually just re-watched Deep Rising a few weeks ago (which definitely falls into the latter category) and he turns in a likable performance in the central role. RIP.

Dang that sucks. Motorcycles are freakin' death machines.

Anyway, I enjoyed Treat as the US army captain facing down Michael Caine's German paratrooper in The Eagle Has Landed: "Colonel, there's no such thing as death with honor. Just death."

[GruesomeTwosome]

I haven’t seen Treat Williams in a whole lot of films but he did stand out in Smooth Talk. I need to see Prince of the City.

[RogerTheMovieManiac88]

Treat Williams was a really amiable and reassuring presence. I always warmed to him whenever I saw him on screen. RIP

[jeroeno]

Time to watch Deep Rising again

[flavo5000]

Aw bummer, I just saw him in Deadly Hero (1975). Small part but I think it was his first feature film role. Hm... it might be time to marathon the three Substitute sequels sometime soon.

[blocho]

Cormac McCarthy, 89

American writer primarily known for his 11 novels, the last two of which were published only a year ago. McCarthy's novels were primarily set in Tennessee or the Southwest and frequently evoked a rural Gothic, characterized by sudden violence and featuring run-on sentences, sparse punctuation, and archaic verbiage. This style was satirized effectively by the Owen Wilson character in The Royal Tenenbaums.

McCarthy's best known novels include Suttree, Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West, All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, and The Road. The final three in that list were all adapted to the screen. In addition to his novels, McCarthy also wrote occasional short fiction, plays (The Sunset Limited was adapted as an HBO movie), and screenplays (The Counselor).

Part of McCarthy's mystique was that, despite his titanic reputation, he remained aloof from literary circles. Instead, he cultivated the company of scientists. He said that he considered science more interesting than writing.

I've read three of McCarthy's novels, and personally I found his work unnecessarily abstruse at times. But his language could also be immensely compelling. Consider, for example the first page of Blood Meridian (below). The grammatical turns are a bit dizzying. The first sentence is imperative, the second indicative. The second paragraph switches abruptly from third person to second and then first. I don't know why McCarthy does this, but the effect is beguiling. On the other hand, "dark turned fields" is a ridiculous phrase, and I don't know how the mother incubated a creature in her bosom. Why not go with womb?

This is what it was like to read McCarthy. His writing, equally intriguing and frustrating, left me with unanswerable questions.

[monclivie]

George Winston, 74, American musician. Winston's prime influences of jazz and folk tradiions combined to create what came to be known as "New Age" music, of which he was likely the best-known exponent.

Oh..
He was is my musical comfort food. I first heard about him watching My Sassy Girl and then I fell in love with his piano version of Love Street, Vince Guaraldi's covers and December album.

[Good_Will_Harding]

Cormac McCarthy, 89

American writer primarily known for his 11 novels, the last two of which were published only a year ago. McCarthy's novels were primarily set in Tennessee or the Southwest and frequently evoked a rural Gothic, characterized by sudden violence and featuring run-on sentences, sparse punctuation, and archaic verbiage. This style was satirized effectively by the Owen Wilson character in The Royal Tenenbaums.

McCarthy's best known novels include Suttree, Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West, All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, and The Road. The final three in that list were all adapted to the screen. In addition to his novels, McCarthy also wrote occasional short fiction, plays (The Sunset Limited was adapted as an HBO movie), and screenplays (The Counselor).

Part of McCarthy's mystique was that, despite his titanic reputation, he remained aloof from literary circles. Instead, he cultivated the company of scientists. He said that he considered science more interesting than writing.

I've read three of McCarthy's novels, and personally I found his work unnecessarily abstruse at times. But his language could also be immensely compelling. Consider, for example the first page of Blood Meridian (below). The grammatical turns are a bit dizzying. The first sentence is imperative, the second indicative. The second paragraph switches abruptly from third person to second and then first. I don't know why McCarthy does this, but the effect is beguiling. On the other hand, "dark turned fields" is a ridiculous phrase, and I don't know how the mother incubated a creature in her bosom. Why not go with womb?

This is what it was like to read McCarthy. His writing, equally intriguing and frustrating, left me with unanswerable questions.

Damn, RIP. One of the first contemporary authors I ever truly made an effort to keep up with once I became an avid reader in high school. I should re-read some more of his stuff, I have all of his most well-known works laying around my place somewhere.

[flavo5000]

Cormac McCarthy, 89

The sad times just keep on comin'. It's probably about time I read Outer Dark.

[Carmel1379]

Cormac McCarthy, 89

Blood Meridian will indubitably continue to go down in history as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. It's a most unexpected synchronicity I actually planned on getting that book long ago for one of my best friends who's birthday happens to be today on the 13th. Anyway,

We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall. And those seams that are hid from us are of course in the tale itself and the tale has no abode or place of being except in the telling only and there it lives and makes its home and therefore we can never be done with the telling. Of the telling there is no end. And whether in Caborca or in Huisiachepic or in whatever other place by whatever other name or by no name at all I say again all tales are one. Rightly heard all tales are one.

[cinewest]

Happy to see a few film folk here commemorate the passing of American writer, Cormac McCarthy. He was heavily influenced by Melville and Faulkner, and liked to plumb the dark depths of humanity, much the way a filmmaker like Haneke has, but often in a quasi-contemporary Western context.

He does have 8 film credits as a writer, most notably No Country For Old Men, and The Road, which were both adapted from his novels. He was also at work on a screenplay of his most famous book, Blood Meridian, which has kicked around Hollywood for years as one of the most coveted works of fiction. In the obit I read in The NY Times, the movie was slated to be directed by John Hiilcoat, who did a nice job with The Road, and also directed an Australian Western (The Proposition) that shares certain qualities with Blood Meridian.

Since a few others have shared a quote from him, I thought I might chip in there as well:

“They were watching, out there past men’s knowing, where stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.”

He wrote a lot of long difficult sentences, as well. This one ventures in that direction, but is not nearly as difficult to follow as some others: “They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode not under but among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.”

Here's some CM philosophy: “I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily.”

“War is the truest form of divination.... War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner."

[blocho]

The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sage thicket. "Vamonos, amigos," he whispered and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.

[cinewest]

Sounds like All The Pretty Horses or thereabouts... I always meant to finish The Border Trilogy. Maybe it's time to go back to it.

[prodigalgodson]

RIP. The Crossing is Middlemarch's only serious competition for my favorite novel, and Blood Meridian, Stella Maris, and Suttree could easily make my top 10. I'd be hard-pressed to name an author whose work has made such an impression on me. I hope his most recent duo receive the acclaim they deserve in the years to come, totally rewrote the rulebook for the American novel. Still need to read his first three.

[OldAle1]

Glenda Jackson, British actress and politician, 87.

A two-time Oscar winner for Best Actress (Women in Love in 1970 and A Touch of Class in 1973), Jackson's career encompassed both stage and screen, starting with small roles on the English stage in the 1950s and finishing with the title role in King Lear on Broadway just before the pandemic in 2019. She took a long break from acting to serve as an MP for Labour from 1992 to 2015, and her evisceration of the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after the latter's death is almost as legendary as many of her roles in the theater and in cinema.

[Knaldskalle]

Glenda Jackson was awesome.