Passages

[Rayon Vert]

Canadian/Quebec filmmaker Jean-Claude Lord.

[FrauBlucher]

Country Music songwriter Dallas Frazier

[GaryC]

Australian film producer Jill Robb, on 16 January, of Covid, aged 87. She was best known for producing Careful He Might Hear You (1984) which won nine Australian Film Institute Awards, including Best Film.

I can't see any online obituaries yet, but there is this blog post

ETA: Date of birth apparently 1 August 1934, so she was eighty-seven.

[colinr0380]

Jessie Lee Daniels, one of the founding members of the R&B group Force MDs, back on 4th January.

The group is probably best known for their song Tender Love that appeared in the soundtrack of the 1985 film Krush Groove. Here's a video on the story of the song by the writers.

[diamonds]

There doesn't appear to be any official confirmation yet, but per Twitter Michel Subor has passed away

[Matt]

Died from injuries sustained in a car accident, according to French news sources.

[domino harvey]

Highly recommend the French TV interview with Subor included on Criterion's Le Petit Soldat disc, one of the most entertaining examples of that kind of thing I've ever seen

[Dylan]

Yvette Mimieux

[Never Cursed]

Gaspard Ulliel, French film star, dead at 37 after a ski accident

[domino harvey]

Holy shit

[Matt]

I looked forward to his Bleu de Chanel commercials airing around Christmas and Father's Day every year. What a stunningly beautiful man and what a sad loss.

[domino harvey]

Apparently his last role was in Marvel’s Moon Knight

[Matt]

Carol Speed, star of Abby (among other blaxploitation classics)

André Leon Talley, cape icon

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Apparently his last role was in Marvel’s Moon Knight

It might've been the last one he filmed, but he co-starred with Vicky Krieps and Liv Ullmann in a movie called More Than Ever (Plus que jamais) that'll be released later.

[Aunt Peg]

Hardy Kruger https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 96983.html

[MichaelB]

Folk singer and occasional actress Hana Horká, after deliberately contracting Covid-19 in an attempt to get around vaccination rules governing performing venues.

(I can't fathom the mentality behind this. I've contracted Covid-19 myself, and although it thankfully didn't kill me it was one of the most physically unpleasant experiences of my life, and it had a hefty financial impact too as I couldn't work at all for a fortnight and only at severely reduced capacity for the fortnight after that - and, as a freelancer, I don't get sick pay. Why would anyone prefer that to the minor inconvenience of getting vaccinated?)

[Never Cursed]

Meat Loaf

[Drucker]

Meat Loaf

From Covid

[MichaelB]

At last, we finally know what the "that" was that he famously wouldn't do for love.

[Drucker]

At last, we finally know what the "that" was that he famously wouldn't do for love.

lol

[colinr0380]

For someone whose career was mostly in music, Meat Loaf certainly made his mark in film too and often was a memorably imposing blustering bad guy figure yet with a tragic core of vulnerability beneath. His indelible hard-rocker Eddie in The Rocky Horror Picture Show to perhaps the most self-actualised figure of them all in Fight Club whilst still retaining a core of fundamental naivety in going along with the flow.

Meatloaf's character in Fight Club goes from anaesthetisingly bleak monotony of 'no future' self help classes (where he is just a Turn Shroud like pillow whose "bitch tits" are only suitable for the main character to bury his cheeks between) into becoming the unlikeliest member of a bareknuckle fighting club and even more unlikely enthusiastic cult member carrying out acts of corporate terrorism. And then his death bonds the group together even further (with the "His name was Robert Paulson" mantra) and takes them to the next level by showing that even the main character has little ability to influence the group any more, as it is existing under its own momentum and with its own martyr-figure to now guide them. I know that it is fashionable to frown upon Fight Club (and certain sections of its fan base taking the events of the film too literally) currently, but that was still a great film with an ironically subversive take on activism, especially the way that even activism can be packaged and turned into a new consumer lifestyle product.

I would also mention a favourite guilty pleasure so-bad-it's-good film To Catch A Yeti, where Meat Loaf makes for a fun bad guy hunter character trying to capture the hideously cute main character. It's no Bigfoot and the Hendersons, but its fun, undemanding family fun!

[flyonthewall2983]

Louie Anderson

[domino harvey]

One of those comedians like Richard Lewis who just seemed to always be around everywhere in the 90s, and like another one, Howie Mandel, he had a kids cartoon show too!

[hearthesilence]

One of those comedians like Richard Lewis who just seemed to always be around everywhere in the 90s, and like another one, Howie Mandel, he had a kids cartoon show too!

I've seen both of those cartoons! With Louie, I only remember a Christmas episode where they decorate an old lady's home with Christmas decorations because she never seemed to have any. IIRC the character is grateful, but the voiceover has this punchline:

Spoiler

Later we realized why Mrs. Stillman didn't put up Christmas decorations. She was Jewish.

EDIT: And through the magic of YouTube, it's here! Louie's delivery of that punchline is perfect.

[beamish14]

One of those comedians like Richard Lewis who just seemed to always be around everywhere in the 90s, and like another one, Howie Mandel, he had a kids cartoon show too!

Yep. Life with Louie was fabulous.

Roseanne Barr had the weirdest one (Lil’ Rosie)