Passages

[JSC]

He also played one of the cyclops in The City of Lost Children.

[colinr0380]

Tom Sizemore’s family is “deciding end of life matters”, after his hospitalization from a brain aneurysm.

Not sure why an article about an actor having a ruptured aneurysm and being in an irreversible coma feels compelled to discuss his domestic violence and drug use history. Apparently they treated it as a quasi-obituary, but it seems in poor taste. Better to report the news of his medical condition and run a proper obit when the inevitable happens soon enough.

Feels like it betrays the family a bit to include it at this precarious point in what is going to be an arduous process for them anyway.

The really cynical side of me counters that the awful truth is he’s probably more generally famous for his downfall then the work, which is quite typical of the Hollywood machine.

Particularly that his troubles were only compounded by a leaked homemade sex tape in the mid 2000s, which along with the other behaviour appears to have put the brakes on any bigger studio roles. It also doesn't help that some of his best performances during his heyday were where he played the most unhinged characters, particularly in Natural Born Killers where he played the cop tracking down the murderous couple and performing even worse acts than they do. But you could also throw in his supporting characters in Bringing Out The Dead and Red Planet into that too. Strange Days as well, although that constitutes a major spoiler.

Although I think he was particularly good in one of his few heroic roles, in the 1996 horror film The Relic.

[aox]

I'd be hard-pressed not to say his performance in Saving Private Ryan wasn't great regardless of what you think of the film. His performance in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is also one of the best moments of the show.

[Mr Sausage]

Sizemore was one of the few people in Black Hawk Down to stand out in the ensemble. And that’s a movie full of recognizable actors you forget are even in it because they all blur together.

[Brian C]

He had a pretty good run back in those days - whatever his personal troubles or flaws, I’ve always thought it was too bad that he fell off the map.

When he was younger, I thought he’d make an excellent Lindsey Buckingham in a Fleetwood Mac movie.

[therewillbeblus]

He also showed dynamic range in Twin Peaks: The Return, which was one of his best roles ever, and props to Lynch for seeing that kind of pathetic comic potential and casting him there

I've always loved Sizemore - he is one of few performers who instantly makes a scene better whenever he's in it, no matter the part

[Orlac]

Ricou Browning - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235337925/

[Feego]

Ricou Browning - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235337925/

He was the last of the classic Universal monsters still living, and although we never saw his face or heard his voice as the creature, his graceful swimming more than created a lasting impression.

[soundchaser]

Wayne Shorter

[hearthesilence]

Wayne Shorter

Another major loss, though not a surprise as Shorter had been ailing for a while. First heard him through movies - his saxophone is even heard in The Fugitive with Harrison Ford - and then explored Weather Report, a band I have mixed feelings about. (Their earlier stuff is much better, especially Mysterious Traveller, which is a masterpiece IMHO.) It's possible most listeners know him primarily through Weather Report and his other records in fusion or rock - I knew a jazz musician who especially loved his solo on the title track to Steely Dan's Aja even though he didn't listen to much rock. But I don't think you can see how great he really was until you explore his work before and after Weather Report, especially his work throughout the '60's. His playing was marvelous, and he quickly proved to be one of the great composers in jazz as well. He made some great records under his own name for Blue Note, but he also made his mark on a string of great albums for Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and more importantly Miles Davis's great '60s quintet with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams - his contributions were arguably the best thing about their epochal work.

[dadaistnun]

Pulp bassist Steve Mackey, only 56

[GaryC]

No online obituaries that I can see yet, but Christopher Fowler died on 2 March, twenty-four days before his seventieth birthday. He was a novelist and short-story writer and also run a film publicity campaign, which included the iconic poster design and tagline for Alien. I met him a few times and he was always friendly.

[dustysomers]

The Headless Woman star María Onetto

[dadaistnun]

The Headless Woman star María Onetto

Terrible news. I finally got around to watching all four of Martel's features recently and in a collective group of excellent performances across those films, Onetto's work was particularly striking and possibly my favorite.

[colinr0380]

That's a shock. The Headless Woman would not have worked half as well without her performance, as the whole film is centred around her character's reactions to her surroundings. She also appeared a couple of years afterwards in "The Deal" segment of the anthology film Wild Tales, which is quite tonally similar in that its all about the bourgeoisie diverting their guilt into all the wrong places!

[hearthesilence]

David Lindley, great multi-instrumentalist who played on a lot of records in the '70s and '80s, his best work was probably with Jackson Browne - he's all over his best records. (Browne even produced Lindley's debut, El Rayo-X, an enjoyable tour de force.)

[Feego]

Tom Sizemore’s family is “deciding end of life matters”, after his hospitalization from a brain aneurysm.

Sizemore has now passed.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Sizemore was in a number of very good films in the mid to late 90s and usually excelled in all of his parts. Those mentioned above, but as Jack Scagnetti in Natural Born Killers and as one of Nic Cage's partners in Bringing Out the Dead.

[colinr0380]

The other big war film he was in during that period to match Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down was as one of the ensemble cast in Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor film. (He's also in a very small early role in Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July which serendiptiously Film4 are screening this evening)

And I just remembered that he was playing baddies from very early on as one of his early roles is the convenience store robber that Jamie Lee Curtis' rookie police officer kills (and ends up gifting his gun to Ron Silver) at the beginning of Blue Steel! He's also in Point Break too, so he seemed to be a Kathryn Bigelow regular for a while there, all building to his much bigger role in Strange Days.

Another Tarantino-scripted film to match Natural Born Killers is his similarly antagonistic detective in True Romance. Sizemore was one of those actors who seemed to be everywhere in the 1990s, and while I think The Relic is his high point, for most people his height of fame was probably his capable second-in-command support figure to Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan. Which made the sudden drop off of roles in major productions due to the off screen issues seem all the more drastic (the late appearance in the 2017 Twin Peaks series aside. That really did work as a last hurrah for a large number of actors involved with it, didn't it?)

[colinr0380]

No online obituaries that I can see yet, but Christopher Fowler died on 2 March, twenty-four days before his seventieth birthday. He was a novelist and short-story writer and also run a film publicity campaign, which included the iconic poster design and tagline for Alien. I met him a few times and he was always friendly.

That's terrible news, I know he is better known now as a crime writer but I was a big fan of his quirky, kinkily religious horror novels from the mid to late 90s: Spanky, Flesh Wounds, Disturbia, Psychoville, Uncut and so on. He was giving Clive Barker a run for his money there!

One of the most surprising experiences of my internet life was when he (or at least his account) followed my Twitter profile, which presumably means that he was aware of this forum since I rarely post anything on Twitter (I wonder if it was because I had posted a bit of praise on the horror project thread for that short film he wrote in 1993, Left Hand Drive). I was always too nervous to send a message to say hello, or really knew what to say to that, so just followed the account back! Sadly that is all the contact I had because of that shyness, but it did touch me quite a lot.

[tolbs1010]

I've always loved Sizemore - he is one of few performers who instantly makes a scene better whenever he's in it, no matter the part

Seconded. Sizemore had a natural comedic energy that was always present even though he played mostly in dramas and action pictures. He was very alive on screen. I'll add Devil In A Blue Dress (unusually understated for him, but very effective), True Romance, and Heat (maybe the only believable performance in that ridiculous film) to the others mentioned as examples of his ability to be the most memorable person in a scene, even amongst other great actors. I'll probably watch one of the shitload of movies he did since being exiled from A-list projects in his honor. Maybe Durant's Never Closes since I've actually been to that restaurant a couple times.

[flyonthewall2983]

I remember he was in an HBO movie with Forest Whitaker and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio called Witness Protection that was sufficient enough viewing to keep me watching it at 16, not sure if it holds up but worth mentioning here.

[headacheboy]

David Lindley, great multi-instrumentalist who played on a lot of records in the '70s and '80s, his best work was probably with Jackson Browne - he's all over his best records. (Browne even produced Lindley's debut, El Rayo-X, an enjoyable tour de force.)

I'll second that heartthesilence, El Rayo-X is fantastic. I saw Browne on the day Elvis Presley died down in Edwardsville, Illinois and he was debuting many songs that appeared on Running On Empty. When the show ended with Stay we were pretty ecstatic by Browne covering such a an old song, but we all wondered who the hell was going to sing falsetto among the backup singers. When David Lindley, who most didn't even know sang, busted out that insane falsetto the entire crowd roared! It was a magical moment well before the Browne cover hit the radio.

[Drucker]

Glen 'SPOT' Lockett, engineer behind many of the great SST releases including Damaged, Zen Arcade, Meat Puppets II, and Double Nickels on the Dime.

[beamish14]

Glen 'SPOT' Lockett, engineer behind many of the great SST releases including Damaged, Zen Arcade, Meat Puppets II, and Double Nickels on the Dime.

It’s very possible that SST may have never stored their masters correctly, which would be a heartbreaking blow to the amazing body of work he produced. Like Martin Hannett at Factory, he defined a label’s trademark aural sound, even though he was one of many producers they utilized.