Passages

[Lemmy Caution]

Then there's the classic tough old Scottish grandma more succinctly saying farewell to Thatcher.

[colinr0380]

Daniel Ellsberg who made a memorable interview appearance in the Vietnam war documentary Hearts & Minds.

[Blutarsky]

Daniel Ellsberg who made a memorable interview appearance in the Vietnam war documentary Hearts & Minds.

And who made a memorable appearance in American history for peaking the Pentagon papers.

[flyonthewall2983]

Any thoughts on Jim Brown's acting career, skills, films?.

He’s tremendous in Any Given Sunday. In a movie with some of the most egregious (more glorious in my silly youth) scenery-chewing in both Al Pacino and James Woods’ careers, he stood out and delivered in one scene in particular with Lawrence Taylor.

[JSC]

Angela Thorne.

Most known for her role in the BBC sitcom To the Manor Born.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65948570

[hearthesilence]

Teresa Taylor, better known as Teresa Nervosa, one of the two drummers in the Butthole Surfers’ classic line-up (those albums are now being reissued by Matador). She was also in Richard Linklater’s Slacker selling something from Madonna.

[SeizureMilk]

Any thoughts on Jim Brown's acting career, skills, films?

It's not a good film at all but Jim Brown really steals the show in Mars Attacks, punching Martians in a Pharaoh costume.

[hearthesilence]

But it is highly entertaining - I'll take it over any other alien invasion/close encounters movie of the past 50 years.

[MichaelB]

And it’s got Jerzy Skolimowski playing a mad scientist.

[Orlac]

And Jack Nicholson playing Michael Keaton

[beamish14]

And it’s got Jerzy Skolimowski playing a mad scientist.

I’m fascinated by his parallel career as a character actor in big Hollywood productions, particularly his appearance in the Joe Esztherhas-written/Ivan Reitman-produced Big Shots

[Feego]

Perhaps this is not the best place to put this, but Julian Sands has been missing since going hiking in January, and his family is facing the probability that he may not return.

[MichaelB]

I doubt anyone seriously thinks that he’s still alive now.

[beamish14]

His brother remarked some months back that they’ve come to accept his passing. I’m surprised that he has not been legally declared dead yet

[MichaelB]

I’m surprised that he has not been legally declared dead yet

In the absence of a body, I believe seven years is the standard period of waiting before someone can be declared legally dead. Some US states opt for less than that, but we're still talking several years.

[Fiery Angel]

Paxton Whitehead

[hearthesilence]

Legendary German free jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. I've probably played Machine Gun a dozen times already this year. (News media will probably be slow to cover this - as great as he was, he was never well-known within the mainstream audience.)

[beamish14]

Legendary German free jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. I've probably played Machine Gun a dozen times already this year. (News media will probably be slow to cover this - as great as he was, he was never well-known within the mainstream audience.)

He was admired by amateur saxophonist Bill Clinton. Low Life, his collaboration with Bill Laswell, is a favorite of mine

[denti alligator]

I’ve never been a huge Brötzmann fan, but he was a force of nature and was amazing at bringing different players together. I really liked his duet albums with Heather Leigh. Machine Gun is insane—and justly celebrated.

[Aunt Peg]

Actor Fredric Forrest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Forrest

[Fred Holywell]

Sheldon Harnick, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ lyricist, (and former husband of Elaine May) at 99.

[hearthesilence]

Actor Fredric Forrest

Sad to hear, the past year was rough on him. He's been on quite a few troubled productions, partly from his association with Coppola, but besides Apocalypse Now, there's Hammett which I still haven't seen - I've been holding out, hoping for a chance to see it projected as it doesn't seem like a good HD presentation is likely. (It's not even streaming.)

[colinr0380]

I really liked Hammett, and Forrest has to shoulder the burden of a lot of that film, having to hold the entire film together through his central performance. Although its also a really weird kind of attempt at an insight into writer's block-biopic whilst also simultaneously being a semi-stylised meta-noir film with an edge of winking self-awareness perilously bordering on outright parody to it that might frustrate those looking for a straightforward biopic. It is perhaps worth bracketing it in as the mid-point between something like The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and Cronenberg's adaptation of Naked Lunch.
___
In order words, it is probably best seen as Dashiell Hammett, ambivalent about the quality of his just completed latest story (even wondering whether it is worth keeping at all, or just throwing it out entirely and starting over), allowing himself to reflect on it by entering the hard-boiled world of his characters and having them tell them who they are and what their stories are. Which leads to the best moments of the film (most obviously in the single scene with Sylvia Sidney’s character having no truck with Hammett’s meddling in her affairs; but also in a major way with the twist on the femme fatale’s fate from the originally envisioned one) when Hammett is able to stand back a little and reacts with wry amusement or bemused surprise at how autonomous these characters are becoming from his intentions for them. That’s what brackets Hammett in with later films that also tackle visualising the process of writers wrestling with their creations about the directions of their stories from within the text itself in a somewhat disorientingly subjective way that blurs the line between fiction and reality (and suggests how existing within a world of your own creation rather than acting as purely an escape can also be used as a medium for approaching issues too difficult or painful – or unentertaining – if viewed directly through harsh, unvarnished reality), such as Naked Lunch or something like Liv Ullman’s Faithless.

[beamish14]

The Gravy Train/The Dion Bros. is a wonderful film with one of Forrest’s best performances. The interplay between him and Stacy Keach is glorious. I don’t know why it’s never received ANY home video release, with the bootlegs of it out there probably coming from Z Channel or HBO airings

[beamish14]

I really liked Hammett, and Forrest has to shoulder the burden of a lot of that film, having to hold the entire film together through his central performance. Although its also a really weird kind of attempt at an insight into writer's block-biopic whilst also simultaneously being a semi-stylised meta-noir film with an edge of winking self-awareness perilously bordering on outright parody to it that might frustrate those looking for a straightforward biopic. It is perhaps worth bracketing it in as the mid-point between something like The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and Cronenberg's adaptation of Naked Lunch.

As very enjoyable as that film is, seeing Wim Wenders’ original intentions has long been one of my film holy grails. It doesn’t surprise me that Paramount had no clue as to how they could market it for broad appeal