Passages

[hearthesilence]

Michael Tilson Thomas, celebrated conductor and music director of the San Francisco Symphony

[tolbs1010]

RIP after a long battle with brain cancer. He elevated the stature and quality of the SF Symphony during his tenure. Saw him conduct there several times. One of my best concert experiences was seeing their performance of Mahler's 8th, which they were recording for his Mahler cycle. It's a massive symphony in length and number of performers required. His interpretation and staging of it made me appreciate it more than I had previously.

[Aunt Peg]

Elizabeth Kirkby, 105, English/Australian actress from a number of 1970s soaps must notably Number 96 who then turned to politics and had a very long and fruitful career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Kirkby

[dadaistnun]

Gregg Foreman of Delta 72 and Cat Power’s Dirty Delta Blues Band, at 53.

[Gregory]

David Allan Coe

[Lowry_Sam]

Tony Wilson, 89, bassist & vocalist of Hot Chocolate.

[hearthesilence]

Jazz bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa, per his social media accounts. A frequent presence around NYC, I saw him a lot with Kenny Barron's trio.

[Gregory]

Claire Maurier, 97, who appeared in more than 90 films between 1947 and 2013. Her breakout role was Antoine Doinel's mother in The 400 Blows.

[Mr.DarjeelingLimited]

Claire Maurier, 97, who appeared in more than 90 films between 1947 and 2013. Her breakout role was Antoine Doinel's mother in The 400 Blows.

She’s so charming in Amelie.

[beamish14]

Television producer Barbara Gordon, whose memoir about her Valium addiction lead to the feature film I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can, where she was portrayed by Jill Clayburgh

[thebatman97080]

Tony Stella

https://www.instagram.com/p/DX-SeQ9j6fn/

[JamesF]

Tony Stella

I had written this yesterday for the Arrow blog but I don't think the whole thing is going to be used, so here it is instead:

The Arrow Video team are all devastated by the loss of Tony Stella, a lifelong cinephile whose extraordinarily vivid artwork was borne of a burning passion for not just film in general, but the old masters of film poster art, that few could ever claim to match. His art combined finely-honed old-school craft that harked back to yesteryear (yes, he really did use actual paint, not a digital brush) with a deeply-felt, infectious love for cinema itself that firmly bucked modern movie poster trends and galvanised a new audience in one of the most exciting times ever for our industry.

I had the privilege of commissioning Tony’s first piece for Arrow at the end of 2019 - a double bill of Yasuzo Masumura’s Black Test Car and The Black Report - after falling in love with his art for Waxwork Records’ re-release of Tangerine Dream’s Sorcerer soundtrack. He accepted a fee that he said was about half his usual going rate, saying in his first reply that “I am happy to collaborate, especially when it’s for my beloved Japanese cinema.” Unbelievably given his ubiquity in recent years, I don’t believe he had done a Blu-ray cover before, at least that had been publicly released yet.

It didn’t take long at all until he was one of the most beloved and in-demand artists in the field. Even when his talents were noticed further and wider and he was doing blockbuster movie posters for Disney, he still came back and did top-shelf work for us at a fair price that a humble indie company could afford (often offering multiple options, such was the speed at which his mind and hand worked!). He loved the films too much and couldn’t resist the opportunity to pay them tribute.

Over six years, his paintbrush not only did its magic on more Masumura films for us, but works by such masters as Sam Peckinpah, Bruce Lee, the Shaw Brothers studio, Sonny Chiba, Sergio Leone, John Woo and many others. Important, cherished films that demanded an elevated, first-class approach, which he always stepped up and delivered. Though he was just as talented at painting covers for dramas and comedies, we primarily used him for action films, where his eye for dynamic compositions and incendiary clash of colours - love those deep sunset reds and yellows! - never failed to leap off the canvas and grab you by the scruff of the neck. His talent also extended to eye-popping title treatments, something that often trips up many otherwise very talented artists, but that he had an inherent knack for; I don’t believe that in six years, we ever second-guessed him once when it came to choice of fonts.

Beyond what’s already announced, we have two more sets coming up graced with Tony’s art, including the A Better Tomorrow trilogy this year, and another in early 2027. There’s also a major film he illustrated for us way back in 2020 where the release wound up being indefinitely postponed, but now it looks like it might finally come out sometime next year. I’m very sorry he won’t be here to see it finally be unveiled and share that experience with us. It feels like the end of an era.

The Arrow Video team expresses its condolences to Janine and the rest of Tony’s family and friends. In his memory, please watch a classic Japanese film tonight and raise a glass in his honour.

[domino harvey]

Ted Turner discussion moved here

[dwk]

Koji Suzuki

[Gregory]

Filmmaker Anja Breien

Wiki

[JSC]

Rex Reed

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/movi ... -dead.html

[Beloved Aunt]

Rex Reed

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/movi ... -dead.html

I've only read one Rex Reed thing, aside from the quotes in that article, but I always liked his wonderfully silly persona. He detests Synecdoche, New York! Any critical enemy of Charlie Kaufman is a friend of mine. But then...what's this...doesn't like Antonioni...at all? I can't wait to discover what the aesthetic standards behind these two things could possibly be! RIP.

[domino harvey]

I’ll spoiler this because it’s not very nice

Spoiler

I’m immediately reminded of the entry on an ancient Letterman Top 10 List of unusual punishments in Hell: “Human chair for Rex Reed”

[Never Cursed]

In spite of whatever flaws he had, doubtlessly two accomplishments can be credited to him: getting people to go out to midnight screenings of Pink Flamingos (to the point that he got namechecked in the incredible "trailer"), and playing the titular character's pre-transition self in Myra Breckinridge.

[DimitriL]

Reed's greatest sin was that it was fairly clear he wasn't even watching the movies he was reviewing half the time. His films were full of just basic factual errors, plot points that don't happen in the film, and stuff like listing the director of The Shape of Water as Benicio del Toro (who he also noted as being from Spain - a twofer, since Benicio is from Puerto Rico and Guillermo is famously from Mexico).

[The Narrator Returns]

He was a real shit but he has a few lasting legacies for me: the aforementioned Myra Breckinridge (he was pretty enough at the time to sell as a doll-in-waiting), his bits on The Critic (mostly a mean but funny one about Pauline Kael), “vampires circle the moon and suck the hot stud’s blood”, and Albert Brooks’ wonderfully passive-aggressive use of him at the start of Lost in America, which I learned from rewatching Real Life was the second shot Brooks fired at him.

[Beloved Aunt]

I like him for (I guess, I haven't actually read any of his actual reviews of Altman films or anything) providing sort of a little bit of a counterpoint to what I do think was little Pauline's excessive fawning over Altman, at least at times. I wonder what people will say when Renata Adler passes? In a way, she was sort of the meanest of the New York critics (though maybe that's redundant), though maybe not in her actual film criticism but other things she wrote, because she was such an incredible hanging judge.

[yoloswegmaster]

Reed's greatest sin was that it was fairly clear he wasn't even watching the movies he was reviewing half the time. His films were full of just basic factual errors, plot points that don't happen in the film, and stuff like listing the director of The Shape of Water as Benicio del Toro (who he also noted as being from Spain - a twofer, since Benicio is from Puerto Rico and Guillermo is famously from Mexico).

Saw this funny story posted on Reddit:

Three years ago I went a screening of Daddio at TIFF. It was a pretty big thing - sold out, Canadian Premiere, Dakota Johnson & Sean Penn were there, etc etc. I'm sitting next to this guy near the front, he's got a pen and paper out, we have a little bit of small talk before the movie starts. 5 minutes in, my guy is snoring, head leaning to the side, completely passed out. He will snap in and out of consciousness throughout the movie, probably seeing 10 minutes of the movie total. He leaves before the Q&A with Dakota and Sean starts, his notepad was still empty.

I start talking to this other lady next to me after the movie and we laugh about the guy sleeping and she tells me "you know who that was right? that's Rex Reed". I had known the name but not the face so I didn't recognize him. A little bit later he published a review of the movie, it was negative, but he hadn't really actually seen any of it.

[Beloved Aunt]

Hey, like, Rex Reed was just helping the targets of his criticism lose weight!

[JSC]

I wondered if Albert Brooks had some bones to pick with Reed since he uses a very long segment
of a Larry King interview with Reed at the start of Lost in America.