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Idrissa Ouedraogo.

Sorry to hear that. I saw Yaaba in St. Louis, MO, when I was 21 (probably '92), and it was one of the eye-openers for me with regard to the extent of "world" cinema and its unsuspected treasures and experiences beyond my insulated life. I haven't seen it since, but at the time, I thought it was an incredibly moving story.

That is very sad news. I have not had the chance to see Yabba, but the three early 90s films which followed - Tilaï (The Law), Samba Traoré and Le cri du coeur (set in France) - are as important to African filmmaking as those of Ousmane Sembene. Wryly satirical and sociological too with an ever present sense of trying to place their specific stories into historical contexts.

I really liked The Heart's Cry, the metaphorical nature of it is really well done. And it's a good companion to Sembene's Black Girl.

Ren Osugi. Heart attack apparently. Probably mostly known for his appearances in Audition, Sonatine, Maborosi and the amazing Ozu-Pinku homage Abnormal Family: Older Brother's Bride.

Here's one of his big scenes in Hana-bi.

He's all over Japanese cinema, usually in supporting roles and in the genre end of things, everything from The Guard From Underground (Kiyoshi Kurosawa's first film) to one of the numerous cameos in Shin Godzilla! He's the lead in Takashi Miike's MPD (Multiple Personality Detective) Psycho series (and many, many other films by the director), in Yoichi Sai's Doing Time, Shunichi Nagasaki's Shikoku, Sion Sono's: Exte: Hair Extensions and so many more films.

Though of course he perhaps makes one of his strongest impressions as the spiral obsessed father coming to a literally twisted end in Uzumaki!

Nanette Fabray

Emma Chambers, aged fifty-three.

I know of the show by reputation and I feel awful reading that. Natural causes at fifty three feels like a very vague way of giving some of the idea but not quite all of it.

Her character's most memorable moments in The Vicar of Dibley were the post credits scenes in which the lovably dumb and naive Alice failed to see the funny side of a joke that she was told! (And we know that she's a DC Comics fan!)

Film-wise, around the same time Chambers turned up in a supporting role in the Richard Curtis-scripted Notting Hill

Prolific Bollywood actress Sridevi at 53, who has just under 300 film credits to her name. Perhaps her most famous role was in the title role of 1989's Chandni, directed by Yash Chopra (though that might be just because it was the first Bollywood film that I saw, and which effectively taught me the two fundamental rules of that cinema: 1. All the singing and dancing; and 2. That there is almost always a tragic ending!). She retired in the late 90s but made a recent comeback in 2012 with English Vinglish.

Kevin Smith made a Twitter post stating that he had a 100% blockage of his “widow-maker” artery and had a massive heart attack last night - he was perhaps minutes away from death had he not cancelled a speaking engagement and rushed to the hospital.

Apparently, Chris Pratt is getting a ton of shit for offering prayers for Smith on Twitter, which seems wildly inappropriate (the shit-giving, not the prayers, even if I personally think they’re useless). This isn’t a school shooting, and he’s not a politician offering his personal concern in lieu of doing his actual job to confront the issue. I don’t know if he knows Smith personally or not, but either way, it’s exponentially more insulting and tone-deaf to criticize someone for caring about another person in their own way than anything Pratt did.

Yeah, I'm not sure what the issue is really here. I'm not a "prayer" guy and I get the outrage when it's someone who can actually change something hiding behind the "prayers", but this is a personal well-wishing. What's he supposed to do, give Smith his heart? Remove the blockage? It's so weird. Now the guy will probably be afraid to wish anyone else well.

Smith attracts a certain audience (particularly now, in 2018) that tends to be sort of um.......... man, how to put this........... I'll say "immature." If you're a Kevin Smith fan in 2018 you are absolutely looking up from your Batman comic to inform someone that their religious beliefs are some kind of "flying spaghetti bacon monster." I wouldn't expect a ton of nuance there.

cdnchris wrote:What's he supposed to do, give Smith his heart?

You made me remember this.

Stupid sexy Flanders.

Director Lewis Gilbert, mere days before what would have been his 98th birthday.

Still, he certainly made the most of what brief time he had - and there can't have been that many other people who worked on Hitchcock's British films who were still alive as of this month.

Very sorry to hear that. M*A*S*H was one of my favorite TV shows. I still enjoy watching the reruns.

MASH (along with Frasier, and Andy Griffith) reruns constantly play in the background for me too. His cameo in Everyone Says I Love You was one of the big reasons I had a huge smile on my face when I saw it in theaters.

Roger Bannister at age 88. The first man to run a mile in less than 4 minutes, he achieved his landmark feat on 6 May 1954 at Iffley Road track in Oxford, with Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher providing the pacing. When the announcer, Norris McWhirter, declared "The time was three...", the cheers of the crowd drowned out Bannister's exact time, which was 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. Bannister's record lasted just 46 days. He had reached this record with minimal training, while practising as a junior doctor.

Bannister went on to become a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, before retiring in 1993. When asked whether the 4-minute mile was his proudest achievement, he said he felt prouder of his contribution to academic medicine through research into the responses of the nervous system. Bannister was patron of the MSA Trust. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2011.