Passages

[Maltic]

E.O. Wilson

[aox]

E.O. Wilson

Saw him speak at the Natural History Museum a few years ago. Brilliant man and his work is great.

[hearthesilence]

Guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, producer and arranger Mikey "Mao" Chung

"He and his brother, the late great Geoffrey Chung, were the nucleus of groups including the Minstrels, the Virtues, the Mighty Mystics and famously, the Now Generation. Their painstaking, progressive, internationally-informed approach to music left them among the most recognisable and fondly remembered studio bands of the ‘70s.

"When Now Gen disbanded and Geoffrey became a full time producer, Mikey continued as a top session player during reggae’s international invasion. Alongside Sly & Robbie, he was a part of Peter Tosh’s band, and Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point All Stars. His resume includes playing with Bob Marley, Inner Circle, Black Uhuru, The Rolling Stones, Grace Jones, Serge Gainsbourg, and James Brown."

[Rayon Vert]

Re: Jean-Marc Vallée. The Vallée family this morning has stated the coroner's preliminary report hasn't been able to determine yet what was the exact cause of his death, but the investigation will continue. Link in French.

[MichaelB]

Veteran British distributor/exhibitor Romaine Hart, best known for founding/running the Screen cinemas in North London (Screen on the Green, Screen on the Hill, etc.).

[swo17]

Betty White discussion here

[GaryC]

Veteran British distributor/exhibitor Romaine Hart, best known for founding/running the Screen cinemas in North London (Screen on the Green, Screen on the Hill, etc.).

She has a screen named after her at the Picturehouse Central in London.

[hearthesilence]

Film producer Denis O'Dell, most famously for the Beatles' films including A Hard Day's Night and other Richard Lester films like Petulia and Robin and Marian.

[flyonthewall2983]

NFL legend John Madden

I read his first book in grade school. He spends a chapter talking about trains. This was before the acquisition of his famed bus. He talks about how the rocking motion of trains can put him to sleep, and that really sticks out to me as someone not really into sports.

As I learned (or perhaps was reminded, 6th grade was a long time ago) in the recent documentary All Madden, the switch from planes happened after a panic attack and it really hit home how anxiety can get to anyone.

I heard Bill Simmons and someone talk about his legacy and I guess he got to watch that documentary with his family like a couple days before he died. For someone who brought so much joy to the world, that seems so fitting for a guy who’s legacy is enough that all NFL home games this weekend will set aside a moment of silence for him.

[Feego]

Max Julien, on his 89th birthday (despite news sources claiming he was 88).

[domino harvey]

The Bogdanoff twins, both of Covid

[MichaelB]

Bill Bryden - an incalculably important figure in British theatre in general and Scottish theatre in particular (mostly as director, but also as a writer), but he also occasionally directed for the cinema (Ill Fares The Land, 1983; one of the Aria segments, 1987) and British TV, although I imagine his most indelible mark on cinema as far as non-British audiences are concerned was down to him co-writing the screenplay for Walter Hill's The Long Riders (1980).

[Sloper]

This is probably the most belated post in this thread, but since it wasn’t mentioned at the time: Paul Darrow died back in June 2019.

I’m guessing most people here won’t recognise the name, but he was a childhood hero of mine due to his role as Avon in the dystopian sci-fi series Blake’s 7. This show, popular at the time but often derided for its low-budget effects and occasionally terrible acting and/or writing, was pretty much my favourite thing in the world when I was 8-12 years old, and I always thought Avon (and Darrow’s gleefully over-the-top performance) was the best thing about it. Re-watching some episodes a few years ago I was surprised by how well it holds up, and impressed by how thoroughly the show committed to its cynical, misanthropic worldview, right to the famously bitter end.

Worth a look if you have BritBox and can stomach the 1970s BBC production values...

[domino harvey]

Discussion of the passing of Peter Bogdanvoich moved here

[hearthesilence]

Film critic Michael Wilmington (per Joseph McBride's social media posts from two hours ago). McBride and Wilmington wrote together a widely acclaimed book on John Ford, and Wilmington later became the film critic for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune.

UPDATE: Obituary in the Chicago Tribune

[DarkImbecile]

Sidney Poitier

[Pavel]

Sidney Poitier

With Bogdanovich and now Poitier, 2022 is off to a terrible start. One of the most graceful and charismatic actors of his generation

[hearthesilence]

On-screen, he always seemed like a king among men to me, and being part of a marginalized minority seemed to accentuate that. The famous slap from In the Heat of the Night is the first thing that always comes to mind when I think of Poitier - someone completely, confidently and without a microsecond of hesitation standing up for himself, and then not be shaken by why he had to (and meanwhile the asshole entitled bigot breaks down in tears).

[hearthesilence]

Totally forgot, last year I caught up with the soundtrack to Let's Do It Again, perhaps Poitier's best directorial work (though marred by its association with Bill Cosby - the leering in that montage feels especially icky - and his performance was otherwise one of the best things about it). The single remix of Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day" is a favorite, and when I decided to look into the Staple Singers sample heard throughout, I was pleasantly surprised to find out about its association with Poitier (not to mention Curtis Mayfield).

[domino harvey]

On-screen, he always seemed like a king among men to me, and being part of a marginalized minority seemed to accentuate that. The famous slap from In the Heat of the Night is the first thing that always comes to mind when I think of Poitier - someone completely, confidently and without a microsecond of hesitation standing up for himself, and then not be shaken by why he had to (and meanwhile the asshole entitled bigot breaks down in tears).

It’s interesting that you go to that scene, as it really doesn’t describe the task Poitier had to take on for years prior, that of being an impossibly perfect and non threatening black man for white audiences to warm up to in an era when black men were not otherwise headlining studio films

[Saturnome]

This is probably the only time ever I'll ever consider watching Bogdanovich's To Sir, with Love II

[hearthesilence]

This is probably the only time ever I'll ever consider watching Bogdanovich's To Sir, with Love II

I didn't know he directed that - latter day Bogdanovich is usually underrated so I'm tempted to see it.

It’s interesting that you go to that scene, as it really doesn’t describe the task Poitier had to take on for years prior, that of being an impossibly perfect and non threatening black man for white audiences to warm up to in an era when black men were not otherwise headlining studio films

That's for sure - maybe that's why I like to think of that moment and Virgil Tibbs above everything else! Obviously he was limited to what the studios were willing to offer, but I wonder how much of that was also by design or a by-product of what Poitier wanted to do. He made a point not to play the "villain," but I'm not sure if that included specifics that extended beyond being 'the bad guy.'

[colinr0380]

I think my favourite period of Sidney Poitier is the early 1950s one: No Way Out, Blackboard Jungle, The Defiant Ones and Cry, The Beloved Country are pretty good films (All The Young Men seems to be the overlooked one of this group. I'm also curious about Pressure Point)

I particularly remember seeing my parents and grandmother sit down some time in the late 1990s to watch Lillies of the Field one Sunday afternoon when it was on television. Probably not the people who would have been rushing out to see a social conscience Sidney Poitier picture by choice they kind of got lured in by the idea of seeing an uplifting film about nuns before getting gently introduced to the themes of tolerance and racial harmony. Seeing the effect of that film on them sort of taught me the lesson that whilst it can be easy to scoff at such a film it does serve a kind of a purpose by being a gentle on-ramp for such themes. Though there is also the ideas that such films could have ended up having a knock on effect of typecasting Poitier into portraying a kind of righteous figure always on the correct side of history and who cannot show signs of human fallibility in his characters - always the teacher, never the pupil. Whilst I have problems with Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? they are almost entirely to do with the characterisation of the daughter and general bludgeoning the audience over the head with its themes, which is exactly what one might expect from a Stanley Kramer film! (I actually much prefer that early Will Smith film Six Degrees of Separation because it starts out like Guess Who's Coming To Dinner and then kind of turns into Sleuth!)

I like In The Heat of the Night and the other Mister Tibbs films a lot, and To Sir, With Love is pretty good (though it struck me as a kind of a watered down juvenile delinquent film if compared to Blackboard Jungle, and safely set in London. Though it was Lulu's debut. It is also just on the edge of that "she's a 15 year old highly precocious schoolgirl in love with a married man" subgenre of British film that arrived in the early 70s) though my favourite Poitier film of the 1960s is The Bedford Incident, in which he is able to be the doubting figure standing up to authority and showing the greater moral integrity, only in this much more cynical film that just isn't enough. Speaking of which, has anyone written about the relationship between Poitier and Richard Widmark at all?

I had forgotten that Poitier had directed the best of the Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor comedies with Stir Crazy, though unfortunately we also have to address the association with Bill Cosby, since long before all the allegations came out Cosby had already been responsible for the egregious crime of bringing Poitier's directorial career to a sudden full stop with the awful and meme-worthy Ghost Dad!

[Fred Holywell]

TCM Remembers Sidney Poitier

[Aunt Peg]

Lyricist Marilyn Bergman https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/ ... es-aged-93