Passages

[hearthesilence]

He seemed the go-to person for cameoing in faux news reports in films at a certain point in the mid-90s (usually underlining the message being put forward a bit too much) which is really where I'm most familiar with him. Films such as Contact, Costa-Gavras' Mad City, Enemy of the State, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and inevitably a lot of the political films of the Clinton period: Dave, Primary Colors, Bulworth, The Contender.

He wasn't a hard interviewer, he was basically every publicist's dream and he clearly loved the access and fame it got him. But that's not really a criticism of him - that's just the reality of celebrity interviews, has been for a long time, and while he wasn't going to challenge anyone, he usually made the most of the circumstances. He got a long and cordial TV interview with Brando when Brando wasn't interested in doing that anymore.

[Aunt Peg]

Sumiko Sakamoto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumiko_Sakamoto

Perhaps best known for her performance in Shohei Imamura's The Ballad of Narayama (1983) which I just happen to watch again a few nights ago for the umpteenth time.

[hearthesilence]

Hank Aaron... the bad news just keeps coming for baseball royalty...RIP

Man, tell me about it... I can’t imagine any true baseball fan doesn’t consider him the true home run king.

I remember every detail of 715; I don't remember anything at all about 756, or even if Bonds is still atop the list.

715 (particularly the moment he rounds third with two euphoric Caucasian fans running with him and patting him on the back) is burned into my memory because at least one baseball program used to re-run it every week when I was a kid. It's by far the one moment in baseball that I know best from TV broadcasts, even more than Carlton Fisk's famous World Series home run.

I stopped following baseball awhile ago for a lot of reasons and reading the press on Aaron reminded me of some of those reasons. But it also provided the context for why Aaron was more inspirational than I would have remembered. I only knew him in general, abstract terms, but it's infuriating reading all the details of what he and his family went through day-to-day, minute-to-minute, and how demeaning it was in the context of his whole career - starting out in the Negro Leagues and now 20 years later witnessing the same racist shit repeat itself in his home field despite the reputation and the place in history he had already earned. As Dale Murphy puts it, to deliver under those circumstances deserves nothing but respect. Aaron was apparently bitter that following his retirement, he never truly received the respect he believed he had earned (the HOF induction being the one exception - at the time, only Ty Cobb had received a greater share of votes for his induction), and going by my childhood memories, I would not disagree. Even with his name in the record books, he never seemed to be celebrated or idolized the way, say, the Yankees' most famous players were. Even when he was praised, it was very one-dimensional - the guy wasn't just a great slugger, he was a great all-around player, but everything I recall reading was about the home runs. (Hopefully that's no longer the case - the remembrances have testimonials about his defense, base-running and enormous achievements as a pure hitter - only Ty Cobb and Pete Rose have more hits, that alone would have landed him in the HOF on the first ballot even if none of those left the park. If anything, his record for total bases and RBI's are even more impressive and certainly more important to his teams' success.)

Ten Hall of Famers (monumental Hall of Famers too, like Seaver and Gibson) gone since April, but Aaron is the biggest loss. Right before he passed away, only Koufax and Mays would have rivaled him as the greatest living players.

[colinr0380]

Sumiko Sakamoto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumiko_Sakamoto

Perhaps best known for her performance in Shohei Imamura's The Ballad of Narayama (1983) which I just happen to watch again a few nights ago for the umpteenth time.

And she has the most amazing role in Imamura's The Pornographers as the wife who believes that her first husband has been reincarnated as a carp that she keeps in a fish tank in her hair salon, and eventually after getting jealous of her son/lover's new squeeze gets locked away in an asylum and ends up providing the best image of mental torment ever, wrestling with a single barred gate on an empty road in the middle of nowhere. That's a film I would love to see Criterion upgrade to Blu-ray soon.

[flyonthewall2983]

He wasn't a hard interviewer, he was basically every publicist's dream and he clearly loved the access and fame it got him. But that's not really a criticism of him - that's just the reality of celebrity interviews, has been for a long time, and while he wasn't going to challenge anyone, he usually made the most of the circumstances. He got a long and cordial TV interview with Brando when Brando wasn't interested in doing that anymore.

Reviled as he is now, I thought much the same of Charlie Rose, but also thought he got better interviews because of the more open-ended format he had, unencumbered by commercials and callers.

King wasn't above having some fun with his format sometimes. I remember he took a week off and Kermit the Frog took his place.

[MichaelB]

Actress turned director Gunnel Lindblom, best known for a decades-long association with Ingmar Bergman across multiple stage and film projects.

[Dylan]

Actress turned director Gunnel Lindblom, best known for a decades-long association with Ingmar Bergman across multiple stage and film projects.

A wonderful actress, but I wasn't aware that she had also directed films and television. Has anybody here seen any of her directorial work?

[therewillbeblus]

Actress turned director Gunnel Lindblom, best known for a decades-long association with Ingmar Bergman across multiple stage and film projects.

She was excellent in Mai Zetterling's The Girls and Loving Couples too, which are the films I remember her most from

[FrauBlucher]

Ugh. I just watched The Virgin Spring last night and her interview this morning from the bluray. RIP

[JSC]

Very sad. Her role in Winter Light is to my mind a pivotal part of that film.

I know that she directed a film in the late 70s called Paradise Place which Ingmar Bergman
produced for his Cinematagraph company.

[Dylan]

Alberto Grimaldi, producer of Last Tango in Paris, 1900, Fellini Satyricon, Fellini's Casanova, Burn!, Salo, Gangs of New York, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and many more, at age 95, of natural causes.

[colinr0380]

Screenwriter Walter Bernstein

Here's a Guardian piece on Bernstein, blacklisted in the 1950s during the HUAC situation and later was Oscar nominated for his screenplay about a blacklisted writer (played by Woody Allen) in The Front. And he also wrote The House on Carroll Street for Peter Yates which also has themes of blacklisting to it.

Beyond those he wrote a lot of adapted screenplays from novels: for Fail-Safe, the Sean Connery film The Molly Maguires, Paris Blues (also for The Front director Martin Ritt), Semi-Tough. Even the Dan Aykroyd comedy The Couch Trip

He directed only one film in 1980's Little Miss Marker starring Julie Andrews and Walter Matthau. And made an acting appearance in James Schamus's film (again about persecution) from 2016 Indignation.

[Never Cursed]

Cloris Leachman

[FrauBlucher]

oh that's sad. Didn't realize she was in her 90s

[knives]

Oh dear. She was one of those ubiquitous figures from my childhood that she helped me a lot to make the transition to adult fare like The Last Picture Show. Though she’ll always be Frau Blucher to me.

[swo17]

Oh dear. She was one of those ubiquitous figures from my childhood

Was it the My Little Pony movie for you too?

[FrauBlucher]

Oh dear. She was one of those ubiquitous figures from my childhood that she helped me a lot to make the transition to adult fare like The Last Picture Show. Though she’ll always be Frau Blucher to me.

[knives]

Oh dear. She was one of those ubiquitous figures from my childhood

Was it the My Little Pony movie for you too?

I have never seen that and likely never will.

[swo17]

Don't worry, I watched it enough to cover the whole forum

[domino harvey]

With what?!

[bearcuborg]

It seems like Cloris rarely played a part that was as beautiful as she actually was in real life. I remember being shocked watching her on Carson as a kid and being told she was in Young Frankenstein. She had a hilarious cameo in the Beavis and Butthead movie.

A few years ago she was featured on CBS Sunday Morning looking as fit as the best of us here...

[swo17]

With what?!

SMOOOOZE!!!

[flyonthewall2983]

I saw The Beverly Hillbillies with my whole family in it's theatrical release, where she played Granny (speaks to her vitality that she was of age for such a role, in something which came out 30 years ago). It's actually the last time I can remember the four of us watching a movie all together, in the theater at least.

[Feego]

Frau Blucher is probably the role I immediately associate with her now, but growing up on a steady diet of Nick at Nite, I first knew Leachman as Phyllis on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She was so delightfully selfish, and it was fun watching her spar with Valerie Harper’s Rhoda. I think my favorite Phyllis moment is in the famous wedding episode of Rhoda, where she blithely strolls in late, not remembering that she was supposed to pick up the bride!

[hearthesilence]

She was HILARIOUS as the horrendously evil grandmother in Malcolm in the Middle.

That and her senile elderly woman on The Simpsons were my introductions to her work. Honestly, the woman should have gotten a Kennedy Center honor - how many can boast wonderful performances in films as diverse and acclaimed as Kiss Me Deadly, The Last PIcture Show and Young Frankenstein, and then point out that she's better known for one of the most acclaimed television shows of the 1970s?