R.I.P. 2020
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Ivan Kral most famously of Patti Smith Group dead at 71.
Who'd have thought that from this photo, it was the wild one that was the last one standing
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Kirk Douglas, aged 103
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/119321567/actor-kirk-douglas-dies-at-age-103
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It was only a matter of time.... 103 is an amazing age!
As I’ve said previously:
ACE IN THE HOLE (Billy Wilder)
PATHS OF GLORY (Stanley Kubrick)
SEVEN DAYS IN MAY (John Frankenheimer)
Three of the best Hollywood movies ever made, and he was the star.
Also smart enough to buy the film rights to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and get it to son Michael. Rest In Peace!
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Yeah, a very good innings but sad all the same. Spartacus predates me but it’s still the first movie I remember seeing. As @Salacious-Crumb says, he starred in some all time classics. A true legend.
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Spartacus was a film Kirk produced as well as starred in. He offered film to David Lean, who passed on it, then was given to Anthony Mann. Douglas fired him after a week and replaced him with Kubrick, who he worked with on Paths of Glory. Stanley has disowned the film, it’s the one in his career he didn’t have complete control. I quite like the film, the soundtrack especially. And I’m always reminded of the Flintstones episode where Wilma wins Stony Curtis in a “Slave For a Day” contest. Likely aging myself.
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My first Douglas film was Tough Guys. Fairly sure it wouldn't hold up now but I loved that movie as a kid.
20000 Leagues was also a childhood favourite. By the time I got to adulthood, I found it harder and harder to watch some of his stuff because it was all bravado and bad set-piece when compared to what was being pumped out at the time. Now though I love me some Spartacus.
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@raznomore said in R.I.P. 2020:
My first Douglas film was Tough Guys. Fairly sure it wouldn't hold up now but I loved that movie as a kid.
20000 Leagues was also a childhood favourite. By the time I got to adulthood, I found it harder and harder to watch some of his stuff because it was all bravado and bad set-piece when compared to what was being pumped out at the time. Now though I love me some Spartacus.
Tough Guys still holds up.
One of my favourites and always watch when it's on.
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Champion
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Heroes of Telemark -
@MiketheSnow Just took a quick look at his filmography, there are quite a few good ones I forgot (Tales From The Crypt, anybody?), and especially LONELY ARE THE BRAVE (1962) - wikipedia tells me it was Douglas’ personal fave.
“President John F. Kennedy watched the movie in the White House in November 1962. In his memoir Conversations with Kennedy, Ben Bradlee wrote, "Jackie read off the list of what was available, and the President selected the one [film] we had all unanimously voted against, a brutal, sadistic little Western called Lonely Are the Brave."[8]”
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Maybe one or two of you are familiar, maybe not, but Lyle Mays, the pianist, synth virtuoso and musical partner in the Pat Metheny Group died a couple days ago, 66 years old.
I was fortunate to see the band play a half-dozen times in the 1980s and 1990s across the United States,
They have been probably the biggest draw in jazz circles for the past 30 years, sold out everywhere. If you are unfamiliar and enjoy instrumental jazz with a Steely Dan-ish vibe, I’d recommend the Pat Metheny Group self-titled LP from 1977 as a great place to start. Some of you might have heard the collaboration they did with David Bowie on The Falcon and the Snowman soundtrack.
NYT obit:
Two of their most recognizable songs, the first from Still Life Talking, the gorgeous and appropriate “Last Train Home”:
And the equally beautiful and equally appropriate “Are You Going With Me?” from Offramp:
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Update: I just saw that the Pat Metheny Group is playing Auckland in a couple weeks; only the 2nd time they’ve played NZ. They last played in 2006. Worth catching...
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Stuff
