Passages

[brundlefly]

Andy Bey, late last week.

Jerry Gordon, longtime WPRB DJ whose Evidence label released a pair of Bey's records in the '90s, devoted the first two hours of his show today to Bey and ended with this Nick Drake cover. Which broke me.

[hearthesilence]

Ruth Buzzi, perhaps best known for her performances on the comedy-variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In and also Sesame Street where her character Ruthie ran Finders Keepers, a shop that sold items previously owned by fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters. (She also voiced Suzie Kabloozie and her pet cat, Feff, in animated inserts that were shown on the show.) To my understanding, a generally wonderful human being as well.

[hearthesilence]

Blues artist Joe Louis Walker. Possibly underrated, he didn't achieve the popularity of his best-known contemporaries, but he was every bit as great and recorded quite a few excellent albums. Blue Soul might be the place to start.

[beamish14]

Jim Smith, co-founder of Spumco, which produced Ren and Stimpy

[TechnicolorAcid]

Dear God,
Why didn't you make it the other founder instead.

[beamish14]

Dear God,
Why didn't you make it the other founder instead.

I thought he was living at his parents’ property in Ontario now. He’ll always have people willing to pay money for quick sketches, unfortunately

[JamesF]

Last month, former child actor Sophie Nyweide, from Bella, Margot at the Wedding, Noah and Mammoth, among others.

[hearthesilence]

Director James Foley. Perhaps best known for At Close Range and the 1992 film adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross as well as the music videos for some of Madonna's most enduring '80s hits and a few episodes of high-profile television shows like Twin Peaks and House of Cards.

[domino harvey]

After Dark, My Sweet is one of the best of the neonoir cycle of the 80s/90s

[knives]

Fear is also pretty good.

[beamish14]

After Dark, My Sweet is one of the best of the neonoir cycle of the 80s/90s

Bar none the truest Jim Thompson adaptation ever. An absolute masterpiece, and he followed it up with the amazing Glengarry Glen Ross

[hearthesilence]

Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter, who served for nearly two decades on the high court after his nomination by then-President George H.W. Bush, has died. He was 85 years old.

The Supreme Court said in a Friday statement that Souter died Thursday at his home in New Hampshire.

Though he was Republican when he joined the high court, he was reliably voting with the liberal bloc of justices on issues like abortion and freedom of expression by the late 1990s.

A graduate of Harvard University, Harvard Law School, and a Rhodes Scholar, he began his law career in private practice before moving in 1968 to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office. He served as the state’s attorney general before being named to the state’s Superior Court and state Supreme Court.

A couple of months into his service as a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Bush nominated him for the Supreme Court. Ninety senators voted to confirm Souter, with the “no” votes coming from Democrats.

Souter’s influence came through in two key cases during his time on the court. In a landmark 1992 abortion case, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Souter authored an opinion with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor that affirmed the court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. Years after Souter retired, the court later overturned Roe. In the 2000 election case Bush v. Gore, Souter had a nuanced view – that the Florida recount was unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court had no authority to end the recount process.

Souter, known for his simple lifestyle and reserve, retired from the Supreme Court in 2009, citing a long-held desire to leave Washington, D.C., and return to New Hampshire.

[colinr0380]

After Dark, My Sweet is one of the best of the neonoir cycle of the 80s/90s

Bar none the truest Jim Thompson adaptation ever. An absolute masterpiece, and he followed it up with the amazing Glengarry Glen Ross

Lots of Madonna too, including her screwball comedy film Who's That Girl? and its music video.

Foley also directed one of the best episodes of the first series of the Hannibal series, Episode 7: Sorbet, the one that introduces Gillian Anderson's character to the series

Plus he did the two Fifty Shades sequels.

[dx23]

Former ECW, WCW and WWF/E wrestler Sabu

[brundlefly]

Robert Benton.

[jazzo]

He lived a long, fruitful life, but what a career for such a low key filmmaker.

Writing Bonnie and Clyde

Writing and directing The Late Show, Bad Company, Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart and his late period masterpiece Nobody’s Fool.

And those are just the ones I love.

[hearthesilence]

I'm not sure how much of Bonnie and Clyde got rewritten or reinterpreted by others (Truffaut reportedly helped before passing on it, then there's Beatty, Penn and even Robert Towne getting hired as more or less a script doctor), but it comes off as a great script. Among his directorial efforts, Nobody's Fool is my favorite hands down, a real gem.

[domino harvey]

Benton and David Newman’s original screenplay had both title characters sleeping with Michael J Pollard’s character in “homage” to Jules et Jim but they were talked out of it and this aspect was replaced with Beatty’s ED. Lots of discussion of the various drafts in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

And Nadine is a wonderful modern noir that 99% of the world is wrong about

[Beloved Aunt]

Robert Benton has a peculiar place in film history for moi--he's one of the most talented screenwriters who ever worked in Hollywood, but aside from the glorious The Late Show (and there's a fair amount of his work I haven't seen, but), I've never felt he was writing his stuff just to please himself. As Pauline Kael said, he has exquisite feelers--for trends, for what will play well in terms of being au courant, etc. This isn't as much of a problem for me as one might think, and I still admire Benton a great deal, but I loved The Late Show so much, and he's such a major talent, that I wish he could have just written more things for himself, and not to please whatever whims the masses may be experiencing at the time. This applies even to Bonnie and Clyde, which I mostly still love.

[Beloved Aunt]

Bonnie and Clyde not winning at least six or seven Oscars is one of the Academy's biggest blunders ever--it's not like any of the other choices were anywhere near as compelling, whatever modest caveats one may or may not have about Penn's film.

[domino harvey]

While I don’t like the film, I give credit to Benton having enough cachet to end Places in the Heart the way he does… truly one of the most audacious finales to ever come out of mainstream Hollywood, especially considering how milquetoast the rest of the film was leading up to it

[Beloved Aunt]

I haven't seen that film! (Don't spoil it shhh). I'm highly intrigued though by Bad Company and even There Was a Crooked Man..., maybe I should watch one of them as a tribute. Even though Nobody's Fool is a very good film, it has a little bit of a peculiar surface smarminess, or an affectational-ness, that turns me off a little. Benton is weird.

[domino harvey]

Bad Company is one of the few deglamorizing revisionist westerns that works, it’s certainly a better use of your time than one of Mankiewicz’ worst films!

[Beloved Aunt]

Haha well, at the very least though, I'm...pretty confident that There Was a Crooked Man... can't be as bad as Cleopatra or The Honey Pot. It sounds kinda fun to me! Also, people say Benton was paying tribute to Mankiewicz with the David Huddleston character in Bad Company, don't know if you knew that or not

[domino harvey]

I didn’t, actually!