bearcuborg wrote: Tue Sep 02, 2025 5:40 am
For me the 3rd Die Hard (and last one I saw) was a real delight. Greene as part of the detective crew in Bruce’s precinct all ooze a lived in, seen it all type of cop.
With Colleen Camp as his partner no less!
colinr0380 wrote: Tue Sep 02, 2025 12:51 am
An associate with Sam Raimi, turning up for cameos in all of Raimi's films up to Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. He's also the director of the (Raimi produced) 1989 slasher film Intruder, and for some reason My Name Is Modesty: A Modesty Blaise Adventure decades after the 1960s Joseph Losey and Monica Vitti Monica Blaise film! (The reason likely being that the film is 'presented' by Tarantino so it would tie in with Tarantino's appropriations of pop culture from previous eras). He also co-wrote the 1990 Clint Eastwood as a non-Dirty Harry cop film The Rookie (weirdly that's also a film that teams up Tom Skerritt and Lara Flynn Boyle in a film together two years after they both appeared in Poltergeist III!)
The DTV Modesty Blaise film was quickly produced by Dimension in order to hold onto the rights to the character, and Spiegel got the gig through his longstanding friendship with Tarantino, whom he introduced to Lawrence Bender (producer of Intruder) and several other key figures prior to QT making Reservoir Dogs. There's a 42-minute conversation between the two of them in the bonus features of the DVD that quickly collapses into one geeky digression after another. The New York Times profiled him in 2007.
If you haven't seen Greene in Clearcut, do yourself a favor and check it out. The film itself might've been improved here and
there, but his performance in it is stellar.
colinr0380 wrote: Tue Sep 02, 2025 12:51 am
An associate with Sam Raimi, turning up for cameos in all of Raimi's films up to Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. He's also the director of the (Raimi produced) 1989 slasher film Intruder, and for some reason My Name Is Modesty: A Modesty Blaise Adventure decades after the 1960s Joseph Losey and Monica Vitti Monica Blaise film! (The reason likely being that the film is 'presented' by Tarantino so it would tie in with Tarantino's appropriations of pop culture from previous eras). He also co-wrote the 1990 Clint Eastwood as a non-Dirty Harry cop film The Rookie (weirdly that's also a film that teams up Tom Skerritt and Lara Flynn Boyle in a film together two years after they both appeared in Poltergeist III!)
The DTV Modesty Blaise film was quickly produced by Dimension in order to hold onto the rights to the character, and Spiegel got the gig through his longstanding friendship with Tarantino, whom he introduced to Lawrence Bender (producer of Intruder) and several other key figures prior to QT making Reservoir Dogs. There's a 42-minute conversation between the two of them in the bonus features of the DVD that quickly collapses into one geeky digression after another. The New York Times profiled him in 2007.
A Modesty Blaise book also makes an appearance in Pulp Fiction, which I’ll never forget because one of my assignments in my grad school Research class was to identify the exact edition Travolta is reading of it on the toilet
colinr0380 wrote: Tue Sep 02, 2025 12:51 am
An associate with Sam Raimi, turning up for cameos in all of Raimi's films up to Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. He's also the director of the (Raimi produced) 1989 slasher film Intruder, and for some reason My Name Is Modesty: A Modesty Blaise Adventure decades after the 1960s Joseph Losey and Monica Vitti Monica Blaise film! (The reason likely being that the film is 'presented' by Tarantino so it would tie in with Tarantino's appropriations of pop culture from previous eras). He also co-wrote the 1990 Clint Eastwood as a non-Dirty Harry cop film The Rookie (weirdly that's also a film that teams up Tom Skerritt and Lara Flynn Boyle in a film together two years after they both appeared in Poltergeist III!)
The DTV Modesty Blaise film was quickly produced by Dimension in order to hold onto the rights to the character, and Spiegel got the gig through his longstanding friendship with Tarantino, whom he introduced to Lawrence Bender (producer of Intruder) and several other key figures prior to QT making Reservoir Dogs. There's a 42-minute conversation between the two of them in the bonus features of the DVD that quickly collapses into one geeky digression after another. The New York Times profiled him in 2007.
A Modesty Blaise book also makes an appearance in Pulp Fiction, which I’ll never forget because one of my assignments in my grad school Research class was to identify the exact edition Travolta is reading of it on the toilet
An assignment that’d be moot today: the answer is right there on the book’s wiki page.
colinr0380 wrote: Tue Sep 02, 2025 12:51 am
An associate with Sam Raimi, turning up for cameos in all of Raimi's films up to Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. He's also the director of the (Raimi produced) 1989 slasher film Intruder, and for some reason My Name Is Modesty: A Modesty Blaise Adventure decades after the 1960s Joseph Losey and Monica Vitti Monica Blaise film! (The reason likely being that the film is 'presented' by Tarantino so it would tie in with Tarantino's appropriations of pop culture from previous eras). He also co-wrote the 1990 Clint Eastwood as a non-Dirty Harry cop film The Rookie (weirdly that's also a film that teams up Tom Skerritt and Lara Flynn Boyle in a film together two years after they both appeared in Poltergeist III!)
The DTV Modesty Blaise film was quickly produced by Dimension in order to hold onto the rights to the character, and Spiegel got the gig through his longstanding friendship with Tarantino, whom he introduced to Lawrence Bender (producer of Intruder) and several other key figures prior to QT making Reservoir Dogs. There's a 42-minute conversation between the two of them in the bonus features of the DVD that quickly collapses into one geeky digression after another. The New York Times profiled him in 2007.
A Modesty Blaise book also makes an appearance in Pulp Fiction, which I’ll never forget because one of my assignments in my grad school Research class was to identify the exact edition Travolta is reading of it on the toilet
That's really interesting stuff! So that version of Modesty Blaise could be seen as kind of the equivalent of the 90s Fantastic Four film, in being made purely to retain the rights? I guess that the connection between Scott Spiegel and Tarantino is also part of the reason why he directed the straight to video Hostel Part III film too?
colinr0380 wrote: Tue Sep 02, 2025 6:45 pm
That's really interesting stuff! So that version of Modesty Blaise could be seen as kind of the equivalent of the 90s Fantastic Four film, in being made purely to retain the rights? I guess that the connection between Scott Spiegel and Tarantino is also part of the reason why he directed the straight to video Hostel Part III film too?
Spiegel was the executive producer on the first two Hostel, so I assume he directed the third because of that. But his relationship with Tarantino probably had something to do with his directing the DTV From Dusk til Dawn 2.
IIRC he also designed the costumes for the 1987 film The Untouchables - I remember being taken aback when I recognized his name in the credits. Up until that point I just remember his name being bandied about by some of the wealthier kids I knew. I don't really follow fashion so for the life of me, I couldn't recognize his work unless it was pointed out to me, but even for some children growing up in the Midwest, his label was recognized as a gold standard for class.
EDIT: Forgot he was actually a cinephile himself, sponsoring quite a few events (I think at least a couple of major Pasolini retrospectives at MoMA), drawing inspiration from famous films like Le Samourai and La Dolce Vita, and of course working in films, and I didn't realize he did a LOT more than just the few he's best known for.
Actor turned painter Jacques Charrier, who starred in films such as L'Œil du malin, which was the first Chabrol film to star Stéphane Audran. Charrier was also Brigitte Bardot's second ex-husband, and he sued her in an attempt to force the removal of eighty pages of her autobiography (unsuccessfully). He was the father of BB's only child (unwanted), whom she refused to raise and said cruel things about—but this post isn't meant to be about her.
Charrier’s early and best work was playing similar character types, evolutions of what we might call Red Pill masculinity these days, with Carne’s Les tricheurs blossoming into Mocky’s cruel Les dragueurs and then Deville using his screen presence to critique it from within in A cause, a cause d’une femme. Despite the resultant relationship, his movie with BB is without any interest (and yet still nowhere near her worst). Still need to watch him in the two matching Cayette films with the structure later borrowed for the Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby
Bruce “Loose” (originally "Lose" which he changed because he wanted to be less negative) Calderwood, co-bassist and co-lead vocalist of the magnificent San Francisco band Flipper, per the band's social media.
hearthesilence wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 5:39 am
Bruce “Loose” (originally "Lose" which he changed because he wanted to be less negative) Calderwood, co-bassist and co-lead vocalist of the magnificent San Francisco band Flipper, per the band's social media.
By far his biggest mark on pop music was not for his creative work but the legal (and arguably anti-creative) actions he took when he sued the great, pioneering group De La Soul and Prince Paul for a whopping $2.5 million after they sampled a Turtles record for a skit (basically an interlude between tracks) on the landmark 3 Feet High and Rising. Volman and Kaylan allegedly settled for $1.7 million in damages while establishing a precedent as to the strict clearances artists now had to meet for sampling as well as the severity of lawsuits they would now face in retaliation.
In the 1980s he made some of the most-watched Brazilian documentaries of all time (they were then, at least), including O Mundo Mágico dos Trapalhões, with over 1.8 million viewers, and Jango, about the coup-deposed president João Goulart.
He also directed a feature doc on Glauber Rocha included on Radiance's Black God White Devil blu-ray.
Near the start of his career he worked on the collaborative documentary La spirale with Chris Marker and others.
Last edited by Gregory on Fri Sep 05, 2025 6:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Worth nothing he and Howard Kaylan were part of Frank Zappa's second-iteration of the Mothers and did the soundtrack to the very strange, long out-of-circulation animated film, Down and Dirty Duck. A colleague attempted to find out who owns the rights to that film and never has been able to find out!
The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote: Fri Sep 05, 2025 6:56 pm
Worth nothing he and Howard Kaylan were part of Frank Zappa's second-iteration of the Mothers and did the soundtrack to the very strange, long out-of-circulation animated film, Down and Dirty Duck. A colleague attempted to find out who owns the rights to that film and never has been able to find out!
I saw Joe Dante’s print of that with the title Cheap. Being a Corman production, I assume it’s now Lakeshore? Who knows
Worth noting that this was several months ago - in fact, coincidentally, I watched Alex Wheatle, the McQueen film that's specifically about him, only a couple of weeks after he died, and found out when I looked him up afterwards.
MichaelB wrote: Sat Sep 06, 2025 8:59 am
Worth noting that this was several months ago - in fact, coincidentally, I watched Alex Wheatle, the McQueen film that's specifically about him, only a couple of weeks after he died, and found out when I looked him up afterwards.
I missed the actual date on the obituary, but one of his U.S.-based colleagues posted it on social media just a few days ago and giving their post another look for confirmation, it's clear they just found out, so I incorrectly presumed his death was recent as well. It doesn't look like the NY Times gave him an obituary - I'm guessing much of the American press overlooked the news.
Rock critics and snootier rock fans have often been dismissive (or worse) about Supertramp. John Cusack even has a throwaway diss line about them in High Fidelity. Their best stuff holds up remarkably well, in my opinion. Davies wrote what is probably my favorite song of theirs, "Gone Hollywood", which seems to be about the soul-crushing experience of someone trying to get acting work in Hollywood. It's an unusual song that probably could have fit well in Magnolia alongside their much more well-known "Logical Song" and "Goodbye Stranger" (also a Davies song). Props to PTA for recognizing them.
Supertramp were a band I loved in my early teens, they were the first stadium gig I evern went to. Then I got into Bowie, Patti Smith, etc. and pretended to be too cool to like Supertramp. Now I'm too old to even try to be cool and can admit that I still enjoy their music. However, I lost track of their albums after Breakfast in America.
