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The Jam's Rick Buckler. One of rock's greatest trios and also one of many great British bands that racked up loads of hits in their home country while never breaking through to the American mainstream despite regular play on college and alternative radio. Foxton himself had been going through immunotherapy for cancer treatment (quite successfully, thankfully). Their reactions on social media:

Paul Weller wrote:I'm shocked and saddened by Rick's passing. I'm thinking back to us all rehearsing in my bedroom in Stanley Road, Woking. To all the pubs and clubs we played at as kids, to eventually making a record. What a journey!

We went far beyond our dreams and what we made stands the test of time.

My deepest sympathy to all family and friends - P.W x

Bruce Foxton wrote:I was shocked and devastated to hear the very sad news today.

Rick was a good guy and a great drummer whose innovative drum patterns helped shape our songs.

I'm glad we had the chance to work together as much as we did.

My thoughts are with Leslie and his family at this very difficult time - Bruce Foxton

hearthesilence wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 7:45 pm The Jam's Rick Buckler. One of rock's greatest trios and also one of many great British bands that racked up loads of hits in their home country while never breaking through to the American mainstream despite regular play on college and alternative radio. Foxton himself had been going through immunotherapy for cancer treatment (quite successfully, thankfully). Their reactions on social media:

Paul Weller wrote:I'm shocked and saddened by Rick's passing. I'm thinking back to us all rehearsing in my bedroom in Stanley Road, Woking. To all the pubs and clubs we played at as kids, to eventually making a record. What a journey!

We went far beyond our dreams and what we made stands the test of time.

My deepest sympathy to all family and friends - P.W x

Bruce Foxton wrote:I was shocked and devastated to hear the very sad news today.

Rick was a good guy and a great drummer whose innovative drum patterns helped shape our songs.

I'm glad we had the chance to work together as much as we did.

My thoughts are with Leslie and his family at this very difficult time - Bruce Foxton

Sad news. Discovered The Jam as a teenager in the '90s (at the height of Britpop and Weller's 'Modfather' patronage), after liberating my father's Greatest Hits CD (he'd seen them live in '78!). I all but wore that disc out. They are simply one of the great British singles bands, and leave a sizeable cultural footprint in British pop/rock music. A proper working-class success story, the band were a tight unit, with Buckler + Foxton perhaps being underrated for their contribution over the years, in the shadow of Weller. Going to chuck on Setting Sons tonight, in tribute.

The great filmmaker Souleymane Cissé, per the Film Stage's social media accounts.

More than a few major critics hailed him as "Africa's greatest living filmmaker" while calling his film Yeelen "the greatest African film ever made." Cissé appeared at the New York African Film Festival back in May 2023, and I can still remember walking up to the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and seeing Cissé sitting outside of its neighboring café in his gorgeous yellow outfit, enjoying the beautiful sunny weather. He was already in his 80s but he seemed so youthful and welcoming - as they were introducing a screening for his film Den Muso, he walked in and casually greeted the entire audience with "hello!" as he walked over to his seat. It was also my first time seeing his films projected, and they were truly marvelous. Coincidentally, Moussa Sène Absa ended up siting next to me - it was the only good seat left when he came in - and we both shared a variation of a contemplative "WOW" at the very end of Yeelen. (The festival showed a DCP that looked fine, but a 2K restoration of Yeelen was completed last year so hopefully it'll be widely available very soon.)

The Jam were a remarkable singles band but the shift from punk to R&B/Northern Soul was phenomenal. Eton Rifles/Going Underground/Start were the start of the more mature sound, but those last three singles - Town Called Malice, The Bitterest Pill and Beat Surrender - are the highlights for me. And Paul Weller was just 25 when he split the band up!

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be many in-depth obituaries for Cissé - they've usually just regurgitated the modest one sent out by the AP - but The New York Times posted something more extensive.

Feels especially sad that nothing seemed to be amiss when he passed, but at least he went out in good spirits and in seeming good health (even though there was probably something wrong that no one was aware of):

Mr. Cissé had just appeared at a news conference on Wednesday morning to present two prizes ahead of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, known as Fespaco, where he had been set to head the jury.

After the news conference — where he was “talking and joking” — Mr. Cissé went to take a nap and didn’t wake up, Mr. Margolin said.

Jerry Butler, aka "The Ice Man (or Iceman)."

A Chicago institution, he first made his name as the original lead vocalist for the Impressions, one of the great vocal groups that was eventually inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. His greatest hit with them was the doo-wop classic "For Your Precious Love" (based on a poem Butler wrote in high school) and he would later co-write “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” with Otis Redding. (Per Butler, "I receive more royalties from Otis’ one recording of that song than I get from everything I ever recorded.") Amazingly, not only did Butler find greater success with a solo career (albeit not immediately), the Impressions without him grew into a monumental act as Curtis Mayfield stepped up and proved himself to be one of the greatest singer-songwriters, producers and guitarists of that era.

But back to Butler, he recorded a series of excellent albums, including quite a few classic singles ("Only the Strong Survive" being the most famous) before his professional life took yet another surprising turn, this time in politics, serving as a Commissioner for Cook County, Illinois, from 1985 to 2018, where he chaired the Health and Hospitals Committee and served as Vice Chair of the Construction Committee. It always blew my mind as a kid that he was the guy on those records before he became a well-regarded public servant. At least he leveraged his fame to help the public good, a virtue that seems exponentially commendable in light of certain people.

George Armitage. Miami Blues is great, one of my very favorite crime films of the '90s - very glad I caught a 35mm screening of it at Anthology, after which I bought the LE reissue from Radiance.

hearthesilence wrote: Sat Feb 22, 2025 4:56 am George Armitage. Miami Blues is great, one of my very favorite crime films of the '90s - very glad I caught a 35mm screening of it at Anthology, after which I bought the LE reissue from Radiance.

Very sad. Darktown Strutters is absolutely extraordinary. WB very drastically recut his final work as a director, the second adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s The Big Bounce. I had no clue that he lived in Playa Del Rey. I caught a revival of Miami Blues some years back as well. I don’t recall him ever going to any retrospective screenings in Los Angeles of films he worked on

He had a hell of a resume as a screenwriter for hire, including The Last of the Finest, one of the great unsung 90’s action gems

Read this great, in-depth interview by Paul Rowlands

Grosse Pointe Blank has always been a favorite comedy of mine. Though he didn't get writing credit for it he did a rewrite, saying:

"The script, when I met with John [Cusack] and the writers, was 132 pages. I said: "Look, I'm not doing anything over 100 pages." They said, "Okay," and they did a rewrite, and it came back 150 pages. So I said "Okay, you guys are fired," and I spent most of preproduction rewriting the screenplay, getting it down to 102 pages. Then we would improvise, and I noticed that some of the stuff I'd cut out was in the improvs, they were bringing back stuff that I'd cut out, but we had a good time with it."

More movies should have this inclination to be 100 pages these days. "You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there." RIP George.

I'm a big Jerry Butler fan. Listen to the Iceman all the time. My favorite Butler tune is the relatively obscure You Can't Always Tell from his somewhat bloated double album Spice of Life (1974, I think). I think I did a Jerry Butler writeup in the music thread a few years back. If so, ill repost it there.

Essentials:
You Can't Always Tell
The Girl in His Mind
You Can Run

Did the Iceman have a way with ballads?
Nobody Ever Loved a Woman (the Way I Love You)
Ain't Understanding Mellow (a great duet)

Hits
Western Union Man
He Will Break Your Heart
Only the Strong Survive
(Allen Iverson among others have that tattooed on their person)

And some lovely early solo hits, mostly penned by childhood buddy Curtis Mayfield:
Find Yourself Another Girl
I'm a Telling You

There's 10 songs, but I could easily add another 10.

When I lived in Chicago 1988-91, middle aged black women, especially the church ladies of met, absolutely adored Jimmy Butler, who remained an older sex symbol. Good looking, dignified, intelligent, successful -- an ideal male during an era when black families were collapsing, and black males were under seige.

This goddamn year…

Lynne Marie Stewart, aka Miss Yvonne from Pee-wee’s Playhouse

JamesF wrote: Fri Feb 21, 2025 9:48 pm Peter Jason

He turns up in the supporting cast in John Carpenter's films from 1987's Prince of Darkness up to 2001's Ghosts of Mars (as this Red Letter Media video briefly mentions, sort of taking over the role that Charles Cyphers plays in the earlier Carpenter films). He's also briefly in Arachnophobia as the dad being annoyed by (and having his life saved by) his kids hogging the shower! He's also in 1995's Michael Critchton adaptation Congo, which I would love to think is the reason why he turns up in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, as a kind of in joke!

Apparently he knew Orson Welles, and is in that The Other Side of the Wind film, which I still have not as yet had the opportunity to see. Which probably also explains why he turns up playing Welles in the 2014 short film Conjuring Orson!

hearthesilence wrote: Sat Feb 22, 2025 4:53 pm This goddamn year…

Lynne Marie Stewart, aka Miss Yvonne from Pee-wee’s Playhouse

Board members also probably know her as Charlie's mom from Always Sunny

Never Cursed wrote: Sat Feb 22, 2025 8:32 pm

hearthesilence wrote: Sat Feb 22, 2025 4:53 pm This goddamn year…

Lynne Marie Stewart, aka Miss Yvonne from Pee-wee’s Playhouse

Board members also probably know her as Charlie's mom from Always Sunny

I knew I recognized her from somewhere! The intervention scene with Uncle Jack is probably one of my favorite scenes from Always Sunny, in part because of Stewart's performance.

Back when you could do some fun and offbeat things in network TV movies, George Armitage made an especially fun and offbeat one, Hot Rod. Robert Culp is the heavy in that one and it's a memorable performance.

IIRC Armitage's feature Vigilante Force is quite good, despite a co-lead performance from Mr. White Noise, Jan Michael Vincent.

Armitage should have had a richer career. In an earlier era he might have been a prolific cult B-movie director like John Auer or something.

The great Eugene McDaniels was important in Flacks early career, which the NYT mentions briefly:
From her inaugural album’s first track — “Compared to What,” a shot of sharp social commentary written by her longtime collaborator Eugene McDaniels — Ms. Flack frequently sang songs of social frustration and racial solidarity.

I know people laud her debut, 'First Take', but Flack's follow up, 'Chapter Two' is one of my all-time favorite lps. Iconic disc. R.I.P.

Chris Jasper, singer–songwriter, keyboardist and producer for The Isley Brothers and Isley-Jasper-Isley, following a cancer diagnosis in December. He joined the Isleys in 1973 when the vocal trio transformed into a self-contained six member R&B/funk group, and he played a big role in writing, arranging, and producing many of their hits, including "For the Love of You," "Between the Sheets” and "Fight the Power."

Australian experimental filmmaker Corinne Cantrill, aged 96. Her feature films - all documentaries or otherwise non-narrative - included the 1969 documentary Harry Hooton (1969, codirected with her husband Arthur Cantrill, who survives her) and she solo-directed the 147-minute In This Life's Body in 1984.

Late entry, as the linked obit is from 7 January, but Australian costume designer Terry Ryan, age unspecified as far as I can see.

Star Trek reboot and Transformers scribe Roberto Orci dead of kidney disease at 51.

Perhaps better known to many here as one of the creators of Fringe