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Here's a great interview with Greenberg that also has videos of his best title sequences. I'm particularly partial to The Dead Zone and Altered States (which kind of anticipates The Terminator's slide past titles, yet with some of the quiet building menace of the Alien titles). In a way both are similar in that they have parts of the image disappearing into black to suggest a loss of particular areas of brain function or consciousness.

Plus two great childhood faves, almost entirely for their title sequences: Flash Gordon and Ladyhawke

Robert Greenberg also directed Little Monsters which was the other 1989 movie starring Fred Savage during his child actor Wonder Years period that often gets overlooked in favour of The Wizard. I remember seeing both at the time and enjoying them, though I remember preferring something like The Gate over Little Monsters for its darker-hued child fantasy element (though now Little Monsters looks a bit like the anarchical male companion piece film to Jennifer Connelly on the hunt for her brother in Labyrinth)

And apparently he also designed the look of the title, as well as some of the visual effects for this notorious film!

Charles Krauthammer

domino harvey wrote: Thu Jun 21, 2018 10:23 pm Charles Krauthammer

Goodnight, sweet prince

Nobody's mentioned Stanley Cavell. Surely there are fans here, no?

Perhaps this is too niche for a film forum, or maybe as a South Carolinian, I overestimate his fame, but John McElrath, founding member of the Swingin' Medallions famed for their big hit that still gets heavy replay on oldies radio "Double Shot of my Baby's Love," died a few days ago.

The Swinging Medallions. Didn't know they kept going for 50 years. Good for them.
Edit: meant to add that that was a good detailed article on McElrath and the band.

2 things I'll add. Double Shot of My Baby's Love is a great song, but was a 1966 cover by the Swinging Medallions. The original is by a group called Dick Holler and the Holidays from 1964. SM revved it up a little and went for that live-in-studio party effect that worked so well for Gary US Bonds. Here's an article on the songs origins and some of the bands early history. I think the Dick Holler original is quite good and it has some clever lyrics. Great song.

Secondly, I thought the story was that one band's van broke down on the side of the NJ Turnpike and the other band stopped to help. They met, became friends and teamed up to become the Swinging Medallions. Either that's the NJ version of the band's origin story, or I've confused them with another band over the years.

If memory serves, when David Addison (Bruce Willis) and Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) finally consummated their love in Moonlighting, Addison walked into the office the next day singing "Double Shot of My Baby's Love" in blatant poor taste.

For a second, I thought this was the "other" Joe Jackson.

I made a little game with myself, of how many posts would it get before we got to that point.

Just came in here to post that. Horrible, awful news. His first double album on Secretly Canadian was full of incredible songs, and while he was at times not the greatest lyricist, his pop sensibilities were undeniable. Two of my favorites for the uninitiated: "Losing Sleep" and "PS It All Falls Down"

Ribs wrote: Wed Jul 04, 2018 1:39 pm Robby Müller

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 31026.html

He had been very ill for quite a while, but it still feels like a gut punch. Truly one of the great cinematographers and surprisingly underappreciated in some quarters (he was never, not once, nominated for an Academy Award). There was a great exhibit on Müller at the EYE Filmmuseum some years back - it would be great if something along the same lines was held here in the U.S., and I'm certain one of the repertory houses here will hold a memorial retrospective of his incredible work.

Whilst Shoah is of course overwhelming, the other somewhat contrasting epic Lanzmann documentary (though rather more controversial in its dealing with a current subject) is his five hour documentary about the Israeli Defence Force, Tsahal. Its very much about how historical context influences the present, especially past wars (the Six Day War in particular, of course) and focus on soldiers in such a 'beleaguered' situation, but it is difficult to think of another documentary that was able to interview Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon about their IDF experience, whose war experiences would go on to feed into their leadership positions and policy decisions to a great extent.

It is sometimes described as the third part of a trilogy of long form films on "Jewish identity", the first being Israel,Why in 1973 (made on the 25th anniversary of the creation of the state), then of course Shoah in 1985 and Tsahal in 1994.

Dead or Deader wrote: Thu Jul 05, 2018 9:27 pm Ed Schultz

Showed an almost ideal path for a blue collar person to evolve from a cloistered conservative perspective to a lefty one, focused on the needs of the working class. It's the perspective of those like Schultz, from 'Trump country,' that is sorely needed if Democrats are going to have a path back to winning in the rust belt again.

mfunk9786 wrote:Showed an almost ideal path for a blue collar person to evolve from a cloistered conservative perspective to a lefty one, focused on the needs of the working class. It's the perspective of those like Schultz, from 'Trump country,' that is sorely needed if Democrats are going to have a path back to winning in the rust belt again.

Oh please. He was a sportscaster turned talk radio hack turned cable news hack turned Russian propagandist. And there’s no reason to think that he had any particular credibility with “working class” folks who weren’t already left-leaning to begin with. He was a demographic toy for city-dwelling progressives to gawk at.

The leader of the Aum Shrinrikyo cult and six followers have been executed for the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. There has been the suggestion that the reason for this happening quite suddenly now is perhaps in order to get the executions out of the way early and minimise any negative publicity around the subject of capital punishment in Japan before international eyes are on the country in the run up to the 2020 Olympics.

This cult in the wake of the attack was the subject of two documentaries: A and A2