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Bruce Bickford.

Wonderful French actress Anémone at 68.

Iranian artist Monir Farmanfarmaian, 96

If memory serves, Chewie and Leia has the first embrace in TFA.

Barbara Perry, known for her turn as 'Baskets' on the Dick Van Dyke Show, died on Sunday. I was familiar with her face but didn't know she had chops as a tap dancer.

R.I.P.

George Litto, on April 29:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... 88-1208754

That is quite a career. Nice write up too.

Mexican wrestler Silver King, who apparently collapsed and died during a match. He played the villain Ramses in the Jack Black Lucha movie Nacho Libre.

Absolutely wonderful and ravishing in Twin Peaks: The Return. Oh so sad, for someone with such vitality to go at such an untimely age.

Oedipax wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 7:22 pm Jean-Claude Brisseau

French film director who pre-dates the #MeToo era Jean-Claude Brisseau, 74. He went on to make a film about it titled The Exterminating Angels (2006).

I have a few films by Jean-Claude Brisseau in my 'to watch' pile but sadly have not managed to reach them as yet to be able to do an in depth assessment. From a casual glance however he did seem to have a particular interest in exploring female sexuality (inevitably mostly through a male gaze, with Brisseau often appearing in front of the camera in various roles himself) in such titles as 1989's Noce Blanche (perhaps his best known film, starring Vanessa Paradis in her first feature film at the height of her teen singer fame coming off of Joe le taxi and cover of Walk on the Wild Side), The Black Angel (with Michel Piccoli), 2002's Secret Things, 2006's The Exterminating Angels, 2008's À l'aventure and 2012's The Girl From Nowhere (NSFW).

He apparently completed a film only last year, Tempting Devils that does not seem to have received a UK release, but otherwise was pretty well represented on disc in the UK with everything from 2002 onward available on DVD at one point or another (plus his earliest features Un jeu brutale and The Sound and Fury). It is really the run from Noce Blanche to Workers For The Good Lord that seems in need of rediscovery at the moment (though everything else would benefit from a Blu-ray bump up).

Unfortunately I hated the only Brisseau film I've seen, Noce blanche. You can read my thoughts here, though they aren't favorable to the recently deceased

Machiko Kyo (1924-2019)

Kyo always seems young in my eyes -- because she pretty much ended her movie career in the 1960s. Although she worked in television until the 1980s, I never saw anything she did in this period. In addition to her most famous roles in Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Princess Yang Kwei Fei, Street of Shame), Kurosawa (Rashomon), Ozu (Floating Weeds), I loved her as a Nancy Drew-ish cub reporter in Ichikawa's The Hole. Some obituaries:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... 95-1210433

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2019 ... at-95.html

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... et/088000c

She was always, always, always fantastic. In addition to the titles Michael listed, she was also great in Odd Obsession, Chushingura, and Gate of Hell.

I haven't seen Ichikawa's The Hole yet, I should get on that.

Someday, maybe some distributor will discover Ichikawa's satirical films...

Sadly, lots of important Kyo performances (for Ichikawa, Masumura and Yoshimura, among others) never have been available on subbed home video (of any format) or are long out of print.

I’ve always been a huge fan. He was probably responsible for a good 25% of my laughs while growing up...

The local Philly MeTV station has a pretty solid lineup of Hogan’s Heroes and Carol Burnett, and both hold up exceptionally well.

For those with Facebook access -- a look at Machiko Kyo, intrepid girl detective/reporter, in Ichikawa's The Hole: https://www.facebook.com/michael.e.kerp ... 1081149737

bearcuborg wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 5:12 pm I’ve always been a huge fan. He was probably responsible for a good 25% of my laughs while growing up...

Yeah, this goes double for me. This is a clip from the show. It's a classic. When I was eleven or so I heard my mother screaming with laughter. After a couple of minutes I went to find out what was so funny. She said she just watched one of the funniest things she's ever seen and told me about how funny Tim Conway was playing a dentist. Eventually, I got to see a rerun of it. And oh boy I had the same reaction. I couldn't stop laughing and to this day I still chuckle even though I've seen it many times since. Poor Harvey Korman had no shot.

Still had it (almost) till the very end, too, giving maybe my favourite 30 Rock guest performance as the TV vet whose progressively filthier reminiscences about the good ol' days unnerve Jack McBrayer's Kenneth to the point of career-affirming epiphany

Michael Kerpan wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 1:23 pm Machiko Kyo (1924-2019)

Kyo always seems young in my eyes -- because she pretty much ended her movie career in the 1960s. Although she worked in television until the 1980s, I never saw anything she did in this period. In addition to her most famous roles in Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Princess Yang Kwei Fei, Street of Shame), Kurosawa (Rashomon), Ozu (Floating Weeds), I loved her as a Nancy Drew-ish cub reporter in Ichikawa's The Hole. Some obituaries:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... 95-1210433

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2019 ... at-95.html

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... et/088000c

Completely missed this, but I saw Rashomon again recently and what a performance. It's the kind of role that's almost a gift to an actor, where you get to play different versions of ostensibly the same person, and she really makes the most of it.