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Volker Spengler // In einem Jahr mit 13. Monden etc.

Raphaël Coleman at 25, who appeared as a child actor in the first Nanny McPhee film as well as the 2008 remake of It's Alive and the utterly bizarre sci-fi alien abduction film The Fourth Kind. The Fourth Kind is weird less because of its content (its just Paranormal Activity and the exorcism film trend with an alien twist and full of the expected annoyingly loud jump scares) but more because of the way that it is constructed out of purportedly 'real interviews' (though the director himself is acting as the interviewer in the 'real footage', in a kind of M. Night Shyamalan self-aggrandising touch, which immediately punctures the illusion!) and 'stock footage' of home movies and police tapes and so on, all whilst the rather bewildered looking big name actors (Poor Elias Koteas! You were in Crash and Exotica!) are left doing 'staged re-enactments' of events before we see the 'real world' version.

I think that I can see what they were trying to go for in terms of trying to have their cake and eat it too by having shakey cam Blair Witch-style amateur video of fantastical events and 'real life subject' interview footage to create a sense of verisimilitude combined with being able to have well known actors and a special effects climax in which Milla Jovovich gets folded up like a sofa bed being put away, but it really does not really work very well, constantly puncturing any tension being built up by either the 'documentary' footage (that like any found footage film cannot really show anything), or the fictional reimagining of events which gets broken up into disconnected scenes and so never builds up any momentum in its own right. (Fire In The Sky remains the most disturbing alien abduction film)

Its the Looking For Richard of alien abduction movies! But its a fascinating mess and worth bringing up as an almost forgotten curio of the found footage subgenre when looking back on this era of horror. I just cannot help but wonder what the film could have been like had that they got Errol Morris or Michael Moore in there as the interviewer/filmmaker though, and made it a satire on their style of interviewing!


Since appearing in those films Coleman apparently became an environmental activist, joining Extinction Rebellion, changing his name to James “Iggy” Fox and working on their social media.

Queen of Katwe star Nikita Pearl Waligwa from a brain tumor at age 15

dadaistnun wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2020 5:10 am Reinbert de Leeuw

Still my preferred Satie interpreter, who managed to make Satie feel even more alien than was originally intended. His interpretations are no doubt not what Satie had intended, but they're still so artistically interesting in their own right.

His and Barbara Hannigan's intimate Satie recital in Manhattan's Park Avenue Armory in 2017 is still one of the great live performances I've ever been to. RIP.

Playing their Satie album right now. I loved seeing interviews of them together - their friendship and clear admiration for one another was lovely to see. Wish I could have seen them perform.

Jamey Gambrell, fantastic translator from Russian of many modern and contemporary authors like Vladimir Sorokin, Tatyana Tolstaya, Maria Tsvetaeva, and others. She contributed many good translations to NRYB classics.

It's a shame. It's unlikely we'll get any more Sorokin volumes now as Gambrell was his primary English translator.

dadaistnun wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2020 5:10 am Reinbert de Leeuw

His Gubaidulina "Perception" recording and his recent Kurtag disc are among my favorites.

Andrew Weatherall
One of the major architects of British music in the 90s, way too young, from a pulmonary embolism.

I really liked his work with Two Lone Swordsmen

Georgian director Georgy Shengelaya.

zedz wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2020 11:03 pm Andrew Weatherall
One of the major architects of British music in the 90s, way too young, from a pulmonary embolism.

Many many memories....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VGPvkjyQnQ

Zoe Caldwell, Australian-born actress and stage director, aged 86.

José Mojica Marins

Condolences to knives' avatar

Eh, it will get reset in the next movie where he's a doctor or something.

Apparently the fingernails keep growing for a time after a person is deceased, which would be a wonderfully fitting tribute in this case!

Charles Portis, author of True Grit.

Australian actor Ron Haddrick, on 11 February aged 90. He had a sicty-year career in film and television, from 1955 to 2015.

pet42 wrote: Sun Feb 23, 2020 8:28 am Peter Tork

He passed away last year (unless his Last Train to Clarksville was delayed!)