RIP to Two Titans of European Cinema

By Glenn Dunks

What a shock it was to hear over the last 24 hours of the deaths of both Robby Müller and Claude Lanzmann. These two icons of European cinema were 78 and 92 respectively and both gave so much to the universe and there are not enough hats to tip to their memories and their legacies.

Robby Müller was the Dutch-born cinematographer whose regular collaborations with the likes of Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Lars Von Trier were the stuff of legend. Who can forget those stunning tableaus of Breaking the Waves or his regular plays on black and white with Jarmusch as well as Sally Potter’s The Tango Lesson. I'm not as well versed on Jarmusch's films as others, but I gather Dead Man with Johnny Depp is the one worth gawking over the most.

And I know it’s become a little bit fashionable to roll one’s eyes at people going on about the virtues of celluloid over digital, but I guarantee you have never seen colours projected onto a screen quite like those twilight blues of Wenders’ Paris, Texas...

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Pretty Linky

• /Film Jake Gyllenhaal lands the villain gig in the next Spider-Man movie. He'll be playing Mysterio so let's hope they don't go with the comic book costume because enough with hiding gorgeous actor faces behind masks or in this case a whole opaque globe
• The New Yorker has a long read profile of the great filmmaker Claire Denis
• Deadline Andy Karl has replaced Steve Kazee in the Richard Gere role in the Broadway bound musical adaptation of Pretty Woman

• The Village Voice profiles Betty Gabriel of Get Out and "no no no no no" gif fame
• Vulture A Quiet Place has racked up a stunning $300 million worldwide
• Cartoon Brew BC is becoming an animated feature. What's BC you ask? It's that syndicated comic strip that's been running in newspapers forever about cavemen.
• Variety a report on the reshoots of Solo and Ron Howard taking over and shooting 70% of what's now on screen (unfortunately everyone is vague on details! Perhaps someday we'll get a juicy oral history)
• The Muse Björk makes her first TV appearance in years and years
• Towleroad the major studios get "insuffienct / poor / failing" ratings from GLAAD in its annual report. 
• Broadway World apparently the 50th anniversary of Hello Dolly (1968) is sparking a six month long celebration in Westchester and Putnam County along the Hudson River where filming took place. Who knew people were this into that Babs film? 

RIP
• NYT Patricia Morison, Broadway's first Kate in "Kiss Me Kate" and a movie actress in early franchises has died at 103 years of age 
• The Atlantic Philip Roth, literary giant, has died. Feels like the end of a particular literary era
• My New Plaid Pants Gorgeous beefcake Clint Walker, originally envisioned by the studios as a Rock Hudson rival, has died at 90

Exit Video
Sarah Paulson does a Drew Barrymore impression. And then runs into Drew Barrymore. 

Margot Kidder (1948-2018)

by Nathaniel R

My generation lost its Superman, Christopher Reeve, tragically early 14 years ago. And now we've lost our Lois Lane. The Canadian American actress Margot Kidder has passed away at 69. I can still picture the heroes flying together across that Metropolis sky. And I do mean heroes plural. The magic of the first two Superman films was definitely in the fact that they understood Lois's heroism, too. Their faces aren't the only thing burned in memory but their voices, too... 

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Michael Anderson (1920-2018)

by Nathaniel R

We lost one of our oldest Oscar nominees this weekend. 98 year old film director Michael Anderson passed away of heart disease. The quadrilingual reportedly very amiable director had a long career stretching from a couple of acting gigs in the 1930s through directing The New Adventures of Pinnocchio in 1999. His two biggest claims to fame were the Best Picture winning blockbuster Around the World in 80 Days (1956, one of the biggest hits of its decade) and the sci-fi hit Logan's Run (1976). People keep referring to Logan's Run as a cult hit online but it was actually just a regular sized success ("cult" is a really strange term in the modern vernacular which doesn't seem to mean what people think it means when referring to the fanbases of films. I've even heard Mean Girls described as a cult-classic. Child, that is mainstream!)

His two most famous pictures were both naturally eyed for remakes...

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Milos Forman (1932-2018)

by Nathaniel R

Milos Forman directing Thomas Hulce on the set of Amadeus (1984)

One of the world's most acclaimed directors has passed away at 86 years of age after a long full life and a pretty sturdy filmography. Milos Forman won two Oscars during his career for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984) began life as Jan Tomas Forman in Czechoslovakia. Like another two-time Best Director winner (Ang Lee), he was twice honored in the Foreign Language Film category before his English language Oscar wins...

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