Sidney Poitier (1927-2022)

by Nathaniel R

The Oscar winning actor Sidney Poitier has died at the age of 94 in the Bahamas, leaving a remarkable legacy behind. Do you remember when you first became aware of Sidney Poitier? It can be difficult to pinpoint for stars of his magnitude. The most legendary actors become so much a part of the cultural fabric that it feels as if they have always existed. As if they have always been part of the very conception of "Hollywood" as our dream machine, as if the cinema couldn't have existed without them. But this is not strictly true. Hollywood had no room for any sidney poitiers before Sidney Poitier. His undeniable charisma and dramatic talent were potent enough to force Tinseltown's gates open, and reconceptualize who could be a movie star. And, it must be said, his good timing helped too...

Click to read more ...

Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022)

by Eric Blume

Oscar-nominated director Peter Bogdanovich has died at age 82.  Famous primarily for directing three classic films consecutively early in his career, he was a true lover of the medium and a key influence on fostering in a new energy in American cinema during the 1970s. 

Bogdanovich's early career was as a film programmer for New Yorks' Museum of Modern Art.  He watched over 400 films a year and kept reviews for each one of them.  His passion for and understanding of film got him a gig as assistant to Roger Corman, who helped him direct his first film, Targets, in 1968.  This led to the three-film master stretch for which Bogdanovich is most remembered and treasured...

Click to read more ...

Betty White (1922-2021)

by Nathaniel R

One of the most beloved actors, no... make that one of the most beloved people, period, has died. We must unfortunately say goodbye to the Emmy-winning legend Betty White. The longest lived of The Golden Girls was just three weeks shy of her Centennial when she passed away. 

Betty White was more than just The Golden Girls though that sitcom rightfully leads any discussion of her career. That's what happens when you spend eight years of your life perfecting the same character, the dim but utterly loveable/hilarious Rose Nylund, and the show housing her morphs from risky bet (a sitcom about sexually active lively old ladies in youth-obsessed prudish America?) to surprise smash (the Golden Girls spent six of its seven seasons among the 10 most-watched programs on air) to immortal favourite within your life time. People talk about The Golden Girls so often nearly 30 years after it went off the air that it truly feels as if it never did. It did. But, in a very real way Betty White did not... 

Click to read more ...

Jean-Marc Vallée (1963-2021)

by Nathaniel R

We are shocked and saddened to report that Oscar-nominated and Emmy winning director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Big Little Lies), who was only 58, died yesterday at his cabin outside Quebec City. No cause of death has been revealed. 

The Quebecois filmmaker began making movies in the 1990s but first came to international fame wih the queer coming of age drama C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) which was submitted to represent Canada at the Oscars that year...

Click to read more ...

Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021)

by Nathaniel R

Back in the early days of the internet, when listserv discussions were the norm, I remember engaging in a robust discussion about what the best musical ever written was. Someone said "the one about the murderous barber and the meat pies" and online friends began riffing on that response. Answers followed like "fairy tale characters collide" "a commitment-phobe turns 35", "a French pointillist epic " and "the one about old showgirls reuniting / reiminiscing". It took a while before the spell was broken and a musical not written by Stephen Sondheim entered the discussion and even some of those, like "the rise of a burlesque star and her overbearing mother" and "two street gangs in New York City" had Sondheim's fingerprints on them. While the conversation began in a tongue-in-cheek way, the answers were genuine. It was hard to shake the realization that there were at least a half dozen shows by the same artist that could legitimately battle for the title of Greatest Show Ever Written. It was, quite frankly, awe-inducing.

I've never felt more spiritually transported in a Broadway house than during Sunday in the Park with George. And reverence is what everyone who knows what there is to know about musicals feels for Sondheim. Especially now. Nevertheless, a caveat: Reverence is not always the best way to approach art. Sondheim's work is complex and lively and varied enough to invite many moods in. Adjectives that are or should be frequently thrown at his work -- multi-faceted, polyphonic, panoramic, prismatic -- all suggest a difficult plurality...

Click to read more ...