For the past few years, Gary Oldman has been the man shining the bat signal high into the sky. But before Christopher Nolan took on the world of the Dark Knight and reinvented it, there was a different Commissioner in town -- Pat Hingle, who lost his battle with blood cancer on Saturday at the age of 84.
In 1989, he became Commissioner James Gordon in Tim Burton's Batman, filling the role through all four of the films -- from the great Michael Keaton days, all the way through to the abysmal and embarrassing Batman and Robin. But while his law-enforcing time in Gotham might be his most recognizable role, it's only a small portion of his work. His 54-year career took him from recent films like Talladega Nights to Muppets from Space and Splendor in the Grass, and even his first (uncredited) role as Jocko in On the Waterfront back in 1954.
Every December, Turner Classic Movies produces a lovely montage honoring the actors and filmmakers who died that year, and here's the one for 2008. Apparently they released it around Dec. 10, then updated it to include Van Johnson, who died Dec. 15, but now it's incomplete again because Eartha Kitt died. Maybe they should wait until the year's actually over? I'm just sayin'.
Anyway, TCM's montages are always classy and elegant, putting the ones at the Academy Awards to shame. If you're interested, you can see previous years' montages here: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003.
And now here's 2008. The song is "God Only Knows," by Joe Henry, from his 2007 album Civilians.
While we were curled up in our homes, stuffing ourselves on cookies and ripping open presents, two of our beloved female icons passed away.
By now you've probably heard that Eartha Kittsuccumbed to colon cancer on Christmas Day at the age of 81. To me (like many), she'll always be the woman who made rolling, feline rrrrrr's sound perfectly natural and downright sexy on the completely ridiculous and lovable Batman. In more recent years, she voiced Yzma on The Emperor's New Groove series, and played the evil Lola Dede in the adaptation of Anne Rice's Feast of all Saints.
On that very same Christmas Day, The Hollywood Reporter posts that the wonderful Ann Savage passed away at the age of 87. The '40s movie actress had suffered a series of strokes recently, and died in her sleep at a nursing home. To some, she was Sister Harriet from Fire with Fire, to others, she's Guy Maddin's mother in My Winnipeg, and to most, she's the unstoppable, blackmailing dame named Vera from Detour.
Both actresses will be sorely missed. Each put their unstoppable and powerful stamp on Hollywood, and we're all the luckier for having gotten to know them on the big screen. Hop through the jump for a look at Kitt in all of her purring wonder, and the magnetic poll that is Ann Savage as Maddin's mother.
I'm sorry to post that the LA Times has reported that Bettie Page passed away Thursday night at the age of 85. The news comes after the pinup icon had spent a few weeks on life support following her heart attack earlier this month. In her memory, I thought I'd whip up a rewind for the film based on her life -- The Notorious Bettie Page, which starred Gretchen Mol as the lady with the black bangs.
In the clip below, Page gets introduced to the world of modeling and pin-up girls, and soon finds her smiling face gracing a myriad of magazines. While the film only received moderate buzz, most seem in agreement -- Mol did a heck of a job as Page, and carried the film right into a number of decent reviews.
Rest in peace, Bettie. You'll be missed.
Warning: Not entirely safe for work -- brief nudity.
Leave off Congo, forget Timeline, and don't even start on Sphere. The positive impact of prolific author Michael Crichton on the worlds of television and film with Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, and "ER" is difficult to dismiss, and it's a shame to see him pass away yesterday from cancer at the age of 66, according to CNN.
His medical background helped lend credibility to his work, especially Andromeda, Coma (which he directed) and The Terminal Man. Of course there's also the overriding elements of sci-fi, ranging from Jurassic to Westworld (which he also directed and is tentatively awaiting a remake). Corporate scandals were also a topic of interest in the early '90s with Rising Sun and Disclosure, and The 13th Warrior offered his own take on the Beowulf tale.
I remember his Prey, about nano-technology gone awry (but of course), making for a fun enough read and relatively ripe for a film adaptation (one that, as far as I know, has yet to be considered). Regardless, the man's works on-screen and off were entertaining and influential more often than not, and it's a pity to see him go.
In a world where one man used his distinctive voice to lend gravitas and then some to trailer after feature after episode, it really is a shame to see Don LaFontaine pass away at the age of 68. According to ET Online, LaFontaine died due to complications from a collapsed lung.
This video above pretty much summarizes what an impact this man had on modern moviegoing, and it helps to be reminded that there was a genuine personality behind his very particular talent, a notion that his official website only reinforces in spades. Whether it was a Geico spot or the Big Momma's House 2 trailer, his booming delivery will remain imitated (as witnessed after the jump, in what is perhaps the only funny moment from "Frank TV"), but only because it was so iconic.
Last weekend we lost two great stars, actor/comedian Bernie Mac (1957-2008) and Oscar-winning songwriter/actor Isaac Hayes (1942-2008), who both appear in the upcoming Soul Men (pictured above), out this November. For more on their respective deaths, see Erik's and William's posts.
Actor and playwright George Furth (1932-2008) died August 11 in Santa Monica, California. I'll always remember him best as the anti-Cannonballer spoilsport Arthur J. Foyt in The Cannonball Run. He also appears memorably in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Blazing Saddles and Shampoo. (AP)
Where would the montage sequence be without Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"? And what about the movie that borrowed the title, Girls Just Want to Have Fun? Robert Hazard (1948-2008), who wrote the tune, died August 5 in Boston. (Variety)
"Love means never having to say you're sorry." This famous line came to us partly by way of Howard G. Minsky (1914-2008) who received an Oscar nomination for producing Love Story. He died August 10 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Variety)
Bernie Brillstein (1931-2008), formerly half of production team Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, executive produced Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, The Blues Brothers, Spies Like Us, The Cable Guy, Bulletproof, Happy Gilmore, Summer Rental, Dragnet, Up the Academy, Neighbors, Doctor Detroit, Continental Divide, The Celluloid Closet, What Planet Are You From? and Run Ronnie Run and produced The Replacement Killers and Jiminy Glick in Lalawood. He died of chronic pulmonary disease August 7, in New York City. (NY Times)
Oscar-nominated record producer Jerry Wexler (1917-2008), who was portrayed by Richard Schiff in the movie Ray, died of congenital heart disease August 15, in Sarasota, Florida. He also worked on soundtracks for The Wiz, The Cotton Club and Pretty Baby (for which he received the Academy Award nom) and co-wrote the Aretha Franklin tune "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman". (AP)
For me, it started with the deaths of comedic greats like Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason. Death had become real and tangible, making the world and showbusiness finite. Since then, the numbers have gradually increased. We're slowly walking into the period where memorials and tributes aren't relegated to actors before our time, but to the names and faces that shaped our views of entertainment -- the people who we have spent so much time with on the big screen, and within the comfort of our own homes.
But we're not just losing people to age. 2008 has been a heavy year for Hollywood, losing both rising stars and big names with long careers. Considering the fact that we just lost two more, I wanted to take a moment and look back at this year's shockers. Some of these men were young, some of these men were older, but all of them have left this earth too soon.
According to the Associated Press, 65-year-old singer-songwriter Isaac Hayes has passed away after being found unresponsive in his Memphis, TN home.
An indelible influence on the world of music, a pop culture icon besides for his work as Chef on "South Park" and in its full-length feature, Hayes will be most fondly remembered in the world of film for his award-winning theme to Shaft and his role as 'The Duke' in Escape from New York.
Hayes showed up in his fair share of other movies, apparently including a cameo as himself in the upcoming comedy Soul Men, starring Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac -- this after making an appearance on "The Bernie Mac Show" in 2005 and an uncredited cameo in the 2000 version of Shaft, starring Jackson.
Hopefully, one day, space will actually be the final frontier for James Doohan, the actor who played "Scotty" in the Star Trek series. Three years after his death from Alzheimer's disease, all of his ashes have still not reached their intended destination. Back in December 2006, some of Doohan's remains were to be rocketed into space, but the launch was delayed, and new plans were made for the actor's ashes, along with more than 200 other people's remains. According to Doohan's Wikipedia page, the ashes' first mission went as planned, as they were blasted into space for four minutes in April 2007 and then were parachuted back to Earth. This past Saturday, they were all set to again be shot into space and to remain there this time, but the launch failed.
Now BBC News reports that following the failure of the mission, Doohan's ashes have gone missing. It's unclear what the details of the disappearance are, but it's fair to assume that much of the rocket's contents went missing during the botched launch, which took place from the island of Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. In that case, it would seem the ashes will not actually be recovered. One of Doohan's sons wrote a message posted on BoingBoing, in which he stated that he'd like to "finish saying goodbye," and that "every launch attempt is like reliving his funeral." Apparently, according to the NY Times, another launch will happen in the future and that any unrecovered ashes will be replaced with backup ashes.
By: Kim Voynar (original publish date: January 22, 2008)
(With the Cine-staff off on a late-July mini-vacation, we thought it'd be fun to bring you some of our favorite pieces from months past. This would probably rank among our LEAST favorite stories of all time, but it certainly was a memorable one.)
Cinematical's staff would like to take a moment to share our thoughts on Heath Ledger, who passed away today after an apparent overdose.
Although Heath Ledger's best known film to date is Brokeback Mountain, my favorite of his films was Candy, in which he starred opposite fellow Australian Abbie Cornish. His performance in Candy, as an artist and heroin addict in a mutually destructive relationship with Cornish's nice middle-class girl, was so riveting and raw, and it's one of those fest films that I've thought about often since I saw it. Like most everyone who's here working Sundance, I was deeply shocked by the news of his tragic death today. He touched us through his films, and we are saddened by the loss of his life, and the films he would have made in the future. His family, especially his young daughter Matilda, will be in our thoughts and prayers.
-Kim Voynar
My original feeling about Heath Ledger -- after films like The Patriot, A Knight's Tale, and 10 Things I Hate About You -- was that he was yet another handsome and likable matinee idol ... but not much more than that. But over the last several years, I was proven wrong ... several times. My favorite performance of his was the lead role in the underrated Casanova -- and I'll be giving that film a second spin as soon as I get home from Sundance. He was a very fine actor who clearly took a lot of pride in his work, and I believe that the movie world has just lost a good soul. My heart goes out to his friends, his family, his fans, and also to the departed Heath Ledger; (If his death is ruled a suicide) I'm deeply sorry that he was so unhappy. (Regardless of the reason for the actor's death, it's a stunning tragedy.)
Following the success of the Sex and the Citymovie, I was really, really hopeful (noted in passing here) for a Golden Girlsmovie featuring the four stars of the ever-popular TV series. Unfortunately, my dream can no longer be fulfilled, because one of the ladies has passed on. Early this morning, at her home in Los Angeles, Estelle Getty (aka "Sophia") died, three days shy of turning 85.
Though the cause of death was not specified, Getty had been suffering from Lewy Body Dementia since at least 2000, when she stopped making public appearances. She was not even able to appear in a Golden Girls reunion that aired on Lifetime in 2003. Obviously, she wouldn't have been able to star in a theatrical film, either.
Getty was best known for her role on The Golden Girls, but movie fans will forever remember her also as the titular matriarch teamed up with Sylvester Stallone in the dreadful action comedy Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. She also appears in Stuart Little, Mask and, in a pre-famous minor role, Tootsie. My favorite, though, is her feisty department store owner in Mannequin. Or, maybe her appearance in the surreal clip above, which comes from her awesome 1993 workout video.
In the last twenty-four hours alone, countless news articles have compared the late Heath Ledger to James Dean. Of course it helps that the two actors -- whose careers lie fifty years apart -- bear physical resemblances to each other. The real reason for the frequency of the comparison, however, revolves around the possibility that Ledger, like Dean, might end up with a posthumous Oscar nomination.
Other than Dean, whose death in a 1955 car accident was preceded by two nominations back-to-back, six actors have landed the distinction -- but only one, Peter Finch, actually won (for Network in 1976). However, Ledger is now perceived an actor who possessed a potential he never quite realized, while Dean was already an icon by the time of his death (and he still didn't win the prize). If Ledger gets nominated for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, the award will also acknowledge the great career that never was. Dean surely would have followed Giant with other wonderful performances, but his brief filmography also allowed the actor to reach a level of prestige that Ledger would have needed a few more movies to attain. So does this comparison really hold up?
The media certainly seems to think so. "Like Dean, he could endure as a mythic figure of talent silenced before his time," writes the AP. "People are aflutter over seeing the final performance of a new James Dean," reports The Huffington Post. " One quality that Ledger and Dean did share is rapid growth," notes the Baltimore Sun.
Evelyn Keyes(1916-2008) - Actress - Played Scarlett O'Hara's little sister, Suellen, in Gone With the Wind. She also co-starred in The Seven Year Itch, The Jolson Story, in which she also sings, Mrs. Mike, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Union Pacific, Before I Hang, A Thousand and One Nights, The Prowler, Johnny O'Clock, Enchantment and A Return to Salem's Lot and made a cameo appearance in the 1956 version of Around the World in Eighty Days, produced by her then-boyfriend Michael Todd. Her husbands included Artie Shaw, John Huston and Charles Vidor, who directed her in The Desperadoes, The Lady in Question and Ladies in Retirement. She died of uterine cancer July 4, in Montecito, California. (Variety)
Henry Beckman(1921-2008) - Actor - Appears in The Brood, Niagara, The Wrong Man, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Marnie, Sweet Charity, Silver Streak, I Love You to Death, Death Hunt and Kiss Me, Stupid. He died June 17 in Barcelona. (Variety)
James "Jimbo" Breen(1955-2008) - Greensman, Carpenter, Actor - Worked on M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable and The Village, appears in Lady in the Water and can be heard in The Happening. He also worked on Beloved, In Her Shoes, Two Bits and Annapolis. He died of cancer July 3, in Pennsylvania. (Philly.com)
Even the weirder artists of the twentieth century have been attracted to the allure of Hollywood filmmaking, and Salvador Dali was no exception. In the fall of 1941, the surrealist painter hosted a masquerade party at Pebble Beach during one of his regular visits to the town. Called "Surrealism Night in An Enchanted Forest," the fundraising event, intended to assist European refugee artists, brought out a number of stars, including Bob Hope and Ginger Rogers. It was here, the story goes, that Dali became attached to a major studio production called Moontide. The great German emigre Fritz Lang was hired to direct the movie, and asked Dali to create a three-minute nightmare sequence for the film. Unfortunately, after the incident at Pearl Harbor later that year, Twentieth Century Fox deemed the project too bleak. Lang was replaced, and Dali's nightmare sequence went with him.
Although inspired by the movies, Dali didn't always have the easiest time making them. He would get another chance to inject his hallucinatory vision into American cinema with the hypnosis scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, but it's his unrealized projects that truly indicate the scope of the painter's ambition. So many ideas, such little time. Dali: Painting and Film, a breathtakingly unique exhibit currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, surveys Dali's completed cinematic works in addition to tidbits from the ones that never came to fruition. Marvelously structured to show how his paintings were intentionally cinematic, the exhibit contains all the obvious highlights from Dali's movie career alongside lesser-known productions. The importance in film history of his collaborations with Luis Bunuel remain uncontested; two large screens in separate rooms showing Un Chien Andalou(where the opening eye splicing retains its original gross-out impact) and L'Age D'Orattest to that. Fewer visitors, however, might know about Dali's collaboration with the Marx Brothers on a deliriously strange movie that sounded too good to be true.
For the past few years, Gary Oldman has been the man shining the bat signal high into the sky. But before Christopher Nolan took on the world of the Dark Knight and reinvented it, there was a different Commissioner in town -- Pat Hingle, who lost his battle with blood cancer on Saturday at the age of 84.
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Hopefully, one day, space will actually be the final frontier for James Doohan, the actor who played "Scotty" in the Star Trek series. Three years after his death from Alzheimer's disease, all of his ashes have still not reached their intended destination. Back in December 2006, some of Doohan's remains 
In the last twenty-four hours alone, countless news articles have compared the late 
