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Hey folks, Harry here... Today's been a crazy day, waking up early for FANTASTIC MR FOX, then a full day of prepping for our annual Halloween Blow-out next week. When I got home at last about 45 minutes ago I discovered that Joseph Wiseman, the man who played James Bond's first villain... DR. NO ...has passed on.
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Hey folks, Harry here... I was going to write up a farewell to Mr Whitmore, but figured Mr Darabont should do it...
Damn. I'm heartbroken that James Whitmore has died.
I know age makes these things inevitable, but still...damn.
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Hey folks, Harry here... Charles H. Schneer wasn't a household name. He wasn't one of the biggest names in Hollywood, but for a class of film geek that I am a devoted member of... His name meant that something fantastic was to follow.
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Hey folks, Harry here again... Back in the pre-VHS days, my parents collected 16mm - it wasn't at all like the way we folks collect DVDs or even the VHS days - it was such a costly hobby that you collected what was available when you saw it. My parents had reels upon reels of trailers and one of the trailers that truly stood out was Claude Rains' PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Why?
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Hey folks, Harry here... It is thankfully rare that I find myself writing an obituary for a person that I have known personally, but that's the exact position that I find myself in today.
I remember back prior to the filming of SPY KIDS 2: ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS, when Robert Rodriguez called to tell me that he had cast "KHAN" as the Grandfather in his second SPY KIDS film. I screamed "COOL" very loudly and then we began to conspire to dream about the conversations we would have with Montalban.
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Hey folks, Harry here... I'm tired of writing obituaries. It seems that we just continuously write about the passing of another cool figure of our collective pop culture existence passing. This time it is Pat Hingle, a lovable rotund character actor that's been showing up in film ever since he played Jocko in ON THE WATERFRONT, without credit we may note. You may remember him in SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS with Beatty or in THE UGLY AMERICAN with Brando or with Yul Brynner in INVITATION TO A GUNFIGHTER.
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Hey folks, Harry here... I was at Christmas dinner with my family when during a lull in gorging, Yoko looks at her phone to be giddy with her new phone - and sees a FACEBOOK status message alerting folks that Eartha Kitt died. She shows me the screen and I announce, "Oh man, the coolest Catwoman is dead." And in unison, my dad, sister and her boyfriend proclaim... "Eartha Kitt died?"
It would have been funny had it not been so true.
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Hey folks, Harry here... Forrest J Ackerman, founder of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, inventor of SCI-FI and creator of Vampirella has slipped quietly away at 11:58pm (PST) in Horrorwood, Karloffornia. He was amongst friends and spent his last month on this Earth saying his farewells. The letters and expressions of well wishes and love that fandom sent his way gave him a lift of excitement and the strength to hold on through his 92nd Birthday.
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Hey folks, Harry here... It's a rare thing these days to talk about the passing of a Silent Film and Early Talkie Star - but ANITA PAGE has moved on at the age of 98. She was first on screen in 1925 - and her last part is in FRANKENSTEIN RISING - due out... THIS YEAR! She plays Elizabeth Frankenstein.
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Breaker, breaker, this here’s the Dmann here with a heavy heart.
“The Snowman” Jerry Reed, is now driving his big rig on the great highway in the sky.
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Hey folks, Harry here. I just got a call from a family member of Cyd Charisse, who let me know that roughly an hour and a half ago she passed away.
Cyd was born 87 years ago in Amarillo, Texas. But for the rest of us, Cyd was born on screen as one of the most beautiful, graceful and magical dancers to ever grace the screen. You can look up her filmography - off the top of your head you'll remember her from SINGIN IN THE RAIN, THE BAND WAGON, IT'S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, SILK STOCKINGS and my personal favorite Gene Kelly musical... BRIGADOON.
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Newly updated with Ryan Banfield from Stan Winston Studios and screenwriter and producer John Fasano with words on the man and his funeral.
Now updated with a report from Stan's Funeral today where eulogies were given by Spielberg, Schwarzenegger, Cameron and maybe even you.
Updated with thoughts from Stan Winston Productions' Brian Gilbert and a man named Evan Schiff who worked as an intern at Stan Winston Studios as a teenager!
Updated with one of Stan Winston Studios' ex-"foam runners" Lance Gilmer.
Updated with one of Stan's "Lifers" - Richard Landon...
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Hey folks, Harry here... Pretty much, my entire life... I've known the name of Ollie Johnston. One of the most beloved animators of all time - he is credited to giving Disney's characters a lot of the warmth we love about them. Before Ollie - Disney characters rarely touched unless they were slapping each other or kicking one another in the ass. Ollie brought the more human relationship to bare focusing on the warm connections that we humans have... the act of holding hands, putting an arm around one another.
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Hey folks, Harry here... Man, the world is knocking off some of my favorite old school talent. Richard Widmark... and now, JULES DASSIN. Last year, when I threw Half-Ass-A-Thon I screened Dassin's classic trippy as hell film TOPKAPI, which is being remade as the sequel to the THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR - and will never ever touch the brilliance of that original film.
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Hey folks, Harry here... This past year at Butt-Numb-A-Thon 9, I showed my personal favorite Richard Widmark film. A little movie he shot with Sam Fuller called PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET - I liked showing it knowing he was still alive... somewhere out there in the world. His Skip McCoy is one of the greatest heroic cads in the history of cinema. A pick pocket that's a Minnesota Fats with the pool table of life, knowing all the angles, or at least thinking he does. I've often said that Richard Widmark was a Warner Brothers character brought to life...
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Hey folks, Harry here... Today's a sad day - we lost Anthony Minghella earlier today - and now we've lost one of the most brilliant minds in science fiction, Arthur C Clarke. For many of us - he'll be the man that worked with Kubrick in creating the science fiction Masterpiece... 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY - but for fans of the written word he was so much more.
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Hey folks, Harry here... I'm a bit under the weather... took a big dose of Nyquil and woke up 15 hours later in a daze. It's a beautiful day outside and as I've been going through the 800 or so messages that have accumulated since I last logged in - I read a notice from a friend of mine, Michael Kaluta. He received a call from Dave Stevens' mother that Dave passed on yesterday. She said it was a blessing, as Dave had been suffering a lot of pain, due to chemo and had no prospects for it "getting better".
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Gary Gygax passed away at his home in Wisconsin yesterday. He was co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, and the person most directly responsible for the invention of the role-playing game.
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Hey folks, Harry here... it falls upon me to write this OBIT - because well, I'm the one that loves FIRES ON THE PLAIN. I am not an expert on Kon Ichikawa. I won't pretend that I am, but around 13 years ago, my father and I were driving back from a dinner on the south side of Austin, and decided to check the cheapie bin at the BLOCKBLUSTER VIDEO around the University of Texas campus. You know the drill, you dig through their previously viewed weeding out of titles and you find gold. This was back in the videotape era -
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Hey folks, Harry here... As many of you know... I was born into geekdom. My parents owned the first Pop-Culture Memorilbia Store in Austin, Tx... N.E. MERCANTILE COMPANY. It sold movie posters, animation cels, original art, props and comic books, pulps and all sorts of paper ephemera. From the youngest of ages - I have loved talking duck characters. I knew the Disney Ducks, the Warner Brothers Duck... and from the world of comics... the cigar-chomping, master of Quack-Fu himself.... HOWARD THE DUCK.
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Harry here... Heath Ledger was found dead in a Manhattan Apartment today around 2pm according to the NYPD and CNN. At this point - my take on this is... Please don't fucking be true.
I first met Heath Ledger 8 years ago on the set of A KNIGHT'S TALE - he was impossibly young, handsome and charming. He went on to become one of our absolutely most talented and promising actors.
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Harry here... Nobody has written up an Obit on Brad Renfro because frankly... it's not a story any of us wants to write. Here was a kid actor that showed an awful lot of promise. I remember watching APT PUPIL the first time in my living room with Josh Hartnett and Elijah Wood and Laura Harris as the two boys went through jealousy pains because they each desperately wanted that role - and they loved what Brad did with it.
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Hey folks, Harry here... often times here at AICN, I'm called upon to eulogize the passing of a talent that had made films, cartoons, television shows or comic books that I was a fan of... or at the very least appreciated. Once in a very dark moon
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Principal Richard "Dick" Vernon, Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson, Coach Wayne Hisler and, most importantly, Duke and Duke bagman Clarence Beeks -- four of 1980's cinemas greatest assholes, all brought to blustering, indelible life by the great
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