Who's Next To Croak?

Started by cine, September 28, 2003, 11:07:39 AM

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picolas

Irwin video may surface

Experts says it's just a matter of time before grisly video of Steve Irwin's death hits the Web.

Steve Irwin was shooting footage for his TV series Crocodile Hunter early Monday when he was killed by a giant bull stingray. Now, those familiar with the digital media world say it's only a matter of time before the grisly footage surfaces.

"Once there's something on film, it's impossible to keep it contained," Paul Levinson, chairman of Fordham University's Department of Communication and Media Studies, told the Associated Press.

Appearing on Larry King Live, Irwin's manager John Stainton told King he hopes the video is destroyed.

"I would never want that tape shown," Stainton said to King. "It should be destroyed."

Irwin may have felt differently.

British gossip Web site Contact Music UK says Irwin once said, "My number one rule is to keep that camera rolling... Even if a big old alligator is chewing me up I want to go down and go, 'Crikey!' just before I die. That would be the ultimate for me."

In a 2002 Associated Press interview, Irwin said, "If I'm going to die, at least I want it filmed... We could have gone to MGM and gone, 'Hey, look at this tape.'"

Media analyst Martin Kaplan, of the Annenberg School of Communication at University of Southern California, said there is no compelling reason the tape should be shown.

"The only remote justification for publicizing this would be accident prevention," said Kaplan. "But that argument is a stretch."

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Samuel G. Freedman agrees.

"The lay person is not going into the water trying to have encounters with stingrays," Freedman said. "It would be purely titillation and necrophilia if anyone were to show this."

Kaplan said that just because the tape shouldn't be seen doesn't mean it won't be.

"There's a race for the bottom in our culture."

MacGuffin

'Man Bites Dog' director Belvaux dies

DEAUVILLE, France -- Belgian director, screenwriter and actor Remy Belvaux, whose debut film "Man Bites Dog" became a cult hit, has died, his family announced Wednesday. He was 38. A family statement said he died Monday night in Orry-la-Ville, north of Paris, but no cause of death was given. Shot on a micro budget, "Man Bites Dog" purported to be a fly-on-the-wall TV documentary about the life of a cynically jovial serial killer. The movie walks a dangerous line between black humor and abject horror as the TV crew gradually becomes more implicated in the killer's gruesome crimes.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

10 stingrays killed since Irwin's death

SYDNEY, Australia - At least 10 stingrays have been killed since "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin was fatally injured by one of the fish, an official said Tuesday, prompting a spokesman for the late TV star's animal charity to urge people not take revenge on the animals.

Irwin died last week after a stingray barb pierced his chest as he recorded a show off the Great Barrier Reef.

Stingray bodies since have been discovered on two beaches in Queensland state on Australia's eastern coast. Two were discovered Tuesday with their tails lopped off, state fisheries department official Wayne Sumpton said.

Sumpton said fishermen who inadvertently catch the diamond-shaped rays sometimes cut off their tails to avoid being stung, but the practice was uncommon. Stingrays often are caught in fishing nets by mistake and should be returned to the sea, Sumpton said.

Michael Hornby, the executive director of Irwin's Wildlife Warriors conservation group, said he was concerned the rays were being hunted and killed in retaliation for Irwin's death.

"It may be some sort of retribution, or it may be fear from certain individuals, or it just may be yet another callous act toward wildlife," he said.

He said killing stingrays was "not what Steve was about."

"We are disgusted and disappointed that people would take this sort of action to hurt wildlife," he said.

Stingrays are usually shy, unobtrusive fish that rummage the sea bottom for food or burrow into the sand.

They have a serrated spine up to 10 inches long on their tails, which they can lash when stepped on or otherwise frightened.

The spines emit toxins that can kill many small creatures and cause excruciating pain in humans. Few people have died from the poison, but the spines can badly tear flesh and the wounds are prone to infections, including tetanus.

Hornby said people should treat stingrays with caution, but "there is still no need to ... kill or mutilate these important animals."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Cinematographer Sven Nykvist Dies at 83

Oscar-winning filmmaker Sven Nykvist, who was legendary director Ingmar Bergman's cinematographer of choice, died Wednesday after a long illness, his son said. He was 83.

Nykvist died at a nursing home where he was being treated for aphasia, a form of dementia, said his son, Carl-Gustaf Nykvist.

Nykvist won Academy Awards for best cinematography for the Bergman films "Cries and Whispers" in 1973 and "Fanny and Alexander" in 1982.

Nykvist's sense of lighting and camera work made him a favorite of Bergman's after their first collaboration on the 1954 movie "Sawdust and Tinsel," which began a partnership that lasted nearly 30 years.

"Together with Ingmar, he created movie history with those lighting arrangements," said Carl-Gustaf Nykvist, who directed the 2000 documentary "Light Keeps Me Company" about his father.

"He was called 'the master of light' because of the moods and atmospheres he could create with light. It was a near impossibility to create the moods he created."

Nykvist also worked on fellow Swede Lasse Hallstrom's "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and did several movies with Bergman fan Woody Allen. His last film was "Curtain Call" in 1999.

"Sven Nykvist was somewhat of a father figure for me," Hallstrom told Swedish news agency TT. "He taught me very much during the movies we made together. He was the one who got Americans and the world to realize that lighting could be simple and realistic."

Nykvist's wife, Ulrika, died in 1982. In addition to his son, he is survived by his daughter-in-law, Helena Berlin, and grandchildren Sonia Sondell and Marilde Nykvist.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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matt35mm

He was a great talent, certainly, and he made some beautiful films.

I confess that I thought he was already dead since he hadn't shot anything in a long time and Ingmar Bergman used a different cinematographer on Saraband.

MacGuffin

Director Gillo Pontecorvo Dies at 86

Italian filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo, who directed the black-and-white classic "The Battle of Algiers," has died in Rome at age 86, hospital officials said Friday.

Pontecorvo died Thursday night, said hospital spokesman Nicola Cerbino. The cause of the death was not given, but reports said he had suffered a heart attack months ago.

Pontecorvo directed only a handful of feature movies in a career that spanned decades, earning the nickname of "lazy director." But he remained involved in the world of cinema, directing documentaries and heading the Venice Film Festival for several years.

A former resistance fighter during World War II, Pontecorvo maintained strong political passions that were reflected in his movies.

His 1959 film "Kapo" told the story of a Jewish girl trying to escape from a concentration camp, and "Qeimada" in 1969 starred Marlon Brando in a tale against colonialism.

But it was "The Battles of Algiers" that made his name.

The 1966 epic depicts the Algerian uprising against the French in the 1950s in a documentary-like style, with a cast of mostly untrained actors. The film was banned in France for years.

The film won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film festival, as well as Oscar nominations for best director, best screenplay and best foreign film.

"The movie is surprising every time one watches it for its power, honesty, depth, political intelligence, capacity to raise emotions: Something that only great cinema can provide," Irene Bignardi, a leading movie critic and author of a book on Pontecorvo, wrote in Friday's La Repubblica.

Born Gilberto Pontecorvo on Nov. 19, 1919, in Pisa to a wealthy Jewish family, he moved to France to escape the Fascist regime's 1938 racial laws, supporting himself as a tennis instructor. In his early 20s, he started shuttling between Milan and France to keep contacts between anti-Fascist movements, La Repubblica said. He then came back to Milan and headed a Resistance brigade.

He studied chemistry and worked as a journalist before taking up directing, starting with documentaries.

His first feature-length movie in 1957 was a tale of a fishing community starring Yves Montand and Alida Valli, called "La Grande Strada Azzurra," ("The Wide Blue Road").

His last movie, "Ogro," in 1980, was set in Spain in the years of dictator Francisco Franco.

Pontecorvo served as director of the Venice Film Festival from 1992-94.

News of the death came as Rome was preparing to open the first edition of its film festival, and hundreds of movie executives, celebrities and industry VIPS were told as they gathered for a ceremony to honor Sean Connery.

"It's a great personal pain and huge loss for Italian cinema," Mayor Walter Veltroni said. "We are already thinking about how to honor him during the festival."

Pontecorvo is survived by his wife, Picci, and three children. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Chest Rockwell

That's a bummer. I love Battle of Algiers tremendously.

MacGuffin

Actress Adrienne Shelly Dead in New York

Adrienne Shelly, an actress best known for her roles in the Hal Hartley films "Trust" and "The Unbelievable Truth" was found dead in her office by her husband, her agent said Thursday.

Shelly was found about 6 p.m. Wednesday. Police said Thursday night that they are awaiting autopsy results before deciding whether to investigate the case as foul play.

An autopsy was performed Thursday, but the medical examiner's office did not have a cause of death.

Shelly, who was 40, appeared as Jerry in the 2005 film "Factotum" with Matt Dillon. She starred as Audry Hugo in the 1989 film "The Unbelievable Truth" and as Maria Coughlin in the 1990 film "Trust." She worked steadily during her career in film, theater and television but later turned to writing and directing, making her directorial debut with "Sudden Manhattan" in 1996.

Shelly was married to Andy Ostroy and had a 3-year-old named Sophie, according to her agent of about a decade, Rachel Sheedy. Ostroy is not in the movie business.

Born Adrienne Levine in Queens and raised on Long Island, Shelly lived in lower Manhattan with her family and had been focusing more lately on writing, directing and caring for her daughter, Sheedy said.

Shelly recently wrote and directed a film called "Waitress," which starred Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion.

"She was so psyched about the film," Sheedy said. "She gathered an amazing cast, and she was really happy and excited to hear back from Sundance about it."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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grand theft sparrow

No cause of death given=suicide.

I Don't Believe in Beatles

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/15931348.htm

Leonard Schrader, wrote "Kiss of the Spider Woman," dies at 62


ROBERT JABLON
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Leonard Schrader, who wrote the Academy Award-nominated film "Kiss of the Spider Woman" and co-wrote the critically praised "Mishima," has died. He was 62.

Schrader, who lived in Los Angeles, died Thursday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his brother, "Taxi Driver" screenwriter Paul Schrader, said Saturday from New York.

Schrader had suffered from a number of ailments, including cancer, his brother said.

Schrader was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., to a family of Dutch Calvinists who forbade the brothers to see any movies.

"That was a church edict," Paul Schrader said. "What they called worldly amusements were prohibited."

Schrader didn't see his first film until he was in college in the 1960s.

"Revolt was everywhere around us in the counterculture," his brother said. "Other kids had to vandalize government buildings. All we had to do is go to movies."

Schrader attended local Calvin College and received a master's degree at the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop, where according to his Web site he studied with luminaries such as Kurt Vonnegut and Jorge Luis Borges.

Screenwriting came naturally to the brothers, who were raised in a culture without TV or film but a lot of talk.

"We came from a background of storytellers and we were very good at that," Paul Schrader said.

His brother was drawn to other cultures.

"He felt like a stranger in the place where he grew up and he was naturally attracted to strangers elsewhere," Paul Schrader said. "He gravitated to stories set in Japan and South America."

In 1969 and the early 1970s, Schrader lived in Japan, where he taught American literature at universities and became interested in Japanese Yakuza gangster culture.

His first film was "The Yakuza," co-written in the 1970s with his brother and starring Robert Mitchum. Sydney Pollack directed.

Schrader wrote or co-wrote about a dozen movies, including 1978's "Blue Collar" and three Japanese-language movies.

They included 1985's "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters," based on the life of the famed Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, whom Schrader had met before his 1970 ritual suicide. Schrader co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Chieko, and his brother. Paul Schrader directed the movie, while George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola were executive producers.

Schrader's adaptation of a novel by Argentinian novelist Manuel Puig became "The Kiss of the Spider Woman." It earned him a 1985 Oscar nomination and won William Hurt the award for best actor.

Schrader also directed the 1991 independent movie "Naked Tango," filmed in Argentina and starring Vincent D'Onofrio.

Schrader taught film and screenwriting at USC and at Chapman College. In 2003 he became senior filmmaker-in-residence at the American Film Institute, where he chaired the Screenwriting Department and taught a graduate class.

"I believe at heart he was a teacher," his brother said. "He was very good at inspiring people, including me, when we were growing up ... His greatest pleasure came from teaching."

Schrader is survived by his wife and brother.
"A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later." --Stanley Kubrick

MacGuffin

Quote from: othersparrow on November 03, 2006, 08:49:08 AM
No cause of death given=suicide.

Brooklyn Man Charged With Murdering Actress

(CBS/AP) NEW YORK Prosecutors have charged a man with murdering actress Adrienne Shelly, who was found hanging from a shower rod in her West Village office last Wednesday, CBS 2 News has learned. Sources tell CBS 2's Ti-Hua Chang a construction worker has allegedly confessed to the crime.

Police have charged 19-year-old Diego Pillco, of the 300-block of Prospect Avenue in Brooklyn, with second degree murder.

Sources tell CBS 2's Ti-Hua Chang that Pillco, a construction worker, apparently confessed to the crime.

Pillco allegedly punched the 5-foot-2 actress after she complained about the noise he was making in the West Village apartment building where her office is located, killing her.

He then allegedly admitted to dragging the body up to her office, and positioning her in the shower to make her death look like a suicide.

The medical examiner's office had not yet ruled whether the death of the petite actress best known for her roles in the Hal Hartley films "Trust" and "The Unbelievable Truth" was a homicide or a suicide.

Police had been hesitant to label the case a suicide after no suicide note was found and sneaker prints that didn't match Shelly's shoes were found in the bathtub.

Shelly, whose birth name was Adrienne Levine, was found by her husband, Andy Ostroy, Wednesday evening hanging from a shower rod in the bathtub of a Greenwich Village apartment which she uses as her office.

Ostroy released a statement to the media on Monday night:

"My wife's senseless death is devastating to me, our families and friends. We are incredibly grateful to the New York City Police Department for their dedication, professionalism and tenacity in following up on every lead in this case.

"We appreciate the outpouring of support we've received. Her fans and the film community knew Adrienne as an award-winning actor, screenwriter and director, but her most enduring legacy is our wonderful daughter. To those closest to her, she was the best mother and step-mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend anyone could ask for.

"My comfort is now our young daughter and my other children who have been incredibly supportive. We hope everyone will respect that this is a difficult and private time for our family."

Shelly, who was born in Queens and grew up on Long Island, also had a 3-year-old daughter Sophie.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Composer Basil Poledouris Passes Away at 61
Source: Reuters

Emmy-winning composer Basil Poledouris, best known for his powerful music for action-adventure films of the 1980s and '90s, died of cancer in Los Angeles on Wednesday, says Reuters. He was 61.

Poledouris worked on the scores for the early Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicles Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984), and his orchestral-and-choral compositions came to be considered high points in the genre of music for fantasy films.

His other feature credits included The Blue Lagoon (1980), RoboCop (1987), The Hunt for Red October (1990), and Free Willy (1993). He won an Emmy in 1989 for his folk-based Western score for the miniseries "Lonesome Dove."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Oscar-Winning Actor Jack Palance Dies

Jack Palance, the craggy-faced menace in "Shane," "Sudden Fear" and other films who turned to comedy at 70 with his Oscar-winning self-parody in "City Slickers," died Friday.

Palance died of natural causes at his home in Montecito, Calif., surrounded by family, said spokesman Dick Guttman. Palance was 85 according to Associated Press records, but his family gave his age as 87.

When Palance accepted his Oscar for best supporting actor he delighted viewers of the 1992 Academy Awards by dropping to the stage and performing one-armed push-ups to demonstrate his physical prowess.

"That's nothing, really," he said slyly. "As far as two-handed push-ups, you can do that all night, and it doesn't make a difference whether she's there or not."

That year's Oscar host, Billy Crystal, turned the moment into a running joke, making increasingly outlandish remarks about Palance's accomplishments throughout the night's awards presentations.

:yabbse-cry: :yabbse-cry:
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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modage

aw thats terrible.  Jack Palance was a guy who woke up one day in the 70's and  his hair had turned grey.  and for the next 35 years he looked exactly the same.  "And remember.  Jack, you....are my number one.....guy."
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Ravi

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/09/obit.bradley/index.html

Ed Bradley of '60 Minutes' dies of leukemia

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Ed Bradley, the longtime "60 Minutes" correspondent whose probing questions and deceptively relaxed interviewing manner graced some of that show's most notable reports, has died. He was 65.

Bradley died Thursday at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital of leukemia, according to staff members at the CBS program.

Bradley joined "60 Minutes" during the 1981-82 season after two years as White House correspondent for CBS News and three years at "CBS Reports." His reporting over the years won him a Peabody Award, 19 Emmys and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, among many others. He was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Black Journalists.

His most recent Emmy was for a segment about the reopening of the 1950s racial murder case of Emmett Till in Mississippi.

Katie Couric, in announcing the death of Bradley on CBS, described him as "smooth, cool, a great reporter, beloved and respected by all of his colleagues here at CBS News." (Watch as Couric gives the details of Bradley's death -- 1:22Video)

"Bradley could cover any kind of a story," said Bradley's "60 Minutes" colleague Mike Wallace, singling out a profile of Lena Horne as "one of the most entertaining profiles I've ever seen."

"He traveled the world. He was in the White House. Bradley was just a damn good reporter," Wallace said.

CNN correspondent and former CBS reporter John Roberts said the newsman was "always a person you could sit down with and he could keep you intrigued for hours at a time with the stories he could tell."

Roberts called Bradley a "first-rate" journalist.

"He clearly was a field reporter," said Howard Kurtz, media reporter for The Washington Post. "He did not want to be chained to a desk." Kurtz also hosts CNN's "Reliable Sources."

"He was somebody who liked being out there on the story, whether it was in the Vietnam War or whether it was doing investigative work or bringing alive the plight of families who were dealing with illnesses or violence or other issues he covered," Kurtz added.

'You can be anything you want, kid'

Bradley was known for his thoughtful, mellifluous voice and often laid-back approach, a style that often prompted unexpected emotion in his subjects.

In 2000, he conducted the only television interview with condemned Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who described his anger and bitterness after fighting in the Gulf War. Three years later, Bradley interviewed Michael Jackson, who said he had been "manhandled" when arrested on child molestation charges a few weeks earlier.

Roberts, who said he didn't know about Bradley's illness, described his former co-worker's excitement and awe at being able to interview heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali after the boxer put him off for a while.

Bradley told Roberts he felt Ali was playing a kind of game with him.

According to Roberts, Bradley told him, "He [Ali] said he didn't want to talk. Maybe today, maybe not today. I don't know."

"Bradley told me Ali had this twinkle in his eye that said, 'Yes, I do want to talk to you. I just want to do it on my own time.' And I think for Ed, that was probably one of the most memorable interviews that he's ever done."

Bradley, a great music lover, also interviewed Miles Davis, Lena Horne and Paul Simon, among other performers. He once moonlighted as a disc jockey, earning $1.50 an hour spinning records while working as a teacher by day. In his later years, he hosted the radio show "Jazz at Lincoln Center."

"The idea that I could go to a station and open the cabinet doors of what we called the library and pull out music present and past and play what I liked to play, music I liked to hear, and that there were people out there listening to my taste in music -- man, it just didn't get better than that," he told the online publication All About Jazz in 2004.

Bradley was born June 22, 1941. He grew up in a tough section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he once recalled that his parents worked 20-hour days at two jobs apiece, according to The Associated Press. "I was told, 'You can be anything you want, kid,' " he once told an interviewer. "When you hear that often enough, you believe it."

Bradley began his career in radio at WDAS in his hometown in 1963. In 1967, he moved to New York and radio station WCBS, and then joined CBS News as a stringer in the Paris, France, bureau in 1971.

After a stint in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam, he came to Washington in 1974. He covered Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign in 1976, then became CBS' first African-American White House correspondent.

CNN's David Fitzpatrick, a former CBS producer who worked with Bradley, said there were tears in the halls of CBS News after word came of his passing.

"He was gracious," Fitzpatrick said. "He would always have a smile."

Bradley is survived by his wife, Patricia Blanchet.