Suave

Over the past few weeks, two actors I hold quite dear to my heart passed away: Dennis Hopper and Rue McClanahan. Obviously, this isn’t news to anyone, but as I was amid a death in my own family, I wasn’t able to post anything until now. Though she appeared in over 20 films, McClanahan will always be remembered best for the small screen, as that tarty firecracker Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls. A Southern belle with a charming vanity and a healthy appetite for men, Blanche gave McClanahan the opportunity to put all of her talents to their fullest effect, after previously playing recurring characters on Maude (also with Bea Arthur) and, yes, Mama’s Family. Though less recognized than her television work, McClanahan’s film career consisted of several great oddities, including playing a biology teacher in Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, Gina Gershon’s mother in a film adaptation of Jim Thompson’s short story This World, Then the Fireworks directed by Michael Oblowitz and Mervyn Nelson’s little-seen, Boys in the Band-esque Some of My Best Friends Are from 1971, which co-starred Candy Darling, Sylvia Sims, Gil Gerard, Dick O’Neill and gay porn star Calvin Culver (Score, Ginger, Boys in the Sand). My favorite little obituary for Rue was written by Michael K. at Dlisted who said, “Thank you for playing a character that showed me it’s okay to be a big ass slut with a bitchy tongue as long as you do it while wearing pastel florals.” He also posted a quote from the last remaining Golden Girl Betty White the same day.

Where does one start with Dennis Hopper? I guess everyone can choose how they’ll remember him best, and I have a feeling a lot of the people I know will be channeling his memory through his performance as Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. From his screen debut in Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause, Hopper’s appearances onscreen were consistently unpredictable, working steadily for six decades. His outings as a director were a lot more intermittent. After achieving a cult hit with Easy Rider, his follow-up The Last Movie–which placed Hopper opposite a wild cast that included Tomas Milian, Samuel Fuller, Sylvia Miles, Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, Henry Jaglom, John Phillip Law, Michelle Phillips, Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn and Toni Basil–is still relatively unknown to this day. Hopper had his name taken off the film Catchfire in 1990 after Vestron Pictures decided to cut his three-hour version; the film, which starred Jodie Foster and a lot of other famous actors, was later released with the title Backtrack, twenty-minutes longer but still an hour short of Hopper’s intended version. His other directing credits include Out of the Blue, the neo-noir The Hot Spot with Don Johnshon, Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Connelly, the police drama Colors and the terrible Chasers with Tom Berenger and Erika Eleniak. I could probably spend a lot more time talking about some of his great performances throughout the years, but that could take a really long time. Some of the highlights, in my eyes: in a loincloth beside Taylor Mead in Andy Warhol’s close-to-unwatchable Tarzan and Jane Revisited… Sort of; running naked through a train in Henry Jaglom’s Tracks; playing “Tom Ripley” in Wim Wenders’ The American Friend [Der amerikanische Freund]; on incredible amounts of drugs as a photojournalist in Apocalypse Now; playing a police lieutenant in Tobe Hooper’s weird-as-fuck sequel to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre; making a cameo as Grace Jones’ lover in Alex Cox’s Straight to Hell; giving Christopher Walken a history lesson on Sicily in True Romance; planting bombs on buses in Speed; bringing the reptilian villain King Koopa to life in the film version of the Super Mario Bros. video game; raving about the future of video as it pertains to cinema in Abel Ferrara’s The Blackout; bringing about the only moments of joy to George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead; and lending advice to Ben Kingsley about his affair with Penélope Cruz before perishing at wife Debbie Harry's side in Isabel Coixet’s Elegy. So, Dennis and Rue, as Frank Booth would say, here's to your fucks.

Notable Filmography

Rebel Without a Cause, 1955, d. Nicholas Ray
Giant, 1956, d. George Stevens
Night Tide, 1961, d. Curtis Harrington
The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys, 1964, d. Andy Warhol
Tarzan and Jane Regained… Sort of, 1964, d. Andy Warhol
The Trip, 1967, d. Roger Corman
Cool Hand Luke, 1967, d. Stuart Rosenberg
Hang ‘Em High, 1968, d. Ted Post
Head, 1968, d. Bob Rafelson
Easy Rider, 1969
True Grit, 1969, d. Henry Hathaway
The Last Movie, 1971
The Other Side of the Wind, 1972, d. Orson Welles
Mad Dog Morgan, 1976, d. Philippe Mora
Tracks, 1977, d. Henry Jaglom
Der amerikanische Freund [The American Friend], 1977, d. Wim Wenders
Les apprentis sorciers [The Sorcerer’s Apprentice], 1977, d. Edgardo Cozarinsky
Apocalypse Now, 1979, d. Francis Ford Coppola
Out of the Blue, 1980
Reborn, 1981, d. Bigas Luna
Human Highway, 1982, d. Dean Stockwell, Neil Young
Rumble Fish, 1983, d. Francis Ford Coppola
The Osterman Weekend, 1983, d. Sam Peckinpah
O.C. and Stiggs, 1985, d. Robert Altman
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, 1986, d. Tobe Hooper
River’s Edge, 1986, d. Tim Hunter
Blue Velvet, 1986, d. David Lynch
Hoosiers, 1986, d. David Anspaugh
Running Out of Luck, 1987, d. Julien Temple
Black Widow, 1987, d. Bob Rafelson
Straight to Hell, 1987, d. Alex Cox
The Pick-Up Artist, 1987, d. James Toback
Colors, 1988
Chattahoochee, 1989, d. Mick Jackson
Catchfire, 1990
The Hot Spot, 1990
Superstar: The Life & Times of Andy Warhol, 1990, d. Chuck Workman
Paris Trout, 1991, d. Stephen Gyllenhaal
The Indian Runner, 1991, d. Sean Penn
The Heart of Justice, 1992, d. Bruno Barreto
Super Mario Bros., 1993, d. Annabel Jankel, Rocky Morton, Roland Joffé, Dean Semler
Red Rock West, 1993, d. John Dahl
True Romance, 1993, d. Tony Scott
Chasers, 1994
Speed, 1994, d. Jan de Bont
Witch Hunt, 1994, d. Paul Schrader
Waterworld, 1995, d. Kevin Reynolds, Kevin Costner
Carried Away, 1996, d. Bruno Barreto
Samson and Delilah, 1996, d. Nicolas Roeg
Space Truckers, 1996, d. Stuart Gordon
Basquiat, 1996, d. Julian Schnabel
The Blackout, 1997, d. Abel Ferrara
Who Is Henry Jaglom?, 1997, d. Henry Alex Rubin, Jeremy Workman
Jesus’ Son, 1999, d. Alison Maclean
Leo, 2002, d. Mehdi Norowzian
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, 2003, d. Kenneth Bowser
Tell Them Who You Are, 2004, d. Mark Wexler
Land of the Dead, 2005, d. George A. Romero
Sketches of Frank Gehry, 2005, d. Sydney Pollack
Inside Deep Throat, 2005, d. Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato
Chelsea on the Rocks, 2008, d. Abel Ferrara
Elegy, 2008, d. Isabel Coixet
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!, 2008, d. Mark Hartley
The Brothers Warner, 2008, d. Cass Warner
Palermo Shooting, 2008, d. Wim Wenders

Auf Wiedersehen, Werner Schroeter

German filmmaker Werner Schroeter, one of the significant queer cinéastes from Germany in the 1970s, died yesterday, just a week after turning 65. Though relatively unknown in the United States, Schroeter began making films in the late-1960s, often collaborations with another important (though still little known in the US) queer filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim. In 1980, his film Palermo or Wolfsburg [Palermo oder Wolfsburg], currently (as of February 2010) the only film of his available on DVD in the US, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Schroeter also appeared in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Beware of a Holy Whore [Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte] as the cinematographer and had a brief role in Fassbinder's television mini-series Welt am Draht [World on Wires]. Since then, Schroeter worked consistently in both Germany and France. His films include the lavish, multilingual musical Der Rosenkönig [The King of Roses], a film adaptation of Ingeborg Bachmann's novel Malina (scripted by Elfriede Jelinek) with Isabelle Huppert and Mathieu Carrière, the documentary Love's Debris [Abfallprodukte der Liebe / Poussières d'amour] in which Huppert and Carole Bouquet interview some of the director's favorite opera singers and Deux, also with Huppert. His last film Nuit de chien, which stars Pascal Greggory, Bruno Todeschini, Amira Casar, Jean-François Stévenin and Bulle Ogier among others, screened at both the 2008 Toronto and Venice Film Festivals.

For the invisible man who can sing in a visible voice

March has been a sad month for music lovers, with Alex Chilton, lead singer of Big Star, dying of a heart attack yesterday and Mark Linkous, the mastermind behind Sparklehorse, taking his life over a week ago. Big Star was one of the great American rock bands of the 1970s, headed by Chilton and the tragic, late Chris Bell. While commercial success eluded the group in their heyday, their influence could be heard on countless American rock bands from the mid-1980s on, from R.E.M. to Primal Scream. Chilton's musical legacy was immortalized twice for subsequent generations by Paul Westerberg and his The Replacements' brilliant anthem to the singer, titled simply "Alex Chilton," and Ivo Watts-Russell's 4AD "supergroup" This Mortal Coil, who covered "Kangaroo" (with vocals by Cindytalk lead singer Gordon Sharp) and "Holocaust" (sung by Howard Devoto of The Buzzcocks) on the album It'll End in Tears. A Big Star tribute album was released in 2006, which featured covers by Wilco, The Afghan Whigs, The Posies and Teenage Fanclub. Chilton and Big Star's music started appearing in a number of Gen X films like Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming and Empire Records and more recently in both Adventureland and Thumbsucker.

Mark Linkous was the brains behind Sparklehorse, one of the great, lesser known bands to come out of the mid-90s. Sparklehorse reached its greatest success in 2001 with the album It's a Wonderful Life, which featured guest vocalists PJ Harvey, Tom Waits and Nina Persson of The Cardigans. In 2009, Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse collaborated together on a project entitled Dark Night of the Soul, which was to be accompanied with a photo booklet from David Lynch. The vocalists on the album included Iggy Pop, Persson, Julian Casablancas, Lynch, Frank Black, The Flaming Lips, James Mercer of The Shins, Suzanne Vega and the late Vic Chesnutt. Despite legal troubles with the release, Dark Night of the Soul was available streaming on NPR's website, and it rumored to have an official release sometime this year. A number of musicians have been offering requiems for Linkous, including Steven Drozd, Steve Albini and Patti Smith.

R.I.P. Zelda Rubinstein, J.D. Salinger

Both with their oh-so-memorable voices... only one could you hear. I like to imagine them sharing a bottle of brandy in the sweet hereafter.

Eric Rohmer, 1920-2010

Way Harsh, Part 2, a Small Photo Tribute to Brittany Murphy

Because I should be doing other things... and because I very sincerely am saddened by Brittany Murphy's passing... and because I don't know how to capture video... and because the video would likely be taken down promptly... and because I don't know where my copy of Drop Dead Gorgeous is... here are some of my favorite caps of the late actress, whom my friend Jessie described as "a staple of our generation" (so accurate)... Nathan from Film Experience Blog probably said it best with "I missed her before she was gone." The stills are from Clueless, Freeway and The Dead Girl.

Totally Buggin' with a sad face

While doing some factual research for the Decade List (character names and what-not), I saw the horrific headline at the top of the screen: Brittany Murphy Dies at 32. From my pre-teen years watching Clueless more times than I would prefer to admit, Murphy has always had a special place in my heart (made even more solid by her all-too-brief role as Reese Witherspoon's lesbian bunkmate Rhonda in Freeway). Though her career was fairly patchy afterward, especially the big Hollywood vehicles like Just Married and Uptown Girls, she gave a truly memorable and heartbreaking performance in 2006's The Dead Girl, which now feels even more haunting than it once did. In addition to acting, she sang on a Paul Oakenfold track, "Faster Kill Pussycat," one of my not-so-guilty pleasures. I may have to put off rewatching Gerry to remember some of Murphy's finer offerings (those being the aforementioned Clueless and Freeway, as well as Drop Dead Gorgeous... I didn't think I'd ever feel sad watching any of those three). I wonder if the proposed Clueless sequel/reunion will still happen. Terrible news.

R.I.P. Dominick Dunne

Though his contributions to cinema fell second to his journalistic accomplishments, Dominick Dunne acted as producer on three significant films from the 70s: adaptations of his sister-in-law Joan Didion's novels Panic in Needle Park and Play It As It Lays, as well as William Friedkin's The Boys in the Band. His daughter Dominique was the victim of a notorious murder scandal shortly after completing her work in the mythically cursed Poltergeist. He was 83.

Blow Out the Candles; Plus More from Toronto

R.I.P. John Hughes, who died of a heart attack today at the age of 59 today. His contributions to cinema were a mixed bag at best (Curly Sue, Dennis the Menace and fuckin' Baby's Day Out), but he certainly captured something special in his better offerings (Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off). Making overnight stars out of the likes of his teen stars, most notably (for me) Molly Ringwald, it's hard to say whether he really chronicled a generation; I guess it depends on who you ask, as I've heard the same unqualified claim about Bret Easton Ellis. Whether it's cheap nostalgia or not, his (good) films certainly have stood the test of time. In other news, Toronto announced another eleven titles, including new films from Mika Kaurismäki (L.A. Without a Map, Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made), Ana Kokkinos (Head On, The Book of Revelation), Jan Hrebejk (Beauty in Trouble, Divided We Fall) and Harmony Korine, as well as an omnibus Paris je t'aime-esque portrait of Bangkok from Pen-ek Ratanaruang (Last Life in the Universe, Ploy), Wisit Sasanatieng (Tears of the Black Tiger), Aditya Assarat (Wonderful Town) and Kongdej Jaturanrasamee (Midnight My Love, Spasm).

Contemporary World Cinema

- Beyond the Circle - d. Golam Rabbany Biplob (On the Wings of Dreams)
- Blessed - d. Ana Kokkinos - w. Miranda Otto, Frances O'Connor
- Giulia Doesn't Date at Night [Giulia non esce la sera] - d. Giuseppe Piccioni (Light of My Eyes) - w. Valeria Golino
- Heiran - d. Shalizeh Arefpour
- The House of Branching Love [Haarautuvan rakkauden talo] - d. Mika Kaurismäki
- Por vida [For Life] - d. Alan Jacobs (American Gun, Nina Takes a Lover) - w. Danny Glover, Snoop Dogg, Elizabeth Peña, Emily Rios
- Rabia - d. Sebastián Cordero (Crónicas) - w. Gustavo Sánchez Parra, Àlex Brendemühl
- Sawasdee Bangkok - d. Wisit Sasanatieng, Aditya Assarat, Kongdej Jaturanrasamee, Pen-ek Ratanaruang
- Shameless [Nestyda] - d. Jan Hrebejk
- Slovenian Girl [Slovenka] - d. Damjan Kozole (Spare Parts)
- Tanner Hall - d. Francesca Gregorini, Tatiana von Furstenberg - w. Amy Sedaris, Chris Kattan, Anne Ramsay, Tom Everett Scott

Visions

- Between Two Worlds - d. Vimukthi Jayasundara (The Forsaken Land)
- Gaia - d. Jason Lehel
- Hiroshima - d. Pablo Stoll (Whisky)
- I Am Love [Io sono l'amore] - d. Luca Guadagnino - w. Tilda Swinton
- Lebanon - d. Samuel Maoz
- To the Sea - d. Pedro González-Rubio
- Trash Humpers - d. Harmony Korine

R.I.P. Yasmine Belmadi

Tragic news from France, young actor Yasmine Belmadi was killed in a car accident over the weekend. Belmadi made his debut in Sébastien Lifshitz's Les corps ouverts, later co-starring in Lifshitz's made-for-television Les terres froides in 1999 and the exquisite Wild Side in 2004. His other credits include François Ozon's Criminal Lovers [Les amants criminels], Gilles Marchand's Who Killed Bambi? [Qui a tué Bambi?], Robert Salis' Grande école and, most recently, Nassim Amaouche's Adieu Gary, which won the Grand Prix at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes this past May.

IFC Films on DVD, Round 2 + Akerman + Petzold - Michael Jackson

Though you might have other things on your mind, I thought I'd post another DVD update. Through their new deal with MPI, IFC Films announced their second round of DVD releases after that Blockbuster/Genius drought. Unfortunately, all of their titles so far have been part of their Festival Direct package and not their theatrical releases (The Last Mistress, The Duchess of Langeais, A Christmas Tale, Hunger, Gomorrah, My Winnipeg, etc). On 15 September, look for Spiros Stathoulopoulos' single-take thriller PVC-1 and Baltasar Kormákur's White Night Wedding [Brúðguminn], which stars the Icelandic director's frequent actor Hilmir Snær Guðnason. On 29 September, Madonna's wretched directorial debut Filth and Wisdom and the Spanish thriller Fermat's Room [La habitación de Fermat] will be released.

Icarus Films has set a release date for Chantal Akerman's acclaimed, little seen From the East [D'Est] for 6 October, as well as David Barison and Daniel Ross' documentary The Ister for 3 November. Kino will release a double-feature of sci-fi/horror films from director Graham Reznick, I Can See You and The Viewer, on 28 September.

Cinema Guild will follow Project X's July release of Christian Petzold's The State I Am In [Die Innere Sicherheit] with his latest Jerichow on 27 August. And finally, it appears as if the elusive Phantasm II will make its way onto DVD on 15 September (though I can't back this up) from Universal. I know you've been waiting.

TY

I'm taking this opportunity to do what so many others on my Facebook news feed are doing and thanking Bea Arthur for being a friend. She will be missed. And God knows the gays will be dropping their tears into a glass or three this evening. Wear some shoulder pads tonight in remembrance. Goodbye, Dorthy Petrillo Zbornak.

R.I.P. Jack Cardiff

RIP Natasha Richardson

Natasha Richardson's passing is pretty dreadful news. The daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and Tony Richardson, granddaughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, niece of Lynn and Corin Redgrave, sister of Joely Richardson and wife of Liam Neeson, Natasha made memorable screen performances in Ken Russell's Gothic, Paul Schraeder's Patty Hearst, Volker Schlöndorff's The Handmaid's Tale and Schraeder's The Comfort of Strangers. Terrible.