Re: Celebrity Death List MMXI / The Death Thread 2011

[Allan D]

Not forgetting his debut picture, at the age of 32, of Twelve Angry Men. which would be impossible to make now as feminists would insist on it being called Six Angry Men and Six Very Calm and Rational Women - indeed the title of the original picture is somewhat of a misnomer since the magnificent Lee J.Cobb, who almost steals the picture from Henry Fonda, is the only juror who is consistently angry, or at least very irritable, throughout the film.

The all-male cast comprises a galaxy of character actors who were to feature in American films and TV for the next quarter of a century including Martin Balsam as the foreman of the jury and Jack (Quincy) Klugman. Lumet also directed Peter Finch's last picture Network in 1976 with Wiliam Holden and Faye Dunaway which deservedly won him a rare posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (was he aware of it, I wonder? - guess we'll never know) as the crazed TV news presenter, Howard Beale, who regales his viewers with this address, of almost Shakespearean emotion:

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Most, if not all, of Lumet's pictures feature at least one character who is not quite 100 cents to the dollar, so to speak.

[LeFromage]

RIP Sidney Lumet

He directed many famous movies.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/09/sidney-lumet-dead_n_847014.html

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Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Network......some of my favorite movies.

Not seen Network, but the other two are all kinds of win.

[Allan D]

Paddy Chayevsky's script, Sidney Lumet's direction, Peter Finch's acting - the origins of the 'Tea Party' Movement. Pure gold:

[horace]

Lumet would be appalled at being mentioned in the same breath as the tea Party right wing warthogs

Lumet was an unabashed progressive who supported the civil rights movements, opposed the Vietnam war and supported human rights...a damn decent person and wonderful film maker

[Allan D]

NSR - Horace. You may admire Lumet but you have obviously missed out on Network which is a satire on the misplaced power of televison news and television in general which Lumet (and Chayevsky) argue is an obstacle rather than an aid to our understanding of the world. Get the film on DVD and you will see the point of my reference although it's fairly obvious from the clip I posted above.

[horace]

Network is one of my favourite movies Alan...tho doubt Murdoch would pick it up the video store for a lazy night at home

[skully]

Come on, boys - Dumet down a bit please.

[PeterCS]

Dumet?

[horace]

I believe Pete that Skully would claim that to be a pun

[Allan D]

May be on the verge of a second strike or it could just be a ploy to avoid judicial retribution:

Mubarak in Hospital

[horace]

it seems that one of my nominees is getting married in a week or so...does that get points or have them deducted...

it seems to be all over the media here...royal wedding hysteria has run rampant...can only imagine what it is like in Inner Pomgolia at the moment...wonder how many FB'ers will watch the thing or fall asleep while their partner sits agog in front of the telly

[Allan D]

At least we get the day off and as the following Monday is Workers' Day - celebrated naturally by taking the day off - that will mean a four-day weekend following the four-day Easter weekend the week before. Ain't life grand in the Old Country!

[horace]

rofl...points at currency, standard of living, employment rates and you have my commiserations...still 'spose the wedding will give the tourism and plate manufaturing industries a boost

[Allan D]

...as well as give the bolshie unwashed another excuse to smash up Top Shop and Fortnum & Mason's. Typical Bank holiday entertainment.

Btw, I agree with you, Horrie. I'd sooner be where you are than here any day, Royal Wedding included. As John of Gaunt says in the bit of the "scepter'd isle" speech that's never quoted (except by me):

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

Richard II, Act II sc.i., William Shakespeare.

Plus ca change....

[PeterCS]

May be on the verge of a second strike or it could just be a ploy to avoid judicial retribution:

Mubarak in Hospital

Predictably, while being questioned.

[embee]

At least we get the day off and as the following Monday is Workers' Day - celebrated naturally by taking the day off - that will mean a four-day weekend following the four-day Easter weekend the week before. Ain't life grand in the Old Country!

Oz just gets a 5 day break thanks to the Pommy qunt generals for their brilliant invasion of Gallipolli in 1915

[Bradman]

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

I suppose the only thing they did right was assure us of a public holiday.

[skully]

Seems lots of people have died in the past few days but not many who could be classed celebrities.

[Allan D]

C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.

I suppose the only thing they did right was assure us of a public holiday.

Considering that the much-maligned Poms suffered twice the casualties in both killed and wounded at Gallipoli than the Anzacs did maybe we should have two days' holiday:

Gallipoli Campaign: casualties

[Allan D]

Seems lots of people have died in the past few days but not many who could be classed celebrities.

Britain's oldest worker finally handed his cards by the Almighty yesterday:

'Buster' Martin

[WideWally]

The World's Oldest Man also died. I've noticed that a lot of supercentenarians have been dying lately. Does anyone have a theory why this has been happening?

Also Groucho's son.

... and an Indian named Sachin.

.

[taipan]

Seems lots of people have died in the past few days but not many who could be classed celebrities.

Britain's oldest worker finally handed his cards by the Almighty yesterday:

'Buster' Martin

The Los Angeles Times reported on 12 April 2008 that Martin "follows a diligent regimen of beer, cigarettes and red meat".

There's hope for me yet.

[skully]

Aye, that's what triple bypasses were invented to overcome the effects of.

[WideWally]

Mr Lucas from Are You Being Served has died

RIP Trevor Bannister

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13098312

[PeterCS]

The World's Oldest Man also died. I've noticed that a lot of supercentenarians have been dying lately. Does anyone have a theory why this has been happening? ...

Old age maybe?

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