On July 11th 2024, award-winning actress Shelley Duvall passed away in her home state Texas, after suffering from diabetes-related health complications. Duvall’s career spanned several decades, including her iconic performance as protagonist ‘Wendy Torrance’ in The Shining (1977). In addition to her eclectic collection of roles in children’s television, comedy and horror films, Duvall is […]
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Jailed Russian opposition politician, Alexei Navalny dead
News sources are reporting today that jailed Putin critic, Alexei Navalny, has died in prison. On 20 August 2020, Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. In 2021 he was imprisoned on charges which were widely seen as politically motivated.
For background, checkout the Academy Award winning documentary, Navalny, streaming from the library catalog.
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Remembering bell hooks, 1952-2021
bell hooks, the trailblazing author, feminist, educator, and activist, died today at the age of 69. hooks, whose given name was Gloria Jean Watkins, based her pen name on great-grandmother Bell Blair Hooks. She chose to style her pen name in all lowercase letter in order to highlight her message, rather than herself. hooks was […]
Continue readingRemembering Terry Jones
Today we honor Terry Jones, immortal member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a tv program which truly needs no introduction. Jones was a founding Python, establishing the troupe along with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, and Michael Palin. When Monty Python’s Flying Circus premiered in the UK in 1969, the troupe presented […]
Continue readingD.A. Pennebaker, 1925-2019
D.A. Pennebaker, pioneer of American cinema verite and chronicler of 1960s counterculture, died this past weekend at the age of 94. Documentary filmmaking was not Pennebaker’s first career, but his formative experiences and skills uniquely prepared him to spearhead a new type of documentary filmmaking. As a young man, he studied engineering at Yale University, […]
Continue readingRemembering Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli, the famed director behind many a Shakespeare adaptation, died in Rome this weekend at the age of 96. His earliest days seemed to predestine him for the drama he would become celebrated for. Born out of wedlock in Florence, Italy, his mother made up his surname based on a mistranslation of a Mozart […]
Continue readingRemembering Doris Day
Doris Day, the acclaimed and beloved actress died this past Monday, May 13th. For many people, Day is the face of post-war American cinema, and is known not only for her films, but her crooning voice. Day was born in Ohio in 1922, and was a near-professional dancer before a car accident shattered her leg. […]
Continue readingRemembering Agnès Varda
On March 29th, the world lost Agnès Varda, one of the most quietly influential filmmakers of the 20th (and 21st) century. Varda, who released her first film in 1954, is considered by many to be the ‘godmother’ of French new Wave cinema, if not the first New Wave filmmaker. Her first film, La Pointe-Courte, predated […]
Continue readingBernardo Bertolucci and Stephen Hillenburg
This week saw the death of two artists, giants in their respective fields. On Monday, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci died at age 77. Bertolucci rose to fame with the 1973 release of Last Tango in Paris, a controversial film that was earned an X rating after extensive cuts. One of these scenes depicted a middle […]
Continue readingA Tribute to Stan Lee
American pop culture lost one of its patriarchs today. Stan Lee, born in 1922, revolutionized the comic book industry, helping it to evolve from a niche industry into cultural force. Lee built an incredible, interconnected world at Marvel Comics, and I don’t know where I’d be personally if I hadn’t had Uncanny X-Men to get me […]
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