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 […]

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Remembering 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 […]

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D.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, […]

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Remembering 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 […]

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Remembering 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. […]

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Remembering 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 […]

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Bernardo 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 […]

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A 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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