The Notable Death Thread

Robert Redford, the Sundance Kid, has pulled his last sting. RIP
One of Redford’s memorable movies, at last to me, was Situation Hopess - But Not Serious. A strange film with Alec Guinness and Mike Connors. Not highly rated on IMDB but I rather liked it.
 
Robert Redford, the Sundance Kid, has pulled his last sting. RIP
I find it astonishing that while he got an Oscar for directing Ordinary People, he never received one for his acting. He was often accused of playing only versions of himself, but he had a way of using his silences as effectively as his dialog. (A shining example of that is All Is Lost, where his dialog was practically non-existent.) I can't think of any movie where his roles could have been better played by anybody else.

And his founding of the Sundance film festival and his environmental and political activism display his character even more than the roles he played.
 

Jane Goodall, Eminent Primatologist Who Chronicled the Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91​

Her discoveries in the 1960s about how chimpanzees behaved in the wild broke new ground and represented what was called “one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements.”
 

Jane Goodall, Eminent Primatologist Who Chronicled the Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91​

Her discoveries in the 1960s about how chimpanzees behaved in the wild broke new ground and represented what was called “one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements.”
She was one of those people who went their own way, saw what others couldn't, and made us all reflect on where we fit in to the world of the great apes. She'll be missed.
 
Wow, did she have a good run for her money. She was on a speaking tour in California when she died.

That leaves Birutė Galdikas as the last survivor of the three primate scientists hired by Louis Leakey. She never attained the same level of popular acclaim (and in Dian Fossey's case, notoriety) of the other two women, though her contributions to the field have been just as impressive.
 
Alas. Another MB falls.

My husband played in a backup orchestra for The Moody Blues fifteen or twenty years ago. It was one of the highlights of his orchestral career.
 

Jane Goodall, Eminent Primatologist Who Chronicled the Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91​

Her discoveries in the 1960s about how chimpanzees behaved in the wild broke new ground and represented what was called “one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements.”
I know this is older news, but I saw this Far Side panel today and it made me smile.

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I know this is older news, but I saw this Far Side panel today and it made me smile.

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A friend and I were talking about that cartoon just last night! She recalled the back story about it. Evidently, a group of activists claiming to represent Dr. Goodall wrote Larson a letter claiming that he'd infringed on her rights and denigrated her work. But Larson had also received a letter from Goodall herself, in which she said she loved the cartoon and asked for his permission to put it on a tee shirt for a fundraiser. So he didn't lose any sleep about it.

Similarly, MAD magazine published a parody of Star Wars, and got an angry letter from Lucasfilms threatening action for copyright infringement. In reply, the editors simply enclosed a copy a letter they'd received from George Lucas praising the parody. They never heard anything further from the Lucasfilms lawyers. (MAD knew, of course, that parodies were immune from prosecution, as a result of many a past legal battle, so they weren't too concerned. But the opportunity to respond with Lucas's letter was too tempting to pass up.)
 
A friend and I were talking about that cartoon just last night! She recalled the back story about it. Evidently, a group of activists claiming to represent Dr. Goodall wrote Larson a letter claiming that he'd infringed on her rights and denigrated her work. But Larson had also received a letter from Goodall herself, in which she said she loved the cartoon and asked for his permission to put it on a tee shirt for a fundraiser. So he didn't lose any sleep about it.

Similarly, MAD magazine published a parody of Star Wars, and got an angry letter from Lucasfilms threatening action for copyright infringement. In reply, the editors simply enclosed a copy a letter they'd received from George Lucas praising the parody. They never heard anything further from the Lucasfilms lawyers. (MAD knew, of course, that parodies were immune from prosecution, as a result of many a past legal battle, so they weren't too concerned. But the opportunity to respond with Lucas's letter was too tempting to pass up.)
Yeah, Lucas was cool with stuff like that. He was all about the Robot Chicken parodies when they those awhile back. Frigging hilarious if you've never seen them... like Luke and the Palpatine getting into a Yo Mama snap battle. I'm sure things have changed a bit since Disney took over.
 
Yeah, Lucas was cool with stuff like that. He was all about the Robot Chicken parodies when they those awhile back. Frigging hilarious if you've never seen them... like Luke and the Palpatine getting into a Yo Mama snap battle. I'm sure things have changed a bit since Disney took over.
I dunno, Adam Driver did some quite funny Kylo Ren "undercover boss" sketches for SNL.

 
I dunno, Adam Driver did some quite funny Kylo Ren "undercover boss" sketches for SNL.

Yeah, that one too. Funny Adam Driver story: I saw the first new Star Wars movie (Episode 7?) in the theater with my wife and parents, and when he removed his mask and revealed his face for the first time, all three of them gasped a little because Driver looked exactly like me in that scene. Must have been the angle or something, but they were all like, holy shit, you didn't tell us you were in a Star Wars movie. It was before anyone knew who Adam Driver was. The hair is wrong and his profile doesn't match, but this short shot here is pretty damn close.

 
A friend and I were talking about that cartoon just last night! She recalled the back story about it. Evidently, a group of activists claiming to represent Dr. Goodall wrote Larson a letter claiming that he'd infringed on her rights and denigrated her work. But Larson had also received a letter from Goodall herself, in which she said she loved the cartoon and asked for his permission to put it on a tee shirt for a fundraiser. So he didn't lose any sleep about it.

Similarly, MAD magazine published a parody of Star Wars, and got an angry letter from Lucasfilms threatening action for copyright infringement. In reply, the editors simply enclosed a copy a letter they'd received from George Lucas praising the parody. They never heard anything further from the Lucasfilms lawyers. (MAD knew, of course, that parodies were immune from prosecution, as a result of many a past legal battle, so they weren't too concerned. But the opportunity to respond with Lucas's letter was too tempting to pass up.)

People can be strange about parody. I remember reading after 9/11 that activists (dare I call them crazy people?) threatened to sue BBC over the show Fawlty Towers, on the basis that the use of the word "Towers" was making a profit out of the misery of the people who died in the 9/11 attack. (They also tried to sue the rock band Tower of Power, for the same reason).

Never mind the fact that Fawlty Towers came out something like 40 years before the 9/11 attack, or that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the Twin Towers. The BBC had deep pockets.

Cynical? Me? Never. ;)
 
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