Tom Noonan, most famously known as Francis Dollarhyde/ The Toothfairy in Michael Mann's Manhunter, the first Hannibal Lecter (spelled Lektor) film in 1986, is gone at 74. I re saw the film last year...It's the best Lecter / Thomas Harris film for me still. And Noonan is pretty scary.
Great character actor , he was also iFrankenstein's monster in The Monster Squad, the baddie in Robocop 2. He returned for Michael Mann in Heat.
In his youth, Noonan was a guitarist and a composer and a theatre actor. He directed 2 indie feature films, a play and some shorts.
Terribly sad about Tom Noonan passing. In casting Manhunter I auditioned about 10-15 actors in New York when Tom walked in the door and said, “I don’t want to talk. I just want to read.” He read and it was magical. We worked closely. I based Dollarhyde less on the novel’s character and more on a convicted killer whom I met and with whom I corresponded who was doing life in Vacaville. I took Tom into that world and he made it his own. It was an automatic to cast Tom in a wheelchair as Kelso in Heat. He did so much more fine work, but it was as the battered child become a killer adult - both alive in the same bottle - that projected the range and deep soul of this so acute and committed artist. Rest in peace, Tom.
...when in Rome...just landed and in the taxi I hear the news, celelbrissimo attore Robert Duvall, etc..surely I get it. Gone. I mean he was 95, lived a great and long life and his films are immortal.
But why everytime I go somewhere this kind of news get heavier and harder?
Duvall was one of the Greatest, like Hackman. As as kid I knew him first by name, my father showed me, he was in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most versatile actor of the '70's. Opposed to Hackman he was the quintesential Character Actor. Capital A.
He was in over 100 films and television series.
He got an Academy Award (for the forgotten Tender Mercies-1983), a BAFTA Award, four Golden Globe Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
His film debut was as Boo Radley in the book adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).
His shot at Movie Mythology came with Consigliere Tom Hagen in The Godfather and more for Coppola, a bit part in The Conversation-uncredited-where I saw him last-last year, as a Gene Hackman homage series of films), lt. Kilgore "love Napalm in the morning" in Apocalypse Now. He refused to reprise his part in The Hodfather III doe to a salary quarrel.
Loved his parts in Lucas' debut THX 1138, Jesse James in The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, the gangster in The Outfit, based on the Donald E. Westlake book, the German colonel in The Eagle has Landed, the baddie in Sam Peckinpah's Killer Elite, a TV producer in Sidney Lumet's Network, Dr. Watson in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, the cop in True Confessions, another cop in Dennis Hopper's Colors, then later on Tony Scott's Days of Thunder, written by Robert Towne, Joel Schumacher's Falling Down, Kevin Costner's Open Range. Also Sling Blade, Get Low, the part of the Old man in the adpatation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, The Judge in 2014, last bit in 2022 Scott Cooper's Netflix flick The Pale Blue Eye.
He directed five films films, most notably The Apostle in 1997 and in 2002 in Argentina, Assassination Tango. I gotta catch-up with that last one, never saw it.
He lived in his ranch in Virginia, surrounded by his family. Never will be gone, just left this stage and sets...
"Somebody once said that the best life in the world is the life of a second leading man. You travel, you get a per diem, and you’ve probably got a better part anyway. And you don’t have the weight of the entire movie on your shoulders.”
Crime 101 is a little LA neo-noir gem directed by the Brit Bart Layton (American Animals). Heist, angst, existentialism, it's based on a novella by Don Winslow (Savages). The title refers to the 101 Freeway in Southern California, entering Los Angeles, and the faved heist location of the blue-eyed Thief Davis (Chris Hemsworth, reminiscent of another Michael Mann pic, Blackhat).
The ensemble casting is cool: Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, and Halle Berry, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Jennifer Jason Leigh (more like a cameo cos she has only one scene, surely cut for time), and Nick Nolte in a part sim lliar with Jon Voight's in Heat.
Produced by Working Title Films, Crime 101 was bought by Amazon MGM, outbidding Netflix,. which is great cos they also distributed in Theaters (through Sony).
Mostly a Heat homage, plus elements from Mann's Thief, Walter Hill's The Driver, even a scene fromTrue Romance ;)
A nice conversation on Steve McQueen and the iconic Mustang from Bullit add on.
See in in the cinema, it's great widescreen and sound and score- Blanck Mass.
Islands is an odd piece, film noir under the sun, actually much at dusk. Shot all in location in Corralejo, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain, it premiered at Berlinale 2025 as a Special Presentation.
The director is German, Jan-Ole Gerster (also co-writer), the actors are Brits, Sam Riley, Stacy Martin and Jack Farthing. Shades of Ripley (Highsmith's) and Hitchcock. Well acted, existential slowburn anti noir ;). Atmospheric score and sound design.
The Nicolas Cage is back with something cool in black and white (and color) but I'd rather see it Noir as in the title. Premieres May 24th on Amazon Prime as in in collaboration with Sony, who's only Marvel character they got rights too...
From the looks it's more of a Sin City / Frank Miller, The Spirit / Will Eisner.
Breendan Gleeson is the villain.
Hopefully this will rock, as gamebased Fallout TV series did, or DC / HBO recently two interesting spinoffs, The Penguin and The Peacemaker and Marvel/ Disney did mega meta Wonder Man.
This just in, as y-day it was the 45th anniversary of the release of the KILLERS album (2.02.1981) !!!
The life and career of pioneering heavy metal frontman Paul Di'Anno, the powerhouse voice heard on Iron Maiden's early albums, will be celebrated in the forthcoming documentary, Di'Anno: Iron Maiden's Lost Singer, to be released by Cleopatra Entertainment this summer.
Hmm, the doc does not apperar on imdb at all... :(
In a strikingly raw and intimate film, director Wes Orshoski captures the late singer riding an emotional rollercoaster toward the end of his life. Featuring appearances by James Hetfield (Metallica), Gene Simmons (Kiss) Maiden's Steve Harris and members of Exodus, Slayer, Megadeth, Overkill and Sepultura, the film chronicles how two Iron Maiden fans encounter Di'Anno at the lowest point of his life and then set out to restore his health and relaunch his career.
Wheelchair-bound since the mid-2010s, Di’Anno’s health nosedived during the Covid-19 pandemic, when those two fans launched a crowdfunding campaign which ultimately led to him relocating to Croatia, where - through the help of those fans and doctors - he made a dramatic turnaround while running out of money, reuniting with his former Maiden bandmates, and falling in love. Eventually he makes a heroic and drama-filled return to the stage. All of this is captured in Di'Anno: Iron Maiden's Lost Singer, which Orshoski began shooting in 2017.
“For years there wasn’t much to capture,” says Orshoski, whose credits include Lemmy, a study of Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister and The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead. “Paul was waiting for surgeries that doctors in the U.K. would not green-light. He was in an incredibly dark place. But once he got to Croatia, fans and doctors gave him the hope he was desperately searching for. It was beautiful to witness. I wanted to make a film that was unlike any rock doc you've ever seen. And in the end, I think we got there.”
One of icons of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, London-born Di’Anno helped launch Iron Maiden around the world, appearing on two of the most foundational metal albums ever released: Iron Maiden’s 1980 self-titled debut and the celebrated follow-up, Killers, released in 1981. In one of the most epic sagas in metal history, Di’Anno left Maiden in 1981 and was replaced by Bruce Dickinson, leaving metal fans around the world to debate which line-up and which singer was/is better. It’s a debate that continues to this day, almost 50 years later.
Orshoski finished work on the film (which was shot in England, Croatia, Brazil and the United States) shortly before Di’Anno’s death at 66 in October 2024. Di’Anno: Iron Maiden’s Lost Singer has been screening at European film festivals and will be released worldwide on both streaming services and on Home Entertainment DVD and BLU RAY formats.
oh, how we should reboot Doc and Roll ! Esp. now when Iron Maiden playes again Bucharest and Sunete is prepping another Special Edition mag, this time Up the Irons !!! ;)
Recunoscut drept unul dintre cei mai spectaculoși chitariști de blues-rock contemporan, Eric Sardinas revine în fața publicului din România pentru un concert-eveniment la București, în cadrul Transilvania Blues Nights, marcând prima sa apariție în România după 2012, când a concertat ultima dată în București. Revenirea sa este așteptată de peste un deceniu de fanii blues-rock-ului autentic.
Artistul american este celebru pentru stilul său electrizant și tehnica explozivă de slide guitar, prin care îmbină blues-ul tradițional cu energia rock-ului. Influențat profund de maeștri precum Elmore James, Johnny Winter și Son House, Sardinas duce mai departe tradiția blues-ului electric într-o formă contemporană.
Cu o carieră de peste două decenii pe marile scene ale lumii, Eric Sardinas s-a impus ca un performer de referință, cunoscut pentru intensitatea concertelor sale live și pentru modul visceral în care folosește chitara, adesea apelând la tehnici neconvenționale și o expresivitate rar întâlnită. De-a lungul timpului, a colaborat și a împărțit scena cu artiști legendari precum Steve Vai, Charlie Musselwhite, Marco Mendoza, David Coverdale și John Sykes, consolidându-și reputația internațională.
Eric Sardinas este considerat un artist care aduce blues-ul în prezent fără compromisuri, păstrând respectul pentru tradiție, dar împingând constant limitele expresiei muzicale. Fiecare concert este o experiență intensă și memorabilă.
Un concert-eveniment la București dedicat iubitorilor de blues-rock, în cadrul Transilvania Blues Nights.
B. There & Let There B. Blues!
7 februarie 2026 | ora 20:00 (open doors 18:00)
THE PUB – Universității, București (Bulevardul Regina Elisabeta 9)
