versiunea 1.3. redux (incl. ROCKLAND & alinland)
Chuck Russell, the cult director of The Blob, A nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Mask and Ahnuld's Eraser, or if you will The Rock's The Scopion King is gone at 74.
New Zeelander hero (but born in Northen Ireland) Sam Neill has gome away at 78.
Dr. Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park series for most, but great in Possession (1981), his 1st major European part, his 1st American important part in 1990's The Hunt for the Red October. That came after his intense performance in Oz director's Phillip Noyce's excellent triangle thriller, Dead Calm (1989).
He could've been James Bond but he skipped it...
One of his carrers best: John Trent in John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness (1994).
Also great villain for another John Carpenter flick, Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992).
Great villainy also in Event Horizon, The Piano.
TV best: season 2 of Peaky Blinders.
Also great parts in Oz and NZ films as Taika Waikiki's Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) and The Hunter (2011).
Marjane Satrapi is gone. They say she died of a broken heart...at 56.
She was the author of the great graphic novel Persepolis, about her childhood in Iran, filled with bleak humor, which also criticised the regime and made a plea for women there (and anywhere). That was made in a feature animated film in black and white (like the novel), co-directed with Vincent Paronnaud. Persepolis was ipart of Cannes Competition in 2007, it won ex-aqueo the Grand Prix and later on she was nominted for an Oscar, actually the first woman director to be nominated in the animated feature category.
She continued directing with Poulet aux prunes, The Voices, Radioactive and Paradis Paris.
“Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life,” members of her family said in a statement sent to Afp. Ripa, a Swedish producer, actor, and screenwriter, died on April 8, 2025. A series of posts on Satrapi’s Instagram page in the weeks before her death spelled out the message: “For I Lost the love of my life.”
Hollywood Reporter obit here.
Mario Adorf, the Swiss cult actor that died on April 8th 2026 was 95. His father was an Italian surgeon, his mother a German nurse.
He acted in over 200 films, played grand theatre, wrote bestsellers. La Piovra's Acidduzzu (for the Romanians), spaghetti westerns (Gli Specialisti/The Specialists), giallos (L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo), polizioteschi (Milano Calibro 9), but also Alfred Matzerath in Die Blechtrommel for the arthouse and posterity. Winner of the Leopard Career Award in 2016.
Cultiest movie: Deadlock (1970)
met him briefly in Cannes in 2013 after the screening of Billy Wilder's Fedora.
https://aldmovieland.blogspot.com/2013/05/c66-mario.html
...Missing in Action....
Chuck Norris became legendary through the jokes about him, that he is invincible and imortal. He was Not. But gone now at 86, he was an inspiration to many, especially in the 80's Romania.
I first saw him in the cinema in Breaker ! Breaker !, translated as Orasul fantoma -Ghost town (1977), which I tremember cleartly they had a print in Black and white. Re-saw that on video later on. The battle with the broken bottle stayed vividly in my mind. He had no moustache at the time. Then on video fisrt films I saw was The Way of the Dragon, his first part in the 1972 Bruce Lee film (also directed by Lee), where he battles Lee in the Colosseum. The Colosseum would never be the same again. Oh, yes, for a bit, in Double Team where JCVD, a huge Norris and Lee fan, battles Mickey Rourke again in the Rome Arena.
He was a Karate champion and he became Steve Mc Queen's instructor and McQueen adviced him to go into acting.
Here's some Chuck Norris jokes:
Chuck Norris didn't die, God called him for backup!
Chuck actually died about 15 years ago. Death was too afraid to tell him
Chuck Norris went to Heaven to Judge God for his sins
RIP to the man who can put out a fire with a gallon of gasoline
The man who can beat the sun in a staring contest
The man whose diary is called the Guinness Book of World Records
Phil Campbell was Motorhead's last guitarist, on a series of greats (Larry Wallis, Wurzel, "Fast" Eddie Clarke), survived by only Brian Robertson (70 now).
Official Motorhead announcement:
George Harrison would've been 83 today....Living in the Material World...
When he died George was only 58....He became my hero in highschool with his hit album Cloud Nine (1987). I love most his stuff with The Travelling Willburys...
Now only Jeff Lynne and His Bobness still around here....
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.
...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?
Last year was just tough and brutal: Gene Hackman in Barcelona (also at 95, also in February), Brian Wilson when we were at night in the middle of nowhere in Ireland, Michael Madsen when I was to see Iron Maiden in Belfort, Remo Girone in Tramonti, Rob Reiner in Porto...Just when Ozzy left I was in Brasov...
One of the greats and Only Ones, Bobby / Bob Weir, the legendary guitarist of Grateful Dead and later on Dead & Company, Kingfish, etc, is gone at 78 (on Jan. 10th 2026).
He survived Jerry Garcia (dead at 53 in 1995!!!) for another 31 years !!!
He was still playing last year.
Obit in Rolling Stone
Dead & Company - 08/03/25, Recorded live at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, CA
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot, aka B.B. , once the most famous French incons, died at age 91. She was one of the most beautiful women on screen, bringin g a certain modern quality to feminity in the 60's.
She was married four times, most famously to Roger Vadim and Gunther Sachs. Also a singer, involved with Serge Gainsbourg (Bonnie & Clyde).
Films: Vadim's Et Dieu... créa la femme, Louis Malle's Viva Maria, Henri Clousot's La Vérité, Godard's Le Mépris. Last film in 1973. She became a Grand Animal Activist, and that was her main activity and her legacy.
And here's the great Tom Zé, with his song BB (1973).
Sad news before Xmas...
Chris Rea is no longer Driving Home for Christmas...
The English blues player and singer was 74.
Rea recorded 25 studio albums, two of which topped the UK Albums Chart, The Road to Hell in 1989 and its follow-up, Auberge, in 1991.
He did the music for La Passione in 1996, film he wrote and produced about racing cars and Ferrari, Rea being a racing driver himself.
He also had the lead in the pythonesque black comedy Parting Shots (1998, directed by Michael Winner), next to Ben Kingsley, Oliver Reed and John Cleese. The film can been on youtube, here.
He had an Italian father and Irish mother - his family were in the ice cream business.
Chris Rea had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at age 33, a lot of other health issues folllowing it, but he lived and played, album after album, gig after gig, until a stroke in 2016...
He played Bucharest's Sala Palatului, on February 6th 2010 -my memories and review here.
His last album was a compilation, The Christmas Album, released on October 17, 2025....
Obit on BBC here
took a while to process, and but it's not processed yet..:(
Mr. Marty DiBergi who just a had a comeback with Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues had left the showbiz...Dec. 14th 2025. He was 78. More about Rob Reiner in another later post...
The End Continues
Chiar nu-mi vine sa cred...drum bun Artan...Adrian Pleșca-om de Timpuri Noi si mereu Partizan...
o sa revin si am sa scriu mai multe depre intilnirile mele cu el...
next day: am apucat acum pe Sunete, asa cum se vede mai jos, si acolo ne-am intilnit Corespuzator...
imi place sa cred ca Adrian Artan a plecat in Concendiu...
https://sunetelive.ro/artan-4ever/
13 martie 2016 cu Vlad si Artan, Sunete si..David Bowie...
*****
"Perfect", in recital special la Cerbul de aur (!) in 1996, show regizat de Radu Muntean.
si un interviu frumos, linistit, de unde aflati si de unde vine numele de Artan la min. 26.
Tom Stoppard was one of the greatest playwrights of the last century, screenwiter and script doctor and author of the play Rosenkrantz and Guilderstern are Dead (1966). In 1990 he directed also a film based on his play, the film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival as well as the Fantasporto Directors' Week Award. He co-wrote Brazil with Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. He won the Oscar (and Golden Globe) for a lesser film, Shakespeare in Love, in 1998. His forte were the adpatations.
Udo Kier died on November 23d in Palm Springs. He was 83. One of the greatest actors. Ever. Only through his mad glaze, blue piercing eyes, he dominated every screen and stole every scene he was in.
Takes me some time and pain to write about him. I knew him, met in different occasions 4 times over the years. Interviewed him with Andrei on the set of One Point O in Bucharest in 2003. We spent hours in a derelict block of flats, now demolished, in a smoked flat, under the lights, into the night. Uberhot, hot early summer night in Bucharest (8th of may as the picture says). Udo came for a film and stayed for one more, got a part in Andy Garcia's Modigliani. His hair was dyed blonde for the part. We got Polaroids with him, each, this is Andrei's here. 
Then he was invited in Cluj at TIFF in 2006 and we hang out with him, even to a second hand shop where he bought a glorious long leather coat. This is another pic from Andrei, from one night to never forget, in the Diesel club, in the cellar VIP room (ha, another place that does not exist anymore...)
Then year passed, I had Udo's US address and mail, we sent him a script of a film still not done today. Didn't pass us to his agent or anything. I don't have the same mail address so that got lost.
In 2015 I was a guest of Grossmann film Festival, and spent more time with Udo, also there. We even went to see an art exhibition together.
Found another pic from Grossmann 2015, with my buddies, director Kritstjan Milic (Zivi i mrtvi) and Kapelmeister of the fest, Marko Mehtsun.
And last time I saw him in Cannes, on Rue des Antibes, in 2019, as he was there with the cast of Kleber Mendonça Filho's Bacurau, great film. We met on the street and had a chat. The last part of Udo is in Filho's new film, The Secret Agent. A beautiful heartfelt goodbye...
On the screen I saw him last in Hunters, season two where he played obviously on of his recurring characters, Adolf Hitler. Update: I just saw My Neighbor Adolf and liked it, Udo is at his best.
Goodbye Udo, it was a pleasure and an honor to meet you...
Lee Tamahori , rose to the film industry in New Zeeland, from photohrapher, to boom and sound, to tv director, gritty cult fame with Once Were Warriors in 1994...
They called him to Hollywood where he became the director of the worst James Bond in history, Die Another Day (2002).
Mullholand Falls, his neo-noir was a flop but it's worth rewatching.
Jack De Johnette was one of the greatests of Jazz. Brilliant drummer and pianist, played with Miles Davis (Bitches Brew and live LPs). He was 83.
Played in Romania at Sala Radio in Bucharest in 2016 as a trio with Ravi Coltrane on sax and Bill Garrison on bass. That same year he played also Garana Jazz Festival in the same lineup.
"I think playing with Miles, with Dave Holland, Chick Corea and Wayne Shorter was a very exciting period. We always couldn’t wait to get on the bandstand to see what kind of mischief we could get into.”
