Gone With or Without fanfare

[RedRiver]

Gore Vidal's historical fiction is fine. We heard a lot about LINCOLN, but BURR is just as good. The stuff is a little intellectual for my tastes. I prefer a faster pace. But that's my shortcoming. Not the author's. I hope his passing inspires more readers to explore his ironic world.

[kingrat]

Red, thanks for reminding me of BURR. That's another outstanding one.

[movieman1957]

Marvin Hamlisch has died at age 68.

A link to the story - (it's a two page story.)

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-po ... s-68-50971

[JackFavell]

whoa. didn't see that coming.

[RedRiver]

Wow! Nowadays, 68 doesn't seem so old.

[Lzcutter]

I sure wish Death would take a long holiday, go someplace cool, have a drink and put his feet for a while.

For those of us of a certain age with an interest in film from the days we were growing up, Judith Crist's film criticisms were part of that growing up. Her columns in TV Guide were essential reading to learn what was coming up on tv that week, movie-wise, that was worth watching and, in many cases, worth playing sick to stay home from school to watch.

She died today in New York City at the age of 90.

From LA Observed:

Judith Crist was the critic for many years on the "Today" show and in print at TV Guide and elsewhere. She had two long stints at TV Guide — the first before they fired her in favor of computerized summaries of films, the second after a deluge of reader complaints forced the editors to ask her back. She died today in New York. From the New York Times website:

Ms. Crist came to prominence at a time when film was breaking with the conventions of the Hollywood studio era while experiencing a resurgence in popularity, much of it fueled by baby boomers. She championed a new generation of American directors like Steven Spielberg, Sydney Pollack and Woody Allen and new actors like Robert De Niro and Faye Dunaway.


Her commentary had many homes: The New York Herald Tribune, where she was the first woman to be made a full-time critic for a major American newspaper; New York magazine, where she was the founding film critic; and TV Guide, which most defined her to readers. Her reviews appeared there for 22 years at a time when the magazine blanketed the country, reaching a peak readership of more than 20 million.

She was the “Today” show’s first regular movie critic, a morning fixture on NBC from 1963 to 1973. And she wrote for Saturday Review, Gourmet and Ladies’ Home Journal.

A Harris Poll of moviegoers in the 1960s cited her as their favorite critic. In 1968, Film Quarterly called her “the American critic with the widest impact on the mass audience.” When TV Guide decided to dismiss her in 1983 to replace her column with a computerized movie summary, executives told her they might come crawling back to her in six months to beg her to return. The magazine was deluged with letters, and asked her back three weeks later. She was given a raise and stayed until 1988.

[JackFavell]

R.I.P. Ms. Crist:

You were my first....

(critic, that is) Always fair.



and Mr. Hamlisch:

Hamlisch gave me a good belly laugh in The Sting, one of the few that I think comes solely from the score of a film. There's a suspenseful chase between Robert Redford and Charles Durning near the 1/3rd point in the film (a no brainer as to who wins that one). Redford finally ends up running up some stairs and over some el tracks, some kid of openwork, upper level railing. He comes out right over the top of Durning and leaps off the tracks past him and gets away. As he leaps the music bursts forth happily into the song The Cascades, by Scott Joplin. I saw the movie six times in the movie theatre when I was a kid and every audience I saw it with laughed it's head off at that moment. I can't think of a better testament to a film scorer. Or a piano player.

[moirafinnie]

I sure wish Death would take a long holiday, go someplace cool, have a drink and put his feet for a while.

Well put!

I remember that in college courses on film I encountered (overly) serious cineastes who were disdainful of Judith Crist's conversational and entertaining reviewing style. I've since decided that they probably resented her popularity as much as anything. She entertained and informed her audience, aware of the shifting tastes of her time, but not afraid to have fun as well as call a movie crap if it was deserved in her view. She also wasn't afraid to voice appreciation of a handsome guy in a movie, and famously nursed a longtime crush on Michael Caine. I've always liked her lack of pretension, sense of fun, and sometimes incisive way with a sharp word:

There's a nice piece on her in more recent years here:
Judith Crist: Queen Mother of Critics

[MikeBSG]

Somehow, I always managed to miss Judith Crist's writings. (Maybe it was growing up in Cleveland.)

However, I could not avoid Marvin Hamlisch's music, and it was good music. I have no doubt that he added enormously to my enjoyment of "The Sting." His song "Nobody Does It Better" was the best part of "the Spy Who Loved Me." Movies would be poorer without Hamlisch's contribution.

(Outside the world of film, I just learned that the historian John Keegan died last week. His books on the First and Second World Wars are superb.)

[Rita Hayworth]

I sure wish Death would take a long holiday, go someplace cool, have a drink and put his feet for a while.

Well put!

I remember that in college courses on film I encountered (overly) serious cineastes who were disdainful of Judith Crist's conversational and entertaining reviewing style. I've since decided that they probably resented her popularity as much as anything. She entertained and informed her audience, aware of the shifting tastes of her time, but not afraid to have fun as well as call a movie crap if it was deserved in her view. She also wasn't afraid to voice appreciation of a handsome guy in a movie, and famously nursed a longtime crush on Michael Caine. I've always liked her lack of pretension, sense of fun, and sometimes incisive way with a sharp word:

There's a nice piece on her in more recent years here:
Judith Crist: Queen Mother of Critics

I will agree with you 1000% Moira!

I did not know that she had a longtime crush on Michael Caine ... thanks for sharing that.

[kingrat]

I don't know if there any horse racing fans on this site, but Judith Crist is the mother of Steven Crist, a syndicated racing columnist. Moira and Lynn, I couldn't agree more with your kind words about Judith Crist. She wrote engagingly in a way accessible to ordinary movie fans, and some of them probably tried movies on her recommendation that they would not otherwise have seen. There are other, more scholarly ways of writing about film which I also appreciate, but that's another matter.

And yes, there have been entirely too many deaths this summer. Marvin Hamlisch at 68? That seems younger every year.

[knitwit45]

And yes, there have been entirely too many deaths this summer. Marvin Hamlisch at 68? That seems younger every year.

especially when you're turning 67 in less than a month

[Sue Sue Applegate]

Moira and Lynn, I couldn't agree more with your kind words about Judith Crist. She wrote engagingly in a way accessible to ordinary movie fans, and some of them probably tried movies on her recommendation that they would not otherwise have seen. There are other, more scholarly ways of writing about film which I also appreciate, but that's another matter.

And yes, there have been entirely too many deaths this summer. Marvin Hamlisch at 68? That seems younger every year.

Good points about Judith Crist, kingrat.

As for Marvin, I spent many hours practicing those Scott Joplin marvels because of Hamlisch's score for The Sting, not to mention the many requests for "The Way We Were" in my musical heyday.

Knitty, just take care of yourself!

[Lzcutter]

Moira,

I still remember reading her review for a wonderful, little known film, They Might Be Giants starring George C. Scott and Joanna Woodward. I watched the film and fell in love with it. I think rights issues is the reason it's been out of the public eye until recently.


"The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand"

[movieman1957]

Christy:

I was always playing "The Last Time I Felt Like This." Johnny Mathis and my sweet Jane Olivor recorded the song from "Same Time Next Year." It was a good song with a better performance and I could play it.

I met Jane at a record signing and told her I had spent more time in the basement with her than any woman except The Bride.