Sidney Lumet

A noteable, but undervalued film maker has just died:

Lumet was one of the leading film directors of the second half of the 20th century. He was prolific, directing more than 40 movies, and versatile, dabbling in many different film genres. Lumet, who was born in Philadelphia, often shot his movies in his home town of New York.

Lumet was nominated for Academy Awards four times as a director. He never won, but he did receive an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2005. (1)

If Lumet had been born a few years later, he'd probably have been given greater status than he achieved. He was too youthful and stylistically radical to really fit in with mainstream Hollywood; and by the time Hollywood changed, he was probably a bit too old - and too inclined towards realism - to fit in with the radical young things in the loud and shallow post-Tarantino world. Still, he made 12 Angry men; The Hill; Serpico; Dog Day Afternoon; Network; The Verdict; Running On Empty, and lots more. His last film (Before The Devil Knows Your Dead) came out in 2007.

His films maintained a very consistent focus on outsiders/rebels: The Man In White in 12 Angry Men; Paul Newman's dissipated lawyer in The Verdict; Serpico; Howard beale in Network. You get the drift ... Though you could say about 90% of films have outsiders as their main characters, the 'outsiderness' of Lumet's protagonists seemed to be pivotal to the film, whereas Jean Claude Van Damne is an outsider just so he doesn't have to obey the rules.

Probably his lowest moment came when he was name checked in the tiresome-apart-from-Halle-Berry's-tits thriller, Swordfish, in John Travolta's idiotic opening monologue. Really, the old chap didn't deserve that. Swordfish was an embodiment of everything Lumet wasn't. It was brash, flash, sadistic and empty. While Lumet's work was often cruel, it was because he was trying to portray the real world. He'd never have hung a bus underneath a helicopter, or film people being torn to pieces simply so he could show off fancy film techniques.

1 - "American film director Sidney Lumet dies aged 86," unattributed obituary. Published in the Telegraph, 9th of April, 2011. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/8440301/American-film-director-Sidney-Lumet-dies-aged-86.html)

Craig Thomas has died

He was the chap who wrote lots of not-too-bad cold war thrillers that mentioned animals in the title, like Firefox, Sea Leopard and Wolfsbane.

He seemed to run out of titular beasts in the mid 90s. His last three books were called A Wild Justice, A Different War and Slipping into Shadow. Surely, he meant, A Wildebeest Justice, A Different Warthog, and ... er ... Slipping into Haddocks?