u/FindOneInEveryCar

From Deadline:

Mark Rydell, the Oscar-nominated director of 1981’s On Golden Pond and two of Bette Midler’s signature films – The Rose and For The Boys – died Thursday of natural causes in Los Angeles. He was 97.

His death was announced by Midler on Instagram today.

“Mark Rydell, the director or my first film, The Rose, died this morning. He was an actor of note before he became a director, and I was so lucky to have met him when I did; he taught me so much on The Rose and later on For The Boys. Two Oscars nominations both because of him. He was the actor’s whisperer; just a few words was all it took to understand what was needed.”

Born Mortimer H. Rydell on March 23, 1929, in New York City, Rydell studied music with the intention of becoming an orchestra conductor but pivoted to acting after attending The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City and landing roles on in the mid-1950s and early ’60s on New York-based soap operas The Edge of Night and As the World Turns.

A busy acting career was launched, with guest appearances over the next decade on episodes of such primetime series as The Phil Silvers Show, Robert Montgomery Presents, The Big Story, Naked City and Wanted: Dead Or Alive.

By the mid-1960s, though, Rydell was increasingly pivoting toward directing, with such early TV credits as episodes of The Virginian, Mr. Novak, 10 episodes of Ben Casey, I Spy, The Wild Wild West, The Fugitive and Gunsmoke.

Rydell directed Steve McQueen in 1969’s The Reivers, John Wayne in 1972’s The Cowboys and James Caan and Marsha Mason in 1973’s Cinderella Liberty. He would reteam with Caan on 1976’s Harry and Walter Go To New York and, that same year, directed the pilot episode of the hit ABC domestic drama Family.

His highest profile film to date came in 1979 with Midler’s movie debut, The Rose. Based loosely on the life and death of rock star Janis Joplin, The Rose made a movie star of Midler, earning her an Oscar nomination as well as one for co-star Frederic Forrest.

The Rose‘s success led to Rydell’s hiring to direct the much anticipated On Golden Pond, the film adaptation of playwright Ernest Thompson’s 1979 play. The movie would star Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Jane Fonda in one of the most celebrating casting coups of its day. Rydell was nominated for an Oscar, as was Jane Fonda. Both Henry Fonda and Hepburn won their Academy Awards, as did Thompson for his adapted screenplay.

Rydell was married to actor Joanne Linville (Guiding Light, The Goddess, 1976’s A Star Is Born) from 1962 to 1973. The couple had two children, daughter Amy and son Christopher. A second marriage to documentarian and producer Esther Rydell produced a son, Alexander, before ending in divorce.

Survivors include his three children, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren."

1929-2026

Like u/Hopeful_Cod6295, I've found myself watching a lot of noir this summer (getting caught up on some blu-ray purchases). Here are all the noir (and noir-ish) movies I've seen since May.

• Favorite: Out of the Past remains my favorite noir, although I haven't seen The Asphalt Jungle in (as the kids say) a minute, and that's a strong contender for the top spot.

• Best re-watch: The Set-Up; a brutal and compelling tale of violence and corruption that doesn't waste a single second of its short runtime. Robert Ryan is brilliant and I spent the entire time thinking "Goddamn, I forgot how good this movie is." Runner-up is Criss Cross, which didn't really grab me the first time I watched it.

• Best new watch: The Postman Always Rings Twice was great (of course), but the movie that really blew me away was Witness in the City (Un témoin dans la ville), directed by the future director of La Cage aux Folles. Like The Set-up, this one starts strong and doesn't slow down for a second, with an added layer of seediness that the Hays Code would have prohibited in the USA. Runner-up: Nightfall. Another brilliant Jacques Tourneur joint featuring a stunning, 24-year-old Anne Bancroft.

• Most disappointing: The Big Combo just didn't grab me. Maybe because I watched it on Youtube and the "print" was not very good quality, but I found the whole thing kind of "meh." Richard Conte was excellent, but Cornel Wilde and Jean Wallace were about as exciting as white bread with mayonnaise.

Still a month and a half to go... further updates as the situation warrants...

I happened to hit "pause" to answer the phone while watching this movie, and landed on this brilliant frame from director Robert Siodmak and D.P. Franz Planer.

I got the high score on Ms. Pac-Man but I think I was the first person to play since the machine was plugged in.

OK folks, I've got a game that's stumped me for years. My kid is a retro-game nerd and she couldn't come up with anything that matches this description.

The essentials:

• Side-scroller
• Underwater caves similar to AQUANAUT but in greyscale.
• Unlike Aquanaut, the main character was a guy in a diving suit with a jet-pack (instead of a little ship).
• The game was absolutely not JET PAC

More details:

One night, ca. 1984, I stayed up all night with a couple of friends playing a side-scrolling game where you explored underwater caves.

• It was on some kind of home computer. This was so early that it may not have been a literal "PC" (IBM clone). It may have been a Commodore or an Apple II or something like that, but it was definitely a home computer with a keyboard, and not a game console.
• Graphics were greyscale. That may have been a limitation of my friend's hardware.
• Graphics resembled AQUANAUT in that it had big "chunky" pixels (like an Atari 2600 game) with no shading or anything.
• As I recall, you had to keep punching the "up" button to keep from sinking (similar to the "flap" button in JOUST).
• As I recall, the background may have been continuously-scrolling from right to left, i.e., not a static platformer like JET PAC or JOUST, and you did not have the option to explore vertically as you could in AQUANAUT (based on the playthrough posted above).
• There may have been an option to vary your speed, but you had to keep moving from left to right (relative to the background) as far as I recall.

That's it... what 'cha got?

Thanks in advance.

A friend of mine passed away last year, and I am taking some of his book collection

I want to stress up front that none of these discs have cases or the original artwork. They will be shipped to you in paper or tyvek sleeves (see photos).

That said, the discs themselves are all in VG+ or better condition. Money back if not satisfied.

Shipping to the US will be $5 flat rate for any number of discs.

Comment here if you'd like me to ship to another country and I'll look up the rates (although most if not all of these are Region 1 / Region A discs).

Blu-ray: $3 each

• Barry Lyndon (1975)
• The Big Lebowski (1998)

DVD: $1 each

• King Kong (1933) - 2 disc special edition
• The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
• Return of the Pink Panther (1975)
• Gorky Park (1983)
• Blood Simple (1984)
• River's Edge (1986)
• Swimming to Cambodia (1987)
• 12 Monkeys (1995)

Universal Monster DVD: $1 each

• Dracula (1931)
• Frankenstein (1931)
• The Mummy (1932)
• The Invisible Man (1933)
• Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• The Wolf Man (1941)
• Phantom of the Opera (1943)

Kaiju DVD: $1 each

• Godzilla 2000 (1999)
• Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)

Monty Python's Flying Circus DVD: $1 each

NB: Episode guide HERE.

• Disc 1 (Episodes 1, 2, 3)
• Disc 2 (Episodes 4, 5, 6)
• Disc 3 (Episodes 7, 8, 9)
• Disc 4 (Episodes 10, 11, 12, 13)
• Disc 5 (Episodes 14, 15, 16)
• Disc 6 (Episodes 17, 18, 19)
• Disc 7 (Episodes 20, 21, 22)
• Disc 8 (Episodes 23, 24, 25, 26)
• Disc 11 (Episodes 33, 34, 35)
• Disc 12 (Episodes 36, 37, 38, 39)
• Disc 13 (Episodes 40, 41, 42)
• Disc 14 (Episodes 43, 44, 45)

A reminder that none of these discs have cases or the original artwork. They will be shipped to you in paper or tyvek sleeves.

Payment via Paypal, please.

Verdict:

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Obsession: Very scary, somewhat derivative (The Monkey's Paw meets Fatal Attraction), very entertaining.

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Backrooms: Highly original. More tense than scary for most of the runtime. Very Lynchian. I was expecting to give it 5 stars but thought the ending was weak/rushed.

Saw this at Lake Benson dog park today