Category Archives: R.I.P.

Twelve Angry Men. The Fugitive Kind. The Pawnbroker. Fail-Safe. The Hill. The Anderson Tapes. Serpico. Dog Day Afternoon. Network. The Verdict.

One of the most entertaining story tellers in modern American cinema. Great with actors. (Probably his greatest work as a cinematic stylist was in his black-and-white days.)

Sidney Lumet is dead at 86.

Had his politics not been all wrong for the story, Bonfire of the Vanities could have been a great film under his direction.

Nevertheless, enjoy some clips from the wonderful films he did make:

Ach! He was one of my favorites. The End. Fatso. Blazing Saddles. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (underrated, hysterical comedy directed by Gene Wilder), the old TV sitcom Lotsa Luck, 25 million talk-show appearances, the old Dean Martin variety show and roasts, the 90s adaptation of Woody Allen’s Don’t Drink the Water.

Years ago I wrote a TV pilot for him. It was about an obese diet doctor. A friend of a friend got it to him — literally handed it to him over Thanksgiving dinner. Wound up sitting in his agent’s desk for the next 20 years.

Funny, funny guy. Here’s a taste. Mangia.

And, of course …

Actor Ron Silver, whose roles ranged from Rhoda Morgenstern’s neighbor to Charlie Fox in  David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow (for which he won a Tony Award) to Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune to a villain in a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, has died from esophageal cancer. He was 62.

While not exactly a conservative, Silver was nevertheless an outspoken supporter of such Republicans as Rudy Giuliani and George W. Bush — which could only have posed a serious threat to the long-term prospects for his career.

John Podhoretz provides an abstract on Silver’s work and political commitments at Commentary.

Silver also had his own program on Sirius satellite radio.

Too soon, man. Too soon.

UPDATE: TIME magazine’s Joe Klein has this farewell.

Those of you who have been regularly readers of religion blogs over the past few years know Amy Welborn, or at least her work. At Open Book and now Charlotte Was Both, Amy has been a model of serious, engaged, lively, and irenic discussion of topics that ordinarily bring out the worst in people.

But never Amy.

I have failed to live up to her example with appalling regularity, yet she has been generous enough to bring attention to stuff I’ve written over at FIRST THINGS and here — and always in a positive manner, for which I am immensely grateful.

As some of you must already know, her husband, Michael Dubruiel, died suddenly Tuesday morning.

Please keep Amy and her family in your thoughts and prayers today, this week, this month, this year.

NOTA BENE: If you would care to make a donation to help Amy and her family, you may do so here.

John Updike, Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winning author, has died at age 76.

Updike was a first-rank novelist who was also a Christian. In books such as Roger’s Version, he confronted the challenges to faith in a world of small, disappointing things.

Perhaps the only writer and professing Christian of his caliber still active is Marilyn Robinson.

There will be many encomiums to come, no doubt.