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RIP Alan Rickman, AKA Hans Gruber, Severus Snape (variety.com)
TigerPlish writes to note Variety's report on the death of actor Alan Rickman, who died after a short bout with cancer, and was surrounded by friends and family when he went. Rickman may be most familiar to you as Hans Gruber in Die Hard (especially in his final scene), or as Harry Potter's Snape, but his film career was long, crossing genre lines and extending into five decades.
I don't know about these other movies, I remember his performance the most from Dogma.
I first became aware of/noticed Rickman in Closet Land, a very dark psychological thriller in which he played a good-guy sadistic interrogator. Thought he was brilliant. RIP.
Dropped off a building.
Stabbed by Robin Hood.
He played Rasputin (we all know how that went...)
Bitten by a snake.
Now cancer...
Poor dude just couldn't win!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Wasn't galaxy quest supposed to be a spoof? Replacing a cast member using the same name but looks different and call him the same is exactly like the series it spoofs.
Also the search for Lazarus has a nice ring to it.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
A friend of mine was with the audio crew for Galaxy Quest and when some of the stars were touring and in NYC he invited me to go with him to see them at a party. Met Rickman (and the others) - nice guy. And he lit up when I mentioned that I'd remembered him from one of the early episodes of Smiley's People (1982).
Said everybody wanted to talk about Galaxy Quest & the Die Hards & Sense and Sensibility &c, but "NObody EVER talks about Smiley's People, and I LOVED doing that episode and working with Sir Alec Guinness (who had then recently passed away)!". I liked him.
_I_ met Snape BEFORE he was Snape!
I agree. To give you some idea of his talent, two of my favorite Alan Rickman movies were Love Actually and Dogma. That an actor could play such different roles in such different movies is testament to his talent. Only a few actors come close to playing such a wide range of characters.
Lord of the Rings is literature -- high art, by a distinguished scholar. It is not just a great work of the English language, it is a great work by any standard in any language. Like all literature, you are free to find it boring. However, one must respect his creation of thousands of years' worth of history, legend, and myth, three to five languages (depending on how you count them), and the personal struggles of a few dozen principal characters in the backdrop of an epic war. As a feat of world-building it may never be equaled. As a narrative it has few flaws.
It is extremely foolish to disdain art because it is popular, or to say it is worthless simply because you deem it so. The entire rest of the world disagrees with you, which should be enough of an argument for any purpose.