News is spreading quickly that movie director Jonathan Demme has died to esphogeal cancer at the relatively young age of 73. Bummer. He was truly an original talent. That said, Demme’s career took a very interesting turn with the 1991 release of The Silence of the Lambs. Unfortunately, it was not necessarily a turn for the better. While this may sound a bit harsh, especially considering the poor man’s body isn’t yet cold, hear me out.
Today’s release and rhapsodic reviews of The Lost City of Z (“…a miraculous movie, at once moving, intimidating, and gorgeous to behold.” — The Atlantic) have conjured memories of Mountains of the Moon, a little-known 1990 film examining the arduous and, ultimately, contentious, search by explorers Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke for another great mystery of the Victorian age—this on the other side of the world—the source of the Nile River.
I’d been meaning to feature the little-known horror gem Near Dark (1987) in this series of goofy remembrances from my college days but never got around to it. Sadly, it’s taken the recent, untimely death of Bill Paxton to finally provide a proper kick in the pants.
As remembrances of Paxton’s most indelible performances came pouring in—Chet from Weird Science, Pvt. Hudson from Aliens, Dixon in One False Move, Hank in A Simple