TheRocketeer Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If you're a regular reader of online film criticism, then chances are you're already aware of the super-sharp crew over at The Onion's A.V. Club, and if indeed you are, then you know that these guys can put together a mean movie retrospective, with titles ranging from today all the way back to the mid-'90s. (I kid, I kid; Scott Tobias' The New Cult Canon did get around to the likes of I Am Cuba.)

An equally fascinating recurring feature is Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops, and the opening paragraphs to this week's entry on 1991's The Rocketeer are among the strongest testament to that column, that critic, and that team that I've read to date. Here's a taste:

"Anyone who tells you the appeal of moviegoing isn't at least partially voyeuristic is a goddamned liar and should be punched in the face repeatedly. We go to the movies in no small part to watch uncommonly beautiful people woo, romance, or reject other preternaturally fetching creatures in photogenic settings. As a young boy, I embraced movies as a socially acceptable way of looking at boobs. The fact that films were capable of art and truth was a neat bonus."

It only gets more graphic from there -- in all the best ways, natch -- before Rabin finally settles down to the film at hand (which just dashed up my Netflix Queue from the relative depths). Regardless, isn't that paragraph alone really just... something else?

[Thanks to Maxim for sending this my way.]

• Leonard Rosenman (1924-2008) - Oscar-winning composer of the scores for Barry Lyndon and Bound for Glory. He also received nominations for his scores for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Cross Creek. Other scores he composed include those for East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, RoboCop 2, Fantastic Voyage, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Race with the Devil, Hell is for Heroes, Hellfighters, A Man Called Horse, The Car, the 1980 remake of The Jazz Singer and the 1978 animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. He died of a heart attack March 4, in Woodland Hills, California. (Variety)

• Carole Barnes (1944-2008) - British television newsreader who appears as herself in Shaun of the Dead. She died following a stroke March 8, in Brighton, England. (The Guardian)
• Sidney Beckerman (1920-2008) - Producer of Marathon Man, Kelly's Heroes, Joe Kidd, Red Dawn and Inchon. He also was president of Allied Artists, where he oversaw the production of Cabaret, and he was executive producer of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension and The Sicilian. He died of cancer February 25, in Los Angeles. (Variety)
• John Bliss (1930-2008) - Actor who appears in A Face in the Crowd, Intolerable Cruelty, The Miracle Worker, The Thing with Two Heads, Imaginary Heroes and Art School Confidential. He died of complications related to an abdominal aneurysm February 28, in Los Angeles. (Variety)