Th British director John Mackenzie, who died last week at the age of 83, had only one indisputable international success. But it was a doozie. "The Long Good Friday" (1979) boosted the film careers of Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren and is still the best British crime movie of the past 31 years. It's no longer available from the Criterion Collection, but Image recently reissued it on DVD and Blu-Ray. Get it now, before it goes out of print again -- it's the kind of entertainment that can make you sweat during an ice storm or shiver in a heat wave.

McKenzie was 52 and already had a quarter-century career in movies when he made this film. His confidence is breathtaking: "The Long Good Friday" moves like a whirlwind. And if casting is 90 per cent of a director's job, Mackenzie rose to genius on this movie. Hoskins plays Harold Shand, a London crime boss who controls an empire built on every vice except narcotics. Mirren plays his gun moll, a vision of class, aptly named Victoria; you can’t tell whether she’s joking or for real when she says she played lacrosse with Princess Anne.

On the very Good Friday that Shand meets with an American Mafia chief to seal a financial partnership, somebody kills two of his right-hand men, attempts to murder his mother, and blows a favorite pub to smithereens.

Hoskins and Mirren go all the way with these make-or-break parts. Mirren creates a gal who’s smart, sensual, and tough, able to control most of her big shot’s detonations and even, in a wrestling feint, calm him to a standstill. (Mirren was great fun in the action comedy "Red," but here she really packs an emotional punch.) And Hoskins does more with his cheeks and jowls than Richard Nixon ever did. The felt life Hoskins packs into Shand’s bowling-pin body and pinsetter’s voice enables director Mackenzie to put a vicious spin on the "Little Caesar" kind of gangster film -- with British accents, and on an epic scale.

For the short essay I wrote for the Criterion Collection, click here.

Carl Gardner (1928-2011)

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Carl Gardner, Sr., 83, founder and lead singer of the Coasters, died Sunday June 12, 2011 in Port St. Lucie, Florida after a long illness. Carl had been ill with congestive heart failure and vascular dementia for some time. Please remember his wife Veta, son Mickey (Carl Jr.), and his family in your prayers.
Todd Baptista

From Carl Gardner, Jr.
- My Father passed away Sunday, June 12th.
Sharing my most deepest feelings of the love that my father and I
shared -- especially when we were on stage together.

http://www.angelfire.com/mn/coasters/

Posted: Sun., Jun. 12, 2011, 11:36am PT
Director Fred Baker dies at 78
Made Lenny Bruce documentary
By VARIETY STAFF

Fred Baker, a filmmaker, actor, director, screenwriter and jazz musician, died of natural causes on June 5 in New York City. He was 78.
Baker was among the subversive, experimental, underground filmmakers of the 1960s and '70s, turning out films such as "Events," "The Murder of Fred Hampton" and 1992's "White Trash." He was an uncredited exec producer on Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 classic "The Battle of Algiers."

A longtime friend of comedian Lenny Bruce, Baker was best known for his 1972 documentary "Lenny Bruce Without Tears."

Born in Los Angeles, Baker came to films via an extensive career in the theater, which began in 1952 playing a lead role in Mary Chase's "Bernadine" on Broadway. After a three-year stint in the Army in Korea and Europe, Baker starred in three films in Germany for U.S. television. Upon returning to New York, he began a string of character roles in many Broadway and touring productions.

Eventually, Baker began directing Off Broadway and road companies.

He started his film and TV work in the mid-'60s at New York pubcaster WNET. From there, he began his work as an independent filmmaker. His short Jazz dance film "On the Sound," featuring Martha Grahame dancers, won awards and special mention at USA Golden Eagle, Venice and Berlin film festivals and was most recently honored at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 2011 "Dance on Camera Series."

"Lenny Bruce Without Tears" was featured at the 2011 Toronto Jewish Film Festival as part of "The 3 Lenny's: Bernstein, Cohen and Bruce."

In the 1970s Fred and his wife Barbara founded FBFVCO, Fred Baker Film & Video Co. Fred went on to produce independent films of his own, as well as to acquire and distribute films including David Lynch's "Eraserhead," Luchino Visconti's "The Innocent," Marco Fererri's "Tales of Ordinary Madness" and Jean-Charles Tachella's "Cousin Cousine."

His last directing effort was 2008's "Assata aka Joanne Chesimard," about a Black Panther's who's falsely convicted.

Baker kept up his acting work onstage with a 1996 appearance as Roy Cohn in Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" during a 10-week road tour of the Southwest.