Sad news to start 2011. Major British actor and activist, Pete Postlethwaite, has died. Although a TV and stage actor beforehand, he became world famous 18 years ago, in 1993, when he appeared in In The Name of the Father, the role which got him Oscar-nominated for a profoundly-moving part. He then cemented his position as one of the most astonishing and refreshing new onscreen faces of the Nineties, with great parts in big crowd-pleasers The Usual Suspects and Romeo + Juliet. He also marched against the war in Iraq. He also appeared in several big-budget sci-fi/horror flicks, like The Lost World (a Spielberg sequel), The Omen (remake), and a top film of 2010, Inception. He could pull off any role and make any movie he was in cooler and yet more authentic by his presence, which screamed nonchalant-gritty integrity. No one looked or acted like Postlethwaite - he was a great original and will be much missed.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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