Notes from all over

Lithuanian actor Donatas Banionis, whom some of you might remember if you've seen Andrei Tarkovsky's original 1972 version of Solaris, died on Thursday aged 90. I have to admit to not having seen the movie in its entirety. It was one I could never get into when it was running on IFC back in the days when it was a commercial-free channel that actually aired independent movies.

Another death to report is that of art director/production designer Karel Černý, who died on Friday at the age of 92. Černý worked with Miloš Forman several films, both in Communist Czechoslovakia (The Firemen's Ball and Loves of a Blonde among others) and later in Hollywood, on the Oscar-winning Amadeus.

The Shining sisters haunt Krakow. Or at least, that's the headline from the external service of Polish Radio, about a Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the National Museum in Krakow that's running for another week if any of you are in Poland and want to see it. One of the English Section's reporters interviewed the twins, and that interview can be downloaded directly from Polish Radio here. The file is about 8MB and runs a little over eight minutes.