Obituaries I should have mentioned earlier

I've been getting a few days ahead in terms of posting movie reviews here, largely because I have a bit more time since moving to work from home and being able to watch streaming movies that I've been able to watch more movies. But one other thing that it's meant is that I haven't really been doing much in the way of the sort of "briefs" posts I have a tendency to do when there isn't much else to write about. And with that in mind there are a couple of recent deaths that I probably should have mentioned earlier.

First up would be composer Carl Davis, who wrote scores to several contemporary movies, but who might be better known to film aficionados as the composer who brought back the idea of writing new scores to old silent movies that needed a score, eventually scoring some 50 silent films. Davis was 86.

Today came the announcment of the death of director William Friedkin, who won an Oscar for directing The French Connection. Friedkin also directed The Exorcist, and I've got that sitting on my YouTube TV "DVR", not having watched it. I guess I'm going to have to get around to watching it soon and pre-empting some of the other stuff I've already watched and should have coming up. Friedkin was 87.

Then there's an Oscar-winning name I hadn't heard of but who deserves mention: Arthur Schmidt, who died on Saturday at the age of 86. Schmidt isn't as well known because he was an editor. There were editors in the past who went on to direction, like Robert Wise and David Lean, but I don't think Schmidt ever directed. Still, he won a pair of Oscars for editing Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump, and received a third nomination for his work on Coal Miner's Daughter.

Getting back to Friedkin for a minute, one of the movies reviews that's not going to be pushed back a day is Rachel, Rachel. I think we've all heard about Joanne Woodward's decline from Alzheimer's and, when it was released earlier this year that she was in hospice care, I think it was natural to expect her death to be announced shortly. With that in mind, I had watched her film Rachel, Rachel when it showed up on TCM a few months back and specifically held off on posting my review since I was expecting to post it in conjunction with Woodward's passing. It's going to be on TCM on August 13, so as of right now I have my review scheduled to run on Saturday.