Grim Reaper Update

Last week, I noticed that people who were involved in some of my favorite movies were dying at an alarming rate. That seems to have stopped for the time being. Judgment at Nuremberg, meanwhile, is not quite one of my favorite films; like most of the Stanley Kramer movies I've seen, it's well-done but fairly stagy and heavy on the speechifying, plus it's hard to get that taste of medicine out of your mouth once it's over. Still, I should mention that, in an odd coincidence, the film's screenwriter, Abby Mann, and one of its actors, Richard Widmark, died within a day of each other. I'm shamefully ignorant of the careers of these two men, but considering Mr. Widmark was best known as a noir heavy, I fully intend to get familiar with his filmography as soon as possible. In any case, I certainly hope that this is not the start of a trend; Shatner was in that movie, after all.

While I'm on the subject of obituaries, I should mention the death of Herb Peterson, inventor of the Egg McMuffin. This is as good a time as any to link to Wikipedia's hilariously deadpan overview of McDonaldland characters.