The Shrine

Oh, Jesus Christ!

It caused me to login here at work to say Holy shit.

A very talented actor who will be missed for sure.

What the hell?

The blog entry's been expanded since I posted it minutes ago.

"housekeeper and the masseuse opened the bedroom and found Mr. Ledger naked and unconscious on a bed, with pills scattered around his body"

And it's the only news story I've seen so far to mention pills.

I can't believe it!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23095463-2,00.html

More mention of pills.

I really liked the movie the Four Feathers all I can say is, damn, this sucks.

I guess there won't be another batman with that same joker in it.

That really sucks. He was a great actor and was one of the main reasons I was so looking forward to The Dark Knight.

I hope it wasn't suicide. ODing is bad enough, but suicide just seems so much worse to me.

I can't imagine them recasting the Joker for a 3rd movie. I just get the impression that he made this role so much his own that it'd be very, very hard to recreate.

I plan on honoring him in the best way I can...by seeing TDK multiple times this summer.

Almost like Brandon Lee. Another young promising actor dies unexpectedly. I found out myself, and was about to post this.

Oh, BTW, Terry Gilliam:

Unluckiest.
Director.
Ever.

For a point of reference...

EDIT: Best Fark post I saw on this:

Some Farker wrote:Dear God,

If You really want Terry Gilliam to stop making films could You next time, I don't know, maybe send him an e-mail? I thought the whole flood thing for "The Man who killed Don Quixote" was a bit over the top, even for You but this? Wow. Seriously, Terry's already loopy. Stop f&*king with his head.

xox,
mekki

p.s. thanks for not killing Depp when you had the chance.

I picked up Lost in La Mancha not too long ago. Gotta check it out

What's ironic is that Terry had a bout with cancer and survived. I think Somebody is torturing him, just daring him to blow his fucking brains out, but if he tries the gun will misfire. It's like saying "Fucker, you can't die that easily, I'm not done with you yet."

Yeah, crazy random news. I don't know what he was like in real life, but from afar, he seemed like a cool guy. I especially feel bad for the young kid he left behind.

SineSwiper wrote:What's ironic is that Terry had a bout with cancer and survived. I think Somebody is torturing him, just daring him to blow his fucking brains out, but if he tries the gun will misfire. It's like saying "Fucker, you can't die that easily, I'm not done with you yet."

He did do 12 Monkeys. That one seemed to go well for him :-)

I'm not sure if Fear and Loathing or Fisher King ever did well in the box office, but Grimm bombed pretty bad. (Then again, after that disaster, he was just trying to make a "safe" movie to earn some money again.)

Brazil was his first, and I don't think that did well either. Nor Time Bandits. The guy is great at making excellent movies that nobody watches in theaters.

His death has been determined as accidental as he had notified people that he had been stressed lately and was taking sleeping pill medication. It seems the autopsy was inconclusive, so it might be that he had some sort of unexpected reaction in a similar way Bruce Lee did; just my speculation. Anyway, from CBC:


Actress Nicole Kidman called the death a "terrible tragedy," while Cate Blanchett, who recently starred with Ledger in the film I'm Not There, said she was "shocked and saddened."

Actor Mel Gibson, who appeared with Ledger in The Patriot, issued a statement saying that the young actor "was just taking off, and to lose his life at such a young age is a tragic loss."

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd expressed shock over losing "one of our nation's finest actors in the prime of his life."

Ledger's death also prompted the White House to postpone a Wednesday event in which U.S. President George W. Bush was slated to promote an ad campaign about preventing prescription drug abuse.

"We thought it would be better to postpone the event rather than run the risk of anyone thinking that we were being opportunistic in highlighting the issue," said White House press secretary Dana Perino.

Not to be an insensitive prick, but how does this effect The Dark Knight? It's in post-production right?

It really doesn't unless for some reason they want to move the release date.

I wonder how far along Gilliam's movie is. If it's pretty late in filming, they might be able to get away with some "Brandon Lee-like" insertion in the film. If it's early, they could reshoot with another actor.

If it's in the middle, that's either a lot of wasted money or the movie itself is just as fucked as I thought it was.

Dark Knight isn't in jeopardy, but a reappearance of the Joker definately is. Not sure if they kill him off at the end of the movie (a la Keaton's Batman), or if they were planning on him appearing in the next movie. Harvey Dent (AKA Two-Face) is still in the works (with a damn good and intriguing choice of an actor), so no worries, though.

SineSwiper wrote:Dark Knight isn't in jeopardy, but a reappearance of the Joker definately is. Not sure if they kill him off at the end of the movie (a la Keaton's Batman), or if they were planning on him appearing in the next movie. Harvey Dent (AKA Two-Face) is still in the works (with a damn good and intriguing choice of an actor), so no worries, though.

Yeah, the guy playing Dent/Two Face is a good actor. I can't wait to see him in both roles.

I was wondering what this will mean for the reappearance also if they had planned it that way. I guess we'll have to wait and see.