A weird week to die

Through the fire and flames and the rotten stench of a decaying world, I felt myself unnerved by the string of celebrity deaths this past week. Gene Hackman and Michelle Trachtenberg’s passing dominated the headlines, but there were two others that I feel went under the radar: Roberto Orci and Jocelyn Ridgley.

Jocelyn Ridgley might not be well known outside of Red Letter Media fandom but she made quite an impact for her role as Nadine in a Mr. Plinkett review and for Zorba in Space Cop. Reports indicate that she was killed in a murder-suicide in Arizona. To my knowledge, her death hasn’t been addressed by the Red Letter Media crew but it appears that she is the same Jocelyn Ridgley named in the Arizona media.

Roberto ‘Bob’ Orci might be better known as he rose to fame along side Alex Kurtzman when they became showrunners of Hercules. They’d later team up for Xena, Alias, and Fringe and wrote screenplays for Mission Impossible III and Transformers. However their internet notoriety came when they produced and wrote Star Trek (2009) with JJ Abrams, followed by Star Trek Into Darkness four years later. This was a turning point in Hollywood history; an omen for what was to come for all established IPs (but that’s a story for another day). What’s forgotten in the Orci story is that when Abrams stepped away from Star Trek to helm Star Wars, Orci was initially named as director for what eventually became Star Trek Beyond. By that time, Kurtzman had already established himself as a director so it only seemed natural that his partner would follow suit. But that deal fell through and Orci seemingly disappeared from not only Star Trek, but the spotlight altogether. To make this saga even more strange, it was later announced that Kurtzman, not Orci (who was a genuine fan of Star Trek), would essentially be the gatekeeper of Star Trek for both film and television, a role that Rick Berman similarly held in the 1990s, and the rest is history. Orci died of kidney failure on February 25, 2025.

Orci came to my attention in the run up to the release of Star Trek 09 as he regularly interacted with fans on Trekmovie.com. These interactions weren’t always cordial, particularly in 2013 when Into Darkness polarized critics and fans alike. To be honest, Bob Orci always struck me as a weird guy. It’s Hollywood so that shouldn’t come as a surprise but he never struck me as a weird eccentric guy, which is far more socially acceptable. Instead he came across as a weird tech-billionaire type, minus the billions of dollars. I never followed his social media but allegedly after his exit from Star Trek he became a 9/11 truther and entertained a number of other conspiracy theories. Later it was revealed he was in an abusive relationship with his wife, both alleging the other of abuse, and that he was in and out of rehab for alcoholism. I assume this partially explains his exit from Star Trek. It’s a sad ending for a guy who became a showrunner at age 24.

Michelle Trachtenberg presumably died of liver failure on February 26th, but because her family has refused an autopsy, her death remains undetermined. I grew up watching her on the Adventures of Pete & Pete and EuroTrip was an often quoted film in high school. Her passing is a reminder that the cold touch of death could reach us at any moment and that fame and age cannot protect us.

Thankfully Gene Hackman lived a long and fruitful life when he died sometime in February of this year. His body, along with the body of his wife, was found on February 26th. Initial thoughts were that the couple died from carbon monoxide poisoning but that is now seemingly not the case. What should be a celebration of his life and achievements is instead a tragic event shrouded in mystery.

Not since the great die-off of 2016 have I been so rattled by celebrity deaths. These folks passed away either too young or under mysterious circumstances. As cursed as this world can be, we should wake up each morning and look in the mirror and be amazed that the universe has made itself aware through your eyes. Because one day it will all be over.

Freakin Friedkin!

When I think of 70s auteur cinema, I don’t think of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, and others. I think of Michael Cimino.

I also think of William Friedkin, who passed away yesterday at 87 years of age. Fans of the horror genre are in mourning because he made one of the most important films of the decade in The Exorcist. But let’s not forget his other pioneering achievement in Sorcerer, which, a few years before Heaven’s Gate, managed to steer Hollywood away from director-focused pictures. Friedkin was a pioneer in that way.

But he also directed The French Connection which garnered him an Oscar for Best Director. For me, the picture defined Hollywood cinema of the 1970s. Along with DP Owen Roizman (who also died earlier this year), Friedkin created a vision of NYC that was grimy and downright disgusting. Honestly, the city never looked better. While the picture presents itself as a run-of-the-mill police procedural, the ending flips the script. Instead of catching the bad guy, Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle accidentally kills a fellow cop and is left shooting at the shadows. The French Connection was a game-changer.

Of course, the movie is best known for its car chase sequence, where Friedkin bravely put at risk the lives NYC motorists and bystanders by failing to obtain permits to film such a thing. He was a maestro at shooting these scenes. He’d try to duplicate his success with the car chase in Jade, switching out the streets of NYC for San Francisco, and let’s just be honest: it was genius. But too bad that David Caruso is no Gene Hackman.

Billy Friedkin also claimed that he only ever did one take. I have a hard time believing that, but salute. If only Michael Cimino had learned that trick, Hollywood history might’ve turned out different.

RIP Billy Friedkin

bill friedkin

The career of William Friedkin is a reminder of how hard it is to make a good film.

He hit two films out of the fuckin park with The French Connection and The Exorcist then kinda floundered from there (he did have a few notable films afterwards, namely Sorcerer and To Live and Die in LA, the latter of which I haven’t seen).

Sure Friedkin won his accolades here and there, but he is truly the maestro of one specific thing: directing car chases.

Everyone remembers Gene Hackman just plowing through cars and walls while Friedkin neglected to obtain permits to film such a thing in the French Connection (and apparently there’s a good chase sequence in To Live and Die in LA), but Friedkin’s crowning achievement, in my view, is in Jade.

Before David Caruso was spitting out one liners while rocking a pair of sunglasses in CSI: Miami, he tried his hand at being a film star. Jade was the absolute highlight of this period.

In the film, after Angie Everhart gets totally destroyed by a Ford Thunderbird, Caruso pursuits the vehicle in his POS Ford during a delightful chase where vehicles fly through the air down the streets of San Francisco (and Caruso does his best Gene Hackman impersonation).

The best part is when the chase goes through some parade and pedestrians attack the vehicles using martial arts. I guess that would make sense if you learn about other cultures while binging on cocaine.

Take a look: