RIP Heath Ledger

[Ashy Larry]

Talented, my ass. 

Hey, here's a talent for ya:  Being there every day for your two year-old daughter.  It's actually a lot more important than standing in front of a camera for some dopey movie.

standing in front of the camera is his job...he's an actor! Christ.....following your logic, every journalist going to Arizona to cover the Super Bowl is a bad parent because they're not being at home with their child.

[Cansportschick]

Major loss for Austalia and the acting world.

Heath Ledger had a great, funny personality and I will always remember him for making me laugh hysterically when he visited the late night talk circuits.

His performance in the Patriot was phenomenal.  His role in Brokeback Mountain was by far his best in his career.

I will be going to Batman this summer when it comes out as a tribute to Ledger.  I have a feeling the Joker will be the best part of the movie.

RIP to Heath Ledger, an actor who had a bright future, but whose life was cut short.

[Double Down]

A good essay by Dana Stevens, probably my favorite film critic, about why Ledger will be missed.

http://www.slate.com/id/2182669/nav/tap3/

[Ace]

Talented, my ass. 

Hey, here's a talent for ya:  Being there every day for your two year-old daughter.  It's actually a lot more important than standing in front of a camera for some dopey movie.

standing in front of the camera is his job...he's an actor! Christ.....following your logic, every journalist going to Arizona to cover the Super Bowl is a bad parent because they're not being at home with their child.

You wouldn't say this about Ray Romano.

[Mira]

DD, thanks for sharing the Slate piece.

A.O. Scott wrote a nice piece at nytimes.com Wednesday afternoon, too.

[EE94]

Generally, apnea is associated with obesity.

Anyhoo, I can understand movie stars having issues with sleeping, and with partying. After all, when they're on the job, they're working 16-18 hour days for 3-4 months. Then when the shoot is over, there's a lot of sudden free time, and the lingering feeling of almost always having to be on the clock, having to have a rush. If you don't have the rush from the shoot, you find something else to provide adrenaline. Or you crash.

Or they can have a normal private life outside the headlines like Paul Newman, or Robert Redford, or Robert Duvall, or Robert de Niro, or countless others.

[buckweaver]

Or they can have a normal private life outside the headlines like Paul Newman, or Robert Redford, or Robert Duvall, or Robert de Niro, or countless others.

You do realize that everyone you named is more than 64 years old, no? Not exactly prime fodder for the paparazzi in 2008, and not exactly in their primes on the big screen, either.

[Lee Jackson Beauregard]

The Patriot was not a quality film, by the way, by any objective standards.

I saw this celluloid Big Mac with a previous girlfriend and nearly walked out.

The luminescent John Williams must have been bored.

The scene with Rene Auberjunois, contorted face (in super slo-mo) throwing the musket up in the air while being riddled is laughable ON SIGHT.

[buckweaver]

The Patriot was not a quality film, by the way, by any objective standards.

I saw this celluloid Big Mac with a previous girlfriend and nearly walked out.

The luminescent John Williams must have been bored.

The scene with Rene Auberjunois, contorted face (in super slo-mo) throwing the musket up in the air while being riddled is laughable ON SIGHT.

I won't dispute that. However, it was an immensely entertaining film. I could watch it again and again.

[Ace]

It's OK, buck. I bet Col. Beauregard wouldn't scoff if it were a movie about the War of Northern Aggression.

[Lee Jackson Beauregard]

buckweaver, I watched it, not at gunpoint, at least two dozen times in the summer of '01 on HBO and its multitudinous offshoots.

I feel the same way about National Treasure. Like beer, candy, Burger King, I know it ain't at all good for me, but I still want it anyway. In fact, I dragged my sister to the sequel opening. She called it Goonies for history nerds, which I can abide by.

Ace, I am working on a postmodern Civil War screenplay.

I'll be playing an insignificant stormtrooper.

Back to Heath.

[markvid]

The Patriot was not a quality film, by the way, by any objective standards.

I saw this celluloid Big Mac with a previous girlfriend and nearly walked out.

The luminescent John Williams must have been bored.

The scene with Rene Auberjunois, contorted face (in super slo-mo) throwing the musket up in the air while being riddled is laughable ON SIGHT.

Why, because he wasn't yelling BennnSONNNNNNNNNNN!

[ifilus]

Opening his radio show with funeral music yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a “weirdo” with a “serious drug problem.”

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by his own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/gibson-mocks-ledger/

[JackyJackBN]

I've only read this page, so I only know the direction this thread is heading, not where it has been.  I've only seen Heath Ledger a couple of times on tv in the same replay of a B movie, and I found him engaging and interesting playing a banal character.  It's a shame he couldn't hang in.  We need more actors who can pull B movies up by the bootstraps.

[wickedwritah]

Opening his radio show with funeral music yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a “weirdo” with a “serious drug problem.”

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by his own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/gibson-mocks-ledger/

How ... tolerant.

[markvid]

Fox News - Fair and Balanced.

[farmerjerome]

Opening his radio show with funeral music yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a “weirdo” with a “serious drug problem.”

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by his own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/gibson-mocks-ledger/

What a fucking idiot.

[Beaker]

Opening his radio show with funeral music yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a “weirdo” with a “serious drug problem.”

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by his own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/gibson-mocks-ledger/

Classy, as usual.

[Tom Petty]

Opening his radio show with funeral music yesterday, Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a “weirdo” with a “serious drug problem.”

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by his own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/gibson-mocks-ledger/

What a fucking idiot.

yup.

[hockeybeat]

Gibson needs to be shitcanned after that stunt. Immediately.

[markvid]

And if he's not, he and Fox can be labeled as Republicans. They hate gays, they have no problem with that kind of intolerance.

[mike311gd]

The guy sounds like a major toolbox to me.

[Simon_Cowbell]

Gibson needs to be shitcanned after that stunt. Immediately.

Seriously.... you can't say "hos", but you can articulate THAT?

Fucked-up... dumb country.

[Simon_Cowbell]

http://www.nypost.com/video/?vxSiteId=0db7b365-a288-4708-857b-8bdb545cbd0f&vxChannel=NY%20Post&vxClipId=1458_228317&vxBitrate=700

The third video in is a talk with Ledger about dying now that he has a young child.

Pretty spooky.

[Flash]

Don't know if it's been mentioned but what was with the Jack Nicholson clip on TMZ? Nicholson was outside a restaurant having a smoke and, when told about Ledger's death, all he said was 'I warned him.'

Warned him about what? Are we really to believe that playing The Joker messes with your head that badly?