Happy Birthday Herzog

by Jason Adams

Film director Werner Herzog is marking three quarters of a century on this planet today - a planet that he has probably explored the weirdness hidden away at every single obscure corner of. We should cherish him while we have him, people - even if some of his more recent efforts have been iffier than most. Go see every damn one, reviews be damned.

Funnily enough last night I was reading a review of the Twin Peaks finale (no spoilers here, don't worry!) that called that series mastermind David Lynch "American pop culture's answer to Werner Herzog," and I got to thinking about these two directors in relation to each other. Besides Herzog and Lynch easily making my list of Top Five Greatest Living Film-makers I don't usually think about them in relation to each other, but it's not an invalid point.

So here, for Werner's birthday, let's latch him onto the zeitgeist's momentarily hottest art-house auteur, and list three similarities, with one glaring dissimilarity...

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'If Ever I Would Leave You,' List-Making... It wouldn't be in November

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

1859 Billy the Kid, future legendary outlaw, is born. He's been played in movies and TV by actors like Buster Crabbe, Hugh O'Brian, Paul Newman, Clu Galager, Val Kilmer, and perhaps most famously by Kris Kristofferson, BAFTA nominated for Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (1973)
1887 Boris Karloff, villainous movie icon (Frankenstein, The Mask of Fu Manchu, Scarface, etcetera) is born
1888 Harpo Marx is born

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