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This is the way the world ends, or starts to end, in George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men”: with a bang. In the film’s opening scenes, Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s “Ghent Altarpiece” is loudly dismantled, panel by panel, and prepared—too late, though—for a secret hiding place. The clock is ticking for its fellow masterpieces. World War II is raging and Hitler, an unpromising art student before he became Der Führer, fancies himself

The character of The Tramp, played by Charlie Chaplin, turned 100 today. He was born on February 7th, 1914 in the short film by Henry Lehrman called "Kids auto races at Venice, Cal." Sir Charles Chaplin performs the character that would make him famous for the very first time. In the film he is seen wandering randomly in the middle of a car race and starting--as would be predicted--all kinds of shenanigans, provocatively walking in the middle of traffic

Of course we like them, we love them, we are grateful to them, these stage and film actors who give us so much. When we occasionally hear bad news--an overdose, an accident, an unforgiving illness, a suicide--as the case may be, we’re surprised at how young they were or how untimely their deaths--Heath Ledger comes to mind. All we can do is keep the memories and have a warm thought for them when we come across an image or hear their name.