Tapped out on a Park City shuttle:  On the passing of the legendary John Hurt, two of my all-time favorite performances:  the ambitious, duplicitous Richard Rich in Fred Zinneman‘s A Man For All Seasons (’66) and Braddock, the solemn, taciturn assassin in Stephen Frears‘ The Hit (’85).  I loved Hurt’s angularity, that aura of cultivation, that wonderful  sandpaper voice, those intense drill-bit eyes.  And I loved the way he wept like a child when, as Caligula, he was stabbed to death near the end of I, Claudius. Not to mention his legendary chest-fever scene in Ridley Scott‘s Alien (’79).  If only I could post a thought from Guillermo del Toro, who directed Hurt in both Hellboy films.  I hate to admit this, but I’m somehow not recalling his performance in Midnight Express (’78) — he was a fellow prisoner of Brad Davis‘s in that Turkish jail?  Very few will recall his performance as Susannah York‘s professorial, weakish husband in Jerzy Skolimowski‘s The Shout (’78), but he held that film together.