firmament

Shirley MacLaine, a longtime star in the movie-world firmament, opens up her personal photo gallery to the world.

“Looking at nature without fungi is like trying to diagnose a disease without doing a blood test. Fungi are the firmament of life on Earth. They make systems ecosystems.”

Seeing and hearing “Brat” was a vivid reminder of just how smart this record is, feverishly assessing her place in the pop firmament on “Sympathy Is a Knife,” owning up to the jealousies and insecurities of public femininity on “Girl, So Confusing.”

But in the wake of Carpenter’s hugely successful “Halloween,” Cunningham put together a bargain-basement team of mostly unknowns and directed 1980’s workmanlike “Friday the 13th,” as much in the firmament as any slasher.

With his long-standing journalistic pedigree and status in the BBC firmament, colleagues deferred to him and, editorially, he often got his way.