The Pitters' Place

Everyone, I'm afraid I have some terrible news for those who knew him from IMDB.

Franzkabuki passed away on 31st May in his sleep. His heart was not in good condition. He died very young, a month shy of his 42nd birthday. I will miss him terribly, having known him for almost a decade, one of my closest online friends. I still can't believe it.

May he rest in peace.

I don't recognize the screen name, but it's always a tragedy when something like this happens to someone whose a member of an online community like ours. Especially sorry for you who knew him well, maz.

I didn't know franz super well on a personal level, but what I always respected about him was that he seemed to have the rare combination of being able to form his own opinions while still being knowledgeable on something like film history, and being able to express himself calmly. Even when I might have disagreed with him on something it would still be a huge pleasure to read discussions between him and others since there was always a sense of actual engagement in the topic.

It's a real damn shame that he's gone.

RIP

Rax told me about this a while ago via email but I'm just now getting back to the forums. franz and I had so many great film discussions on the old iMDB. He may have had the broadest posting repertoire of any poster I knew. If you ever looked through his posting history I'd swear he was a regular on hundreds of different boards related to all different aspects of films (specific films, directors, actors/actresses, etc.). I definitely agree with raxi that he had the combination of being both highly knowledgeable and highly opinionated, but respectfully so. Just one of the best guys to discuss films with that there was on IMDb.

I hope you're doing OK, maz. I didn't know before this that you and franz were so close. You can always drop me a PM if you want to talk. I'll also be posting some more in the music thread if you want to chat there.

Thank you all for the kind words. It's been three months since he passed away. I've observed that I'll go days without thinking of him but other times, I'll suddenly think of him and get choked up. I've had some time to through our recent conversations and can't help but feel I had been selfish towards the end - I was not always available. I don't know.

I've told my wife and one or two close friends irl about his passing away and they're sympathetic, but as Gendo said, members of online communities such as yourselves could perhaps relate to it more. So, thank you.

You're welcome, maz, and again the offer is open if you ever want to talk. :)