Happy Halloween, Everyone!

Happy Haloween. Please enjoy this Photo of Oscar nominee and birthday girl Sally Kirkland wearing a live tarantula Halloween isn't only for trick or treating and costume parties though it is most definitely for those things. It's also home to many fine birthdays and events on this day in showbiz history... 

1795 Poet John Keats is born. Two hundred and fourteen years later Ben Whishaw plays him beautifully in the still undervalued Jane Campion movie Bright Star
1864 Nevada becomes the 36th State. Without Nevada no Las Vegas, one of the favorite cities of filmmakers and storytellers. It is entirely untrue that what happens there stays there -- it's always broadcast!
1879 Oscar nominee Sara Allgood (How Green Was My Valley) is born in Dublin
1892 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle publishes the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Movies and TV haven't shut up about the Great Detective since they were invented as mediums. 
1906 George Bernard Shaw's Caesar & Cleopatra premieres on Broadway. 39 years and 11 months later the film version starring Vivien Leigh is released.
1922 Barbara Bell Geddes of Dallas and I Remember Mama fame is born in NYC
1925 Oscar winner Lee Grant (Shampoo) is born. Have you read her recent autobiography yet? 
1926 Harry Houdini dies

Mount Rushmore, River Phoenix and more after the jump...

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The Furniture: Feasts of Flesh in Pan's Labyrinth

"The Furniture" our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber

Pan’s Labyrinth, like most of Guillermo del Toro’s films, is busy with visual imagination. There are monsters and fairies, though it’s not always certain which is which. There are dramatic colors and haunted shadows, which push even the more terrestrial sequences toward the fantastical. And there are little flourishes, not all of them thanks to the digital effects team.

In fact, physicality is among the film’s greatest strengths. Sets were built for both Ofelia’s dream world and the all-too-real Spanish Civil War narrative that frames them. Del Toro doesn’t rely on either digital backgrounds or pre-existing locations. Instead, he leans on the uncanny power of tangible design, like these Harryhausen-like models that stand in for an underground kingdom.

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'Life' Trailer Drops

Manuel here bringing you the trailer for the latest addition to the newly revived outer space genre.

After Cuaron's Oscar-winning film, Interstellar, The Martian, and even this year's Arrival, you can bet NASA is very happy with the way Hollywood has begun again telling grounded stories about heading out into space (you know, aside from the franchises and sequels that take place in galaxies far far away and tackle the final frontier)...

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Podcast: Moonlight, Sully, and Birth of a Nation

Impossible though it may be to believe, the podcast is back after an unintended hiatus. Joe, Nick, Nathaniel, Katey (and special guest Charlie) are all in house to discuss the arthouse hit Moonlight with a little on previous releases Sully and Birth of a Nation, too. Please continue the conversation in the comments if you've seen any of the films!

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 Welcome back everyone
01:48 Sully
09:08 Tom Hanks Best Actor nomination?
10:00 Moonlight
22:55 Moonlight's ensemble and Oscar prospects
30:25 Birth of a Nation's implosion and the Braveheart comparisons
38:20 Moonlight again for the wrap-up

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you?  

Articles referenced in this conversation
Thankless Marvel Roles | Nick's Moonlight Tweets |  TFE's Moonlight Review | VF's conversation with Barry Jenkins | Joe's Series "The Gay We Were" 

Moonlight and More

Oscar Horrors: Johnny Depp Is Empty in “Sweeney Todd”

Boo! It's "Oscar Horrors". Each evening we look back on a horror-connected nomination until Halloween. Here's our new contributor Jorge Molina...

(Before I dig in, I want to make a disclaimer that this is an article discussing “Sweeney Todd” and its lead performance as a stand-alone piece, and not in comparison to the original Broadway musical. Sorry, purists. Yes, I KNOW the sing-talking is off-putting…) 

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) is, in many ways, the perfect marriage between the talent behind it and its source material. Of the gothic tale of murder and revenge, and Tim Burton’s signature visual style. Of Sondheim’s characters, and the quirks which both Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter built a career around. Of Sweeney Todd’s cold-blooded quest, and Depp’s cold-blooded performance, which earned him a Best Actor nomination.

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