On this day: Liz & Dick Divorced, Harry Potter Published

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

 

1819 The bicycle is patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr. which could be why June has lots of bicycle holidays like "bike to work week" and such. There's even a Bicycle Film Festival happening in NYC this very weekend.
1904 Peter Lorre is born
1922 Underappeciated film star Eleanor Parker is born. Her two best known classics are Caged (1950, her first nomination in one of the all time best Best Actress years) and The Sound of Music (1965, snubbed in supporting actress). Also born on this day is two-time Oscar recipient Dick Smith, an indisputable giant in movie makeup. Among his classics: The Godfather, The Exorcist, Amadeus, and Taxi Driver
1925 Charles Chaplin's The Gold Rush premieres in Hollywood 
1956 Chris Isaak, hot musician and David Lynch favorite, is born
1970 Paul Thomas Anderson is born. We thank him forever for Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and There Will Be Blood, but we wan't to be that excited about one of his movies again. The last two...

Divorced on this day in '74. Remembered by Fall '75

1974 And we were just talking about Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ! Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were not Martha and George in real life but their love was volatile all the same. They got divorced on this day in 1974 ten years after their wedding (which followed that globally scandalous Cleopatra affair). But you can't keep Liz & Dick separated for long on or offscreen. The crazy lovebirds got remarried 1 year, 3 months and 14 days later. 
1975 Sonny & Cher divorce. Unlike Liz & Dick they don't get back together.  Meanwhile, in unrelated news on that very same day two FBI agents are murdered on an Indian Reservation. Leonard Peltier is later convicted. The Val Kilmer movie Thunderheart (1992) is loosely inspired by this but with all the facts changed. Very very loosely inspired. Anyone remember that movie? I had kind of a thing for Val Kilmer back then.

1997 J.K. Rowlings first Harry Potter book is published in the U.K. It goes on to become a worldwide phenomenon. Not to horrify but how long until they remake those movies, do you think? (Bitchpleez you know it's going to happen)
1998 Out of Sight hits theaters. That was a goodie
2009 The Hurt Locker opens in theaters. Already an awards presence for '08 (with a Spirit nomination) now it's Oscar eligible & wins Best Picture
2012 Nora Ephron dies. What a loss
2015 The US Supreme Court declares a constitutional right to marriage to same sex couples. Now Jules & from The Kids Are All Right and all the other movie gays can get married - how long until we see gay married couple characters in movies? Twenty years? The movies can be quite slow on this stuff

Great Moments in Gay - 'This kind of stuff' in Weekend (2011)

In June we're celebrating favorite queer moments in cinema. Here's guest contributor Bill Curran on a pivotal low key scene in Weekend... 

Jamie: "What's going on?"

Russell: "Nothing… nothing's going on."

Pride is hard. We’re in a month filled with delirious rainbow floats, umpteen “Yass Queen” gifs, and appropriately lascivious street dancing down many city streets around the globe, and yet I’d like to pause and consider how pride is not merely happiness or acceptance, but respect. And respect is hard. 

Respect—one’s own worth in relation to others—is the motoring theme behind much of Andrew Haigh’s Weekend (2011). In this sense, if Weekend can be considered a landmark 21st century film (as indeed it should be, by any number of artistic rubrics), then the pivotal scene is this exchange between Russell (Tom Cullen) and his best (straight) mate Jamie (Jonathan Race). It is the sea change climax before the more expected bittersweet one... 

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Posterized: Roland Emmerich

With 60 year old German director Roland Emmerich's latest sci-fi world-in-peril disaster flick opening (that'd be Independence Day: Resurgence) let's look back at his career for this week's Posterized! But first here's a really cute photo of the director with actress Joey King tying his shoes. (She's made two of his movies back to back now as she was also in Stonewall)

In poster form, at least, Emmerich's careers looks a lot a pitch perfect example of how capitalism works in Tinsletown, when they poach genre directors from other countries...

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110 in the Tweet

It's that time of the week (the weekend!) when we groggily awaken and seek out bon mots rather than essays to amuse us. If you do the same these bite-sized morsels are just the ticket. In this week's roundup: Lea Michele, Nico Tortorella, Nicolas Winding Refn, Marvel's peak, Dory's acclaim, and more.

It's all after the jump... 

// BLUE LAGOON // pic.twitter.com/UCMAnWQn4b

— Lea Michele (@msleamichele) June 22, 2016

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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Pt. 4: "The Exorcism"

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Directed by Mike Nichols | Adapted by Ernest Lehman from the play by Edward Albee
Released by Warner Bros on June 22nd, 1966
Nominated for 13 Oscars, winning 5.

Four-Part 50th Anniversary Celebration
Pt 1 "What. A.Dump!" by Nathaniel R
Pt 2 "Firing Squads & Flop Sweat" by Daniel Crooke
Pt 3 "Get the Guests" by Kyle Stevens (author of "Mike Nichols: Sex, Language, and The Reinvention of Psychological Realism"

...and now the finale 

Pt 4 (Finale) by Chris Feil

Clink.Clink.

1:36:43 Sounds like Martha put her own ice in her drink this time, and not chewed it down. She's also dispensed of her tight "Sunday chapel dress" for looser fits. At only 3 outfits, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is surely Elizabeth Taylor's fewest costume changes ever on screen.

1:37:32 Nick’s putting his watch on now that their real round of Hump the Hostess is over. By the looks of these two, it wasn’t exactly earth-shattering to say the least.

Martha starts doling advice to Nick on how to take care of a drunk Honey, not unlike George's begrudging earlier attempts. The kind motherly expression on her face makes you wonder if her son has always been blonde-haired and green eyed before tonight.

1:39:00 Nick's pointing fingers as if he's exempt from the night's cruelty and absurdity. Luckily, Martha calls him out on his hypocrisy.

Relax. Sink into it. You're no better than anybody else.

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