Golden Globe Ballots Due. (And Other Celebratory Reminders)
Friday, December 9, 2016 at 8:00AM The members of the HFPA (The Golden Globes) have to turn in their ballots today with nominations announced on Monday. In the less celebrated corner of Precursor World the BFCA Critics Choice ballots are also due for the winners. My own votes are all over the place as I don't do lazy sweep voting but judge each category separately as one should. The Critics Choice Awards are this Sunday evening -- watch it live -- and the Golden Globe nominations are announced Monday morning. But movies, as events to celebrate, are more than just temporal things. You can celebrate anything you'd like across the time continuum via the happy things known as anniversaries and birthdays...
On this day in history as it relates to showbiz
1854 Alfred Tennyson published his famous war poem "Charge of the Light Brigade" - it would be made into a movie three times, most famously with Olivia de Havilland and Erroll Flynn in the Thirties.
1902 Margaret Hamilton, The Wicked Witch of the West herself, was born in Cleveland Ohio. She really should've been nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, don'cha think?...
1905 Oscar winning Dalton Trumbo, recently played by Oscar nominated Bryan Cranston in Trumbo, was born
1909 Douglas Fairbanks Jr, the first Mr Joan Crawford and son of silent film star Douglas Fairbanks, was born in New York...
1916 Happy Centennial to movie legend Kirk Douglas, four time Oscar nominee, and father of Michael
1929 The legendary John Cassavettes was born in NYC. Spoiler Alert: He wasn't the biological father of Rosemary's Baby! (But he was kind of the father of the American Independent Film)
1934 Judith Olivia Dench was born on this day in England. "Dame Judi" happened much later.
1941 Beau Bridges, a Fabulous Baker Boy and brother o' Jeff was born in Los Angeles
1948 Dutch film director Marleen Gorris, the woman behind the Oscar winning Antonia's Line (1995), was born
1950 Oscar winning Titanic cinematographer Russell Carpenter born in Van Nuys
1957 Donny Osmond born to the huge singing Osmond family (the seventh boy of nine children!) in Ogden, Utah. Semi-famous by the time he was 5, he was a household name by 18 when he "went a little bit rock-n-roll" to younger sister Marie's "country" on Donny & Marie, the first variety show ever hosted by teenagers and a very big deal to baby Mormon's in the 1970s like uh... well me. I was obsessed.
1962 Future Desperate Housewife and person-we-often-forget-was-Oscar-nominated Felicity Huffman came into the world
1965 The first "Peanuts" animated TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas debuts on CBS
1968 Jim Morrisson famously arrested on stage in New Haven CT, an incident Val Kilmer and Oliver Stone recreated for The Doors (1991). Damn but Kilmer was excellent in that movie but it arrived before mimicry became Oscar's favorite actor skill.
1980 Simon Helberg, of Big Bang Theory and now Florence Foster Jenkins fame was born on this day
1983 Two enduring classics Scarface and Terms of Endearment go wide in US movie theaters. Only Terms is greeted warmly at the time becoming an enormous hit (second only to Return of the Jedi that year) and winning the Oscar for Best Picture, the last traditional 'Woman's Picture' to do so. (Oscar ignored Scarface entirely.)
1988 the Kim Basinger oddity My Stepmother is an Alien, the hit comedy Twins, and the Best Picture nominee Mississippi Burning all opened in theaters
1997 Tomorrow Never Dies, the 18th Bond film, premieres in London starring Pierce Brosnan as 007 and Michelle Yeoh as Wai Lin one of the best ever Bond girls
2000 The Supreme Court ends the Insane Presidential Election by stopping the Florida vote count. We'd be such a better world today if they had tipped the other way. *sniffle*
2005 "Jack, I swear." Instant classic and masterpiece Brokeback Mountain hits movie theaters. It goes on to become a major hit but Oscar makes one of their worst blunders of all time by passing on it for Best Picture.
2011 Young Adult a comedy, at least in part about refusing to grow up, is aging very well don't you think? It opened on this day five years back
2016 La La Land opens in limited release while Miss Sloane goes wide - will you see both this weekend?
Reader Comments (18)
Yes to a BSA nomination for Margaret,it's amazing how with hindsight we can see how a genre performance can become more beloved than the 5 nominated in there particular year.
Young Adult is ageing well just like it's star who maybe in hindsight should have won the Oscar for it,a true original creation.
There is a great YouTube video of a dialect coach critiquing accents of actors in movies. He specifically applauds both Gyllenhall and Ledger in Brokeback Mountain.
Really cool video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvDvESEXcgE
If La La Land was opening in Boston, I would definitely see it. I'll wait for Miss Sloane cuz I'm super sick of politics and corruption.
The elections of 2000 and 2016 broke my heart.
Love love love Pierce Brosnan (first celebrity crush) and Michelle Yeoh together; wish she could have been in all his Bond movies. I might even have to order CBS All Access just to see her on the new ST:D (could they have picked a more ridiculous name?)
I want to say thanks to John Cassavetes for making the most beautiful, complex and human movies of all time. Thank you for my favorite movie ever, Love Streams, and thank you for writing and directing your muse Gena Rowlands in the best performance I've ever seen in A Woman Under the Influence. Thanks for my cry and laugh and laugh and cry the same time. Your movies make me feel more alive.
You missed out quite a bunch of Oscar nominees and even one winner. So I'll just throw in Best Actor winner Broderick Crawford (*1911), Best Supporting Actress nominee Joyce Redman (*1915), Best Director nominee Buck Henry (*1930) and two-time Best Supperting Actor nominee and even more importantly John-Malkovich-be'er John Malkovich (*1953).
Also, does Kirk Douglas turning 100 today end Olivia de Havilland's reign as the most famous centenarian alive?
First of all happy 100th birthday to Kirk Douglas! Olivia de Havilland & Kirk we now have two living legends who've made the century mark and are still with us. Has that happened before?
Margaret Hamilton should have absolutely been nominated for The Wizard of Oz but since 1939 was so packed it's not surprising that she missed. There could have been multiple lineups that year that couldn't have been argued with in terms of quality. My choice for the winner that year would have been Kay Francis's deliciously malevolent Maida in In Name Only but I can't disagree that Hattie McDaniel was deserving.
What a talented group of performers all share this birthday!
On the other side, three Hollywood stalwarts passed away on this date: three-time Best Actress nominee Eleanor Parker (†2013), two-time Best Supporting Actor nominee Vincent Gardenia (†1992) and columnist Louella Parsons (†1972).
I love how Donny and Marie have the same hair cut in those photos.
I didn't see Felicity Huffman's Oscar-nominated movie, but I did see her most recent Emmy-nominated work. She's great in American Crime. Most of that cast is great. I love that it gives actresses like Huffman, Regina King, Hope Davis, and Lili Taylor a chance to show off their considerable talents.
Young Adult gets better and better with each viewing. One of Charlize's best. And Patton!
Have you read the oral history on Crash Oscar win? It's interesting to say the least.
In my world, Young Adult won Oscars for picture, actress and supporting actor...at the minimum.
I was a huge Donnie & Marie fan--I was indeed obsessed LOL. He's 59--gawd I feel old. Where's my Ovaltine?
Were you a huge Donny & Marie fan, brookesboy? ;-)
Margaret Hamilton is so great it's easy to overlook, but face it, once you've seen her all wicked witches have to be measured against hers. Hattie McDaniels was great also and Edna May Oliver was a deserving nominee, too (Drums Along the Mohawk). Claire Trevor in Stagecoach was also unjustifiably overlooked. Fifth slot is still up in the air.
Young Adult lack of nominations for Picture, Actress and Original Screenplay still leave me angered.
Paul, I was HUGE.
Paul, I was HUGE.
Paul, I was HUGE.
xox
Don't forget the BFCA Critics Choice will be back in another week or so when they announce that ROGUE ONE and SILENCE will be retrospectively included among this year's Best Picture nominees (even though they will have already announced LA LA LAND as the winner).
"Brokeback Mountain" was robbed of it's best picture Oscar- and yes I agree about Margaret Hamilton she created a character for the ages