On this day: Internet Boyfriends, Fishy Rom-Coms, and Toxic Masculinity Camp
Thursday, March 9, 2017 at 12:17PM 
On this day in history as it relates to showbiz...
1930 Taina Elg is born in Finland. Briefly becomes a star in Hollywood with Les Girls (1957) winning a Golden Globe
1940 Much missed Puerto Rican actor Raul Julia was born on this day. "Oh Gomez..." ♥︎
1943 Chess genius Bobby Fischer is born. He was recently biopic'ed via Tobey Maguire in Pawn Sacrifice.
1963 Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée is born in Montreal. He's really been cranking out the hits lately: Dallas Buyers Club, Wild, and the juicy actress-bliss of Big Little Lies
1964 Oscar winner Juliette Binoche, one of the greatest actresses in the world, is born in Paris...
1979 Oscar Isaac is born in Guatamela - becomes the internet's boyfriend in 37 years later
1984 A big weekend in movie theaters as the horror film Children of the Corn, the racy incestuous antics of Hotel New Hampshire, and the fishy romcom Splash all open. The latter is still Ron Howard's best film and it was so ignored come awards time. The only big get was a nomination for Best Comedy or Musical at the Globes but they passed over Daryl Hannah's guileless Madison, even so.
Still, it was a good Best Actress list that year in Comedy/Musical don't you think:
- Anne Bancroft (Garbo Talks)
- Mia Farrow (Broadway Danny Rose)
- Shelley Long (Irreconciliable Differences)
- Lily Tomlin (All of Me)
- Kathleen Turner (Romancing the Stone) - WINNER
I still would have ousted someone for Daryl Hannah, though. You?
1986 Brittany Snow is born in Tampa, plays Michelle Pfeiffer's daughter in Hairspray, proves she has beautiful pipe and makes a brave decision to remove her nodes in Pitch Perfect.
1990 The Handmaid's Tale opens in movie theaters. This classic novel is getting another filmed version as a TV series next month on Hulu.
1996 George Burns, showbiz icon and Oscar winner (The Sunshine Boys) who lived to be 100 years old (!) died on this day
2007 The Frank Miller graphic novel turned movie 300, opens as a surprise smash. Is it camp? Is it toxic? Is it toxic camp? What is it other than an excuse for lots of naked masc4masc men to kill each other in gory slo-mo fashion because of butch queen Rodrigo Santoro's bejewelled god Xerxes
And finally on this day next year...
2018 Wreck it Ralph 2 opens in theaters. It was delayed slighty due to Rich Moore working on Zootopia for which he won the Oscar. ICYMI we've interviewed Moore twice: once for Wreck it Ralph and again for Zootopia.
Reader Comments (15)
84 C/M Actress
Bancroft
Farrow
Turner
Tomlin
Weaver - Ghostbusters
Drama
Redgrave
Bujold - Choose Me
Lange
Spacek
Curtis - Love Letters
No love for Linda Fiorentino? She turns 58 today, and I love to pretend she's a Best Actress nominee for The Last Seduction.
How insane is it that Oscar Isaac still hasn't been nominated for an Oscar?
brookesboy: not insane at all
Brookesboy, it does seem odd since his performances in Inside Llewyn Davis and Ex-Machina are incredibly worthy, but it's not that surprising that the academy passed on them. Don't worry in a few years he'll star in some boring Oscar bait bullshit and then he'll get nominated. Oscars have always ignored good actors when they're exciting and risk taking newcomers. They wait until they star in some mainstream movie about WWII or race in the 60s.
All things considered, he should been nominated along with Chastain for A Most Violent Year.
Oscar Isaac's charm is lost on me. Michael Fassbender on the other hand.... so fascinating to see where he started and what he's become.
300 opened in 2007, not 2006.
Linda Fiorentino's The Last Seduction was not eligible for the Oscars because it was released first on TV (3 months before its theatrical release). They even had the gall to campaign both for the Emmys and the Oscars! In the case of the Oscars, they wanted to get the Academy to make an exception... to no avail. The film and her performance, however, were on many Ten-Best lists and she won the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actress. I did not think much of the film or her, in any case.
markgordon: I'd probably also toss Bancroft for Hannah, at least in comedy. And as for Drama: No Lagenkamp?
Darren -- ah, of course. still on this day. IMDb just threw me off with their relentlessly stupid dating of movies. They always ignore when they were actually released. it makes me soooo crazy. 300 had one screening in 2006 and that's forever it's date on IMDb.
sometimes i really hate the IMDb. they've messed up so many list things especially including how everyone talks about Oscar dates.
Marcos -- it's so irritating to me that Oscar played so strict with the rules about these things up until just recently and now they're like "sure, OJ you're a movie even though you were made by a tv station for airing across multiple nights" but that was strictly NO NO when Liv Ullman tried it in the 70s."
Yes Nat! I remember the Liv Ullmann outcry over Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage, which had been shown on Swedish TV months before its theatrical release. What's more; it was a miniseries (286 minutes as opposed to the film's 169). Important directors and actresses petitioned the Academy to make the film eligible, but the answer was NO.
"300" is gay porn for straight men. Raul Julia left us to soon.
it's so irritating to me that Oscar played so strict with the rules about these things up until just recently and now they're like "sure, OJ you're a movie even though you were made by a tv station for airing across multiple nights" but that was strictly NO NO when Liv Ullman tried it in the 70s."
We're living in the age of blurring things. Where there was once clear distinctions everything is veering to anything goes. Which of course you champion when marginalized groups experience new found social visibility and agency because of the internet. I mean our current Best Supporting Actress winner's day job is being a TV actress.
@3rtful - film actors doing TV work is hardly a new thing