on this day (August 31st) in history as it relates to showbiz
1897 Thomas Edison patents his movie camera the "kinetograph"
1987 Michael Jackson's video "Bad" directed by none other than the master Martin Scorsese premieres. It is 18 minutes long (!) because Martin Scorsese never saw a lengthy running time that didn't make him salivate. The short gave Wesley Snipes one of his earliest gigs prompting the short's switch from black and white to color as Wesley riles Michael up with a "you ain't bad!" burn.
Princess Diana, Brokeback Mountain and more after the jump...
1997 Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed die in a car crash in Paris. The driver, who also died, was later determined to be drunk. The outpouring of grief was massive and prompted numerous people and celebrities to speak out against paparazzi as they had been following the car that night on motorcycles.
2005 The 62nd annual Venice Film Festival kicked off with Dante Ferretti serving as jury president. Brokeback Mountain eventually took the Golden Lion starting a string of wins that didn't end until Black Sunday March 5th, 2006.
2012 Argo has its world premiere at Telluride and goes on to win Best Picture. Telluride's first showcased film to take the industry's top prize was The King's Speech but they've featured the eventual Oscar winner every year since if not always premiered it. The festival begins tomorrow and runs through September 4th so keep an eye on what they screen. (If you're wondering why we don't attend: we don't believe in festivals that charge the press to attend. Sure, let us pay YOU for the privilege of covering your event. Nope!)
Fredric March (1897-1975)
Happy Birthday to Them!
Oscar Winners: two time winner Fredric March (one of the greatest actors of the studio era), and three time winner Alan Jay Lerner (of Lerner & Lowe musical fame)
Oscar Nominees: Joseph Cedar, well not officially, but he directed two Israeli foreign film nominees Beaufort and Footnote so it counts in our brains, Lowell Ganz nominated for writing Splash (1984)
Actors: Richard Gere, Sara Ramirez, Chris Tucker, Julie Brown, Warren Berlinger, Ryan Kelley (the deputy hiding all that muscle under his police clothes in Teen Wolf), Jonathan Cake (The Affair, Desperate Housewives)
Behind the Camera: director Marc Webb, writer/director/actor Joe Swanberg, writer/director Edoardo de Angelis, composer Jeff Russo