OTD: Vera Drake and Lily Tomlin
Friday, September 1, 2017 at 8:00AM On this day (Sept 1st) in showbiz history...
1934 Metro Goldwyn Mayer releases their first animated short, The Discontented Canary. It wasn't Oscar nominated but they soon begin to crash Walt Disney's stranglehold on that particular category back then, with nearly annual nominations (for a time) beginning in 1939 (Peace on Earth) and regular wins in the 1940s thanks largely to the Tom & Jerry series.
1952 Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is first published. It wins the Pulitzer and gets adapted to the movies twice, the first time as a feature in 1958 with Spencer Tracy and the second time as an Oscar winning Russian animated short in 1999 which was painted on glass.
1977 Blondie signed their first major record company contract. Whatever happened to that Debbie Harry biopic we were supposed to get? Wasn't it going to star Kiki Dunst or was that just our TFE fantasy?
2004 Mike Leigh's marvelously humane and potent Vera Drake wins the Golden Lion in Venice. The film is nominated for 3 Oscars including a surprise Best Director bid. Imelda Staunton goes on to lose the Oscar to a far inferior performance. We've been demanding a recount ever since.
Happy Birthday to Them
Oscar Nominees: Lily Tomlin (Nashville), Rachid Bouchareb (Foreign Film nominations for Algeria: Outside the Law and Days of Glory)
In Demand: Zendaya (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Boyd Holbrook (Logan, Narcos)
Other Famous Types: Gloria Estefan
Foreign Stars: Fengyi Zhang (Chinese movie star), Lhumnita Gheorghiu (brilliant Romanian actress), Mohammed Assaf (Palestinian pop star)
Reader Comments (13)
Swank winning her 2nd over 4 better performances...choices.
When people say Kate Winslet should have obviously won before The Reader or that Annette obviously should have won... I always go, "but Vera Drake!"
Yes Glenn! 2004 is such a stacked Best Actress field... my personal line-up is as follows (and I really love Kate in Eternal Sunshine, Bai Ling in Dumplings and Emily Blunt in My Summer Of Love but it's just too competitive...)
1) Imelda Staunton - Vera Drake
2) Nicole Kidman - Birth
3) Mirella Pascual - Whiskey
4) Valeria Bruni Tedeschi - 5x2
5) Natalie Press - My Summer Of Love
6) Miriam Yeung - Dumplings
7) Julia Roberts - Closer
8) Alexandra Maria Lara - Downfall
9) Catalina Sandino Moreno - Maria Full Of Grace
10) Connie Nielsen - Brothers
Kidman and Roberts both give career-best performances and STILL only manage a nomination between them...
Kermit -- Whiskey! that was a good one. nice to see shout outs to forgotten goodies like 5 x2, brothers, etc...
Glenn - exactly
Arlo - i can't. i mean one Oscar was plenty (and she basically deserved the first one so quit there!)
I love the fact that Imelda is the absolute queen of the West End (currently in Follies), but I miss her so much on the big screen.
I never understood how on Earth the cast of Vera Drake missed a SAG nom. They're all spectacular, especially Phil Davis and Daniel Mays.
Is Imelda Staunton the Ann Dowd/Margo Martindale of Britain? She is fantastic in everything. Go watch Shakespeare in Love again and tell me how great she is...Vera Drake is just phenomenal.
Imelda Staunton is a treasure. I've been lucky enough to see her on the West End.
Oscars' loss is the Olivier Awards' gain!
With the right role she could easily win a supporting actress Oscar.
Happy birthday to Lily Tomlin, who should be an Oscar WINNER for Nashville.
Will 2017 Oscars for Bening and Pfeiffer stop your Swank and Tandy bashing?
Lily Tomlin would make a great Mike Leigh player!
I loved Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5. Especially for that Disneyesque fantasy sequence.
High Lily Tomlin is the best Lily Tomlin.
I second /3rtful's question.