Showbiz History: Shirley, Silkwood, and the Spider-Verse
Monday, December 14, 2020 at 9:00AM 6 random things that happened on this day, December 14th, in showbiz history
1916 Shirley Jackson, the famed horror writer, was born on this day. Shirley, the artful biopic (of sorts) starring Elisabeth Moss, celebrated her earlier this year. You really should queue it up if you haven't yet seen it.
1945 National Velvet hit movie theaters 75 years ago on this very day, making a major star of 13 year-old Elizabeth Taylor. Unlike many a child star, her stardom would never dim but grow blindingly year by year...
1979 A big weekend in movie theater. Steven Spielberg's war comedy 1941, the Neil Simon / Marsha Mason romantic drama Chapter Two, and Steve Martin's oft-quoted hit comedy The Jerk all opened in movie theaters on this day.
1983 Silkwood opens in limited release. It's among the best films of the 80s and arguably Meryl Streep's best film. Curiously it landed in the dread "sixth spot" with Oscar voters, somehow not landing a Best Picture nod. Terms of Endearment, Tender Mercies, The Big Chill, The Dresser, and The Right Stuff were the Academy's choices but if you ask us, none stand up to Silkwood.
1984 A volatile movie weekend begins. David Lynch's Dune and Francis Coppola's The Cotton Club two very expensive productions get a semi-cold opening weekend reception from critics and audiences, tanking their big blockbuster and/or Oscar winning dreams. Meanwhile the then low profile sci-fi drama Starman starring Jeff Bridges proves a sleeper hit and wins Bridges a Best Actor nomination (a rarity for sci-fi films). In limited release, the gay priest drama Mass Appeal and future Oscar contender A Passage to India emerge.
2018 Two Oscar-winners emerge on this day in movie theaters: Best Animated Feature winner Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse and Best Supporting Actress winner If Beale Street Could Talk. Were you at either of them that weekend? Doesn't it seem like Untitled Spider-Man 3 starring Tom Holland is just going to be a remake of Into the Spider-Verse since so many actors from the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies recreating their roles?
Today's Birthday (Swim) Suit
Today would have been Oscar-nominated Lee Remick's 85th birthday. She died far too young at just 55 but left us with several classics like Anatomy of a Murder, Wild River, The Omen, Days of Wine and Roses, and A Face in the Crowd.
Other showbiz types born on this day - a selection: The very talent Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin (And Then We Danced), Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel (Zama, The Holy Girl), freshly-minted Oscar winner Matthew A Cherry (Hair Love), Vanessa Hudgens (Spring Breakers, High School Musical), Natascha McElhone (Laurel Canyon, Californication), Jackson Rathbone (The Last Airbender, The Twilight Saga), Michaela Watkins (The Unicorn, Transparent), 80s star Dee Wallace (E.T., Cujo), Miranda Hart (Spy, Call the Midwife), Tony nominee and Emmy winner Tammy Blanchard (Life with Judy Garland, Rabbit Hole), Oscar winner Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker), Matthew McNulty (The Terror, Deadwater Fell), Character actress Celia Weston (Junebug, Observe and Report), and Oscar nominee Dan Dailey (When My Baby Smiles at Me)
Reader Comments (18)
Haven't seen Shirley yet, but just watched We Have Always Lived in the Castle (2018), based on her short story. Holy crap, that twist left my jaw on the floor. Jackson really knew how to sink an axe into one's perceptions of humanity.
Not to be that guy, but Blanchard actually won the Emmy for Life with Judy Garland.
Shirley certainly is a biopic of sorts,Moss delivers but don't go in expecting to like her.
Now I am reminded again that Marsha Mason does not have an Oscar. Sigh.
I really like Silkwood, but Terms of Endearment is truly wonderful.
Tammy Blanchard should be a respected well established star. I keep hoping she gets a role that pushes her in that direction.
I love Tammy Blanchard. She's also a Grammy nominee.
Lee Remick was beautiful talented star
Silkwood is one of my favorite Streep movies of the 80"s .... along with A Cry In the Dark.
All I want to see is Rosemary Harris reprising Aunt May and I will be a happy man.
100% about Silkwood, but it's hard to begrudge Shirley MacLaine's Oscar. A wonderfully fun performance and one of the best speeches ever.
I liked "Silkwood" best, too, an amazing film with an eerie ending. "And I really got hot
when I saw Janette Scott fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills." - The opening musical theme from "Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975), had to mention that British actress Janette Scott is 82 today.
It seems incredible that Lee Remick has been gone 30 years! Such a luminous presence, adroit at both comedy and drama, and definitely taken too soon. She left behind some very fine work both on film and television.
My top 5 of her films:
Baby, the Rain Must Fall
Wild River
The Running Man
Anatomy of a Murder
The Days of Wine and Roses (probably her best performance but it's a tough depressing sit)
Top 5 TV films:
Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill
Haywire
Nutcracker: Money, Murder & Madness
Ike: The War Years
Of Pure Blood
1941 is an awful misfire from Spielberg.
Watching National Velvet now it's easy to see how Elizabeth Taylor made the transition out of kid stardom so easily. Like Judy Garland before her and Natalie Wood after there is a maturity, similarity and presence to her adult self in her youth that disappeared for others like Margaret O'Brien or Patty McCormick as they aged.
I do like this new genre popping up of Bored White Women Ruining The Lives of Others to Feel Inspired. Black Bear’s next!
Hahaha, maybe hand in hand with that other amazing genre, Women Who Lie to Themselves?
Shirley was insufferable, but then again, she was ACTUALLY no picnic in real life, so kudos to Moss, who I still find pretty overrated as an actress but I am clearly in the minority on that one.
Silkwood is fine but I don't have a problem with it not getting in as Best Picture. Of the other nominees I'd only kick out The Dresser, but Silkwood would still be in 5th for me.
Piggybacking on Joel's comment, Lee Remick was also a talented stage performer. You can catch her leading role in Follies in Concert, probably on Youtube.
Silkwood is terrific, but The Right Stuff is a masterpiece. It should have swept the Oscars. I still can't believe it didn't win Cinematography and it wasn't even nominated in Directing, an Oscar it should have won by a landslide, specially because all that movies nominated in Picture and Directing (except for Fanny and Alexander) look very TV-ish.
I think I would knock The Big Chill out of the 1983 Best Picture category for Silkwood. 1983 was a slightly strange Oscars year, with Chill, The Dresser and Tender Mercies all unexpectedly scoring major nominations.
I like the Directing category that year. The films may look TV-ish, as cal roth says, but there is some excellent acting work - and all the films are very sensitively handled by their directors. It's a very emotional crop.
Agree with cal about The Right Stuff, topic may seem kinda bland to some, but the movie is so gripping and exciting. One of the best of the 1980s.
i suspect fanny and alexander might've bumped silkwood into seventh place in '83