Showbiz History: Ralph Fiennes, Waiting to Exhale, and Moment by Moment,
Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 12:32PM random things that happend on this day, December 22nd, in showbiz history
1932 The Mummy, the fourth "classic monsters" picture from Universal (following Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, and Frankenstein) and the second to star Boris Karloff ("Karloff the Uncanny"), arrives in theaters. It was only a modest success and received no official sequels but was instead "rebooted" though they weren't using the term back then, with The Mummy's Hand (1940).
1939 Two years after Disney premiered the US's first animated feature, Snow White, another animated feature makes it to movie theaters via Paramount Pictures: David Fleischer's Gullivers Travels...
1964 Billy Wilder's romantic comedy Kiss Me Stupid opens in theaters. It does not gain the sterling reputation of his other romcoms.
1976 Voyage of the Damned opens in limited release. We recently revisited and discussed this interesting all star historical drama which underperformed at the Oscars (3 nominations) when the studio was clearly assuming a Best Picture run.
1978 Moment by Moment, a romantic melodrama directed by Lily Tomlin's longtime companion (and now wife) opens in theaters. It's the only feature Jane Wagner ever directed and audiences and critics hated it. Now it's a cult object of some fascination since she cast the male star who looked most like her wife as the love interest.
1995 Twenty-five years ago today it was a crowded holiday weekend with the all star black female drama Waiting to Exhale the new #1 film on its opening day. So much to choose from that weekend, if Exhale was sold out. The other new films were the career-crushing female pirate drama Cutthroat Island (sorry Geena!), the vampire comedy Dracula Dead and Loving It, the comedy sequel Grumpier Old Men, the Jean Claude Van Damme actioner Sudden Death, Walt Disney's Tom and Huck, and the Gong Li arthouse hit Shanghai Triad. Were you a moviegoer in 1995 or just a wee babe?
2000 Cast Away, The Family Man, and Miss Congeniality were the big Friday pre-Christmas releases. The jam packed holiday weekend also saw the release of several Oscar hopefuls in limited release including gorgeous Gilded Age drama The House of Mirth, the comedy State and Main, the poet biopic Before Night Falls, the Cate Blanchett vehicle The Gift, and the Coen Brothers comedy O Brother Where Art Thou? That Christmas crop didn't prove all that popular with Oscar, though beyond big ticket Best Actor nominations for Tom Hanks (Cast Away) and Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls).
Today's birthday suit
Happy 58th birthday to Ralph Fiennes, the perpetually awesome and perplexingly underrated actor -- in that everyone agrees he's brilliant but he never wins and is rarely nominated for awards.
with Matthias Schoenaerts in the very sexy "A Bigger Splash"
Fiennes has been the opposite of shy in movies, dropping his pants in what seems like about half of his movies right from the beginning (The Baby of Macon, 1993) through to quite recently (A Bigger Splash, 2015). *doing quick math... okay it's less than 50%, but 10ish out of 40+ pictures ain't nothing!*
Not complaining, mind you. He's as beautiful as he is talented. And I would also like to point out that his middle name is my name so, you know, that makes him even more special. How many Oscar nominations would he have if you were in charge?
Other showbiz types born on this day: the late Oscar winner Peggy Aschcroft (A Passage to India), Amelia Eve (Haunting of Bly Manor), Dina Meyer (Starship Troopers), Spanish actor Sergi López (With a Friend Like Harry, Pan's Labyrinth), the late Hector Elizondo (Pretty Woman), Poorna Jagannathan (The Night of, Never have I Ever), Lenny von Dohlen (Twin Peaks, Electric Dreams), Barbara Billingsley (Airplane!), Pierre Brasseur (Eyes Without a Face, Children of Paradise), Vanessa Paradis, Neel Sethi (The Jungle Book), Spanish TV star Jaime Olías (The Sound of Mine), Graham Beckel (LA Confidential), singers Meghan Trainor, Jordin Sparks Thomas, and Maurice and Robin Gibb, newswoman Diane Sawyer, and the famous artist Jean Michel Basquiat who died far too young.
Reader Comments (28)
Ralph's Oscar Nominations and Wins, in my world:
2015 - A Bigger Splash (Best Supporting Actor)
2014 - The Grand Budapest Hotel (Best Actor) - Winner
2008 - In Bruges (Best Supporting Actor)
2005 - The Constant Gardener (Best Actor)
2000 - Sunshine (Best Actor)
1996 - The English Patient (Best Actor)
1993 - Schindler's List (Best Supporting Actor) - Winner
This is being judicious. Quiz Show, The End of the Affair, Spider, Coriolanus, The Duchess are all arguably nomination-worthy as well...
Nathaniel, what would you nominate him for?
I was a moviegoing 19 yr old in 95 saw WTE with an on fire Bassett and a peak Houston and then Loretta the original Octavia being all sassy and the lovely Lela Rochon,It's a real comfort blanket ice cream eating movie movie.
Sudden Death is a quite good Die Hrd rip off.
I felt sorry for Geena in the mid 90's nothing worked.
Sophia Loren was in the Grumpy Old Men sequel so it had to be watched.
If you'd told me after The English Patient swept the Oscars that Ralph Fiennes (and KST) would still be waiting on his next nomination 24 years later, I'd have never believed it.
Awards are so weird.
I believe I was at Grumpier Old Men in 1995, and Cast Away in 2000.
Ralph Fiennes should have at least 5: Schindler, English Patient, Quiz Show and Grand Budapest., plus a supporting one for A Bigger Splash for showing his glorious all!
I would love to see Moment by Moment some day.
Jules --
Ralph's Oscar Nominations and Wins, in my world:
2016 - A Bigger Splash (Best Supporting Actor) WIN (proof right here)
2016 - The Grand Budapest Hotel (Best Actor) - WIN (proof right here)
1996 - The English Patient (Best Actor)
1993 - Schindler's List (Best Supporting Actor) - WIN
so... three Oscars from four nominations. I can't remember on End of the Affair if i would have nominated. the year is fuzzy to me now.
Lily is clearly fingering Travolta in that poster.
I really like Ralph Fiennes, and think he's an incredibly strong, and versatile, actor. Here's what I'd nominate him for:
Schindler's List
The English Patient
The Constant Gardener (Win)
In Bruges
The Grand Budapest Hotel
A Bigger Splash
I also think, in another universe where he is loved by the Academy, he would have been a double nominee for Coriolanus.
His lack of Academy Award nominations is rather odd. Especially since he's been able to make it in at BAFTA. I would think the British voting block in the academy would be able to carry him over, but they never really have.
Budapest is Fiennes' best performance, no one could have done it better, can't even imagine anyone else in that role.
As a Ralph Fiennes's fanatic, here are my nominations and wins:
The Schindler's List - WIN - BSA
The English Patient - Nom - BLA
The End of the Affair - Nom - BLA
Spider - Nom - BLA
HP and the Goblet of Fire - Nom - BSA
The Constant Gardner - Nom - BLA
In Bruges - Nom - BLA
Coriolanus - Nom - BLA / AS / Director / Picture
The Grand Budapest Hotel - WIN - BLA
A Bigger Splash - WIN - BSA
13 noms and 03 wins
BSA - Supporting Actor
BLA - Leading Actor
AS - Adapted Screenplay
I was all there for Angela Bassett and WAITING TO EXHALE in 1995.
I recall STATE AND MAIN being very funny at the time, though it never took off with Oscar or even the Globes. But it will always have its Golden Satellite nominations, LOL
The reason Kiss Me Stupid doesn't share the lustre of other Wilder films is because it's as dumb as its title. A leering misfire but you can't hit it out of the park every time.
Speaking of leering misfires Moment by Moment is a prime example. I saw it in the theatre during its very, very brief theatrical run. It had only been out a few days and there were three other people in the theatre with me and it was the 8 PM show!! It didn't deserve better. All I really remember about it now is the fact that Travolta's idiot of a character called himself Strip so Lily spent half the movie saying "Strip...Strip!"
LOVE Miss Congeniality!
Fiennes should've won for Schindler's List. And so so good in In Bruges.
Karloffi is amazing in "The Mummy" a very moody scary horror film and if anyone deserved a make up fx Oscar it was Jack Pierce who created all the Universal monsters and never made a cent from them....the poster for "Kiss Me Stupid" looks stupid.
Fiennes Awards Watch: Schindler's List, Spider, The White Countess, In Bruges, Hail Caesar, Great Expectations
Ralph Fiennes in A Bigger Splash is awesome. I will never hear "Emotional Rescue" the same way again and if I was a chick. I'd jump on him and hope to have the best sex ever with him.
I have seen Moment by Moment and... oy... it is horrendous. Travolta has done worse though. Battlefield Earth, Old Dogs, and Stayin' Alive are far more unwatchable than Moment by Moment. I haven't seen anything he's done recently like Gotti and I don't want to. It's already bad enough he chooses to work with the fat douchebag who fronted one of the worst bands that ever lived in Limp Bizkit.
And if there's people who prefer Limp Bizkit over Nine Inch Nails... you better call your family so they can identity the body after I go Dae-su on you cunts.
Don't fret, Ralph Fiennes is a member of the Inevitables.
Genuinely surprised to see how many TFE readers love Fiennes in The Constant Gardener. I'm not there with that performance, but it's always great to discover people appreciate understated performances.
If I controlled the Oscars, I would have the following history for Ralph Fiennes
1993, Schindler's List - Best Supporting Actor *WIN*
1996, The English Patient - Best Leading Actor
2008, In Bruges - Best Supporting Actor
2014, The Grand Budapest Hotel - Best Leading Actor *WIN*
2016, A Bigger Splash - Best Supporting Actor
Moment by Moment is so hysterical an idea. Lily, who came out practically FIRST IN THE WORLD and her lover decide to write a movie where she has an affair with a man. They choose John Travolta, who is, as you say Nathaniel, the male star who looks the most like Lily. He is also the Hollywood actor with the most "he's secretly gay" gossip. I did not waste my $6.75 (approximate price). And as far as I know, it has never been shown on any streaming service (but may be available on YouTube).
Note to you all: OSCAR AND LUCINDA
Moment By Moment is one of those “so bad it becomes remembered decades later” flops that I will...never, ever watch it again. I also thought the drippy, syrupy theme song was so awful that it may have signaled the end of the career of Golden Globe nominated actress/singer Yvonne Elliman, who’d just come off her first and only number one single “If I Can’t Have You.” From her definitive version of “I Don’t Know How To Love Him,” in 1970 to that MTM atrocity in 1979 was a sad slide indeed.
It's a strange, sad coincidence that Yvonne Elliman sang the theme song to that ill-fated movie that starred Travolta, a year after they both scored big with Saturday Night Fever, her with a No 1 song and he with an Oscar nod. Fate can be cruel.
Patryk, I really like Yvonne's version of IDKHTLH, but I much prefer Helen Reddy's gorgeous radio hit. JMO.
Ralph Fiennes and the words 'Showbiz History' are two things guaranteed to chub me up.
I am kind of surprised, no one mentions Voldemort as one of the greatest Fiennes performances...
Thanks for answering my question, Nathaniel! The 2016 supporting actor race is a tough one for me, because I LOVE Fiennes in A Bigger Splash... but I think I'd personally award it to Alden Ehrenreich only because Ralph would have won my Best Actor award a couple years earlier (it's so sad that Ehrenreich never capitalized on that great performance, but maybe he still will.....).
I think Feinnes should have won for The English Patient easily. I also think he should have been recognized somehow for his hilarious voiceover work in Curse of the Were-Rabbit (as should Helena Bonham-Carter, also)
/3rtful -- I wouldn't be so sure. 25 years without a nomination does not suggest that they care for him all that much.
I was there for Cast Away and remember that I was impressed that when they went searching for the "meaning of life," essentially the movie/Tom Hanks said that there is no meaning. You just keep on going on. I thought it was the honest truth, but its Best Picture dreams probably died right there.
One of the movies I have most wanted to rewatch is Oscar and Lucinda. I remember at the time thinking that I hated everyone in it, and the freckly leading lady was awful. Haha. Now I realize that it must all of have been brilliant acting. I want to give it another go but never see it anywhere.
And I recently rewatched Hail Ceasar and the whole Alden Ehrenreich (sp?) and Laurence Laurentz scenes were by far the best in show.
Waiting to Exhale and Shanghai Triad on the same weekend is a trip to the movies I would have made.