Showbiz History: It's "One Night in Miami" day!
Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 8:00AM 8 random things that happened on this day, February 25th, in showbiz history...
1950 Your Show of Shows premieres on NBC. The live variety show starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, was a stepping stone for legendary comedy writers like Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. The show helped create the variety genre and inspired both the TV classic The Dick Van Dyke Show and the movie My Favorite Year.
1956 Poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes meet at a party. Their doomed romance is dramatized in the 2003 film Sylvia starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig...
1964 American icons Malcolm X, Cassius Clay (soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali), Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown are all in Miami for Clay's fight with Sonny Liston which will bring him the World Heavyweight Champion title. This much is historical fact. One Night in Miami..., based on the stage play of the same name, imagines what the men discussed and how they spent their night. How many Oscar nods do you think the Amazon film will receive next month?
2001 The BAFTAs are held with Gladiator winning Best Picture and Ang Lee best director for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. At the Oscars later the Pic/Director will also split but Director will go to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic. Awards bodies REALLY don't want to give Ridley Scott a Best Director prize despite a stellar career, do they? We're glad he lost for Gladiator but on the other hand that career definitely warrants an Oscar. He's 83. Where is his Honorary Oscar? Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Alien, Black Hawk Down, The Martian, Gladiator, etc... he's more than earned it.
2004 Mel Gibson's gorey subtitled The Passion of the Christ opens in movie theaters becoming an unlikely mega-blockbuster earning $370 million in US release alone and another $241 million abroad.
2007 The 79th Oscars are held with The Departed winning, finally delivering Martin Scorsese the Oscar he had so long craved. This was the big takeaway for the night since the acting awards were dull across the board. The 2006 Oscar year also produces an interesting bit of trivia: Dreamgirls is the only film to ever lead the nominations in its year (it had 8 nominations) that was not a Best Picture nominee. (The all time record holder for nominations without a Best Picture citation is 1969's They Shoot Horses Don't They with 9 nominations but it was not the nomination leader in its year since Anne of The Thousand Days had 10 nominations.) Dreamgirls would not have been able to produce 8 nominations today since they have since changed the Best Original Song rules and you can now only receive two nominations from any one film in the category.
2011 The 36th César Awards are held in Paris with the monk drama Of Gods and Men (France's 2010 Oscar submission) taking Best Film. Overall Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer took the most Césars with 4 wins. Venezuela's Edgar Ramirez, who speaks five languages and has since become an international star, won "Most Promising Actor" for the French/German production Carlos. Jodie Foster, who speaks fluent French, chaired the ceremony.
2018 The 68th Berlinale concludes with the Golden Bear going to closing night experimental film Touch Me Not. Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs had opened the festival and received the Best Director prize.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 84th birthday to two time Oscar nominee Sir Tom Courtenay (Doctor Zhivago, The Dresser) pictured here in one of his most famous roles, his BAFTA nominated turn in Billy Liar (1963).
He recently received some awards attention for his co-lead role in 45 Years (2015) which netted him EFA and BIFA nominations and a Silver Bear at Berlinale. Is it too much to ask for one more juicy leading role before he hits 90?
Bollywood's Shahid KapoorOther showbiz birthdays: Bollywood's Shahid Kapoor (Ishk Vishk, Badmaash Company) pictured left, Oscar winning writer/director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, The End of the Affair), Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation, On the Rocks), Alexis Denisof (Angel, Guardians of the Galaxy), Téa Leoni (Hollywood Ending, Madam Secretary), Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings, The Goonies), Anson Mount (Crossroads, Star Trek Discovery), Diane Baker (Marnie, Silence of the Lambs), Jameel Jamil (The Good Place, How to Build a Girl), Douglas Hodge (Joker, The Great), Isabelle Furhman (Orphan, The Hunger Games), Jennifer Ferrin (The Knick, Hell on Wheels), Mark Moses (Platoon, Mad Men), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Widows, Sicario 2), twin brothers James and Oliver Phelps (Harry Potter franchise), Kollywood's Dhanush (Aadukalam, Virumandi), Christian Anholt (Flyboys, Hamlet), Oscar winning set decorator Roger Christian (Star Wars, Alien), Sweden's Amed Bozan (Caliphate), the best kid actor in the business right now Noah Jupe (Honey Boy, A Quiet Place, Wonder), and former talk show host Sally Jesse Raphael.
And late greats like Jim Backus (Gilligan's Island, Rebel Without a Cause), Gert Fröbe (Goldfinger, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), Zeppo Marx (Duck Soup), and The Beatle's George Harrison.
Reader Comments (21)
I hate the fact that we have like 10 reaction shots of Mark Wahlberg during Marty's speech.
Sylvia is one of Gwyneth's best performances.
Jesus, I remember the frenzy that was The Passion of the Christ and the reaction of the audience (adoration, for the most part - I went to see it ~in loco~, on the big screen, the right place for this kind of entertainment) and the criticism (a certain shock for some scenes that they considered very explicit). Some humorous texts called the film a "Lethal Weapon version of the bibble". Fact is that Mel Gibson's name in the credits helped bring people to theaters to see an immortal story. And the hunky actor James Caviezel disappeared after that. What happened?
I may sound harsh but both One Night in Miami and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, while good films, shouldn't be in discussion for any top 10 list on 2020.
Also we should be really be getting ready for two possible shockers at nomination morning... there are clear symptoms that both "Hillbilly Elegy" (conservatives will pile on this one) and "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" may surpass expectations and even get any of them, or even both, a Best Picture nomination).
Hillbilly Elegy can get Actress, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay and Make Up, along Picture. Given how overdue Adams and Close are, it's the clear dark horse of this race, the reviews wouldn't matter.
Borat has scored the WGA nom, plus is aiming to sweep the Globes this Sunday... with Bakalova being one of the two frontrunners to win Supporting Actress (the other is Close, but the race is insanely open, with up to 8 names as viable winners and nominees, at this point), there are signs that the film is loved and championed (as Wuhan Flu making the cut for the song semifinalists).
Under normal circumstances I would say no way to both, but 2020 is an unique year, just look at Hamilton at the Globes (by the way, shouldn't they have chosen "David Byrne's American Utopia" instead? It's a masterpiece, also in filmmaking!)
I still think Miami is more an actor's showcase than a directing one but am up for surprises but Borat 2 getting in everywhere I can't handle.
GLaaAadiATOr!
Still can't believe the Academy went for a low screentime Whittaker over the chance to finally reward O'Toole. The Academy are fucking (O) Tool(e)s!
Feline Justice -- i think he got swallowed up by TV procedurals or something? He did keep working.
Jesus -- I'm not sure why you think either of those are happening. They would both be very much unlike Oscar voters who a) don't go for critically reviled films... though they're okay with divisive movies and b) don't go for outrageous comedies (or comedies in general, really)
thevoid99 --- i dont think it helped that VENUS was kinda bad and LAST KING OF SCOTLAND was pretty good.
Four nominations seems right for One Night in Miami
Best Picture
Best Supporting Actor
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Original Song
Feline Justice - Jim Caviezel made a terrific series for CBS called Person of Interest (2011-2016), with Taraji P. Henson and Michael Emerson.
"You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a machine that spies on you every hour of every day..."
Who is getting the honorary Oscar this year? Has it been announced?
Passion of Christ has some good performances and cinematography but its depiction of violence and gore is nightmarish and children shouldn't watch it.
I loved Marty in the Fran Lebowitz series. He, Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino are the only directors I find compelling enough, personally, to consider them "movie stars" in their own right.
For those who haven't seen Billy Liar yet: check it out! Exceptional comedy-drama that was a milestone in the career of everyone who would eventually take higher flights. Turned Tom Courteney into one of the main british actors in theater and cinema, it was the breakthrough role of Julie Christie that we all know what would result and the prestigious director, John Schlesinger would attend the Hollywood's siren song successfully.
@Nathaniel. It's 2020. Post Trump. Borat 2 is overperforming the original, awards wise and Amazon is really pushing it. Also it is a film heavily supported... I would be highly surprised, but not shocked, given the outstanding year that both Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova had. If AMPAS members feel playful, it may break through... and the sign is up there, with Wuhan Flu shortlisted and the WGA nom. I still say NO, but...
Hillbillly Elegy... it's almost locked for 2 noms (Close, Make Up) and it may score Adapted and Lead quite easily, plus it stands out in its appeal for the more conservative wing of the AMPAS. Out of the two films, I think Hillbilly Elegy might be this year's The Blind Side. That one got nominated for Picture and Actress and Sandra won.
So it's not like there aren't precedents. I'd say Dr. Strangelove is another chance that the AMPAS went all for a full satire, but yes, that was Kubrick... but we could and should compare Sacha Baron Cohen with Peter Sellers... and Borat 2 has a way better screenplay than the first.
@ Jesus: I think that wing of the Academy is more News of the World conservative than Hillbilly Elegy conservative.
The Passion of the Christ... overrated!!!!!
I am not even a Christian, but I love Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. There are at least 20 incredible shots in that movie. It works even better if you are into History of Art, of course, and Caravaggio is far from being the only "source" of it. But I think I'd be transfixed by it even if I didn't get the references (and I am sure I didn't get a lot of them).
I really like Sylvia and rate that as one of Gwyneth Paltrow's 3 best performances (the other two being Flesh and Bone and Seven). Sylvia Plath was a genius, some say a suppressed genius, but having read a lot of Ted Hughes' essays and criticisms in the 1970s, I think he too was a first rate writer and poet.
Is it just me or is Polanski's The Ghost Writer one of his best? The perpetually autumnal atmosphere, the moor colors, Olivia Williams and Ewan McGregor, the dialogues, and the whiplash of that ending. It all worked together for me.
I always associate Tom Courtenay with one of my favorite 'kitchen-sink' films The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.
Owl -- i remember loving GHOST WRITER at the time. It got a couple of ominations here at the film bitch awards ... but in truth i barely remember it as i never saw it a second time.
The Ghost Writer is indeed one of Polanski’s best. Pierce Brosnan deserved a supporting actor nom. Haven’t seen it in ages but I remember it being really suspenseful and surprisingly effective.
Add my voice to the chorus of Sylvia being Paltrow’s best performance.
The Ghost Writer is a terrific film.
Yep, a fantastic movie!