Showbiz History: Japanese hits, Harry Belafonte's birthday, and The Doors
Monday, March 1, 2021 at 10:00AM 6 random things that happened on this day, March 1st, in showbiz history...
1927 Harold George Bellanfanti Jr born in Harlem. He later becomes globally famous in the 1950s as Harry Belafonte. Happy 94th (!!!) to the singer, actor, activist, and Honorary Oscar winner. He's one of the oldest living iconic American stars.
1963 Akira Kurosawa's High and Low premieres in Japan. It snags a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film but Japan doesn't submit it to the Oscars.
a 1985 movie weekend, Shoplifters, and NSFW Javier Bardem after the jump...
1985 A big mostly comedic weekend at US movie theater begins as five new films open: Woody Allen's masterpiece The Purple Rose of Cairo, Rob Reiner's The Sure Thing, the western Lust in the Dust with campy cast Tab Hunter, Laini Kazan and the iconic Divine, the action drama Certain Fury with Tatum O'Neal and Irene Cara, and the British A Private Function starring Maggie Smith and Michael Palin all open.
1991 Oliver Stone's biopic The Doors opens with Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison. Awards bodies were very resistant to Kilmer during his heyday which is a pity. Just about the only groups that loved him were the MTV Movie Awards, the Saturn Awards, and (sigh) the Razzies.
2013 The fantasy adventure Jack the Giant Slayer (starring Ewan McGregor), and the horror-drama Stoker (starring Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman) both open.
2019 The 42nd Japanese Academy Film Prize ceremony, honoring the films of 2018 held in Tokyo. The brilliant Shoplifters takes Picture of the Year (and 7 other prizes) and Mirai takes Animation of the Year; Both films were nominated at the American Oscars that year, too, though neither won losing to Roma and Into the Spider-Verse respectively in their caegories.
Today's Birthday suit:
Happy 52nd birthday to hunky über talented Oscar winning actor Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Skyfall, Before Night Falls, Live Flesh).
Things have been a bit quiet for the past couple of years but he could come roaring back. Lots of movies lined up: He's "Stilgar" in Dune, then "Desi" in the Lucy & Desi biopic, and currently filming as "King Triton" in Disney's live action remake of The Little Mermaid.
Other birthdays today: South Korea's Ma Dong-seok (The Gangster the Cop and the Devil, Train to Busan), Director/actor Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Happy Days), Norway's fine director Joachim Trier (Thelma, Reprise), Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave, Black Panther, Us), Director Zack Snyder (300, Justice League), Jensen Ackles (Supernatural), Cara Buono (Stranger Things, Mad Men), Jack Davenport (Smash, Pirates of the Caribbean), Dominic Rains (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Taqwacores), Lana Wood (Diamonds are Forever, The Searchers), actor/director Chris Eigeman (Metropolitan, Turn the River), Dirk Benedict (The A-Team, Battlestar Galactica), South Korea's Kim Min-hee (The Handmaiden, On the Beach at Night Alone), Bryan Batt (Mad Men, Jeffrey), Russell Wong (Westworld, Romeo Must Die), and singers Ke$ha and Justin Beiber.
And late greats: Oscar winner David Niven (Separate Tables, Murder by Death, The Moon is Blue), Oscar nominee Joan Hackett (Only When I Laugh, The Last of Sheila), Oscar nominated director Jack Clayton (Room at the Top, The Innocents), Alan Thicke (Growing Pains), and French director Jacques Rivette (La Belle Noiseuse, Va Savoir)
Reader Comments (10)
I hope they get him to recreate this sultry emerging from the sea when he plays Triton.
mark -- could you imagine the warnings Disney+ would have to stamp on it. heehee.
High and Low is beyond words. One of the best movies ever.
I agree with Cal Roth, High and Low is an amazing film. My favorite Kurosawa.
I miss Joan Hackett. A wonderfully unique idiosyncratic actress. She has one of the best inscriptions on her grave marker "Go Away-I'm Asleep"
I never been hornier in a movie theatre than when I saw Jamón Jamón. I thought I was dying. Still don't know how I made it home.
@Nat Yes Warning Hot Beefcake features heavily in this Movie.
That water was very cold.
In its day, Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in The Doors was equivalent to Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.
@James-Exactly. 2 horrendous films with 2 overrated performances that are further from the reality of the subject matter at hand. I fucking hate The Doors. It wanted to be so many things but once I read Ray Manzerek's book. I realized that Stone just exaggerated everything and wrote a lot of half-truths as Manzarek's book at least made Morrison a bit tolerable despite the fact that he was a drunken buffoon posing as a poet. Yet, he was a cool drunken buffoon.
Reading about Sacha Baron Cohen's attempt from David Fincher made me realize that a lost opportunity was there as Queen just played it safe by hiring a pedophile.
if you want to see Javier Barden in his birthday suit prime then you must see "Jamon Jamon" (1992) in which he tries out as an underwear model and bull fights in the nude