Happy Birthday, Goldie!

She definitely doesn't look it, but Goldie Hawn is turning 68 today! She has many roles worth celebrating - The First Wives Club, Death Becomes Her, Private Benjamin, this jazzy Beatles cover - but today I'd like to shine a light on that zany show where she first got her start, the short-lived but always incredible Laugh In.

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In Clip #6 Goldie... by RetroCafe

Like Judy Holliday before her, Goldie Hawn turned Blonde Ditz into an artform. Happy Birthday, Goldie, no matter what time zone you're in!

Celebrating International Transgender Day of Remembrance (With a List)

Today marks the annual commemoration event honoring those who've been killed in anti-trans crimes. You can find a list of events taking place from now through the weekend here if you're so inclined. Not all of the events are today some waiting for the weekend for better attendance numbers. Here in NYC the march starts in the Bronx and walks down to Harlem.

Since this is The Film Experience, and since identity politics are always shifting/evolving and since hate crimes don't care about the particulars of self-identification we thought we'd commemorate the day with a broad cloth. And with a list in chronological order..

27 Oscar and/or Globe Nominated Trans (or Cross Dressing*) Characters
*we realize these are different things
How many have you seen? Which are your favorite?

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Bellissimo, Piero

Tim here. All of the online chatter around the honorary Oscars handed out over the weekend has focused, not unreasonably, on the actors who received awards: Angela Lansbury, Steve Martin, and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient Angelina Jolie. After all, they're famous, and in at least one case wildly iconic and beloved. But going unnoticed in the widespread Lansbury love-in (which, to be entirely clear, I support enthusiastically) is the fourth award recipient on Sunday, Italian costume designer Piero Tosi.

Making this lapse even worse than simple snobbery against below-the-line talent, Tosi has as many Oscar nominations as the other three individuals put together: five total, to Lansbury's three, Jolie's two, and Martin's zero (not even a writing nod!). Since that would apparently make him the most conspicuously overlooked among the honorees, I think it's only respectful and right to give the man his due: and what better way than a short gallery showcasing the five films that brought him Oscar attention in the past.

The Leopard (1963)

Death in Venice (1971)

Ludwig (1973)

La Cage aux Folles (1979)

La traviata (1982)

SAG to Assemble Ensemble Nominees Now

Glenn here with news that Screen Actor's Guild voting forms have been shipped out in the post. As my tongue-twister of a title suggests, a select number (2,200 to be exact) of SAG members will be given the arduous task of deciding whether This is the End has an ensemble on the same playing field as 12 Years a Slave (I say yes!), if middling films with sprawling big-name casts like The Butler should be up there (I say no, but since when has that stopped them?) and which of the best actor favourites is going to pluck this year's unlucky short straw. There are so many contenders that somebody has to, right?

SAG are unique in that the people chosen to select the nominees changes each year amongst its hefty membership (now even bigger thanks to a merger with AFTRA, or is my lack of knowledge on the subject getting me into a mess?) That means whoever voted for that incredible roster of ensemble nominees in 2007 didn't necessarily vote for Nicole Kidman in The Paperboy, but we thank them for both nonetheless. It also means that sometimes curveballs are thrown that can signpost Oscar surprises waiting in the wings (Demian Bichir for A Better Life, anyone?) or can send prognosticators on a wild goose chase (Cloris Leachman in Spanglish?).

Last week Amir looked at SAG's ensemble category so there's no need to dip back into that well, but what are we thinking could surprise in the acting categories? Is there a Hilary Swank in Conviction waiting to win their lone citation of the season? Is there a Jacki Weaver who has two Oscar nominations to her credit and yet can't seem to get herself a solo SAG nomination? I'm personally wondering whether the older-skewing Best Actress category may make voters throw a bone to a popular young actor such as Brie Larson (Short Term 12) or if Matthew McConaughey can snag a double nomination with Dallas Buyer's Club in Best Actor and Mud in Best Supporting Actor. Lest we forget that Mud was the first screener sent to voters and that helps! 

What are you hunches or sneaking suspicions?
Speak up in the comments or make your FYCs.

The SAG Award Nominations will be announced on Wednesday, December 11th by TV stars Clark Gregg and Sasha Alexander

'The Best Man Holiday' a Fascinating Portrait in Black Cinema

Glenn here. I get the sense that I am not meant to have much of an opinion on The Best Man Holiday. I suspect that even to the filmmakers it was meant to do little more than make audiences feel good (as well as a little sad – oh gawd, the tears!!) and make money while not rocking the boat. And yet I come to this 14-years-later sequel to Malcolm D. Lee’s original The Best Man (1999) and find it one of the year’s most fascinating films in terms of the evolution of black cinema and filmmaking in general.

 

Oh sure, it’s a perfectly adequate movie. It’s certainly never truly great. There’s quite a bit of stuff here that makes no sense (two deus ex machinas in the span of ten minutes is a bit much), and I’m dubious about some of its politics in regards to female sexuality. It’s also too long. On that same day I had watched What’s Love Got To Do With It? for the next Team Experience poll and that one, a biopic about the life of Tina freakin’ Turner, was shorter than The Best Man Holiday! Nevertheless, by the end credits I had laughed, I had cried, and I felt like I’d revisited old friends that left me with a smile on my face. Even if as a gay, white, Australian, Hollywood probably doesn't think I should have any interest in it. [more]

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