Showbiz History: American Hustle, Clue, and Dick Van Dyke

4 random things that happened on this day, December 13th, in showbiz history

1956 Historical drama Anastasia is released starring Yul Brynner and Ingrid Bergman. It will bring Bergman back into Hollywood's graces after her banishment due to her extramarital affair and win her her second Best Actress Oscar (though she doesn't attend the ceremony).

1957 Peyton Place which we discussed quite a bit this past summer premieres in NYC, becomes a smash hit and Oscar contender. The soapy drama about a mother and daughter and a small gossipy town is quickly adapted into a TV series...

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Link Sauce

• MNPP Jamie Bell is going to make a Fred & Ginger biopic with Margaret Qualley...
• TFE we're elated for Bell because if you recall our interview two years back he said playing Astaire was his dream role
• Variety Steven Soderbergh working on a Sex Lies and Videotape sequel with Andie MacDowell and Laura San Giacoma both returning. Yes, ma'am. Sold

More after the jump including live concerts to stream tonight, Wong Kar Wai, pandemic grief, Disney proejcts, and more Warner Bros/HBO Max fallout...

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Review: "Let Them All Talk"

by Christopher James

Imagine a cruise ship movie starring Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen, Dianne Wiest and Lucas Hedges. With five Oscars, 26 Oscar nominations and 10 Emmy wins between them, Let Them All Talk was poised for greatness just on its logline alone. The new HBO Max film may sound like the perfect fluff while at home, but that would ignore the film’s not-so-secret ingredient. With director Steven Soderbergh at the helm, he steers the film away from madcap and into more contemplative, but far less calm, waters. Let Them All Talk may move more glacially than expected. Yet, what we’re left with is a thornier and more interesting look at a decades long friendship filled with fractures.

A renowned author, Alice (Meryl Streep) learns that she is receiving a prestigious award in England (“it’s not even given out every year,” she reminds everyone she encounters). Ever the diva, Alice wants to travel by style and not by plane...

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Showbiz History: Noni shoplifts and Jennifer Connelly & Regina Hall are born

10 (gulp) random things that happened on this day, December 12th, in showbiz history...

1917 Father Edward Flanagan founds Boys Town in Nebraska, a home for at-risk kids. Twenty-one years later the movie version will arrive winning Spencer Tracy an Oscar as Father Flanagan. We talked about this movie quite a bit this summer. 

1941 Universal's horror picture The Wolf Man opens in movie theaters with early giants like Lon Chaney Jr in furry face plus Claude Raines, Bela Lugosi, Ralph Bellamy, and Maria Ouspenskaya in support.

Star Trek, Winona Ryder shoplifting, Jennifer Connelly, Regina Hall, and more after the jump...

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Between Anachronism and Pastiche: The Look of "Mank"

by Cláudio Alves

After months of great anticipation and even greater expectations, David Fincher's Mank is here. For some, the picture's a rousing success, a politicized look at Old Hollywood's insidiousness through the eyes of Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. For others, it's a disappointment, history and fantasy mushed together with pretension and aggrandizement. I find myself in the middle of these reactions, though my immediate feelings were probably more inclined to the latter than the former.

Still, a good way to consider a film's power is to see how it lasts in one's memory. For me, Mank has aged oddly in the last week. It's not that my perspective is warmer but that I can't shake it off. As the days go by I find myself ruminating on David Fincher's formal conception of this manky flick, its weirdness and intrinsic contradictions…

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