Showbiz History: Drew makes history on SNL and more...

6 random things that happened on this day, November 20th, in showbiz history

1982 Drew Barrymore hosts SNL in the year of E.T.'s mega-pop culture dominance. She's still the youngest host of all time. She was just 7 years old and one of the first jokes was about her famous family's alcoholism "Milk? I'm a Barrymore. Get me a drink... and make it a double!"  (Julia Louis-Dreyfus was on the show back then ?!?)

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Smackdown '87: A Fatal Attraction to Moonstruck

The Supporting Actress Smackdown series picks an Oscar vintage to explore. Now it's time for the season finale featuring the year 1987. 

THE NOMINEES 1987's shortlist of supporting characters featured three very different moms (victim/monster/old-soul-wiseass), one selfless caretaker, and a gossipy neighbor. The actresses gathered were all mature talents, enjoying what would turn out to be their sole brush with Oscar.

THE PANEL  Here to talk about the performances and films are, in alpha order, the actor Ato Essandoh (Away, Tales from the Loop, Chicago Med), critic/author Manuel Betancourt (Judy Garland's Judy at Carnegie Hall), critic Naveen Kumar, critic Kathia Woods, and your host Nathaniel R. Let's begin!

1987
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN + PODCAST  
The companion podcast can be downloaded at the bottom of this article or by visiting the iTunes page... 

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"The Dead" and the end of John Huston

by Cláudio Alves

Few cineastes can count their last film among their greatest works. Fewer still finish a career, a life, with their best cinematic effort. As much as I admire such gems as Ophüls' carnivalesque Lola Montès, the amorous musings of Dreyer's Gertrud, the bittersweet self-reflections of Akerman's No Home Movie and Varda's Varda by Agnès, I wouldn't classify any of those pictures as their director's crown jewels. John Huston's a whole different matter. 

The American filmmaker, whose career spanned six decades, finished his last picture in 1987. Faithfully adapted from a short story by James Joyce, The Dead may not be as influential as The Maltese Falcon, as exciting as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, nor as tragic as The Misfits, but, as far as I'm concerned, it's Huston's most ravishing creation…

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Showbiz History: Brooke's jeans, Cuckoo's statues, Aishwarya's crown

8 random things that happened on this day, November 19th, in showbiz history...

1916 Goldwyn Pictures Corporations was established in Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn. It's actually here and not with MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) that the 'Leo the Lion' trademark began... though of course in the silent films you didn't hear the lion's roar. The company was defunct by 1924 but it has lived on in many formed, merging with Metro to become MGM and the Goldwyn family is still in business with Samuel Goldwyn Films. They're next releases are the Andrea Riseborough indie Luxor and Denmark's Oscar submission Another Round starring Mads Mikkelsen. 

1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is released. The following March it becomes only the second film in history to win the "Big Five" Oscar categories...

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Links

• THR Malcolm & Marie, that COVID-filmed two-hander with John David Washington and Zendaya, is now joining Netflix's stable of current Oscar contenders with a February release; as if they didn't have enough already!
• Deadline Spike Lee keeps us guessing. He's doing a Viagra musical next. WTF?
• The Verge Wonder Woman 1984 is now going direct to streaming on Christmas day (the same day it opens in theaters). It'll be on HBOMax at no additional cost for one month after which it will only be in theaters. We haven't believed the worst premonitions about the future of movie theaters up till now. But if the big studios are now willing to give up their surest billion dollar theatrical titles to streaming (where those same titles can't earn them any additional revenue other then arguably more subscribers -- but how many are required to make those regular $200 million budgets for superflicks affordable? --  then all bets are off.  *cries hysterically*