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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Cinema Eye doc nominations

by Nathaniel R

"Time" keeps racking up the honors

The Cinema Eye Honors are now in their 14th year and considered an influential prize for documentary films. Prison sentence justice movie Time leads the nominations with six but two competitors for the top prize, Romania's political corruption doc Collective (Romania's Oscar submission) and Norway's farm doc Gunda aren't far behind with four nominations. 

Outstanding Nonfiction Feature
“Boys State”
“Collective”
“Dick Johnson is Dead”
“Gunda”
“Time”

The full list of nominations and links to our reviews are after the jump...

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Review: "The Prom" on Netflix

by Nathaniel R

I first saw The Prom on Broadway during its sort of sleeper success run (I believe it broke even? but for a Broadway original without stars, that's a success!) and I loved it as much as Principle Hawkins (Keegan Michael-Key) reveals that he loves going to the theater. I relate to Hawkins, okay? And I know what that says about me. Consider if you will, these potentially cringe lyrics about seeking escape through art in  "We Look To You"... 

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Showbiz History: Sam Cooke, Jean Marais, and William Shakespeare (in love)

7 random things that happened on this day, December 11th, in showbiz history

1936 King Edward VIII abdicates the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Many years later Madonna will make a movie about it by the name of  W.E. but the royal scandal is covered and/or referenced in multiple other movies too.

1964 Singer Sam Cooke is shot and killed at a hotel where he was staying. Leslie Odom Jr plays Cooke in the Oscar-bound One Night in Miami, which is a fictional story about four real life black icons, which takes place earlier that same year...

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