Showbiz History: Casper, Martha Plimpton, Pete Davison, and Silver Linings Playbook

11 random things that happened on this day, November 16th, in showbiz history...

1934 The White Parade about a nursing school starring Loretta Young opens in theaters. Later it's nominated for Best Picture.

1945 Happy 75th Anniversary to both the Best Picture nominee The Lost Weekend and the animated short "The Friendly Ghost" which introduced Casper to the world. The whole short is available on YouTube and it's much darker than you might remember it if you ever saw it as a kid. Poor Casper really needs a hug and or friends...

Psycho, The Sound of Music and celebrity birthday suits after the jump...

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"The Crown" S4: An(other) Acting Showcase

by Cláudio Alves

As a staunch antimonarchist and someone who despises Thatcher and her legacy, watching The Crown's fourth season was an oft-frustrating, sometimes fascinating, exercise. Peter Morgan and his team haven't shied away from looking at the dark side of British history and this latest series is no different. However, time constraints, an episodic structure, and attempts at historical ambivalence often result in a lackluster, superficial, occasionally rushed, experience.

Still, the production values are always immaculate, and the dramatization of the 80s features some of the best costumes the program has ever shown. Nevertheless, what always brings me back to The Crown isn't its analysis of politics, its melodrama, or pretty clothes. The show's greatest strength is its cast, with the actors excelling even when their material is lacking. When faced with some of the royal family's most tumultuous years, the performers upped their game and delivered a masterclass in screen acting…

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What did you see this week?

Though theaters in LA and NYC never reopened, in places they did many are now closing again due to skyrocketing COVID rates. Sigh. This pandemic will be with us until there's a vaccine and not a day sooner because 40% of the country is insane and the GOP have politicized basic decency and believing in science as into bad things. WEAR A F'IN MASK. Jesus. Anyway. I personally had a heavy viewing week taking in The Life Ahead, Sound of Metal, First Cow, Mulan, The White Tiger, Pieces of a Woman, and Hillbilly Elegy. More on most of those soon.

On the internet, The Life Ahead hit Netflix and I Am Greta arrived on Hulu. Meanwhile in limited theatrical release The Climb and Ammonite opened and earned $103 and $85k respectively.  What did you see this week?

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE (WIDE... SUCH AS IT IS THESE DAYS)

1. Freaky *new* (serial killer comedy) $3.7 million
2. Let Him Go (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner thriller) $1.8 (cum. $6.8)
3. The War with Grandpa (Robert DeNiro comedy) $1.3 (cum. $15.2)
4. Come Play (horror)  $1.1 (cum. $7.3) 
5. Honest Thief (Liam Neeson action) $800k (cum. $12.3)
6. Tenet (Christopher Nolan sci-fi) $735k (cum. $56.3)

100th Anniversary: "Leaves from Satan's Book"

by Cláudio Alves

Carl Theodor Dreyer is one of my favorite filmmakers. I'll never forget the first time I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc on the big screen and was transported, how experiencing Vampyr felt like witnessing a projected nightmare, the ecstasy of Ordet's ending or Gertrud's stern ruminations on love. It's to my great shame that I'm not familiar with the Danish director's early works, having mostly ignored them until now. The centennial of Dreyer's second feature, Leaves from Satan's Book, makes this a great time to start correcting these cinephilic lacunas…

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How Had I Never Seen, 1987 Special: ROBOCOP

By Lynn Lee (with special guest Jeff Chen)

Until recently, I’d never seen RoboCop, Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 sci-fi classic about a viciously murdered cop who’s resurrected as a cyborg supercop.  I was too young to see it when it first came out and didn’t get around to it when I was older, partly because I’d heard it was gruesomely violent.  However, I learned it had passionate fans that included some very astute critics.  Among them is Jeff Chen, former writer for ReelTalk Movie Reviews and a fellow alum of the dearly departed online critics’ group Cinemarati (through which I met both him and TFE’s very own Nathaniel), who ranks RoboCop as his favorite movie.  As part of TFE’s 1987 retrospective, I finally saw RoboCop and invited Jeff to discuss my reactions as a first-time viewer and how the movie has remained in our cultural consciousness for over 30 years.

JEFF: RoboCop is indeed my favorite movie.  A lot of that has to do with timing.  I was already an avid movie watcher as a teenager, but I’d been mostly watching PG or (the new, at the time) PG-13 movies.  I was 15 when I went to my best friend’s house and he put on a VHS copy of RoboCop.  And I was traumatized and exhilarated...

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