Showbiz History: Hamlet's Wins, Natalie's Child, and Judy's Premiere x 3

12 random things that happened on this day, September 29th, in showbiz history...

Natalie Wood gave birth to her first child on this day in 1970

1940 Strike Up the Band starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland is a hit in its opening weekend. One of my favorite old review blurbs ever is for Judy Garland calling her "oomphy". Hee.

1948 Hamlet has its american premiere in New York City. 176 days later it wins 4 Oscars: Picture, Actor, Art Direction... and Costume Design...

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NYFF: "Hopper/Welles"

by Jason Adams

Picture it: the year is 1970 and the director Orson Welles has just recently begun filming his experimental film The Other Side of the Wind, the production of which would ultimately outlast the director himself (Welles died in '85) and many of the people he put in front of his camera. (Wind was finally released by Netflix in 2018 after nearly 50 years of tinkering.) One such person Welles filmed was actor-turned-director Dennis Hopper, who was fresh off his counter-culture sensation Easy Rider. Strange bedfellows, these two, but they sat down for over two hours of filmed and oft-antagonistic conversation, and now producer Filip Jan Rymsza and editor Bob Murawski, who finally got Wind across the finish line, have gifted us with Hopper/Welles, the fly-on-the-wall footage of that moment screening at NYFF. It's something!

Full disclosure: I went in to Hopper/Welles expecting to find Welles a bit of a boor and Hopper a pip. Fuller disclosure: I came out with quite the opposite...

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Showbiz History: 'Let's Get Physical' with Mildred Pierce

9 random things that happened on this day, September 28th, in showbiz history: 

1935 Comic actor Stan Laurel marries his second wife Virginia Ruth Rogers who will also become his fourth wife. Old Hollywood stars sure did get married and divorced and remarried a lot! The recent underseen biopic Stan & Ollie (2018) looked at Laurel & Hardy's final years after the heyday of their fame, with Steven Coogan as Stan Laurel and Nina Arianda giving yet another great supporting performance as Laurel's fifth and final wife Ida. When is Nina Arianda going to get her due in Hollywood? 

1945 Seventy-five years ago today, noir classic Mildred Pierce starring Joan Crawford opened, reviving her career and winning her the Oscar. (The movie was nominated for 5 additional Oscars including Best Picture). It's a must-see.

Gregg Toland, Martin & Lewis, and Olivia Newton-John after the jump...

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Podcast: "Nomadland" and "The Nest"

with Nathaniel R & Murtada Elfadl

We're back for weekly podcasting now as the season revs up.

Index (58 minutes)
00:01 Virtual festivals pros & cons and blurry lines between film and TV
13:00 NYFF - Frances McDormand in Chloe Zhao's Nomadland
27:00 Ivory Coast's Night of Kings and the documentary Time
40:22 Sean Durkin's The Nest starring Jude Law and Carrie Coon 
49:00 Boys in the Band in brief
56:00 Wrap up: French Exit is soon! Eeeeeee

Related Reading:
• Nathaniel's Review of Night of Kings
• All posts on Nomadland
• Murtada's Review of Boys in the Band

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

The Nest and Nomadland

NYFF: "Night of Kings"

Our coverage of the New York Film Festival -- you can buy virtual tickets to most of these films -- continues.

by Nathaniel R

The prison movie is its own specific subgenre, holding close to its own tropes, structural familiarity, and character types. Though we've never been imprisoned, we imagined these are culled from reality as much as imagined from collective nightmare. As a general rule, we long for escape from well worn genres, but in some cases it's useful shorthand. Such it is with Philippe LaCôte's Night of Kings, the buzzy Ivory Coast Oscar submission which we suspect might have been too confusing to resonate for Western audiences, were if not for these familiar, even universal, elements...

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