On a Clear Day You Can See Anniversaries Forever

On this day in showbiz history...

1886 Spring Byington is born in Colorado Springs. Goes on to supporting actress glory in Hollywood including Marmee in Little Women (1933, her feature debut) and an Oscar nomination as the eccentric hobbyist mom in You Can't Take It With You (1938). Curiously her screen daughter in that best picture winner Jean Arthur, an even bigger star, shares her same birthday (for the year of 1900)
1888 Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (an early step in creating the cinema)
1903 Author and screenwriter Nathanael West is born in NYC. Movies adapted from his work include Lonelyhearts (1958) and The Day of the Locust (1975)
1915 One of the world's most celebrated playwrights, Arthur Miller, is born. His classics include Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View From the Bridge. After marrying movie star Marilyn Monroe, he wrote The Misfits (1961) for her which would eerily (considering its elegiac tone) be the last film for both her and co-star Clark Gable and one of the very last for Montgomery Clift who was born on this same day in 1920...

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Still Blissing Out Over "La La Land"

Over the weekend I wrote up an Oscar preview for Towleroad - which you can consider a companion to our current Best Picture Chart and updated Oscar predictions. Here's what I wrote about La La Land, which I realize I didn't capsule review for you at TIFF: 

This musical from the young writer/director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) won the coveted "Audience Award" at Toronto. That prize nearly always aligns with a Best Picture nomination in January. But the nomination will be the least of it - it has "winner" written all over it. La La Land is a total bliss-out, a colorful two hour romance with song and dance numbers about an aspiring actress and her jazz musician boyfriend. This is the third movie to co-star Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling and their onscreen chemistry is even better this go around and it was tremendous to begin with in Crazy Stupid Love five years back.

Here's a shocking statistic for trivia buffs: If La La Land is nominated for Best Picture it will be the first original live-action musical to do so since All That Jazz (1979). The musical nominees inbetween them were either animated  (Beauty & The Beast), adaptations of pre-existing shows (Chicago) or used pre-existing music for their songs (Moulin Rouge!). If La La Land wins it will be the first original movie musical to win the Oscar since Gigi (1958).

In addition to these general notes here are a few slighter more specific ones...

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The Link Jar

NewsTalk How Cartoon Saloon became a major draw and how those Oscar nominations helped
Playbill Stephen Schwartz says Wicked (the movie) will have several new songs. Geez, it already has a ton of songs. I guess he wants that Oscar.
MTV Frankie & Johnny is Garry Marshall's best film

Variety Idris Elba responds to those endless Next James Bond rumors
Coming Soon Star Wars: Episode VIII (as yet untitled) wraps production. It's due in theaters in December 2017 as these things take time in Post-Production
The Playlist the teasers for all the new Marvel/Netflix TV series: Iron Fist, Defenders, Luke Cage
Towleroad an interview with the stars of Looking 
Comics Alliance Wonder Woman gets her own US postage stamps for her 75th anniversary this year 
AV Club Brie Larson spoils Room for dumb people on Twitter 
The Retro Set looks back at Judy Garland in her final film I Could Go On Singing (1963)
The Guardian celebrates the five great screen moments for Penelope Wilton (of BFG & Downton Abbey fame)
EW Justin Timberlake talks about his theme song to the upcoming Trolls movie 

Finally....
I was going to write a piece about Kirsten Dunst choosing to direct the feature film adaptation fo Sylvia Path's famous novel "The Bell Jar" with Dakota Fanning in the starring role. But Indie Wire's Kate Erbland beat me to it and said basically everything I wanted to say. I love this part.

Dunst’s ability to dive deeply into depression was not just confined to her work in “The Virgin Suicides,” she also captured rich, worldly ennui in Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” and terrifying, world-ending fear in Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia,” for which she won Cannes’ Best Actress award... Even in her younger years, Dunst was uncannily able to translate bone-deep sadness to the big screen in fascinating ways, like she did as a child in “Interview With the Vampire.” And while most fans of Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” remain hung up on Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet’s work in the film (and rightly so), Dunst’s own subplot about lost love (and lost memories) is one of the film’s most heartbreaking elements.

My only fear here with this project is that it's too on the nose for Dunst. Like Terry Gilliam's desire to make a Don Quixote Picture; haven't they already been making these pictures, figuratively speaking, for their whole careers?

Two Questions Inspired By Ghostbusters

I'm off to a Ghostbusters (2016) screening and these questions and a desire to hear your answers suddenly struck me:

1. Which male heavy movie would you most love to see rethunk with a female heavy cast?

2. If you had a vote for Best Original Song in 1984 which of the hit single nominees would you have gone for? (They were all huge hits)

"Against All Odds" (Against All Odds)
"Footloose" (Footloose)
"Ghostbusters" (Ghostbusters)
"I Just Called To Say I Love You" (The Woman in Red)
"Let's Hear It For the Boy" (Footloose)

...or would you have chucked out the nominees altogether to have "I Can Dream About You" (Streets of Fire) "The Heat is On" (Beverly Hills Cop) "Love Came For Me" (Splash), "Together Again" (The Muppets Take Manhattan), "Almost Paradise" (Footloose), "The Never Ending Story" (The Never Ending Story), "Together in Electric Dreams" (Electric Dreams), or maybe five songs from Purple Rain (even though it won an Oscar for Song Score - more Oscars for Prince!!!

Yes, No, Maybe So: La La Land

During the Oscar campaign for Whiplash (2014) I was able to meet its breakthrough writer/director Damien Chazelle a few times and he even dropped hints to me about his plans for La La Land. I couldn't believe my ears that we would get a real musical from him. Given that both of his first two films centered around musicians, it shouldn't have been such a surprise. 

Here we are nearly two years later with the first teaser trailer and what sounds like a surefire Best Original Song nominee in "City of Stars" (now available to download) have emerged and we're already yes yes gimme.

The film's synopsis (which we hope is just an excuse to hang swoony scenes and musical numbers on) goes like so:

Jazz musican Sebastian and his girlfriend, aspiring actress Mia, struggle to cope with the pressures of trying to make it big in Hollywood. 

Let's talk about the teaser after the jump, breaking it down with our Yes No Maybe So system.

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