"Oh, Moses, Moses. You stubborn, splendid, adorable fool."

by Nathaniel R

It's 120 days until the Oscars. So for today's random number celebration let's talk Moses! According to the Bible he lived to be 120 years old. The most famous Moses film is inarguably The Ten Commandments (1956). We always forget that Charlton Heston wasn't actually Oscar-nominated for playing Moses in that now camp classic despite the film receiving seven Oscar nods including a Best Picture citation. Curiously and conversely, the film's only Golden Globe nomination was in Best Actor, Drama for Charlton Heston. How about that?

More Moses movie trivia after the jump...

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Beauty Break: The Celebrity Portraiture of Phil Stern

by Nathaniel R

Happy Phil Stern Centennial! "who?" you say? Phil Stern, you philistines! He's one of the great Hollywood photographers. He lived a very long life, dying just 5 years ago at 95 years young but his work was largely before our time. We grew up with Herb Ritts and Annie Liebovitz as the biggest names in celebrity photoshoots but as long as Movie Stars have existed there have been artists behind the camera helping to mythologize them. Stern was one of those idolmakers taking several amazing photos of James Dean, Charlton Heston, Liz Taylor and many other important celebrities from the 20th century. Though celebrity portraits and candids weren't his only claim to fame having also been a war photographer. 

After the jump 14 other images from Stern's vast portfolio that we adore...

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Call of the Ford

by Jason Adams

When Clark Gable played the gold prospector character called Jack Thornton in the 1935 movie version of Jack London's dog adventure novel Call of the Wild he was 34 years old. When Charlton Heston played the character in the 1972 film, he was 49 years old. And now comes word that we've got 76 year old Harrison Ford tackling the role... so given the way this casting's going look out for the skeleton of Clark Gable to reprise the role about thirty years from now. 

Ageist jokes aside Harrison's a good match for the role, which is slyly stoic and adventurous in the way he likes to be but maybe adaptable to fewer big outward heroics than Indiana Jones, who's coincidentally why he's doing this role - the fifth Indy movie got moved back for a rewrite and so he signed on to make Call of the Wild with director Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon) and the hella booked screenwriter Michael Green (Logan and Blade Runner 2049 among many) and here we are. Any Call of the Wild fans out there? 

1994 Revisits: "True Lies"

by Ben Miller

Arnold Schwarzenegger has never been much of an actor.  Instead he's a presence, an ideal; square-jawed, charismatic, with muscles on top of muscles.  But, his biggest advantage is how aware he is of his own ridiculousness. His job is to do competent action and spout a cheesy one-liner with the bravado necessary to sell it.  His greatest critical successes have leaned into these innate strengths. When paired with a good director and solid co-stars, his films work.

Everything came together with True Lies in 1994.  Director James Cameron was riding high after T2: Judgment Day made all the money a movie could make in 1991.  He originally entertained the idea of a Spider-Man movie starring Michael Biehn, but couldn’t make it work with 1994 technology.  Instead, he went with True Lies...

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50th Anniversary: Planet of the Apes (1968)

by Eric Blume

Half a century ago two ultimate sci-fi classics were released. We've just revisted 2001 but what of the other hit? 20th Century Fox released the original Planet of the Apes directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starring Charlton Heston at essentially the same time.  Revisiting the original film after decades of sequels and reboots provides some fascinating reveals... 

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