Showbiz History: Julia peaks, Channing rises, and Maddie swings from chandeliers

6 random things that happened on this day, March 17th, in Showbiz History. Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

1941 The National Gallery of Art opened in DC eighty years ago today. 

1991 The 44th annual BAFTA Awards honoring the films of 1990 are held. Italy's Cinema Paradiso (which we were just discussing) is a huge hit winning 5 awards and Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas emerges triumphant with the top prize (Dances with Wolves, which will beat it at the Oscars a week later, isn't up for the BAFTAs until the following year, but it loses then to the homegrown title The Commitments)...

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Posterized: The Wondrous Work of Ruth E Carter

For today's Posterized, a special birthday treat. We've only covered themes, sub-genres, directors and actors in this series so today a first... a costume designer. Today is the 60th birthday of Oscar winner Ruth E Carter (Black Panther) and she's designed so many important pictures over the years (including multiple Spike Lee classics) that she's definitely worth celebrating in this form.

We're still not over her bizarre Oscar snub for Dolemite Is My Name last season but let's look back on the whole feature film career in movie poster form.

How many of her 51 feature films have you seen? 

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Alternative Best Costume Design Ballots

by Cláudio Alves

The Best Costume Design category at the Oscars tends to be a place where one can find idiosyncratic choices. While it's true the Academy has a taste for the extravagant and period-looking, the Costume Branch is usually unafraid of celebrating films otherwise ignored. That's how we get such wonderful nods like those for Bright Star's Regency fashions, I Am Love's early aughts glamour, Jane Eyre 's Victorian severity, and Mirror Mirror's fairytale lunacy.

This year, for the first time in the category's history, all five nominees are Best Picture contenders. The arguable quality of the designs aside, this is a sad state of affairs that makes the usually cool Best Costume Design category look tediously similar to all the others. In an attempt to right the Academy's wrongs and offer a more varied look at 2019's achievements in film Costume Design, here's an alternative set of nominees, none of which were shortlisted by the Academy...

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Every weekend means... yet more prizes.

by Nathaniel R

Some of these were announced during the week but the weekend is when we catch up. In today's lineup: The Satellies (who went Ford V Ferrari crazy), The Black Film Critics Circle, plus Dublin and  Nevada critics. There's also a second organization from Phoenix listed. At first we were stunned because the only cities with two critics orgs that we can think of off the top of our heads so far are New York, Los Angeles (major media hubs both), and Boston... all, notably, places with very elite and long-lived film critics orgs that are difficult to be accepted into. Thus a second upstart group forms usually with "online" in the title (back in the early Aughts when print vs web was still sort of a thing). That 'online' designation makes less and less sense these days so some critics organizations who originally had it have been rebranding (all critics are now online critics with every former major print publication having long since moved to the web). Is Phoenix a sign that all major metropoles* will have two or three critics organizations by, say, 2025? Will critics organizations eventually outnumber the actual industry guilds that make the movies (if they don't already).

But I digress. In this weekend's roundup, Marriage Story comes out on top but we also want to talk about Texas in general because it's, shall we say, curious when it comes to film critics awards...

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In Appreciation of Eddie Murphy in 'Dolemite'

by Murtada Elfadl

“Make That Shit Swing, Put Your Weight On It”

Eddie Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore says that to his musical accompanist the first time he takes the stage as Dolemite. He wanted more oomph, more swagger, just more to complement his stage appearance. And that’s also what Murphy does is his riotously funny and mesmerising performance in Dolemite is My Name.

He’s fully committed to the character. A comedian playing a comedian so of course he’s funny. He lands every joke from the stand up bits which are of course laugh out funny, to the silly aside jokes. For example watch him as plays off Luenell who plays his aunt in one scene, as he tries to cajole her out of money. It’s a full body performance with many physical jokes, karate chops, singing and dancing. Every minute he’s on screen you can’t take your eyes off him...

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