Showbiz History: Founding of the Academy and two Golden Globe nights

7 random things that happened on this day, January 11th, in showbiz history

Hattie McDaniel in her younger years. Not sure what year in this photo, though.

1911  Hattie McDaniel, then just 17 years-old, marries her first husband. She was already a performer, and worked in carnivals, minstrel shows, and radio before hitting the movies in the early 1930s. She famously became the first African-American to be nominated for or to win an Oscar. There is, finally, a biopic happening and it will star Raven Goodwin (The Station Agent, Being Mary Jane). 

1927 The creation of AMPAS came (arguably) on this day at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles...

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Showbiz History: Hitchcockian Cop, Blige Strippers, and Keanu Replicas

Today in showbiz history. Happy January 11th!

1914 Dorothy Jeakins, one of the most celebrated costume designers of all time in Hollywood (12 nominations and 3 Oscar wins) who designed classics like The Ten Commandments, The Sound of Music, and The Way We Were was born in San Diego

1919 One hundred years ago today Mort Mills, was born. He's the highway patrolman in Psycho that freaks Janet Leigh out with those black hole sunglasses -- it's like looking at a skull...

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Gangster Squad: Bullets and Boredom

Michael C here to kick off the movie year with my first review of 2013 for a movie I noticed had slipped through the cracks here at the Film Experience in the rush of Oscar Nomination Fever. But surely 2013 will get better than this! 

Gangster Squad is a film haunted by the ghosts of its superior cinematic ancestors. Some films do gain resonance from evoking earlier titles in their genre but Ruben Fleischer’s crime saga is such a creative void that it can’t wrestle the audience’s attention away from the specters of film noir past. So much more rewarding to occupy one’s mind with fond memories of Chinatown, than to watch characters we don’t care about exchange gunfire in action scenes we can’t follow for reasons not worth understanding. 

Penn vs. Brolin in "Gangster Squad"

The most obvious film intruding on Gangster Squad (2013) is The Untouchables (1987) - at times the new film borders on a beat-for-beat retelling of the earlier story with Al Copen switched out for Mickey Cohen... [more]

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Curio: Marie Harnett's Pencil Drawings

Alexa here with your weekly art inspiration.  Marie Harnett is an artist out of the UK whose focus is on film. She makes widescreen-format, small yet intricate pencil drawings of filmstills that "capture fleeting moments of drama, suspense or beauty and, when released from the original context of the film that inspired them, the drawings each tell a story of their own."

Marie holds a miniature Keira

I recently came upon her work and was struck by the level of photorealistic detail she manages to cram into her tiny compositions, and by how they evoke the history of cinema, despite her of-the-minute subjects (she even draws stills from trailers).  And she's doing quite well for herself; tiny mezzotints of her drawings sell for upwards of $2000! Here are some examples of her current work; you can see more on her website.

'Gatsby' series, 2012

Gangster Squad, Chéri, and A Single Man loveliness after the jump

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Multiple Zeroes. Dark Thirty

With a post Oscar nominations wide expansion into movie theaters Zero Dark Thirty won a strong $24 million opening weekend. $24 million is chump change for superheroes and cartoons but it's a big deal for contemporary dramas without bankable stars. Put it another way: that's well over what The Hurt Locker earned in its entire theatrical run here in the States. The torture controversy may have soiled ZDT's Oscar winning prospects somewhat (including that surprise snub for Bigelow) but it hasn't hurt it at the box office.

The Top Five This Weekend

Chart repurposed / visually adjusted from Box Office Mojo

Gangster Squad grossed less than the cheapo laughs of A Haunted House once again confirming that the earth is doomed and also that filling your movie with stars doesn't necessarily help (which also means the earth is doomed... at least for those of us who like our movies with movie stars in them.) That said it took Brad Pitt a long time to be considered "bankable" and Ryan Gosling is inching ever upwards. This is his second best opening (after Crazy Stupid Love, which was also jam-packed with fellow stars) though he has yet to star in a $100 + million hit.

Meanwhile Django and Les Miz continue to prove that their hit status is bonafide. With only three weeks in theaters both are well over $100 million and are on their way to very healthy profits, with or without Oscar statuettes.

Fantine may be impoverished and unemployable but Anne Hathaway now has her SEVENTH $100+ million hit.

I've noticed that that really tired annual meme that Oscar hates blockbusters and that general audiences don't like "Oscar-Bait" movies has died this year thank God! That death rattle lasted forever. Your Best Picture lineup this year is more proof that that's only ever been partially true at best and is often misleading. The average gross from this year's crop is $76 million and it's going up every week. Among the nine only (arguably) Silver Linings Playbook has underperformed given it's box office friendly stars / genre but that's only because they opted to pretend it was a tough arthouse sit with that crawling release pattern. Even after the Oscar nominations its still in less than 900 theaters. 

Do you support Oscars economy each year by seeing the nominees in the theaters?