Showbiz History: The Globes that weren't Golden, and Shelley Winter's death-bed wedding

5 random things that happened on this day, January 13th, in showbiz history

1939 Son of Frankenstein, the third in Universal's Frankenstein franchise and the last to star Boris Karloff, opens in theaters. It was successful but given the lack of James Whale behind the camera, not as well remembered as its predecessors

1989 It was an odd January dump on this Friday the 13th...

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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: DGA's prophecies, In Old Chicago's run, and Beckinsale's franchise

9 random things that happened on this day, January 6th, in showbiz history

1938 In Old Chicago released in movie theaters. The 20th Century Fox Tyrone Power and Alice Faye drama was big at the box office and at the Oscars... its relevant at the moment because it competed for the 1937 Oscars even though it was released in January of 1938 (with no qualifying run in '37). Why? Well, that year had a longer than the calendar year eligibility period which is what we're going through right now again. Films released through February 2021 will be eligible for the Oscars honoring the films of 2020 this time around. We prefer the clean lines of the calendar year but you can't always (or even often) get what you want.

1943 Hitler's Children, an American propaganda film is released, depicting the brutalities of the Hitler Youth.  Bonita Granville co-starred...

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Showbiz History: Golden Globes, Final Films, and Iconic Diane Keaton

6 random things that happened on this day, January 5th, in history

1933 Construction work begins on the historic Golden Gate Bridge. It will become a popular visual in films. Lately filmmakers love to destroy it with visual effects (see Terminator Genisys, San Andreas, Godzilla, among many others) but we always think of Kim Novak...

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Three Golden Globe "controversies" that shouldn't surprise anyone

Apologies for not addressing this earlier today but of the three Golden Globe rulings that have the internet's collective tongue wagging, only one of them surprised us and only in a very mild kind of way. Perhaps this is why we didn't jump to discuss figuring that people would respond with a shrug. How wrong we were! If you're like 'what the hell are you discussing, Nathaniel?' here's a quick survey.

The three controversial rulings:

1. Minari will not be eligible for Best Picture at the Globes but instead compete for Best Foreign Language Film. Our surprise level: 0%. The Globes have never allowed pictures that weren't in the English language to compete in Best Picture and we just assumed everyone knew this but we were quite wrong. The same exact thing happened as recently as last year (The Farewell, 2019) and as recently, before that, as the year before (Roma, 2018)...

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