9 random things that happened on this day, September 5th, in showbiz history...
1847 Outlaw Jesse James is born. 160 years later he'll be assassinated by Oscar nominated "supporting" actor Casey Affleck on the big screen.
←1914 Stellar makeup artist Stuart Freeborn born in Leystone, London. You can thank him for the iconic looks of the original Star Wars trilogy (hello Chewbacca and Yoda) and the original Superman quadrilogy, and Peter Sellers transformations in Dr. Strangelove. He also worked on classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Murder on the Orient Express. He was never Oscar nominated so how did he not even get an Honorary Oscar?
Happy Labor Day, all! To mark this occassion I will be working very hard today because I have much to accomplish before I leave for TIFF, the best film festival on the planet, according to me, for its ease, it's breadth, and the quality of its movies. Any big plans today, whether or not its Labor Day where you live?
On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1916 One hundred years ago today the other über famous and influential D.W. Griffith epic, the one its OK to care about, opened. Intolerance, sometimes subtitled "love's struggle throughout the ages," was three and a half hours long and prominently advertised its then insane budget of $2,000,000. Wouldn't it be funny if today's movies were all "we cost $300,000,000 to make" (and all you get is a glossy commercial for merchandise / sequels)" on the posters? The epic stretched from Ancient Babylon through the Christ story and on to 1914 in its quartered parallel storylines to paint a morality story for audiences. The sick cosmic joke in retrospect was not that Griffith was apologizing for his own racist intolerance in The Birth of a Nation but offering a rebuke to people who he felt were intolerant to him because of that picture.
SIGH (Dir. Nathaniel R, running time ∞)
Other debuts on September 5th Outlaw Jesse James who has been played by a gazillion actors, Old Hollywood titan Darryl F Zanuck, the inimitable prolific auteur Werner Herzog, charmed and outspoken Rose McGowan, Reigning Oscar good luck charm Michael Keaton (Birdman, Spotlight), Dan Gilroy's sick gripping Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal, 60s sex goddess and Myra Breckenridge herself Raquel Welch, Jack Kerouac's On the Road is published, Disney's pre-Mickey Mouse character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit premieres in his first short, one time Bond George Lazenby, and Black Book/Game of Thrones sensation Carice Van Houten.
And we'll close out our birthdays in history list with the iconic Freddie Mercury (remind me again why the Queen frontman STILL doesn't have a biopic?). This music video was chosen because it felt like something D.W. Griffith would approve of in all its "subtlety" and largesse...
Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 9:00AM 
1847 Outlaw Jesse James is born. 160 years later he'll be assassinated by Oscar nominated "supporting" actor Casey Affleck on the big screen.