On this day: Vivien's Oscar, Kevin's Bacon, Carter's Write-Down

On this day in showbiz history

The Story of Miss Lonelyheart from Péter Lichter on Vimeo.

1913/1914 Did you know that Detective Doyle (Wendell Corey) and Miss Lonelyhearts (Judith Evelyn) from Rear Window shared a birthday? Now you do! (Uff, I love Rear Window so much)
1942 Rings on Her Finger, a screwball comedy starring Henry Fonda and Gene Tierney opens in theaters
1948 Gentleman's Agreement wins Best Picture at the 1947 Oscars but the enduring statues from that year are surely Edmund Gwenn's Supporting Actor win as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street and the Cinematography and Art Direction wins for the astounding Black Narcissus. What a picture! 
1952 Vivien Leigh wins her second Best Actress prize at the 1951 Oscars for A Streetcar Named Desire. Absent from the ceremony, Greer Garson accepts for Vivien...

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The Best of Sci-Fi & Fantasy: Saturn & Nebula Awards

Though the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) isn't inordinately fan of the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres, those specialized types have enough devotees to generate their own Best of... discourse each year. Both the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFFWA) who give out the Nebula Awards and The Academy of Science Fiction and Fantasy Films (ASFFF), a fan-based group (since anyone can join) who hand out the Saturn Awards each year, just announced their nominees for the Best of 2012. 

Bet you didn't expect to see John Carter mentioned during Oscar week! It's up for the Nebula & on Saturn Award

The Nebula Awards have only one category that suits our topic of choice here at The Film Experience and it's called the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation. [Nominees, Book Recommendations, and Oscar connections are after the jump.]

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John Carter Vs... ?

In tribute to my friend JA who always gives good lulz with "which is hotter"... a few loincloth-offs (hmmm) between John Carter (reviewed) and his screen ancestors. You decide.

Criss-cross sci-fantasy menswear

poll by twiigs.com

 
excuse my typo there. Sean Connery. I'd fix it but then the poll would reset to zero. We can't have that and you know what I meant.

Emergency gun-manning in the desert whilst wearing only reddish loinclothes and boots!

poll by twiigs.com

Face paint and/or face blood* is a must have when calling your troops to war!

poll by twiigs.com

 *They bleed blue on Barsoom, bitches.

Box Office: 'Leave nothing for the orange apes!'

[With apologies to Dr. Seuss]

And up in the gold cave some people say,
if you look close enough you can still see, today,
where John Carter once stood
just as long as he could
before the Threns whisked John Carter away.

Who was John Carter?
And why was he there?
And why was he whisked away, taken somewhere
from that cave in Virginia to Barsoom's hatchling hole?

This box office battle won't break John Carter's way.

The old Pix-lar still lives here.
Ask Stanton. He knows.

You won't see the Pix-lar
The filming's long done.
He retreats to that compound with the cereal bar.
He lives in that office in Emeryville, son!
where they make their own films
out of zeros and ones.

But on special dry midnights in Arizona heat,
out from the compound
at junkets he speaks
to tell of John Carter to Mars whisked away

He'll tell you, perhaps...
if you're willing to pay.

Baker's Dozen (Estimates)
01 THE LORAX  $39.1 (cum. $121.9)
02 JOHN CARTER  $30.6 new [Review and Taylor Kitsch Beefcake]
03 PROJECT X  $11.5  (cum. $40.1)
04 SILENT HOUSE $7 new
05 ACT OF VALOR  $7 (cum. $56.1)
06 A THOUSAND WORDS $6.3 new
07 SAFE HOUSE  $5 (cum. $115.8)
08 THE VOW  $4 ($117.6)
09 THIS MEANS WAR  $3.7  (cum. $46.8)
10 JOURNEY 2 THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND $3.6 (cum. $90.7)
11 TYLER PERRY'S GOOD DEEDS  $3 ($30.5)
12 THE ARTIST $2.3  (cum. $40.4)
13 FRIENDS WITH KIDS  $2.1 new

What did you see this weekend?

Review: "JOHN CARTER"

This review was originally published in my film column at Towleroad.

Let's begin with a man and his dog. First, the dog. Woola is an unsightly creature but oddly endearing. He's the size of a pony but he looks more like a lizard or a toad albeit one with six visible legs and hundreds of sharp teeth. He reads all dog though -- a mutant pug. His assignment and then devotion is to guard the human prisoner John Carter (Taylor Kitsch).

John Carter of Virginia has been magically transported to Barsoom (aka Mars)  and the green martians who discover him don't know what to make of him though they love his mad jumping skill. Mars' gravity makes John Carter the Earthling a superman, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. When John Carter tries to escape his prison early in the film, he finds it impossible to elude Woola whose multiple legs carry him across the Martian desert in super sonic zig-zag fashion, clouds of dust trailing behind him like a Road Runner cartoon. The adorable mutant pug always appears wherever bouncy John Carter is about to land. Neither man nor beast are moving in a circular fashion but they're not getting anywhere. Eventually they'll be right back where they started.

Points of origin are important. Home, and our journeys to and from it, are at the heart of John Carter's multi-limbed adventure.

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