Beauty vs Beast: Love Among the Dino Droppings

Jason from MNPP here - before I saw Call Me By Your Name in theaters 18 times this past winter the movie that held my personal record of "seen the most times seen in the theater" was Jurassic Park, which I saw in the theater 15 times in 1993. Meaning I can place where I was exactly 25 years ago today, since today's the 25th anniversary. I can also place where I was tomorrow 25 years ago, and the day after that 25 years ago, and the day after that 25 years ago... I saw it every single night for a straight week. It was my Star Wars.

Every progressive sequel's dulled the impact a bit more but that first movie, man I can still feel the tingle up my spine the first time the camera panned up that brachiosaurus and John Williams' music swelled and Spielberg cut to the distant dinos bathing themselves in the sparkling sunlight... it was like the four walls of the house my imagination lived inside of were kicked down all at once. Utter movie magic. Every kid that ever smashed their little dino figures together felt it. And yet the human characters kick ass too. With actors like this around...

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PREVIOUSLY Last week's Interview with the Vampire race stayed tight and vacillated often but it was Tom Cruise's Lestat who crawled out of the swamp and unto victory over Brad Pitt's Louis at the end. Said Jaragon:

"Lestat is a lot more fun and he gets the last bite."

Jeff Goldblum Returns for "Jurassic World 2"

Park guest Robert here! When the Jurassic Park franchise was rebooted in 2015 reception was mixed. There was surely lots of dino chaos to behold, but the movie lacked the spark of the original trilogy.

I was personally horrified that they brought on beloved character actress Judy Greer only to have her be relegated to the worst kind of "worried mom crying on the phone" role. That being said, I love the Jurassic Park films and will no doubt be seeing every sequel that gets ground out of the Hollywood script machine for years to come. I wouldn't say that I was hype for the next installment until I laid my eyes upon the news that JEFF "DR. IAN MALCOM" GOLDBLUM HAS SIGNED ON FOR JURASSIC WORLD 2...

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On This Day: Pharrell Williams, "Out" Nominees, and the 1964 Oscars

On this day in showbiz history, some gay Oscar lore, lots of two time Oscar winners, and future Oscar winner Pharrell Williams (and much more)...

1883 Oscar favorite Walter Huston (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) born in Toronto. Without him no Huston acting dynasty!

1887 Helen Keller learns "water" from teacher Anne Sullivan, the moment will serve as the emotional climax of the popular stage and screen drama The Miracle Worker

1900 Two time Oscar winner Spencer Tracy (Boys Town, Captain Courageous) born...

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New to Netflix: Spinal Tap, Blazing Saddles, Jurassic Park...

It's that time of month when we get our new streaming options. Here are random new titles on Netflix for March (or that showed up late in February), freeze framed at totally random places, whatever comes up. As we do...

It's part of a musical trilogy I'm doing in D minor, which I find is really the saddest of all keys. I don't know why but it makes people weep instantly.

This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Heh. So funny this movie. Christopher Guest and Rob Reiner's collaboration became a classic. Without it we probably wouldn't have had Waiting for Guffman or Best in Show or whatnot. 

More films after the jump...

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3 Days Until Oscar -- multiple wins without a Best Picture Nod

With the seismic shift of the expanded best picture field in 2009, certain forms of Oscar trivia seem dead or at least on life support. Foxcatcher proved you could still be a "lone director" nominee for a non Best Picture player, and Carol proved you could still get a big swath of nominations but miss out on placing in the top category. But nearly all the records involving films that weren't nominated for Best Picture will not be broken now; when Oscar notices you in a big way these days, you're also likely to achieve that highest distinction of being a Best Picture nominee.

But with 3 being the magic number today, let's take a look back at the rare cases of films that won 3 or more Oscars that were not nominated for Best Picture. The only film that could theoretically join this list this year is Jackie (the most nominated film that isn't up for Best Picture) but it would have to win all three of its bids! 

The 18 Biggest Oscar Winners That Were NOT
Nominated for Best Picture
(current titles for categories used in this list though some have changed) 

01 Five Oscar wins from six nominations
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Costume Design. It lost only Best Actor but mysteriously wasn't nominated for Picture or Director despite obvious widespread love for it. But then, 1952 was among the very strangest of Oscar years for multiple reasons. 

Curiously Kirk Douglas also leads one of the three films tied for runner up in this particular list...

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