Showbiz History: It's "One Night in Miami" day!

8 random things that happened on this day, February 25th, in showbiz history...

Feb 25th, 1964 in history (left) and reenacted in 2020 for One Night in Miami... (right)

1950 Your Show of Shows premieres on NBC. The live variety show starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, was a stepping stone for legendary comedy writers like Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. The show helped create the  variety genre and inspired both the TV classic The Dick Van Dyke Show and the movie My Favorite Year.

1956 Poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes meet at a party. Their doomed romance is dramatized in the 2003 film Sylvia starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig...

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Martin Scorsese on Fellini and the devaluing of movies as "content"

If you want your love for cinema reenergized you'll want to head to Harpers to read Martin Scorsese's wonderful essay on Federico Fellini and his 1960s heyday and artistic influence. Though much of the essay is a love letter to cinema and Fellini himself (and I Vitelloni, La Dolce Vita, and 8½ in particular) Scorsese also sticks his neck out again to comment on today's cinematic landscape. He always runs into trouble when he does this because people are so quick to misinterpret or take notions out of context or dismiss artistic concerns as "get off my lawn!" generational warfare. But art is for everyone of all ages and it's important and we should always rise up in its defense. That's not being 'out of touch,' that's simply caring about something deeply!

Take this bit for example, in which he discusses streaming culture and the way it devalues movies as "content" a business term, no longer an artistic one...

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Showbiz History: Taxi Driver, Grammy Openers, and Globe Switcheroos

5 random things that happened on this day, February 8th, in showbiz history...

Julie Andrews in her infamous 'kill them with kindness' Globes speech in which she thanked the producer of... wait for it... My Fair Lady.

1921 One hundred years ago movie star Lana Turner was born. More on her later.

1965 The 22nd annual Golden Globe awards honoring the films of 1964 were held. Becket (drama) and My Fair Lady (comedy/musical) took the Best Picture prizes. And at the peak of the popularity of gigantic big screen musicals, it was the "comedy/musical" winners for acting that repeated on Oscar night with Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady) and Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins) both winning here first...

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Almost There: Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Departed"

by Cláudio Alves

Many actors have long-lasting creative partnerships with their directors, bringing out the best in both artists. Unfortunately, when it comes to Oscar, not everyone gets recognized for these joint efforts. Many thespians don't get that golden recognition for their best work either, adding a tinge of bitterness to their triumph. Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese's 21st-century muse, did get nominated for two of the director's pictures, 2004's The Aviator and 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street. However, I'd argue that the actor's best performance in a Scorsese flick got snubbed. In 2006, despite a lot of precursor attention, The Departed failed to secure an Oscar nod for its ill-fated protagonist…

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The New Classics: The Wolf of Wall Street

By Michael Cusumano  

Scene: Quaaludes
It’s difficult not to lapse into hagiography when talking about Scorsese so I will simply say this and attempt to reign in the fawning as best I can: As much as anyone in the medium’s history he understands that the power of film isn’t in the text. It’s not in constructing an argument like an essay or a speech. It's in the images. 

Like all of Scorsese’s period pieces, The Wolf of Wall Street covers mountains of information in its headlong dash through the years, but what makes these films great are the moments when they distill all that material into a memorable frame. The technical gambling know-how makes you buy into the world of Casino, but it’s an overhead shot of a reckless Sharon Stone making it rain chips at the craps table that leaves a mark on the audience...

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