Mickey @ 100: "Babes in Arms"

by Camila Henriques

As we continue our centennial tribute to Mickey Rooney, it’s time to talk Babes in Arms. For a long time the 1939 musical was remembered mostly because of the pairing of Rooney and real life BFF Judy Garland, but the conversation has shifted to a necessary bumpier road, since the movie is just one of many examples of that era to feature performances in blackface (including the two leads).

The film’s place in Mickey’s career is not to be diminished: he received an Oscar nom for Best Actor at the age of 19 (the second youngest ever nominated) . The year before he had been awarded a Juvenile Oscar (Judy won the same honor the following year, as she had this hit and that other 1939 film).

A vaudevillian kid just like his co-star, Rooney was already a veteran when Babes… came around, with his Andy Hardy journey already begun...

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We're puzzled by the Dear Evan Hansen casting...

by Nathaniel R

They could play sisters!

Have you heard the news that Julianne Moore will be play Heidi, the awards-ready role of Evan Hansen's stressed out single mom in the feature adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen? Normally we'd applaud our beloved Julianne getting a juicy part but we find this puzzling given her lack of musical experience. You see there are two mom characters in the melodramatic high school set musical, Heidi and Cynthia, whose children become entangled. The show opens with a duet between them "Anybody Have a Map?" but Cynthia's role recedes thereafter and she never gets a solo while Heidi gets the 11th hour showstopper "So Big / So Small".

Here's the weird part...

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The Fred & Ginger movies ranked

by Cláudio Alves

87 years ago, someone at RKO had the brilliant idea to pair up an up-and-coming vaudevillian with a brassy character actress used to playing comic relief. The result was pure movie magic. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers quickly became two of their studio's biggest stars and their collaborations live on as some of the most glamourous musicals to ever grace the Silver Screen. Thanks to HBO Max, the majority of those flicks are now available to stream. The only one that isn't, Follow the Fleet, can be rented from Amazon if you wish to see its dancing delights.

With that in mind, it seemed like a good time to delve into the wonderful world of Fred and Ginger onscreen. Here's a ranked list of their ten movies together… 

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Shelley Winters @ 100: Pete's Dragon (1977)

Concluding our Shelley Winter's Centennial party, here's new contributor Baby Clyde...

My film obsession started around the age of 12 when I somehow acquired my first "Encyclopedia of Movie Stars". It changed my life. I spent literally hours pouring over it, utterly entranced by the legends of the Golden Age of Hollywood. I remember it introduced me to the likes of Luise Rainier and John Garfield who I had never heard of before, but mostly I remember being totally confused by the entry on Shelley Winters.

Who was the glamourous woman who had been a sex bomb and serious actress before going on to win two Oscars and how was she in any way related to the harridan who had been the stuff of my childhood nightmares? Whilst I understood that actors played different roles, I don’t think I’d quite grasped at that point just how different they could be and how the same woman could go from this...

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Alan Parker (1944-2020)

by Nathaniel R

Alan Parker and Madonna on the set of "Evita"

We were remiss Friday in sharing the news that we've lost another fine talent. The director Alan Parker who brought us gangster comedies, oddball indies, multiple musicals, and prestige literary adaptations has died at 76 years of age of an undisclosed lengthy illness. His 14 films netted a combined 27 Oscar nominations and 6 wins, and he himself received two Best Director nominations (1978's Midnight Express and 1988's Mississippi Burning).

Parker burst onto the scene as a scrappy young British director with 1976's playful gangster musical spoof Bugsy Malone and its all kid cast (Scott Baio and Jodie Foster headlined)...

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