Happy 100, Eva Marie Saint!

by Cláudio Alves

ON THE WATERFRONT (1954) Elia Kazan

Happy belated birthday, USA! Happy belated birthday, Caesar Salad!! And happy belated birthday, Eva Marie Saint!!!

This past Fourth of July, the Edie to Brando's Terry Malloy celebrated her one-hundredth turn 'round the sun. As a centenary, Saint is the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner, keeping our connection to Old Hollywood alive at a time when even the 1970s renegades seem to be leaving us. Reflecting on her long career, one can trace the parallel, often juxtaposed, evolution of the American film industry. And yet, Eva Marie Saint rose to stardom on a wave of innovation, revolutionary acting styles and approaches, her presence like a promise of new things to come…

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Showbiz History: Warren Beatty's habitual Oscar fate, 1954's lame Best Picture lineup, and more...

4 random things that happened on this day, March 30th, in showbiz history

1946 The 3rd annual Golden Globes were held on this day honoring The Lost Weekend, 75 years ago. It was AFTER the Oscars. How bizarre right? But the Globes were more like the NBR at the start announcing winners (no nominees) in advance of a banquet.  

1955 The 27th Academy Awards are held honoring the best of 1954 On the Waterfront leads the nominations and wins an incredible 8 Oscars.  Though the Academy nominates all the wrong movies as its competition so it had an easy time of it. The Best Picture lineup went like so...

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4 days until Oscars. More trivia fun.

Four is today's magic number so let's share some Oscar trivia.

Makeup prosthetics for Christian Bale as Dick Cheney (photo from Aida Dombr instagram)

• IS ANYONE UP FOR A POSSIBLE FOURTH COMPETITIVE WIN THIS YEAR? 
Why yes, we're so glad you asked. In addition to the previously discussed costume designer Sandy Powell (The Favourite might make it four for that genius), Makeup artist Greg Cannom, who previously won Oscars for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Mrs Doubtfire and Bram Stoker's Dracula, might well win his fourth for giving Christian Bale that realistic looking Cheney bald cap and thick neck in Vice. If Cannom wins he becomes the second most awarded makeup artist of all time (after category king Rick Baker -- who appears to have retired? -- who took the Oscar an incredible 7 times). Now, technically, Cannom is already the second most awarded makeup artist but he's currently holding that honor in a tie with another three time winner Ve Neill (she won for Beetlejuice and Ed Wood, as well as Mrs Doubtfire alongside Cannom). Interestingly enough both Cannom and Ve Neill each won Makeup Guild awards this past weekend for Vice and A Star is Born respectively. 

• Katharine Hepburn is the only person to ever win 4 acting Oscars... 

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Showbiz History: Waterworld, Waterfront, and Wonderland

10 random things that happened on this day in showbiz history

1892 Joe E Brown, the comic actor who delivered Some Like It Hot's immortal closing line, was born in Ohio on this day.

1951 Disney's Alice in Wonderland has its NYC premiere two days after its world premiere in London. It was not (initially) a success in theaters, the studio taking a loss. But in the 1970s people became interested in it in a big way prompting its first rerelease in 1974...

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Last Chance Filmstruck: Unzipped, High Noon, Metropolis, Etc...

by Nathaniel R

Are you going to wait for the train downstairs? Why don't you wait here?"
     -Katy Jurado to Grace Kelly in High Noon (leaves Filmstruck May 31st)

Y'all. I have a really really hard time with how quickly titles come and go on so many different streaming services. Ugh! I do not like other people curating my movies for me. I'm too much of my own cinephile for that. I want to see what I want to see when I want to see it and usually for highly specific reasons that don't go well with the timetables of corporations! Nevertheless the world is not made to cater to my personal whims (imagine that!?) so I've had to adapt. I have ponied up for FilmStruck and its Criterion Channel entirely because they have more classics than other streaming services. This still hasn't remotely solved all the "where to find things" woes. Though Hulu, Prime, and Netflix are okay for the majority of movies that aren't more than 5-10 years old, everything else remains super-patchy at best and you're stuck with whatever any of these services feel like streaming for you in a given month. This is ESPECIALLY true of movie musicals which literally no service does a good job with. The lack of musicals has always been my primary beef with the Criterion Collection

Enough complaining! Filmstruck/Criterion does have plenty of goodies. As with all the other streaming services they play peek-a-boo with the titles, though. So let's play Streaming Roulette for everything that's LEAVING the service shortly...

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