Tuesday, September 12, 2017 at 5:15PM by Nathaniel R
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1985 is our "Year of the Month", as we work towards the Supporting Actress Smackdown (Sunday October 1st!). We'll be periodically peppering the blog with takes on showbiz from that year. But first a "TOTALLY 80s" overview of the year that was in movies, music, theater, and tv after the jump...
Wednesday, September 6, 2017 at 8:00AM on this day in showbiz-related history...
1944 Yul Brynner marries his first wife, actress Virginia Gilmore, in Los Angeles. They're both in their mid 20s. She's already made 15 movies but he's just starting out with two Broadway shows under his belt. Their marriage will last 16 years and they will have one child together. Rock Brynner (their son) will go on to write a book about his dad and their family history.
1954 Federico Fellini's La Strada premieres at the Venice Film Festival and goes on to win the Best Foreign Film Oscar. Fellini will go on to completely own that category, winning thrice more with The Nights of Cabiria (1957), 8½ (1963), and Amarcord (1974)
Macy Gray, The King's Speech, and more after the jump...
Friday, August 25, 2017 at 5:45PM We have 10 official submissions for the foreign language race thus far. With the October 2nd deadline looming, expect more news regularly. As a quick reminder or 101 guide for newbies, to qualify for Oscar Foreign Race you have to a) open in your home country theatrically between October 1st of the previous year and September 30th of the Oscar submission year b) be chosen as the submission by your country (only one per country no matter how many films your country makes) and c) be in a non-English language for at least 50% of the dialogue and d) and this is where it often gets tricky... be primarily, on a creative level, from your submitting country. That is to say your cast or crew or at least your director needs to be from the country that's submitting you.
Official Submissions Thus Far
Thursday, August 24, 2017 at 9:00AM On this day (August 24th) in showbiz-related history...
1890 "Father of modern surfing" and part time movie actor Duke Kahanamoku born in Hawaii. We've written about him before. Where's his biopic?
1967 The Whisperers premieres in London. It's about an old poor woman living in solitude who is beginning to lose her grip on reality. Dame Edith Evans sterling work was instantly lauded - she won Best Actress at Berlinale and from such disparate groups as the NYFCC, NBR and the Golden Globes. She landed her third and final Oscar nomination in the Best Actress lineup (sadly only the winner, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner's Hepburn, was less than superb in that shortlist!). At the time Evans was the oldest Oscar nominee of all time in any acting category having just turned 80 years old. That record has since been undone but she's still the third oldest lead actress nominee after Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (also 80, who won) and Emmanuelle Riva for Amour (who was 85). Have you ever seen The Whisperers? It's haunting and quite a time capsule of contemporary British cinema of the time. [And check out Nick Davis' 5 star review of this legendary performance]
1985 Huey Lewis and the News hit #1 with their theme from Back to the Future "The Power of Love". The music video had a cameo by the car and Christopher Lloyd's "Doc" though it was mostly just the band playing in a bar. Best Original Song was one of the film's 4 Oscar nominations (it won for sound effects editing). In case you haven't yet heard, 1985 will be our "year of the month" in September as we build to the next Smackdown.
2012 Remember that movie where Michael Shannon was evil (wait, that's not helpful) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a bicycle messenger (now that's more specific). Premium Rush opened on this day. Isn't it weird how some movies, like that one, feel much more ancient than they actually are while others from years earlier feel fresh as daisies?
Happy Birthday to Them!
← Oscar Winner: Usurper of Kathleen Turner's and/or Sigourney Weaver's Best Actress statue. More generously we must admit that it's super impressive that Matlin trailblazed by refusing to be a one hit wonder, turning that splashy debut into such an unlikely but full career. She's been working ever since!
Oscar Nominees: Ava DuVernay (13th), Anne Archer (Fatal Attraction), Ronee Blakley (Nashville), Robert Pulcini (American Splendor)
Cool Talents: Actress Elizabeth Debicki, Wit Stephen Fry, Auteur Takashi Miike, Novelist A.S. Byatt
80s Touchstones: Steve Guttenberg (Cocoon, Can't Stop the Music, and so many more) and Gordon Wanecke (My Beautiful Laundrette!)
Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 10:56AM Nicks Flick Picks returns with "the fifties" i.e. the best of what he's seen after 50 movies in a given year
Boy Culture new images from the buzzy indie Patti Cake$
Variety interviews creatives on why they love working with Netflix
People a stuntwoman has died on the set of Deadpool 2
Vanity Fair Anya Taylor-Joy is joining director Robert Eggers (The Witch) for his remake of silent horror classic Nosferatu. So happy they're reuniting but why remake a movie that's already been remade so spectacularly? (Werner Herzog's Nosferatu is something else!)
lots and lots more after the jump including Girls Trip, James Cameron, Dee Rees, Riz Ahmed, and a fun tidbit on mother!
