Happy Birthday Mickey! And Other Things to Celebrate.

On this day in showbiz history...

1872 Suffragette Susan B Anthony is arrested for illegally voting. She was recently forced to turn over in her grave. Where's her biopic?
1917 Pedro Infante, Mexico's biggest movie star has his centennial next year! He died young at only 39 but not before his legend was cemented with nearly 60 movies and over 300 songs
1928 Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon is released.  It was his third appearance but Disney considers this Mickey Mouse's official birthday. So happy birthday!
1932 The 5th annual Oscar ceremony before the ceremonies started following exact calendar years...

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"This wig weighs a ton"

Editor's Note: We're celebrating Marie Antoinette at the movies each afternoon for a week

Gee this wig weighs a ton.

Singin' in the Rain is, of course, a beloved movie about our beloved movies. There's lots of broad goofing on Hollywood history for movie buff amusement. But sometimes the gentle ribbing is actually pointed jabs. When Lina Lamont enters the shot above to shoot The Dueling Cavaliers the joke is bigger than her constant whining...

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Swing, Tarzan, Swing! Ch.1: Buster Crabbe's Loincloth

New Miniseries! As we approach the release of The Legend of Tarzan (2016) we'll be ogling past screen incarnations of the Lord of the Apes each weekend like we're going to an old timey matinee.

We begin with Buster Crabbe as Tarzan the Fearless (1933) who looks much better in this movie than implied on the poster which imagines him from maxi-challenge workroom outtakes from RuPaul's Drag Race. Blend, man, blend!

This next image is more flattering I promise...

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Happy 100th: Why Doesn't Movita Have a Biopic?

Today is the Centennial of the Mexican American actress Movita, who was born as Maria Luisa Castaneda but renamed Movita by MGM because the name sounded Polynesian to them. Well maybe it's her centennial. She claims the studio fudged with her age to make her older for legal reasons. She's surely best remembered today as "Tehani" one of two young island beauties (the other being "Maimiti" played by Mamo Clark) that got entangled in all that Mutinous Best Picture business on the Bounty back in 1935 (if you know what I mean).

Movita went on to international fame and married two famous masculine hunks, first the boxer Jack Doyle and then superstar Marlon Brando (quite atypically she was an "older woman" marrying a young superstar) so we're guessing she had a type...

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Q&A Pt. 2: Rain Men, Paperboys, Oscar Greats

We had too many good questions last week to keep it all confined to one post. So now that you're read part one, so here's part two of the week's reader question roundup. I saved all the Oscar questions for this round to motivate me to update those Oscar chart this weekend. Ready? 

SONJA: Why do we mourn/rage about "undeserved" wins so often? In reality it doesn't change anything....

It's as useless as making your bed in the morning but we still make our beds, right? Or in my case throw the comforter haphazardly across the sheets - close enough! Listen, I consider it a sign of good character to mourn poor choices from awards bodies as long as one does so pointedly and briefly and doesn't allow it to become part of one's whole character like hating an actr- OH WAIT OOPS.  

People like to be dismissive about awards and say 'they don't matter!'  but it's simply not true. THEY DO. Awards permanently influence resumes and entire careers by way of their temporary affect on opportunities and, yes, praise (once considered a "great" it takes decades for the petals to fall off that rose... it took decades for people to start getting snippy about Al Pacino & Robert DeNiro's work!

Plus it goes in the history books. Baby cinephiles decades later still look these things up and watch the movies that were awarded to teach themselves movie history. I speak from experience. I know this to be true.

CASH: Dustin Hoffman's win for "Rain Man" baffles me...

more after the jump...

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