Showbiz History: Japanese hits, Harry Belafonte's birthday, and The Doors

6 random things that happened on this day, March 1st, in showbiz history...

1927 Harold George Bellanfanti Jr born  in Harlem. He later becomes globally famous in the 1950s as Harry Belafonte. Happy 94th (!!!) to the singer, actor, activist, and Honorary Oscar winner. He's one of the oldest living iconic American stars. 

1963 Akira Kurosawa's High and Low premieres in Japan. It snags a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Film but Japan doesn't submit it to the Oscars.

a 1985 movie weekend, Shoplifters, and NSFW Javier Bardem after the jump...

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Showbiz History: Billy the Kid, Doctor Who, Kayvan Novak

8 random things that happened on this day (November 23rd) in showbiz history

Paul Newman as Billy the Kid

1859 Billy the Kid, future outlaw and movie inspiration was maybe born on this day (there's disagreement on that front). Numerous westerns would feature the gunslinger as a character, sometimes as hero sometimes as villain, who was orphaned at 15 and a wanted outlaw by 16. He's been played on film or television by numerous stars who were usually much older than the actual "kid" (given that he was killed at just 21 years of age), including but not limited to: Val Kilmer, Kris Kristofferson, Dane DeHaan, Emilio Estevez, and of course Paul Newman in The Left-Handed Gun (1958).

1923 Cecil B DeMille's The Ten Commandments premieres. He would of course remake it as the infinitely better-remembered 1956 classic of the same name...

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"Parasite" is the mashup of "Shoplifters" and "Burning" we never knew we wanted

by Lynn Lee

For a 132-minute Korean film that isn’t yet in wide release, Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite is already one of the most talked-about movies of the season, and for good reason.  Alas, most of the reasons can’t really be discussed without major spoilers – but that’s all the more incentive to see it as soon as it hits a theater near you.

When I saw it, I loved it, which I wasn’t necessarily expecting considering I hadn’t been a fan of either The Host or Snowpiercer, arguably the director's most popular films.  Despite its run time, Parasite is tighter than those films, and its tonal shifts and genre-melding smoother.  It's also more focused, its treatment of one of Bong’s favorite themes – class disparities – razor-sharp yet also oddly compassionate, ultimately condemning the system rather than any individual players.

Parasite, which took the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year, also felt to me like the deranged evil twin of last year’s Palme d’Or winner, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters...

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Nathaniel's (Belated) Top Ten List of 2018

by Nathaniel R

Given that we're two months into a new year, the best cinema of 2018 is receding in our mind's eye, still shimmering but moving out of focus. But so much vivid color and feeling remains. Before we are fully blinded to its beauties (until, that is, they are "old films" and we can revisit) by a whole new batch of cinematic images to obsess over, here's one last post to honor the year that was. Here's your host's choices for the 25 best films of 2018.

This year's HONORABLE MENTIONS are a varied bunch taking us from horny self-discovery in Swedish woods to a trash-heap island in Japan. Strangely, grief was the year's most defining theme across genres as diverse as horror, tragicomedy, bopics, thrillers, character studies, and romantic dramas.

The films are listed in loosely ascending order, though we always reserve the right to change our minds where lists and rankings are concerned:

• Paddington 2 (Paul King, UK) If all franchises were crafted with this much heart and warmth and wit, Hollywood wouldn't feel souless at all.
• Border (Ali Abassi, Sweden) A refreshing oddity which totally commits to its own hybrid identity as its protagonist discovers hers.
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Ramsey, Persichetti, and Rothman, US) If all superhero movies were this fun, inclusive, and inventive, they'd deserve their now automic success in the marketplace.
• First Man (Damien Chazelle, US) A nation's epic ambitions paired with a marriage's intimate drama. So elegantly crafted.
• Burning (Lee Chang-dong) as elusive and mysterious as a cat that doesnt want to be seen, until it saunters boldy into sight to stare you down.
• First Reformed (Paul Schrader, US) The year's most disturbing drama. Hard to shake and necessary.
• Widows (Steve McQueen) Overstuffed and strangely paced, but reverberating with provocative ideas and juicy characters. 
• Capernaum (Nadine Labaki, Lebanon) For all that urgency and visceral feeling, not to mention one of the great child performances.
• Support the Girls (Andrew Bujalski, US) for its ramshackle charms and subtle character-portrait
• Hereditary (Ari Aster, US) What a calling card debut, from that dollhouse opening shot all the way through that psychotic break ending, a new horror classic. 

RUNNERS UP. Oh, if there were room in the top ten for all of these...

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"Shoplifters" wins big in Japan

by Nathaniel R

Sakura Ando and Kirin Kiki in "Shoplifters"

Awards season never truly ends. Someone somewhere in the world is always handing out a prize. The latest are the Japanese Academy film prizes, where Hirokazu Kore-eda thoroughly dominated with the exquisite and also Oscar-nominated Shoplifters. It was nominated in every category it was eligible for. It won 8 awards, including both of the female acting prizes for Sakura Ando and Kirin Kiki. Sadly, Kirin Kiki's prize was posthumous as she died a few months after the movie won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

A list of winners, including (sigh) their choice for foreign film, is after the jump...

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