Showbiz History: God bless Lily St. Cyr 🎵... and Joan Crawford

Here's what happened on this day, June 3rd, in showbiz related history...

1910 Paulette Goddard born in Long Island. She becomes a star in the 1930s and 1940s making multiple films with Charlie Chaplin and Bob Hope among many others and is Oscar nominated for So Proudly We Hail (1943). Famously screen tests and is publicly considered as Scarlett O'Hara but loses the role to then unknown Vivien Leigh.

1918 BURLESQUE CENTENNIAL ~ Stripping star Lili St Cyr was born on this day. Her short lived film career kicked off with B movie Son of Sinbad (1955) but mostly she was famous for burlesque performances. She's name-checked in the famous 'Floor Show' number in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1976) with Susan Sarandon warbling "god bless Lili St Cyr 🎵"...

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Saoirse Ronan Living Her Best Life

Saoirse Ronan went to Magic Mike Live! in Las Vegas for its one year anniversary! We hope it was a belated birthday trip for her 24th, too. (The photo is from the Instagram account of Ryan Carlson who is one of the 13 dancers in the show.)

New Podcast: Desperately Seeking Smackdowns

Nathaniel welcomes our first all Los Angeles panel for this discussion of the 1985 film year. Comedian/Writer Louis Virtel (Billy on the Street), Producer/Writer Abdi Nazemian ("The Authentics"), Actress Nora Zehetner and Director/Writer Michelle Morgan (It Happened in L.A.). We just wrote about the Supporting Actress nominated performances of 1985 but now it's time to zoom out on the films and the film year itself when Oprah Winfrey and Madonna began their global takeovers, Anjelica Huston became a third generation Oscar favorite, and Out of Africa eventually won Best Picture.

Smackdown '85 Companion Podcast
(58 minutes)
00:01 Anjelica vs Oprah with a little Amy Madigan on the side
10:00 Our entire group has a Jane Fonda "problem" - shout-outs to Klute and lots of head-scratching over the plot of Agnes of God
20:00 Meg Tilly and Jennifer Tilly and Oscar trivia
22:00 Should they remake The Color Purple?
28:00 Syphilitic Out of Africa, Divisive Prizzi's Honor and their Oscar wins
35:30 Desperately Seeking Susan and Oscar's resistance to both Madonna and comedy

46:30 Twice in a Lifetime's weird messages and cathartic makeovers
49:40 Individual favorites from the year from each of us including (but not limited to): Clue, The Breakfast Club, The Goonies, Mask, The Legend of Billie Jean
55:00 Farewells and Credits

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Don't forget to read the smackdown and continue the conversations in the comments! 

Desperately Seeking Smackdown

"Rough Night" and the State of Comedy

by Eric Blume

My assignment for TFE was a review of the movie Rough Night. But since I was not raised in a barn, nor raised by wolves, my mother once told me if you can’t find something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. So we’ll keep it short on Rough Night itself.  It’s actually depressing how bad this movie is, a twist on a rather good mainstream movie called Very Bad Things, back in the Cameron Diaz days of 1998.  That Peter Berg film had a bit of an edge as it followed several guy friends on a bachelor party who find themselves in a dead hooker situation.  Rough Night is the distaff version of this tale, but the inept script, bad performances, and bland direction make it a tough sit.  The film’s five actresses (Scarlett Johansson, Kate McKinnon, Zoe Kravitz, Jillian Bell, and Ilana Glazer) are winning, talented ladies and deserved a far better vehicle.

Sitting through Rough Night your mind may wander, as did mine, to the state of mainstream comedy in the cinema these days...

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (S1.E9-10)

Dancin' Dan back with the next installment of our Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season one recap. This time out, Rebecca and Darryl experience the acute anguish of trying to make friends as an adult. Let's rank the crazy of the next two episodes.

S1:E9 "I'm Going to the Beach with Josh and His Friends!"

Hoping to expose Rebecca once and for all, Valencia invites her to a "classic crew" beach outing. In classic bottle episode fashion, long-simmering tensions among the crew begin to boil over...

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