A Marilyn Monroe Top Ten

by Cláudio Alves

In June, we don't just celebrate Pride. For those in the know, it's also the time to honor the immortal memory of Marilyn Monroe, born in the dying breaths of spring, June 1926. As a birthday present to her fans, the Criterion Channel organized a sampling of the actress' best films, making a delicious collection everyone should check out. Inspired by that list, here's my own selection of Marilyn's peak, her ten most excellent performances in a career, a life, cut tragically short. After all, one mustn't confuse the iconographic impact with a lack of substance beyond the surface. Too many have done that already. 

Marilyn Monroe was a tremendous thespian, so seamless that people, in her time and our own, still assume character and interpreter were one and the same. In any case, let's forego defensiveness for joyful exultation. Without further ado, here's the Marilyn Monroe top ten, in chronological order, unranked…

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Showbiz History: Derek Jarman, The Misfits, and Jennifer Lawrence's breakout

7 random things that happened on this day, January 31st, in showbiz history

1941 Alfred Hitchcock's comedy Mr & Mrs Smith, no not the Brangelina one, opened in theaters starring Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery. Yes, Hitchcock once made a screwball comedy without thriller elements. 

1961 The Misfits, the elegaic last film for both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable and one of Montgomery Clift's last pictures, has its world premiere in Reno, Nevada. It will open in movie theaters the next day...

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Monty @ 100: “The Misfits” and the Specter of Death

by Cláudio Alves

The late-career of Montgomery Clift was laden with tragedy, shaped by the doom that was happening both behind and in front of the camera. While nothing can compare to the cataclysm that was the shooting of Raintree County, The Misfits is another film of Clift that's haunted and haunting. The Angel of Death looms over the picture which unwittingly became the last screen appearances of Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe before their untimely ends. Clift would hold on for a few more years, surviving his co-stars.

However, as legend has it, the movie was showing on TV the night the actor died. His secretary, Lorenzo James, asked the actor if he wanted to watch it to which he answered: "Absolutely not!". Those were the last words he ever spoke to anyone, enshrining the movie in even more cursed memory. It's a pity these morbid curiosities define the legacy of The Misfits. In many regards, it's one of Clift's best and most fascinating pictures…

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On a Clear Day You Can See Anniversaries Forever

On this day in showbiz history...

1886 Spring Byington is born in Colorado Springs. Goes on to supporting actress glory in Hollywood including Marmee in Little Women (1933, her feature debut) and an Oscar nomination as the eccentric hobbyist mom in You Can't Take It With You (1938). Curiously her screen daughter in that best picture winner Jean Arthur, an even bigger star, shares her same birthday (for the year of 1900)
1888 Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (an early step in creating the cinema)
1903 Author and screenwriter Nathanael West is born in NYC. Movies adapted from his work include Lonelyhearts (1958) and The Day of the Locust (1975)
1915 One of the world's most celebrated playwrights, Arthur Miller, is born. His classics include Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View From the Bridge. After marrying movie star Marilyn Monroe, he wrote The Misfits (1961) for her which would eerily (considering its elegiac tone) be the last film for both her and co-star Clark Gable and one of the very last for Montgomery Clift who was born on this same day in 1920...

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Linking Time

Coming Soon Denzel Washington does the mandatory back to camera pose required of all teaser posters now for The Equalizer
Dazed Michel Gondry shares films he can't forget: Modern Times, Groundhog Day, The Phantom of Liberty and more
The Matinee's 'Blind-Spot' series visits the inspirational teacher movie Goodbye Mr Chips (1939)
Empire Tate Taylor will follow Get On Up with In the Event of a Moon Disaster, another period piece. The premise sounds cool but I don't understand how he'll find roles for Viola & Octavia and he's not allowed to work without them. Tis TFE's decree

Pajiba Pajiba turns 10. Happy birthday Pajiba!
Non-Fics on the 10 best documentaries about gay history ever made. Some surprises here. I haven't even heard of a couple of these
Daily Mail good news about Michigan only ever seems to come from Ann Arbor these days: Madonna's daughter Lourdes (aka "Lola") will attend U of M as an MDT major. (MDT programs are a good part of why I object to frequent complaints about the film musical these days. There are many professional actors trained as triple threats. It's just they're rarely asked to use all three skills.)
MNPP who wore it best - zombie boy ripoff edition via Mad Max: Fury Road
The Black Maria revisits the Monroe/Gable/Clift/Wallach classic The Misfits (1961)
Los Angeles Times Academy tightens up campaign rulings in the wake of that Alone (Yet Not Alone) business last season 
Variety 5 themes that might influence Emmy voters - I'm most intrigued by the idea of the last one "Endurance". I've also wondered that.
Vulture funny Jenny Slate (Obvious Child) interview
Awards Daily shortly after that imposing Streep-centric poster The Giver gets its official newly hideous poster utilising all the principles. Hooray?
Playbill interviews Jonathan Groff on his coming out and his subsequent quick rise in TV and film 

Spawn of Meg & Dennis. And you can see both of them so easily in his face!

Castings
VF Hollywood Meg Ryan making her directorial debut. Tom Hanks will cameo but the lead role, a teenager bike messenger, will be played by Jack Quaid (son of Meg & Dennis) whose film debut was in The Hunger Games (2012)
Empire Ben Wheatley's thriller High Rise (based on a JG Ballard) has quite the cast lined up for shooting next month: Elisabeth Moss, Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, and James Purefoy
Coming Soon Ben Kingsley joins Lupita, Idris, and ScarJo in the voice cast of the new Jungle Book, which mixes live action with animation. He'll play Bagheera 
THR Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes join the Coens comedy Hail Caesar, giving us the Budapest Hotel reunion we were hoping for. Also: Channing Tatum!
Variety untitled heist comedy from Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess will star Jason Sudeikis and Kristen Wiig
/Film Rooney Mara to produce and possibly star in kidnapping drama A House in the Sky