With the recent news of Ed Skrein's departure from Hellboy, cinema goers as well as actors are becoming increasingly aware of the sensitivities of depicting race on screen. For 34 years the Orpheum theatre in Tennesse has shown Gone With the Wind in its summer programme. Screening the evening of August 11, just before the racist violence in Charlottesville, the theatre received numerous complaints of screening a work with highly romanticised visions of the Old South, and black characters who exist without any acknowledgement that they are slaves.
The Orpheum has decided to forego screening the film in 2018...
On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
1536 Anne Boleyn is beheaded. Her tragedy is later reenacted by hundreds of actresses on tv, stage and film including Natalie Portman, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, and Genevieve Bujold (Oscar nomination). 1836 Cynthia Ann Parker is kidnapped in Texas during an Indian raid after her family is slaughtered. That's a tough break but not many people get to live on in history through multiple classics albeit under pseudonyms like "Debbie Edwards" (Natalie Wood in The Searchers) and "Stands With Fist" (Mary McDonnell in Dances With Wolves). 1925 Malcolm X is born. 67 years later Denzel Washington wins his second Oscar playing him (Shut up! This is our preferred version of history because Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman. Ugh, really?) 1941 Nora Ephron is born spewing witticisms.
1958Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is released in movie theaters. 1962 Marilyn Monroe, who looms larger than 50 Feet in the American consciousness, sings happy birthday to President John F Kennedy 1978 Thank God It's Friday released. Out-discoed in collective disco-movie memories by Can't Stop the Music, two years later. 1982 Rebecca Hall is born. Remains underappreciated 34 years later
1984 It is a very very bad day to be named "Sarah Connor" in Los Angeles. Unless you're unlisted. [src] 1989 Legendary bad movie Road House opens in theaters 1992 Sam Smith is born. 24 years later he tortures global audiences with an off-key rendition of a song no one likes and Hollywood hands him the Oscar -anything to make him stop. 1999Star Wars: the Phantom Menace opens in theaters which is something like discovering a razor blade in your Halloween candy. Jar Jar Binks is the razor blade. Nostalgia is the candy. 2017Baywatch: The Movie opens. God help us all.
and finally...
2154 Jake Sully will arrive in his wheelchair on Pandora and meet his Avatar. Just in time for James Cameron to be cryogenically unfrozen and announce that he's starting production on Avatar 2 and Avatar 3. For real this time, promise.
Yesterday I answered reader questions about film sets worth living in and all time favorite actors and I hope that conversation keeps going because I haven't heard from too many of you what your choices are. There were so many good question this week let's keep the party going for an extra day. Here's the next six questions featuring Guilty Pleasures, Oscar's Best Animated Feature and Unseen Classics. One question will be answered in a forthcoming theme week that's already been planned and one final question is getting its own post.
You can't say we've been slacking here at TFE.
LADY EDITH: Do you have a favorite Altman?
I do. And it's no contest. I just shout Nashville (1975) as enthusiastically and loudly as I can when asked. Which is not to dismiss the rest of Robert Altman's always at least interesting filmography. My other two favorites are Three Women (1977) for its psychosexual actressing and Gosford Park (2001) for the sheer pleasure of it but I love his movies... well, maybe not Dr T and the Women but I love quite a few of his movies.
JEFF: What's your biggest guilty pleasure movie? Or a movie that most of the readers would be surprised that you happen to love.
After so many years writing online about movies I fear I have no secrets left. I love the usual guilty pleasures and probably talk about them too much (Xanadu and Showgirls chief among them). I suppose in terms of things I rarely write about the #1 guilty pleasure would be that I do kind of have a (small) thing for B grade action movies and affection for the sometimes limited actors that star in them like Jean Claude Van Damme, Jason Statham, and Schwarzenegger of course. This is not a blanket genre appreciation; I never was interested if the movie starred Steven Seagal or Sylvester Stallone. I've seen Highlander (1986) with Christopher Lambert several times because my brother and his friends loved it. I loved Universal Soldier (1992) for some reason. One truly terrible movie that I used to enjoy with an old friend was Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) starring Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee. This actually happens in it...
Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 9:37PM 
