Showbiz History: Intolerance, Pee Wee, and Nightcrawler
Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 9:00AM 9 random things that happened on this day, September 5th, in showbiz history...
1847 Outlaw Jesse James is born. 160 years later he'll be assassinated by Oscar nominated "supporting" actor Casey Affleck on the big screen.
← 1914 Stellar makeup artist Stuart Freeborn born in Leystone, London. You can thank him for the iconic looks of the original Star Wars trilogy (hello Chewbacca and Yoda) and the original Superman quadrilogy, and Peter Sellers transformations in Dr. Strangelove. He also worked on classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Murder on the Orient Express. He was never Oscar nominated so how did he not even get an Honorary Oscar?
1916 D.W. Griffith's epic Intolerance is released. Hilariously (and I mean that facetiously) this ode to peace among men sprung from Griffith feeling persecuted by the people who protested his racist epic Birth of a Nation...
1927 Robert Harron, silent film actor (Intolerance, Birth of a Nation), accidentally shoots himself to death though some believe it was a suicide. So basically go see BlacKkKlansman today if you haven't yet.
1946 Farrokh Bulsara is born in Tanzania. He'll later become the iconic rock star Freddie Mercury of Queen fame. On November 2nd this year he gets his first biopic Bohemian Rhapsody with Rami Malek playing him. Sadly there are already fears that it's been pinkwashed (sigh) despite a gay director at the helm (Bryan Singer... and how are they going to handle THAT press tour given Singer's past year and all the allegations?)
1989 "The Joan Rivers Show" premieres, her second solo talk show after the Johnny Carson years. She won an Emmy for hosting.
1991 Pee Wee Herman, in his first appearance after the scandalous arrest which derailed his career, opens the MTV Music Awards. REM wins Video of the Year for "Losing My Religion." On the same day, a Scientology wedding: John Travolta and Kelly Preston.
1998 Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," the big power ballad for Armaggedon written by Diane Warren, debuts at #1 on the music charts. It's later nominated for Best Original Song but loses as Warren songs always do even when they're the frontrunner. Is she ever going to win?
2014 Nightcrawler starring Jake Gyllenhaal, premieres at TIFF becoming an unexpected critical hit and awards player... but Oscar denies it at the last moment, offering only a Screenplay nomination. Where was Gyllenhaal's Best Actor nomination? He was better than almost all of the Oscar nominees that year.
Today's Showbiz Birthdays: Paddy Considine, Werner Herzog, Michael Keaton, 007 George Lazenby, Rose McGowan, Director Sergey Loznita (his latest is Ukraine's Oscar submission), Bob Newhart, and Raquel Welch
← Today's Birthday Suit: Carice Van Houten. Can I just say that though it's been over a decade I'm still pissed that her riveting star turn in Paul Verhoeven's Black Book (2006/2007) didn't lead to major international movie stardom. At least Game of Thrones fans have been able to enjoy her since.
Reader Comments (10)
If Bohemian Rhapsody is more The Usual Suspects than X Men, it could be in consideration for awards. I suspect that the Golden Globes will nominate it. I don’t know about the whitewashing, but wasn’t Freddy Mercury bi?
I rewatched Nightcrawler the other night and it really is a terrific film. Gyllenhaal was robbed. Robbed! But then so was Rene Russo - was this her greatest screen work?
A shame they woke up to the make up category too late. The same with costumes - everybody knows that clothes and make up are what cinema is about.
The problem with movies like Nightcrawler, or Gone Girl or Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is that they're very modern and very dark.
Doesn't matter how great they are, you're gonna have a tough time getting Academy members to even watch them unless the critics REALLY champion them. They didn't do that with Nightcrawler because they were too busy slobbering over the faux-profound Boyhood.
Robert Harron actually died on this date in 1920—not 1927. He was 27 years old (part of the infamous 27 club before there was one?) and made almost 100 motion pictures in little more than a decade. (Boy, they sure churned 'em out fast back in the early days of cinema.)
If there is a God, he wouldn't let Diane Warren win a fucking thing because she absolutely fucking sucks!
Nightcrawler is a superb film - one of the best of its year, terrific in pretty much every way. And yes, it's a travesty that Jake G. wasn't nominated (I'd have been fine with either him or Michael Keaton winning that year - but unfortunately ...). And yes, not being a fan of most of the Supporting Actress nominations that year, it would've been great for Russo's strong work to have been nominated as well.
Any shoutout to the glorious Murder On the Orient Express means it's a great day.
PS. Oscar really messed up Best Actor that year. Keaton and Cooper were the only deserving nominees. Gyllenhaal should've been up and Keaton should've taken it.
There's certainly no pinkwashing in that new trailer. How explicit remains to be seen (and probably unlikely) but they don't seem to be hetero-ing Freddie up, at least.