Showbiz History: André Holland, Where the Boys Are, Stan & Ollie
Monday, December 28, 2020 at 10:35AM 6 random things that happened on this day, December 28th, in showbiz history
1934 Big stars missing the Christmas box office but opening on this day in time for New Years Eve in movie theaters were Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes, Bing Crosby in Here is My Heart, and Katharine Hepburn in Little Minister.
1944 Sailors on leave musical comedy On the Town opens on Broadway. It will become a Gene Kelly movie five years later and be added to the National Film Registry two years ago...
1945 Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound and Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street both hit movie theaters. More on Spellbound tonight.
1960 One of the very first "spring break" movies (the first?) Where the Boys Are opens. It's a success and the theme song sung by Connie Francis in her film debut is even more popular. We first saw this a few years ago and were surprised at how serious and earnest it was (not quite the same species as the many teen beach movies which followed in the 1960s) even dealing with date rape. "Where the Boys Are" was not nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars though there was room for it that year.
2001 The last movies to open that year, disability drama I Am Sam starring Sean Penn, Dakota Fanning, and Michelle Pfeiffer, and the war action drama Black Hawk Down both score with Oscar voters.
2018 Stan & Ollie, a biopic about the later years of comedy team Laurel & Hardy starring Steve Coogan and John C Reilly opens in limited release. It can't manage one of those last-second Oscar contender strategies (which fail more often than people thing) but it does score a Golden Globe nomination and 3 BAFTA nods (Lead Actor, Makeup, and British Film of the Year)
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 41st to André Holland (Moonlight, High Flying Bird) today. Raise your hand if you miss The Knick which really seemed to get him as a leading man...
Showbiz birthdays or anniversaries today: Dame Maggie Smith (Gosford Park, Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), Lt Uhura herself Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek, Heroes), Auteur F.W. Murnau (Sunrise, Nosferatu, Tabu), Oscar winning composer/actor John Legend (Selma, La La Land), Israeli star Lior Ashkenazi (Footnote, Walk on Water), personality Seth Meyers, Michael Spears (Into the West), Australia's Alex Dimitriades (Head On, Ghost Ship), Jessie Buckley (I'm thinking of ending things, Wild Rose), Denzel Washington (Fences, Malcolm X), Sienna Miller (American Sniper, Layer Cake), Joe Mangianello (True Blood), Noomi Rapace (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), 30s star Lew Ayres (Holiday, The Kiss), Thomas Dekker (Kaboom, Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles), Director James Foley (After Dark My Sweet), Belgium's Jan Bijvoet (Embrace of the Serpent, The Broken Circle Breakdown, Borgman), Taiwan's Chang Hsiao-chuan (Eternal Summer, Girlfriend Boyfriend) and the late comic book titan Stan Lee.
Reader Comments (8)
Totally unrelated but when are they going to give Lois Smith HER TONY? Nathaniel, please, do something! Knock on doors, get arrested if you have to.
At her peak, and Bright Eyes most definitely was during that period, I don't think it matter when Shirley Temple's pictures debuted. They were money machines regardless. This one is one of her more memorable flicks since it includes her cheery version of "On the Good Ship Lollipop" and a perfectly fiendish Jane Withers as the ironically named Joy. The part gave Jane a big push forward making her a star of her own lower budget vehicles for about a decade.
Scarlet Street contains my favorite Joan Bennett performance and one of Edward G. Robinson's best as well. Incredible neither one of them was ever nominated for an Oscar in careers filled with worthy work. Great film which is worshiped in noir circles but should really be better known in general.
LOVE Where the Boys Are, both the film and the song. For something that starts so bright and peppy it sure goes dark towards the end. Terrific cast, Paula Prentiss and Jim Hutton made a great comic team.
I wanted to love Stan & Ollie but despite good lead performances it was just sort of there.
I enjoyed Stan & Ollie esp Reilly and Arianda but the late release did it no favours
When I watched Black Hawk Down I never thought that the actors (lead and supporting) would have wonderful careers after that film: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Jeremy Piven, Ty Burrell, Željko Ivanek and Tom Hardy (his first film). Some of my favorite actors were there as well: Ewen Bremner, Ewan McGregor, Hugh Dancy, Sam Shepard and Ivanek. And although the film is not really known for its soundtrack I thought this was one of Hans Zimmer's best where he eschewed the more sweeping orchestral score in favor of discordant and at times atonal sounds to match the grit of the film. I would argue that the film is underrated in Ridley Scott's oeuvre but then again with the near-universal acclaim of Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise and Alien, there is little space to discuss the propulsive energy in the film that I thought was matched only by Gladiator and White Squall.
Speaking of soundtrack, I bought the soundtrack album of I am Sam because I was a fan of many of the featured artists. I remembered being awed by Sean Penn but when I watched it recently, I cringed a lot. Maybe it didn't age well for me or maybe I didn't have enough exposure to judge the accuracy of Penn's reading of Sam Dawson. I thought Dakota Fanning was preternaturally gifted. And I must admit I didn't remember Michelle Pfeiffer was in it until I saw it again (sorry).
Owl -- oh dont be sorry. It is not Pfeiffer's pfinest hour.but as for black hawk down i should have given it more words. forgot to mention it was Hardy's first film.
Thanks for the picture of my dream lover, André Holland. I watched that whole dreadful season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY with him, ROANOKE, just because he kept popping up. I should have given up and watched him in THE KNICK instead, it seems.
I Am Sam... one of the worst films I had ever seen (despite Dakota and Elle Fanning) as it's an example what not to do as an actor and why method acting is now so passe.
Dolores Hart, once called the next Grace Kelly, certainly isn't asking "Where the Boys Are" anymore, a Reverend Mother now, her last film was "Come Fly With Me." The ad does make "Boys" look like light entertainment, which it partially is, and actually may have birthed the "Beach Party" series. Haven't seen "The Knick" but admired André Holland in "Moonlight", also caught him when I wanted to see "42" after Chadwick Boseman's tragic death, he played a reporter, subject to racism in the period (late 1940s).