Showbiz History: Star Trek transforms, Little Women opens, Nicholas Hoult strips
Monday, December 7, 2020 at 8:00AM 
You spoke and asked us to keep doing this series but we have to simplify so it won't be as deep divey. We still hope it's fun for you -Editor
4 random things that happened today, December 7th, in showbiz history
1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture opens in movie theaters, the first major move in transforming the shortlived 60s tv show into an undying franchise.
1990 Mega-blockbuster Home Alone was enjoying its fourth (of an astonishing twelve!!!!!!) weekend atop the box office charts while two future classics and two of the best films of the year opened in limited release...
They were Edward Scissorhands and The Grifters. We love them both to this day, don't you? Happy 30th anniversary to those excellent films.
Jane and Ted in 1990
Meanwhile, superstar icon Jane Fonda and billionaire Ted Turner announced their engagement. She abruptly retired from acting soon thereafter and people, including young Nathaniel, blamed him. But she has long since revealed that he wasn't the reason. She was miserable with her career at the time and wanted out and he happened to come along at the same time. She returned to acting in 2005, four years after their divorce.
2001 All star heist classic Oceans 11 opens with huge numbers in movie theaters, becoming the biggest hit of Steven Sodebergh's career (grossing nearly half a billion globally), just 9 months after his Oscar win as Best Director for Traffic (2000). (Listen, Ang Lee should've won that particular Oscar but since they were going to give it to Steve all the time, Erin Brockovich was the correct answer!)
2019 Little Women has its premiere at MoMA in New York City before opening on Christmas day in movie theaters and becoming both a major hit and an Oscar nominated Best Picture. Quick: when was the last time you thought of this now just one year-old movie?
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy birthday to one of the best actors of his generation Nicholas Hoult, pictured here in a pair of stockings in The True History of the Kelly Gang. He was born 31 years ago on this day in Wokingham, England.
Okay, maybe he doesn't yet have the reputation of 'one of the best actors of his generation' but we'd argue that he will and that his beauty has merely delayed the rep (as is often the case with young male actors -- blame the double standards of the patriarchy!) His work in films like Mad Max Fury Road, Warm Bodies, The Favourite, and TV series like The Great (among others) shows a good sized range, bold swing confidence, a solid grasp of genre and tone, and a sly understanding of how to play absurdist or droll comedy. And we assume he's just getting started. Huzzah, etc.
Other people we ❤️ born on this day: Brilliant Jeffrey Wright, inimitable actor/musician Tom Waits, hilarious Broadway trouper Julie Halston, and Oscar winning giants of actressing, Fay Bainter and Ellen Burstyn
Reader Comments (30)
Thank you.
Power to the people / readers!
I recently thought of LW after finishing a viewing of Ammonite. I quickly watched the Jo and Amy monologues and basically told myself again how Saoirse and Florence should've won of what actresses were nominated this past year
I think of Little Women just about every day. It's my favorite film of last year - I just love how Gerwig adapted the book. I've been waiting to rewatch it as it's such a Christmassy movie.
One of the reasons I love these posts is because I can relive all the old moviegoing memories... not just Little Women, but Ocean's 11, Edward Scissorhands, and Home Alone, two of which I saw with cherished family members who loved movies and are now gone. It makes me sentimental.
1) I always really liked the first STAR TREK movie, even if it's considered something of a dud by a lot of people. (Bet you'd rather watch that than STAR TREK IV.) 2) I guess I need to see THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG.
LW was my favourite film of 2019 so.... I think about it pretty constantly. Last time was probably yesterday when I was decorating my Christmas tree and thinking of trying the popcorn decorations Amy was working on and the garlands with dried oranges.
The score also made it into my Spotify Wrapped lol
Yay! The series lives!
Yay! So happy the series has returned!
I thought of LW yesterday especially about Florence Pugh as I was going over my own awards picks over the years. She should have won hands down. Hopefully she becomes one of Greta's go to actors like Ronan and Chalamet.
That Kelly Gang scene just reminds me of that Beowulf movie and how it kept playing a game of hide the penis from the audience. Holt twists himself into lots of unnatural positions playing the same game.
Star Trek will be forever the longest science fiction award winning series ever.
Nicholas Hoult is very underrated as an actor - I still think he deserved Supporting Actor consideration for THE FAVOURITE.
But I can see why his beauty would be distracting. Even almost 20 years later, I still can't get over how the dumpy little kid from ABOUT A BOY got so hot.
Yeah! Glad you are continuing this series. I'm another "long time listener, first time caller" to this series, but I do appreciate it.
LOL @ including Warm Bodies as an example of Hoult's breadth of work, though. Was it just because he was a lead in it? He's great, and even better in About a Boy, Skins, A Single Man, etc.
I sometimes ponder what Fonda's career may have looked like during the lost Ted Turner years.
Fun that the first of these ‘reborn’ showbiz history posts mentions Star Trek, which itself was famously saved by fans writing in to NBC asking them not to cancel it... thanks for hanging on to the format!
Mr Hoult is very pretty
These tidbits make me think about genetics today. I had forgotten how handsome Ted Turner was and looking at him and Jane Fonda together, I think they would have had beautiful children if they had gotten together many years earlier.
And speaking of genetics, I've often wondered if parents are seen/interviewed when their children are up for casting in projects. Did they know in advance that short, chubby Nicholas Hoult had the potential to turn into a beautiful tall blue eyed beauty? I guess the big eyes were always there, number one for casting anyone really.
If I was going to cast a long series such as Harry Potter, I'd want to know in advance if Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe were going to "stay cute." ;-)
I'm in love with Nicholas Hoult. I loved him in The Great. I hope the show gets some love at the winter award shows. It feels like something the Golden Globes would like?
Yay!!!
^^ When I said, "bet you'd rather watch the first STAR TREK film than STAR TREK IV" above, I meant STAR TREK V (not that anyone seems to have noticed or cared.) We all know people love the one with the whales....
About a boy <3
Glad to see the series is going to last, at least for a little while, though I hope for longer!
I'm not a Trekkie but I enjoyed the occasional episode of the original series (never watched an instant of any of the million off-shoots though) and was pleased when they did the first big screen take but it was a thundering bore. It took some convincing to get me to see the second which fortunately was a big improvement and afterward I stuck to the every other rule since those seemed to be the ones that turned out well. Star Trek IV (yes the one with the whales) is my favorite.
Oceans 11 is one of those redos where the idea of sequels make sense. But then the Rat Pack original isn't a classic, just a fun good idea with shaky execution. Those are the ones that should be redone, leave the classics alone! You'll never make them better.
I had just turned 11 when Home Alone debuted. I can clearly remember how everyone was talking about it in the school cafeteria the Monday after it premiered. Even the kids who were desperate to prove they were so mature now that we were in junior high were talking all about it. My dad (who rarely took us to movies) even decided we'd better see this movie everyone was talking about. That theater was CRAZY. The kids just couldn't get enough of Kevin. I've never had a moviegoing experience quite like it. I'm not a good enough writer to convey the release of emotion the kids in the theater were going through, but it was remarkable.
Happy Birthday to Jeffrey Wright! You almost talked me into sticking with Westworld. You were one of several best things about Angels in America. You keep popping up in things and it's wonderful! Many happy returns.
I am thinking about LITTLE WOMEN regularly. It opened in Australia in January and therefore, in my rules anyway, it will feature on my Best Of 2020 list. Somewhere high (at least Top 5)
edward scissorhands and the grifters were my #1 and #2 films of 1990 - how funny they opened on the same day
[miller's crossing, paris is burning and longtime companion rounded out my top five]
I'm glad Jane Fonda is still friends with Ted as he looked pretty terrible the last time I saw him as I'm aware he had been dealing with illness for a while. He lost his empire 20 years ago because Time Warner did a bad merger with AOL that turned out to be total shit and he was just a pawn in a game he didn't want to play. He'd said he rather go back to all of his ex-wives than do that all over again.
I hope before he leaves, he goes to WWE TV to meet with Meekmahan and then kick him in the fucking nuts. Be taken away by his new boys in AEW and tell Meekmahan to go suck his balls. And I also hope he takes a shit on Jamie Kellner as he was the one that ended up killing WCW because he didn't think wrestling fit in with AOL-Time Warner's programming.
Little Women was one of my favorite films from last year. It really lingers in my memory so o think about it quite often. Something regarding Florence Pugh showed up a couple days ago and I started to gush over her performance in Little Women to my partner and then proceeded to discuss how much I loved various members of the cast.
I thought about Little Women a few days ago while watching Ammonite (in particular when Alec Secareanu showed up in the Louis Garrel role), but I also think of it fondly now and then as one of my favorite films of 2019.
Jane Fonda: one of the rare successful advertisements for judicious cosmetic surgery. ("I made sure that they kept my lines...I didn’t want to lose my wrinkles. I just wanted to lose the bags under my eyes. I don’t like it when it’s overdone, but we do live in a time when, if you can afford a good doctor, you can have subtle plastic surgery.")
Nicholas Hoult: best birthday suit of the series so far.
I just saw the late Fay Bainter in "The Children's Hour" (1961), and she's awesome as is the film. Happy Birthday to the superb actress Ellen Burstyn, unforgettable in everything,
Love this post!!!
Other than Seasons of Bette rrturning this is the besr post to see pop up today!
I also blamed Ted for Jane's retirement from acting back in the day. Glad I was wrong.
I thought about "Little Women" last week when my friend saw it for the 1st time. Such a good film.