50 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Viola Davis' Birthday

Margaret and Anne Marie here, with suggestions of how best to rejoice in 50 years of national treasure VIOLA DAVIS...

1. Set something on fire with only the power of your measured, penetrating gaze
2. Look sensational in a jewel-hued gown
3. Drink a tall glass of bubbly while wearing said gown
4. Enter a room with unparalleled grace
5. Have a professional task you feel is beneath you? Pick it up and blow it out of the water. Because you can.
6. Make your coworkers look great
7. Give sage & loving advice. Or take someone else's
8. Pull up a dick pic on your phone, and accusingly approach strangers with it
   
   
   
    
9. Consider making a donation to the Segue Institute for Learning or the Hunger Is campaign, which are two of Viola Davis' preferred charities
10. Visit Rhode Island
11. Do a few sets of tricep curls 
12. Write a thank you note to Shonda Rhimes.
13. Paper your neighborhood with Emmy For Your Consideration ads.
14. Walk up to the most respected person in your chosen field and gracefully, modestly, utterly outshine them.
15. Outshine some nobodies too, just for fun
    
    35 more ways to celebrate after the jump!
    
    

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Scorsese + Leo: With Six You Get Body Counts...

We knew they would work together again and now we have confirmation:  Leonardo DiCaprio will headline Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Erik Larson's bestseller The Devil and the White City. That's a true crime novel about serial killer Dr. HH Holmes who murdered dozens or possibly hundreds in Chicago in the late 19th century. H.H. Holmes was born just a couple of years before the events in Gangs of New York so they're returning to roughly the same time frame of their first collaboration (hello Oscar nominations in craft categories) 

This will be Leo's first serial killer role (if not his first villain) though it's always amusing to remember that Hollywood intended him to be our Patrick Bateman in American Psycho before history course-corrected and gave us the one we needed: Christian Bale. But let's not get sidetracked.

The Devil in the White City will be the sixth collaboration between the director and star. DiCaprio is still well behind Robert De Niro as Scorsese's foremost muse both in number of films and quality of films, but maybe some day he'll catch up to him? Scorsese turns 73 in November. Though he's definitely not Clint (85) or Woody (79) with the indefatigable prolificness neither is he all that slow. He averages about 5 movies a decade and Silence, currently in post, will be his fourth this decade already. By the time they release this one (2018?), we'll have our five for the decade unless Marty squeezes one more in somehow. But don't hold your breath. We first heard about this project way back in 2011 when they hired a screenwriter so there's finally a little bit of movement on it (presumably the script is written now) 

In honor of Marty & Leo's partnership, their five movies together ranked in four ways just because...

THE MARTY & LEO FILMS

In Order of Release	Quality  (Best to Worst)	Global Box Office Success	According to Oscar (Most Loved to Least)
Gangs of New York (2002)	The Departed great	Wolf of Wall Street $392 million	The Aviator  (11 noms | 5 wins)
The Aviator (2004)	The Aviator underappreciated at this point	Shutter Island $294 million	The Departed (5 noms | 4 wins incl BP so really it's #1)
The Departed (2006)	Wolf of Wall Street divisive for a reason	The Departed $289 million	Gangs of New York (10 noms | 0 wins)
Shutter Island (2010)	Shutter Island meh	The Aviator $213 million	Wolf of Wall Street (5 noms | 0 wins)
Wolf of Wall Street (2013)	Gangs of New York ugh	Gangs of New York $193 million	Shutter Island (zero noms)

Have you read this novel? Do you look forward to a Marty/Leo reunion or do you wish they would move on?

Life Magazine Best Actress Covers, 1954

Researching 1954 for other posts, I came upon the realization that Life Magazine had featured not one, not two but three of the eventual Best Actress nominees on their covers that year in April (Grace Kelly who had a lot of films out that year including The Country Girl), September (Judy Garland for A Star is Born) and November (Dorothy Dandridge as "Hollywood's Fiery Carmen Jones"). It was "Hollywood's Brightest and Busiest New Star" vs. the World's Greatest Entertainer for the golden statue that year. The tag line to the Judy article was "Judy Garland Takes Off After Oscar" but it was not to be and Grace Kelly cemented the Princess effect with Oscar just a year after that had already helped Audrey Hepburn to her Roman Holiday win. (With Oscar, it rarely turns out that well for the older women, as you know)

This particular Best Actress race will haunt actressexuals forever as Judy Garland's A Star is Born performance is one of the greatest ever committed to celluloid. Audrey Hepburn (Sabrina) and Jane Wyman (Magnificent Obsession) were also nominated that year but did not get a Life cover. That's weird in Audrey's case as she was a regular cover girl. 

Finally while everyone knows that Dorothy Dandridge was a trailblazer this cover represents a twofer: She was not only the first African American nominated for a Leading Role at the Oscars (previous nominations had only happened in Supporting Actress) she was also the very first black woman to appear on the cover of Life Magazine!

Have you ever seen Carmen Jones? We've talked about it before.

Curio: James Charles' American Iconomics

Alexa here with your weekly arts and crafts. At the Bad Dads show in New York last week, currency artist James Charles' had some work up, but I thought he deserved his own post. James has been working for years on his series called American Iconomics. In it, James alters actual U.S. currency with the faces of actors, actresses, musicians, and other icons of popular culture.  Similar to Andre Levy's coin portraits, James morphs the familiar presidents’ faces into his new portraits, even successfully altering the text at the bottom to carry a message together with each portrait.  

Here are some if his bills from the world of film...

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Beauty vs Beast: The Red Jungles of High Society

Jason from MNPP here with this week's episode of "Beauty vs Beast" for your fun-time entertainment -- while it's certainly not as important numerically as the approaching 100 year anniversary of Ingrid Bergman (which we're celebrating with great enthusiasm here at TFE) I think it's a happy enough happenstance that today marks the 113th anniversary of the birth of the terrific actress Norma Shearer and we should likewise celebrate her. And what better way than with that grand dame of cinematic cattiness, George Cukor's 1939 classic The Women? Shearer plays the betrayed society wife Mary, whose husband can't resist the shopgirl charms of (one two three - hiss!) Miss Crystal Allen, played by a totally game Joan Crawford. There's no way to play if you don't enter the kennel...

PREVIOUSLY Last week we also took on a "good wife" trampled by some dark-haired hussy, facing down Joan Allen and Sigourney Weaver in The Ice Storm. And the hussy won! The hussy always wins. (As we'll probably find out in another week when this Women poll's results come in.) Said Joe:

"Both women were brilliant in this. This is my favorite Ang Lee film. I'd give the edge to Sigourney. Outside of the Alien films, this is her best work. It's SHOCKING that she was not nominated for an Oscar that year. I mean, Minnie Driver??"