Showbiz History: Waterworld, Waterfront, and Wonderland

10 random things that happened on this day in showbiz history

1892 Joe E Brown, the comic actor who delivered Some Like It Hot's immortal closing line, was born in Ohio on this day.

1951 Disney's Alice in Wonderland has its NYC premiere two days after its world premiere in London. It was not (initially) a success in theaters, the studio taking a loss. But in the 1970s people became interested in it in a big way prompting its first rerelease in 1974...

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Film Bitch Awards Finale - The Medal Ceremony

by Nathaniel R 

Cue trumpets and confetti!  The 18th annual Film Bitch Awards have finally reached their conclusion with the "best scene" page fully up and complete with nominations and medals for BEST KISS, BEST ACTION SCENE, and BEST MUSICAL SEQUENCE and the like.

64 movies were honored over our 40 regular categories for the 2017 film year. Lady Bird and Get Out led this past year's crop with 13 nominations each and 10 and 9 medal wins respectively. Other top ten entries that scored multiple medals were Call Me By Your Name, Baby Driver, and Atomic Blonde. The films that made the strongest showing without scoring in headline categories or the top ten list were: Phantom Thread, The Greatest Showman, and Blade Runner 2049.

Some curiousities: The Florida Project won only gold medals, never a silver or bronze. Oscar's best picture winner The Shape of Water was nominated in six categories but only took home one medal (gold for Production Design). And the film that Oscar completely ignored that performed strongest here was --  no surprise I suppose -- France's Oscar submission BPM with 8 nominations, 1 gold, 1 silver, and 4 bronze medals.

Part 1 - Film, Director, Picture
Part 2 - Acting Categories 
Part 3 - Visuals
Part 4 - Music and Sound 
Part 5 - Non-Traditional Acting Categories
Part 6 - Character Prizes
Part 7 - Best Scene Work *NEWLY COMPLETED*

...and in case you missed it, the top ten list write-up. We hope you enjoyed all our 2017 coverage. Now on to 2018 as Spring begins!

Film Bitch Awards Pt 1 - Oscar Correlative Crafts

by Nathaniel R

Had hoped to meter these out as we usually do but time ran out and here we are at Oscar weekend. So herewith the Film Bitch nominations in all the Oscar correlative categories (plus one as we have two "Score" categories since there are largely two types used for movies these days). The acting categories are the only thing not completed yet but they'll hopefully be up tonight. Blade Runner 2049 and Get Out are the leaders thus far with 6 and 5 nominations respectively.

Part 1 - Film, Director, Picture
Part 2 - Acting TBA
Part 3 - Visuals
Part 4 - Music and Sound 

...and in case you missed it, the top ten list write-up.

Nathaniel's Top Ten of 2017

by Nathaniel R

Better late than never. If you've been wondering why your TFE host has been so in and out of the proceedings this season, let's just say life has proved significantly challenging offline: the end of a decade-plus relationship, homelessness (not the dramatic kind but the sleeping on friend's couches kind), a long bout with the flu, a new side gig, etcetera). So this list carries a bit of melancholy with it as 2017 was one of the hardest years of my life. (If you also had a rough year: I feel you. Hugs in solidarity). Due to all of this I didn't see as many films as is my preference and couldn't rewatch the key films I usually would have before "voting".

But in the end you have to move forward.  Time changes everything... and time changes all top ten lists also! Some of these placements that you scratch your head about now, you'll either understand in ten years time OR I'll join you in scratching my head about them with a "what was I thinking?" blush. Top ten lists are but time capsules.

People change for better and worse. Circumstances shift dramatically or perception does. The movies of 2017 helped me understand all this, many of them zeroed in on definitive months in someone's life, others hopping around in time, and still more juxtaposing the past with the present...

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Links Don't Apply

• Cartoon Brew the effects work in The Shape of Water
• Coming Soon The Lady Gaga / Bradley Cooper version of A Star is Born gets pushed back to October. Does this mean they think it has Oscar potential or just that it wouldn't be competitive in its previous May slot?
• The Awardist I Tonya's breakout star (the parakeet) tattle-tales on Allison Janney
• The Guardian on Jessica Chastain's emergence as a outspoken activist this year
• THR We forgot to share the news that SAG was having all female presenters this year!
• THR Their first ever "live roundtable"... honestly there are so many roundtables now I have literally not watched a one this year. Can't keep up!

• Variety MoviePass has passed the 1 million mark in subscribers
• Deadline Remember Warren Beatty's short-lived but long gestating Rules Don't Apply? It's now got legal trouble
• Deadline Sufjan Stevens was originally going to do more than just sing for Call Me By Your Name but narrate it too. (We love Sufjan but sooo glad the movie opted out of narration)
• EW Annette Bening on why she's no longer doing American Crime Story: Katrina

LIST-MANIA
• Film School Rejects best under-the-radar films you probably missed this year
• Variety top ten shots of the year via Kris Tapley
• Out R Kurt Osenlund's top films of the year including Saturday Church, Girls Trip, Atomic Blonde
• IMDb ten most popular movie pages for 2017: Blade Runner 2049, Split, Wonder Woman, etc
• The Playlist worst movies of the year. I was furious with them for putting the excellent Atomic Blonde on the list but this bit on Emoji Movie made me lol

Is it shooting fish in a barrel to put “The Emoji Movie,” a film for children that had no aspirations at any point in its creation other than to milk money out of those children’s parents, so high on this list? Perhaps. But in this case, the fish in the barrel are savage fucking piranhas that would devour everything you loved if they remain un-shot.