Showbiz History: France loves KStew, and infamous 'Chicago' trials, real and fictional

5 random things that happened on this day, February 20th, in showbiz history...

two Oscar-winning Roxies, Ginger Rogers & Renée Zellweger

1939 A shameful moment in US history: an American Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. Footage from this event became the basis of the recently Oscar nominated doc short "A Night at the Garden". 

1942 The film Roxie Hart adapted from the play "Roxie" opens with Ginger Rogers playing the murderous showgirl. Roxie would go on to pop culture immortality with the long running musical adaptation of the play and its Oscar winning counterpart, called simply Chicago...

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Are you there Link? It's me, Nathaniel

• US Dish is hosting a viewing party contest for romcom lovers. You can enter until the 26th and the winner has to be wiling to host an online viewing party with their friends and vlog about it afterwards. The prize is $2000
• MCN Gurus of Gold weigh in on the Best Picture and Best Director races
• Guardian excellent and rare interview with Sacha Baron Cohen as himself rather than in character about Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Trial of the Chicago 7, and his activism
• Slate really interesting piece about the way Hallmark has tried to avoid politics and their babysteps towards the modern world via their very popular Christmas movies

More after the jump including Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Zhao, Sound of Metal, new biopics, and new adaptations of old best-sellers...

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Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana

That's the first shot of Kristen Stewart as Diana in Pablo Larraín's next film Spencer, one of our presumed Oscar hopefuls for 2021 though the release plans aren't at all firm yet. Let's hope it goes better for Kristen than it did for Naomi Watts! (Not that it won't by default, but still). So we might be looking at our first Best Actress nominee of the new film ye -- No, we can't get into that yet; we're still in this season.

There's no word yet on who is playing Prince Charles but the film takes place over a single weekend (the best kind of biopic!) and we trust Larraín to make this totally interesting since his films (Jackie, No, Neruda) always are, even the ones that are totally filled with hard-to-watch hatefulness (Tony Manero, Ema, The Club). Larraín's films are always exquisitely put together and this one will be no exception with the cinematographer of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Claire Mathon), two time Oscar winner Jacqueline Durran (Anna Karenina, Little Women) on costumes, and Oscar nominee Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread) on score duties. 

Regina King @ 50: Stealing the spotlight in "Ray"

by Cláudio Alves

Despite having leading roles in her resume and a just-released directorial effort, it feels appropriate that this weekend's birthday-girl Regina King's Oscar is for Best Supporting Actress. From the very start of her career, she's been a consummate scene-stealer, adding energy and blinding charisma to the margins of her productions. One remembers the actress' superb comedic debut in Boyz n the Hood, the unimprovable hilarity of Jerry Maguire, the two awards-winning turning points in her career, TV's American Crime and the big screen's If Beale Street Could Talk. Still, it's hard not to wish that her big break had come sooner since the quality has always been there. In other words, how in the hell did King get next to no awards buzz for her captivating performance in Best Picture-nominee Ray?...

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Review: One Night in Miami

by Matt St Clair

Regina King’s directorial debut One Night in Miami is a wonderful departure from the traditional biopic formula. Instead of focusing on key events from the lives of the famous, One Night in Miami  gives us a fictionalized, night-long conversation four iconic men might have been having at that exact moment in history. The titular night is February 25th, 1964, just after Cassius Clay’s boxing match with Sonny Liston and just before the famous athlete changed his name to Muhammad Ali.   

Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Cassius Clay (Eli Goree), musician Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and former NFL player Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) gather together in a motel room to discuss the weight they carry as celebrities to help create social change through the Civil Rights Movement. Thanks to the lead actors, along with genius writing by Kemp Powers who adapted his own  play for the screen, we’re able to get a glimpse of the real people behind the iconic personas...

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