Best Actress Volley: It's On!

Nick, Nathaniel, and Eric engage in a discussion about everybody's favorite Oscar category:  Best Actress. For the record this conversation started the day of the Globes nominations so watch things narrow down as we speak! 

 

Will a surprise SAG nomination rescue any underperformers?

ERIC:  Nick and Nathaniel, I'm really excited about this volley because the Best Actress category is as always stacked, this year featuring at least a dozen ladies who stand a fairly legitimate shot at a nomination at this point.  I thought it might be fun, before we get to the current leading contenders, to take a look at that back half of the possibilities to gauge your thoughts.  Of the actresses that seem slightly less likely to nab a nomination this year...Kate Winslet, Pamela Anderson, Amy Adams, Tilda Swinton, Saoirse Ronan...do you see the winds changing in the weeks to come where any of them could gather enough momentum to move to the front of the pack?

I'm considering Jolie, Madison, Gascon, Moore, Kidman, Erivo, Torres, and Jean-Baptiste more ahead at this point, but comment as you may.

NATHANIEL:  It does feel like quite a crowded, anything-could-happen* year. Take for example one from your column B: Saoirse Ronan and one from your column A: Angelina Jolie...

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Soundtracking: Ghost

by Chris Feil

A convergence of the romantic, the spooky, and the outright earnest happened in the early 90s with Ghost, most notably immortalized through song through the ripe feeling of The Righteous Brothers’ version of “Unchained Melody”. It was the kind of megasmash that only this era could have produced, and the kind of instantly classic movie moment that distills the era. But for the past thirty years, the sight of Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in clay-mate-tion has been burned into our minds and our cultural loins in ways few musical scenes can equally measure.

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Showbiz History: The Love Boat, The Social Network, Nevermind

10 random things that happened on this day, September 24th, in showbiz history

Alison Pill and Tom Hiddleston as the Fitzgeralds in "Midnight in Paris"

1896 F  Scott Fitzgerald born in St Paul Minnesota. Though he only lives 44 years, plagued by alcoholism and ill health, he leaves behind a rich legacy of novels and short stories that other artists have riffed on or adapted ever since, most notably The Great Gatsby, The Last Tycoon, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He's been recently played onscreen by Tom Hiddleston (Midnight in Paris) and David Hoflin (Z: The Beginning of Everything)

1976 Oh! Calcutta! opens on Broadway (after a successful run Off Broadway in 1969) becoming a controversial musical hit (with explicit nudity) and eventually the 2nd longest running revival of all time, running for 13 years (Chicago is #1 by a mile, still playing and about to hit its 22nd anniversary) 

1965 Marriage on the Rocks opens in movie theaters, the last leading men screen pairing of Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin. I have to share this nutso poster for y'all...

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Looking back at St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

by Eric Blume

Director Joel Schumacher’s St. Elmo’s Fire captures 1985 perfectly:  the word “yuppie” had just come into vogue, and this film follows seven Georgetown students finding themselves lost after graduation.  They’re all white, attractive, fairly affluent, and awfully boring, and nothing much happens in the movie.  So why is it so damn watchable?

St. Elmo’s Fire is a curio from this era, because while it wasn’t a huge box office success, it’s an instantly-recognizable title after 22 years.  This of course is due to the film’s actors: Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Mare Winningham, Judd Nelson, and Andrew McCarthy.  Schumacher did manage lightning-in-a-bottle with that casting, and while very little about the film is objectively good, watching these actors near the start of their careers provides a kicky joy...

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Joan Crawford, National Puppy Day, Oscar Nights, and More...

Today is both National Puppy Day and the immortal star Joan Crawford's birthday (though the exact date i.e. year is disputed). So here is a photo combining those two wonderful things...

Joan Crawford totally loved dogs. If you do a search for "Joan Crawford puppies" or "Joan Crawford dogs" you will be surprised at how many images come up and from all decades, too, and how relaxed the famously rigid star looks with them in many of the photos...

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