Today's Five: Don't go into that castle, Jonathan Harker!

by Nathaniel R

We got a little carried away with our "on this day" posts these past few months. They were meant just to be fun and festive quickies and not take over so REDUCE REDUCE. Moving forward we'll give you 5 reasons to celebrate any given day because a) we're trying to stay positive b) it's good to be alive and c) who knows how much longer we'll be able to do that with nut-job man-babies running the world's most weaponized countries? So put on your party hats every day, is the point. 

Five Showbiz-Related Anniversaries (May 3rd)

2002 Sam Raimi's pop and playful superhero picture Spider-Man opens in theaters to massive then record-breaking returns. We were all so innocent back then. There was really only Batman and Spider-Man (Superman still on his long hiatus) and no "universes" to obsess over. If only even 1/10ths of the superhero pictures that came after it these past 15 years were shot as inventively (but they can't all be Raimis)

In its honor today: Look at yourself in the mirror the appreciative way Tobey Maguire does when he wakes up after that spider-bite, improved. You're awesome. Maybe you just didn't notice it before?

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RIP: Lupita Tovar & Robert Vaughn

Didn't mean to let these two farewells slip by.

After the death of Luise Rainer, Lupita Tovar held the title of 'The Oldest Living Screen Star of Note' for a few years. She died Sunday at the 106 years of age so here's to enduring genes. The Mexican actress's original claim to fame was starring in the Spanish version of the famous horror picture Dracula (1931). Though her last movie was in 1945 she continued to affect the movies via her gene pool...

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Guardians Up, Captain Down at the Saturn Awards

The Saturn Awards, which began in the 1970s, get increasingly more confusing each decade. When they first began they were very sci-fi/fantasy niche and now they regularly seem to honor films that don't have anything at all to do with once geeky now mainstream genres like that. Consider that they have nine best picture type categories and they're expansive enough in their definitions that at least half of Oscar's Best Picture nominees were nominated for something and Whiplash and The Theory of Everything even get to be Best Film winners -- neither of which seem at all "genre" though I suppose The Theory of Everything is kinda cosmic in that it has a genre icon in Stephen Hawkings as its subject.

The big winners at the annual event were Interstellar and Guardians of the Galaxy. The big loser was Captain America: Winter Soldier which had the most nominations of all (11) and managed to lose them each one. Complete list of winners after the jump...

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RIP: Ron Moody & Christopher Lee

Though their careers were dissimilar, their images were not. The cinema lost two of its most deeply enjoyable sharp eyed bearded villains this week: Oscar nominee Ron Moody (Oliver!), died yesterday at 91 years of age; screen legend Christopher Lee's passing was also just announced though he died last week at 93. Both of these British actors, born in the 1920s, were best known for indelible villains and sorcerers and  both were singers, too. From there, of course, the careers significantly diverge.

Ron Moody was always best known as "Fagin," the petty thief with a whole gang of young pickpockets at his disposal in the Best Picture winner Oliver! (1968) for which he received a Best Actor nomination and won the Golden Globe. The role stuck to him as forcefully as the Emcee clung to Joel Grey defining him for decades and decades and audiences of multiple generations. His movie career, though it spanned 33 films, didn't contain many other highlights but he did play the sorcerer Merlin in two Disney films Unidentified Flying Oddball and A Kid in King Arthurs Court. He returned to the stage often including revivals of Oliver! (He didn't seem to resent how much Fagin defined him, calling the musical "magic".)

If you ask people to name Sir Christopher Lee's most famous role, on the other hand, they might well hesitate. There is nothing definitive or, rather, there is too much that is definitive. He was a genuine screen legend and worked what seemed like non-stop from 1948 through 2015 appearing in nearly 200 films before his death. Today it's nothing new for actors to be defined by franchise stardom but Christopher Lee was doing forever. He was best known for decades as the face of "Dracula" for Hammer Horror in several films, "Fu Manchu" in multiple films and "Rochefort" in two Three Musketeer films. The actor's fame rose again late in life through prominent popular roles such as "Count Dooku" in the Star Wars franchise and the wicked sorceror "Saruman" multiple times in Peter Jackson's Tolkien adaptations. 

Please share your favorite screen memories of these two acclaimed Brits. 

Top Ten Tweets: from Death Becomes Her to Dracula Untold

No, I'm not desperate for material. I'm not!

It's just that certain other more substantive articles are taking me longer than I expected because I over do it, don'cha know. In case you haven't noticed today, our season premiere, is a special "top ten day" - lists all day!

It is no secret that I love twitter. So much truth, fun, satire, insight, and silliness in 140 characters for when your attention span is very very short. You should follow the team on twitter: Nathaniel, Michael, Anne Marie, Jason, Glenn, Amir, Abstew newbies Manuel & Margaret (...and Matthew should he ever resurface)

10 BEST TWEETS OF THE WEEK
 aka random tweets that Nathaniel loved

The one thing that is more threatening to me than ebola is the proliferation of YouTube celebrities into mainstream culture.

— Robert Kessler (@robertkessler) October 13, 2014

We should remake DEATH BECOMES HER using only this year's Best Actress contenders.

— Jordan (@veilleuxwho) October 12, 2014

8 more: Clooney, Mean Girls, Dracula after the jump

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