Showbiz History: Liz Taylor's Gigantic Film and Marriage

6 random things that happened on this day, October 10th, in showbiz history

1956 Giant with its gargantuan running time and trifecta of iconic stars -- Taylor, Dean, Hudson (plus Mineo & McCambridge!) --gets its world premiere in NYC. It will open for Thanksgiving in movie theaters and lead Oscar nomination morning with 10 citations. Sadly it will lose Best Picture to a much lesser movie, Around the World in 80 Days. But these things happen in Oscar annals.

1963 From Russia With Love, the second Bond film, has its world premiere in London and goes on to become an even bigger hit than the franchise launch Dr No.

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Showbiz History: 'Let's Get Physical' with Mildred Pierce

9 random things that happened on this day, September 28th, in showbiz history: 

1935 Comic actor Stan Laurel marries his second wife Virginia Ruth Rogers who will also become his fourth wife. Old Hollywood stars sure did get married and divorced and remarried a lot! The recent underseen biopic Stan & Ollie (2018) looked at Laurel & Hardy's final years after the heyday of their fame, with Steven Coogan as Stan Laurel and Nina Arianda giving yet another great supporting performance as Laurel's fifth and final wife Ida. When is Nina Arianda going to get her due in Hollywood? 

1945 Seventy-five years ago today, noir classic Mildred Pierce starring Joan Crawford opened, reviving her career and winning her the Oscar. (The movie was nominated for 5 additional Oscars including Best Picture). It's a must-see.

Gregg Toland, Martin & Lewis, and Olivia Newton-John after the jump...

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Remembering "Ed Wood" on its 25th

Ed Wood opened nationwide on this very day, 25 years ago. 

by Anna

There’s an admirable irony in that a biopic on the worst director of all time ended up being one of the best-reviewed movies of 1994. The added fact that it ended up being largely ignored by mainstream audiences at the time seems almost fitting. As the second of Burton and Depp’s repeat collaborations, it further set the precedent for all their future collaborations exploring the odd man (in every sense of the term) amid everyday life. But instead of the Frankenstein pastiche that defined their previous film, this one is about someone who has endless stories to tell… even though he doesn’t have the talent to tell them.

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List-Mania: Tim Burton x 5

by Nathaniel R

Since our Dumbo review didn't soar, or even materialize at all (oops), we should definitely turn some attention to Tim Burton today. Instead of a regular Tuesday Top Ten list... we're just going with LISTS plural. To make up for the lack of a proper Dumbo review, we're throwing FIVE of them at you today. While it's true that this decade of his work has left much to be desired, he's actually always been an uneven auteur. All throughout his filmography magic blooms in unexpectedly dire places OR weeds sprout up in otherwise magically lovely gardens if you catch our drift.

Burton is only 60 years old and since he's made films at a roughly one-every-other-year clip for his whole career, we hope he manages to rally his artistic instincts for one more classic before he retires in say, 2031 after another five pictures (spitballing!). He has directed 19 movies and we'd rank them like so...

ALL 19 TIM BURTON PICTURES RANKED

1. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
2. Ed Wood (1994) 
3. Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985)
   Tier 1. Masterpieces of their genres really...  spectacularly niche genres but still! Few films have this kind of consistent magic and uniquely memorable visuals from first frame to last...

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Martin Landau (1928-2017)

Landau at an event honoring Tim Burton last yearWith well over 100 credits to his name no one can say that Martin Landau didn't have a fine and enduring career. But for such a fantastic talent, perhaps he remained undersung. After a brief stint as a cartoonist, he found his calling with acting and nabbed his first TV guest spots in the mid '50s. By the end of the decade he appeared in his first classic (Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest) but it wouldn't be his last. For the remainder of his long long career he toggled between TV (most notably three seasons in the mix of Mission Impossible in the 60s and leading the cult favorite Space 1999 in the 70s) and intermittent movie success.

You can't call it his late 80s/early 90s success a comeback, given that he never quit working, but it was a revival and a rediscovery...

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