Soundtracking: Batman (1989)

by Chris Feil

By now the grim discourse surrounding the arrival of a new version of the beloved Joker feels like a ceaseless, depressing spiral. In the years since Heath Ledger’s genius and revolutionary take on the character, the social context for the clown terrorist has only gotten darker. After a tattoo and grill-clad iteration in Suicide Squad to now Joaquin Pheonix’s take that hews closer to the unwell men who find inspiration in the character in our isolative online era, we seem to be losing the character’s sense of fun in every conceivable way. This franchise needs an enema [kazoo sound]!

The mad balance between Joker’s violence and vibrancy is so skewed, it feels like we need to bring back a different kind of extremity. Like the kind that accompanied Jack Nicholson’s version, that hasn’t gotten its fair share of side-eye. I’m talking about the technicolor earnestness of Prince’s Batman concept album.

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Showbiz History: Jack's first wedding, Susan's best performance...

Random things that happened on this day (June 17th) in film history

1919 Happy Beryl Reid Centennial. The British stage actress didn't make many movies but is perhaps best remembered today for her leading role in the lesbian drama The Killing of Sister George which netted her both a Tony Award on stage and a Golden Globe nomination for its film version. 

1962 Jack Nicholson, pre-superstardom, marries actress Sandra Knight  (their only movie together, The Terror, will be released the next year). The marriage lasted six years. Despite high profile relationships thereafter (Rebecca Broussard, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Anjelica Huston chief among them) Nicholson never tied the knot again.

1988 It was quite an actressy weekend in movie theaters...

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2 days til Oscar. Offscreen Oscar pairs

by Nathaniel R

With just 2 days to go until Oscar let's talk famous couples who've both been Oscar blessed. This year we have loved the offscreen symmetry of A Star is Born's Sam Elliott finally having an Oscar nomination to match his beautiful wife's; Katharine Ross was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Graduate (1967) and now Elliott has a matching nomination in Supporting Actor just before their 25th wedding anniversary. They were married around the time Elliott started work on Mask (1985) and Ross started work on the Dynasty spinoff The Colbys (1985-1987). They co-starred together just last year (albeit briefly) when Ross played Elliott's character's ex-wife in The Hero (2017).

It's fairly rare for two members of a couple to win or be nominated for Oscars while they're together (lots of Hollywood relationships being short-lived) but the gold standard is surely Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward...

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Top 10: Oscar's All Time Favorite Leading Men

by Nathaniel R

I was shocked to realize that De Niro, Hanks, Penn, and Pacino -- none of them made the top ten!

Okay okay. Since we did Supporting Men and Supporting Women during the summer, I figured we should complete the set. Who are Oscar's 10 favorite leading men? We'll work the ranking like so: Nominations count most, with wins acting like half a nomination to help determine rank. The tiebreaker is the spread of time of nominations which can denote either long term fandom on the Academy's part or shortlived enthusiasms. If there's still a tie at that point, other Oscar statistics (like if they were nominated for producing or supporting or whatnot) break the tie.

Only 20 men throughout film history have scored 5 or more nominations for Best Lead Actor and though this year's currently pulsing competition for Best Actor is chalk full of previous nominees, none of them are regulars to that degree. Here are the ten runners up followed by the all-time top ten list... 

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Tues Top 10: Oscar's All Time Favorite Supporting Actors

by Nathaniel R

Tommy Lee Jones in JFKLet's discuss Oscar hiearchies, again. This one is ultra specific but we're doing it for balance since we did the supporting actresses last week. Who are Oscar's 10 favorite supporting actors of all time? We'll work the ranking like so: Supporting nominations count most, with wins acting like half a nomination to help determine rank. The tiebreaker is the spread of time of nominations which can denote either long term fandom on the Academy's part or shortlived enthusiasms.

In contrast to supporting actress where the leaders were clear and the nomination counts higher but among fewer people, very narrow statistics separated all of the runners up from the top ten. Though if you must know, the unlucky #11 was Tommy Lee Jones, who would have ranked 5th on the top ten had he won the Oscar for Lincoln AS HE SHOULD HAVE. But we'll discuss Tommy and the 7 other working actors who almost made the list after the top ten under "who's next?". But for now a shout out to the departed. They left behind great performances and almost made this list: 

• Gig Young (1951, 1958, 1969*)
• Martin Landau (1988, 1989, 1994*)
• Charles Coburn (1941, 1943*, 1946)
• Melvyn Douglas (1963*, 1979*)
• Philip Seymour Hoffman (2007, 2008, 2012)
• Charles Bickford (1943, 1947, 1948)
• Anthony Quinn (1952*, 1956*)

okay on to the top ten list...

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