Showbiz History: Hurston's work, Nicole's night, and Fame's debut

7 random things that happened on this day, January 7th, in showbiz history

1891 Best-selling author Zora Neale Hurston is born in Alabama. Where's her biopic? Hell, where are the movies based on her books and plentiful short stories? The only movie length adaptation has been the TV movie Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005). 

1971 Today is the big "5-0" for Jeremy Renner, twice Oscar nominated (The Hurt Locker, The Town), but whose promising gifts were completely swallowed up by a desire to become a franchise star which was both successful in a supporting sense (9 years and counting as Hawkeye in the MCU) and not in the headliner sense (Mission: Impossible... Tom Cruise quickly taking the franchise back, Hansel & Gretel... one and done, The Bourne Legacy... Matt Damon quickly taking the franchise back)...

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The New Classics - The Hurt Locker

Michael Cusumano here to look back on one of the few classics about the Iraq War on the 10th anniversary of its release. 

Scene: The Daisy Chain Bomb
When Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker hit theaters in the Summer of 2009 it was sold as an all-thrills, zero-politics experience. Here, the ads promised, was a film that wasn’t going to go all Valley of Elah on you with ponderous anti-war messages. The trio of soldiers that make up the film’s central bomb disposal unit never discuss politics. They defuse the bombs, they don’t get to hung up on why they are there in the first place. At no point do any of them sigh during a low moment and wonder, “Man, I don’t even know what we’re doing here...”

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Showbiz History: The Hurt Locker, Xena, and a Truly Great Cinematographer

7 random things that happened on this day, September 4th, in showbiz history...

1936 Swing Time is released in movie theaters starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

1945 Happy 73rd birthday to the beyond-talented cinematographer Philippe Rousselot who won the Oscar for Sun-Drenched Ode to Brad Pitt's Golden Beauty (or as they called it in 1992 "A River Runs Through It")... but that's not the half of it. Rousselot is particularly gifted with erotic period dramas: Henry & June, Dangerous Liaisons, and Queen Margot are all utterly sensational to gaze upon...

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Will "Wind River" Find a Second Life?

by Nathaniel R

Last night word spread round that this summer's sleeper success Wind River, about a rape/murder investigation on an reservation, had possibly found a new lease on life. It was a Weinstein Company release this summer -- their only "hit" this year actually -- and that connection was thought to have obviously doomed its chances this awards season following Harvey Weinstein's banishment from Hollywood after the numerous sexual harrassment and rape allegations. 

If you remove that associative stain, though, the film is, in essence, a non-genre sleeper hit aimed squarely at adults and thus theoretically Oscar compatible...

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C O N S I D E R - Favorite Actors of 2017, 3rd Qtr

With only three months of the year to go - eep! -- it's time to look back on the past three months for movies we saw from July through September (excluding films with firm release dates in the next three months). Herewith Nathaniel's 17 favorite male performances from the year's third quarter (plus first week of October to keep us up-to-date), divvied up into three categories.  (Movies with asterisks have not yet been released.)

Did these men speak to you with their turns? 

7 LEADING ACTORS

Daniel Gimenez Cacho as "Don Diego de Zama" in Zama*
One of my favorite Mexican actors. Though I found the film impenetrable, he's always strong.

Harris Dickinson as "Frankie" in Beach Rats
Here's to debuts that reveal both fully-formed star charisma and film-carrying craft

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