Great Big Box Office Hits: The year's biggest hit by an enormous margin was James Cameron's Terminator 2 Judgment Day(which has aged spectacularly well). The other major blockbusters were Kevin Costner's hit Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and Steven Spielberg's Hook. The big sleeper hit of the year was The Silence of the Lambs. Other hits that year included City Slickers, Backdraft, Sleeping With the Enemy,The Addams Family and the remakes of Father of the Bride and Cape Fear.
Oscar's Best Picture Nominees: Most people remember 1991 as the year of Silence of the Lambs (7 noms / 5 wins) but many Oscar fanatics remember it just as clearly for another milestone...
Playbill Danny Boyle may direct the film version of the Broadway musical Miss Saigon First Impressions a deep dive revisit of Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring "Sofia Coppola is a great filmmaker, in every way the equal of anyone of her generation" Daily News sad story about the disappearance of Richard Simmons. Fans think he's being controlled and held in his mansion against his will like the second half of the Love & Mercy plot
Film Doctor "the pleasure of withholding information" on 10 Cloverfield Lane Awards Daily have you watched the trailer for A Hologram for the King? How will it adapt the book? AV Club thinks Zootopia is the inversion of Wreck It Ralph. Spoilers EW Paramount has dumped The Little Prince animated movie just a week before its intended release. What is going on with that picture? YouTube Anna Kendrick and Stephen Colbert are huge Stephen Sondheim fans E! Adorable photo of the Malia and Sasha Obama w/ Ryan Reynolds Vogue Lourdes Leon (aka Spawn of Madonna) makes her modelling debut for Stella McCartney
Showtune to go It's Liza Minelli's birthday. Do your best Fosse in her honor...
French Toast Sunday 5 best summer movies? Confession: I have never seen Crooklyn but always wanted to. Gawker on Cher's wiggy performance on The Voice The Local did you hear this story about how a French teacher an 11 year-old class Saw? WTF? At least pick a classic horror with artistic historical merit. Guardian the next Star Wars sequels are looking for a teenage female lead? Whoa. I guess Hunger Games and Twilight are even more influential than they appear to be
VarietyMiss Saigon is returning to the boards but I'm personally still curious as to why the movie version has never happened? My New Plaid Pants the three things you need to see from the Anchorman 2 trailer Los Angeles Times Show Tracker the women of Mad Men speak about the impending end Film Flare awww, I had totally forgotten about "Elizabeth Taylor" on Sex & the City The Cinematic Katzenjammer Shailene Woodley cut from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (ahem, 5). What, no Mary Jane? Seems odd to cut her just as her star is rising Empire speaking of which. Here's more on her Hunger Games which is called Divergent Hark, A Vagrant! takes on The Secret Garden
On Leo... Awards Daily asks why Leonardo DiCaprio is so often ignored by the Academy (brought on by TheWolf of Wall Street trailer). I know he has many devout fans and I am often criticized for not adoring him wholeheartedly these days but I disagree (and muchly) with the notion that his work has improved with age. I still think he has beautiful moments in several of his recent star turns but as a whole from film to film he is not pushing himself and is deeply repetitive in his acting choices (not just in the surface role similarities I've mocked like his run through The Dead Wives Club).
But I harbor no illusions that the Academy shares my opinion of his gift...
I think it's as simple as this: Leading Men who are considered beautiful always have to fight harder for Oscar love. That's all there is to it (well, that and them preferring five other people each time he's missed out). Paul Newman and Jeff Bridges, two of the best screen actors of all time, didn't win until their 60s and Leo isn't nearly that good! Plus he's only 38 years old. Leo has the same amount of acting nominations as Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp and the similarities are instantly noticeable, aren't they? Good looking marquee value men who are often viewed as STARS first, ACTORS second (whether or not that's an accurate description). I have no doubt Leo will eventually win -- and I think nominations will be much easier to come by in his 40s after whatever hiatus he plans to take -- but I think if it doesn't happen for him with Wolf, he'll have to wait until at least his mid40s and possibly much longer as many desirable leading men have had to in the past. I'm not sure why everyone expects the rules to be different for this one actor. The question of why not yet is as simple as the male dominated Oscar's completely obvious binary gender standards: they usually like to award female actors for being young and hot and, to some extent, new; and they usually like to award male actors for their bodies of work when they have stood the test of time (and are less sexually threatening).
This Sunday... Oooh, I totally wanna watch this. Oprah is talking to four black actresses on their unique struggles in Hollywood on her new network. (Do I even get this network? I do not know)
Alfre Woodard (that's enough right there!), Viola Davis (YES), Phyllicia Rashad (makes sense) and Gabrielle Union (Bring it!) which is a classy lineup, don'cha think?
Sunday, July 19, 2020 at 2:18PM 
