Showbiz History: Peanuts Special, Dame Judi, and Young Tom Hardy in Prosthetics

5 random things that happened on this day, December 9th, in showbiz history

1965 "A Charlie Brown Christmas" premieres on CBS, the first of many TV specials (and later feature films) based on Charles M Schultz classic comic strip. It went on to receive a Grammy nomination and win the Emmy for Outstanding Children's Programming and the Peabody, too. 

1988 Mississippi Burning (the first of Frances McDormand's three soon-to-be-four appearances in a Best Picture nominee) and two comedies My Stepmother is an Alien and Twins open in movie theaters...

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109 days 'til Oscar. And the FBI Agent nominees are...

by Nathaniel R

This year marks the 109th anniversary of the FBI. They were founded in 1908 during the Roosevelt administration. This anniversary begs the question -- at least for us Oscar freaks -- of how many actors have been nominated or won Oscars for playing FBI agents? The only one that pops immediately to mind is Jodie Foster as Agent Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs a movie we dug deep into here at The Film Experience last year.

But one can't be the right number. Working for the FBI is a rarity in real life but on the screen it's a different story; FBI agent is up there with doctors, cops, waitresses, lawyers, actors, serial killers, superheroes, and assassins as ubiquitous career goals...

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Happy Birthday, Frances McDormand

Kieran, here. There are certain actors whose absence would create a huge void in cinema. It’s not always the movie stars, despite their merits. It’s often the character actors. The beautiful, interesting, wholly human faces that populate our films, only semi-regularly leaping forward to truly headline a vehicle, but still remaining a vital part of the movies we love. Few actors working today embody this more fully than the wondrously versatile, endlessly watchable Frances McDormand whose entry into the world we celebrate today.

What’s your favorite Frances McDormand performance? Okay...that’s a rhetorical question. We all know what it is. But her filmography is diverse and fascinating to explore, who what's your #2?

Frances McDormand’s 5 Best Movie Performances

 5. Burn After Reading (2008)
Broad, but undeniably funny and completely understanding the tone of the vehicle. Mileage varies in terms of McDormand’s many outings with the Coen Brothers, but it’s almost never uninteresting... 

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