Showbiz History: Sandra Oh, Operation Valkyrie, and yet more Batman?

Since the right now is so depressing let us look back into showbiz history for (mostly) easier things to think about then the here and now.

wee Natalie Wood with cat

11 random things that happened on this day (July 20th) in relation to showbiz history...

1930 Sally Ann Howes born in London. She starred as "Truly Scrumptious" in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She's one of the 200 oldest living screen stars. Happy 88th, Scrumptious!

1938 Natasha Gurdin born in San Francisco to immigrant parents. Five years later she makes her screen debut as "Natalie Wood" and becomes one of the rare child stars whose fame only grows as she ages...

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Podcast Pre-Oscar Show. What Are We Rooting For?

Katey (with her little Charlie in tow) rejoins Nathaniel and Nick to discuss our hopes for Oscar night and various mini conversations on Moana, Moonlight, Arrival, La La Land, Suicide Squad, and many more...

Index (43 minutes)
00:01 Animated, Screenplays
08:30 Cinematography, Costumes
16:11 Production Design, Editing
21:00 VFX, Makeup, Score, Song, Sound
30:00 Actor, Supporting Acting
38:00 Documentaries, Actress
41:08 Musical sign-off silliness!

With of course much name dropping and detours including Hacksaw Ridge, JK Rowling, Annette Bening, Viola Davis, Weiner, Janelle Monae, and Michael Shannon. 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Pre-Oscar Show Pt 2: What we're rooting for

Guilds-a-palooza: More honors for La La Land, Moonlight, Arrival, and... Suicide Squad

Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and Eric Heisserer (Arrival) each won a WGA last night. But they're in the same category at the Oscars.

Last night's Writers Guild Awards were a good sign that Moonlight will take Adapted Screenplay. Competing in Original with WGA (Oscar's writing branch put it in adapted) it blocked La La Land or Manchester from taking that prize. With less fearsome competition at the Oscars it should be able to win... although to do that it will have to fend off the surging Lion and the well regarded Arrival which took home the WGA prize for Adapted and is up for the same prize at the Oscars.

Extensive writing and makeup guild honors after the jump...

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Links: Colossal's Trailer, Moana's Brothers, Namor's Rights

Coming Soon Colossal, that kaiju movie starring Anne Hathaway that we told you about at least year's TIFF is coming out this year and it has such a cute poster (pictured left) and the trailer is also here.
Deadline good interview with Octavia Spencer on why she did Hidden Figures and diversity in film
Coming Soon here's a super duper strange news item. Kenneth Lonergan is writing an miniseries adaptation of Howards End to star Hayley Atwell. Never mind that there's zero chance of improving on Merchant & Ivory's 1992 masterpiece!
Variety what does the Academy look for in an Original Song nominee and winner?
Tracking Board what makes a TV pilot script a success?
In Contention profiles former sound mixing partners nominated against each other for the first time for Hacksaw Ridge and 13 Hours
THR an anonymous source talks about the lack of shame in Hollywood around the gender imbalance in the director's chair 
MNPP pays tribute to sexy German actor Clemens Schick
/Film the Jurassic World sequel has started production

Playbill a deleted scene from Moana - she had many brothers in an original draft
Playbill Fathom Events is showing the filmed movie of Disney's Broadway version of Newsies starring Jeremy Jordan today (and a couple of other dates within the next week)
Coming Soon I didn't think I could want to see Suicide Squad 2 any less than I already did. I was wrong. Mel Gibson is in talks to direct 
/Film the latest rumor has it that Marvel Studios is secretly working on a Namor film. I don't believe this one personally because since Namor is a mutant I assume his right are locked up with Fox (though the article mentions they were once with Universal). Fox owns most of the mutant characters due to their extensive X-Men contract and even if Namor doesn't fall under that (since he's rarely thought of as an X-Universe character he is much more closely associated with Fantastic Four which Fox also owns.
Film School Rejects a call for more wangs on screen -- and this from a straight dude so everyone is noticing that they refuse to show 'em - even in sex movies like 50 Shades
Variety the hilarious Constance Wu (Fresh Off the Boat) is in talks to headline a new romantic comedy called Crazy Rich Asians 

Cinematic Shame... with a "Stay Positive!" Twist

Year in Review. Every day a new wrap-up. Tonight, the "worst" of the year... 

Since we are absolutely determined to make 2017 the greatest year it could possibly be despite oppressive circumstances, let this post serve as last call for excessive negativity. Get it all out of your system in the comments, mkay? We'll also put a positive spin on these dubious "awards" for ungreat things at the movie theaters this year... 

WORST OPENING SCENE(S)
Hacksaw Ridge begins with such overworked hokey cartoonish Americana and Andrew Garfield plays his eventual pacifist hero as such a Forrest Gump style village idiot that it's something of a miracle that the movie becomes a surprisingly watchable war drama thereafter.

Even Garfield manages to turn his initially quite awful (sorry) performance around in the final hour of the film. I personally haven't seen a decent / good movie start so much like it was a terrible movie since Juno, have you?

WORST MIDDLE
Suicide Squad is so inept that it never gets past character introductions. Criticisms that it was just a movie trailer with a real movie running time proved to have deadlier aim than Will Smith's Deadshot.

Best Acting in Bad Movies, and other "Honors" after the jump.... 

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