Showbiz History: Gyllenhaal's first win, The Witch's release

5 random things that happened on this day, February 19th, in history (as it relates to showbiz)...

1942 /1945 Two historic and tragic days in the history of Japan & US relations. In '42 President FDR ordered Japanese-Americans into internment camps. This shameful moment is rarely dramatized in English-language movies outside of documentaries (surely because Hollywood doesn't love looking at America's own sins) though its shown up in a few like Go For Broke (1951) about Japanese-Americans serving in the US Army at the time and 1990's Come See the Paradise about an interracial family during the war. Later in '45 the US marines invasion of Iwo Jima begins. We recently saw it dramatized, from the Japanese perspective, in Clint Eastwood's Best Picture nominee Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)...

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Horror Actressing: Anya Taylor-Joy in "The Witch"

by Jason Adams

There is model beauty, and then there is movie star beauty, and they overlap less than you'd imagine. The thing about movie stars is they've got faces that are interesting more than they are perfect, and once our interest has found them their so-called "imperfect" curiosities -- Michelle Pfeiffer's mouth, Daniel Day-Lewis' nose, to be all Age of Innocence example about it -- become in turn cache. Nobody was walking into a plastic surgeon's office asking for Michelle Pfeiffer's lips before 1982 but you can be sure there was a spike in such utterances once "Cool Rider" had come and gone.  

I begin with this to say I knew the second I saw Anya Taylor-Joy's eyes that a star was being born right in front of me. I might have actually missed several important details plot-wise watching Robert Egger's The Witch that first time in 2015, so lost was I in trying, and failing, to find footing astride those eyes' ginormous bedevilry. The film opens on them... perched as they're wont on the the two separate sides of her face, anime teardrops wandering in opposite directions. You wanna live deliciously you stare into those eyeballs for an hour and a half, that's my recipe.

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The New Classics: Living Deliciously in "The Witch"

Hey everyone. Michael Cusumano here, excited to be back for a second season of The New Classics (and not just because publishing one of these every Tuesday will help me tell the weeks apart!) Each which we annoint one the best of the 21st century by discussing a single scene. 

Scene: Living Deliciously
The ending of Robert Eggers’ The Witch certainly feels like a happy ending. How could it not, with that final thrilling image of a cackling Thomasin rising nude into the moonlight, embracing her place in Black Phillip’s coven? She has shed her fanatically repressed biological family like she shed her blood-splattered “shift” at Black Phillip’s whispered command, and now she’s off to see the world and taste butter by the churnful. Liberation!

But at what cost?

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Beauty Break: Ram's horns for our Aries readers

The Zodiac calendar begins today so for all of you Aries out there we salute you. Some notable Aries celebrities: Keira Knightley, Reese Witherspoon, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, and Ewan McGregor. So... pretty good company. 

After the jump a beauty break of ram's horns in the movies. Rank them in terms of who makes you horniest? 

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Hopelessly devoted to link

CBS Olivia Newton John, our beloved child hero, is battling cancer for the third time. It's stage four this time but she's determined to outlive the statistics.
MNPP Jake Picking cast as young Rock Hudson in Ryan Murphy's upcoming series Hollywood (which takes place in the 1940s). Exactly how many series does Murphy launch at any one time? No wonder people say The Politician is a mess.

After the jump LGBTQ horror, Angelina ❤️ Michelle, advances in de-aging technology, Animated Feature Oscar hopefuls, and more...

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