Tweetweek

Another collection of showbiz-related tweets curated for you for laughs, thought experiments, and discussion.

Who’s ready pic.twitter.com/hndg4Pk6kD

— Russell (@RussellFalcon) October 7, 2021

More after the jump including residual check lols, a very true hot take on Passing, Timothee Chalamet as Willy Wonka, and the death of the Sunset Boulevard dream...

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Showbiz History: John Wayne's Oscar, Altman's Nashville, JLaw's Record

by Nathaniel R

John Wayne in "The Big Trail (1930)" and in "True Grit (1969)"

This day in history is a big one of Hollywood's most popular stars, John Wayne. His career began, as most did in the early days of Hollywood, with uncredited parts in silent films but he became a leading man once the talkies hit. Perhaps he needed that distinctive slow-crawl dirt road voice to stand out? He had his first leading role at just 23 years of age with The Big Trail. True stardom didn't hit, though, until Stage Coach (1939) after which, he was top-billed for the remainder of his career. On this very day in 1969 True Grit premiered in Los Angeles. The role of Rooster Cogburn would net him his third Oscar nomination and prove to be something of a career capper when he took home the Best Actor Oscar. (Jeff Bridges would later be Oscar-nominated for the same role in the 2010 Coen brothers remake). Not one to rest -- Wayne holds the record of most leading roles for an American movie star with *gasp* 142 of them -- the western icon kept right on working through The Shootist in 1976. On this same day in history in 1979, ten years after people first met Rooster Cogburn, Wayne died of stomach cancer. He remains one of the most iconic stars in Hollywood history.

What else was happening on this day in showbiz history? Find out after the jump...

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Willy Wonka Reboot Unstuck In The Warner Bros. Pipeline

by Daniel Crooke

If a major Hollywood studio acquires the legal rights to the key role in a beloved, recently deceased performer's legacy, is its tone still deaf? Warner Bros. will learn the answer to this question in due time as it develops a new Willy Wonka film after nearly a year of deal-closing with the Roald Dahl estate to own the cinematic future of the literary creation. While the intellectual property lays in Dahl's estate, it's fair to say that Wonka's iconography may belong more readily to the late Gene Wilder's beloved performance in the children's classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Variety reports that Warner Bros. plans to pop the whimsical chocolatier into his own standalone film (sans bratty children) but has made sure to point out that this won't necessarily be an origin story. This will mark the third effort to bring Wonka to the screen - lest we forget the ill-advised bob on Johnny Depp's iteration - but the first time he will serve as central protagonist. While we've seen quicker reboots of the Spider-Man variety - this, a decade; that, three - time isn't the issue with this one but the question of whether or not a studio should tamper at all with such precious goods. Is it fair game to revive the Wonka brand or should Warner Bros. let him rest in peace?

RIP Gene Wilder (1933 - 2016)

Comedy legend Gene Wilder has passed away, after complications with Alzheimer's disease. He served as Mel Brooks's leading player, producing such classics as Blazing Saddles, The Producers and Young Frankenstein. After those films, he also frequently starred opposite Richard Pryor. But to many he will always be remembered for the hilarious sly cruelty of his Willy Wonka, a performance that seen from a childhood gaze is awe-inspiring and warm only to become more delectably rotten in adulthood.

After the passing of his wife Gilda Radner (Wilder also had his own battle with cancer), he mostly stepped out of the spotlight, leaving those mentioned behemoths to speak for his legacy. For me, his Frederic Frankensteen is the one that sticks - all barking neuroses and feigned composure while lampooning the heightened acting styles of Universal horror classics. The performance is so physical and modulated to extremes that his comedy becomes like a set piece, a spectacle worth coming back to again and again.

What are your favorite Gene Wilder memories?

The Big Not-So-Friendly Author

The full trailer for The BFG has dropped, and we’ve already looked at the teaser here which left us tingling with magic anticipation. Now that we’ve got more footage, including that of the big man himself we can feel as cosy and content Sophie under a big blanket reading a book that we’re in good hands. Spielberg was infamously interested in directing the first Harry Potter film, and perhaps this is the next best thing for him which has that splash of family friendly fantasy mixed with classic E.T. kids-on-an-adventure feel. That moment when the BFG is hiding in the shadows, obscuring the street light with his hand already feels classic.

It’s encouraging to see that Spielberg is taking the content seriously, and hasn’t resorted to making The BFG as a character a comedy act, which would have been the easy route for a kid’s film. Rylance seems to bring the soulfulness that makes the source material so rich. What is yet to be seen is whether Spielberg embraces the sneaky and dark side of notoriously prickly Roald Dahl’s writing which so many filmmakers have struggled with in the past. Dahls balance of the sinister and the joyously fantastic is what makes his legacy so beloved. Spielberg has a propensity for the earnest and sickly sweet side of cinema, so this may be a shiner version of the tale. Other filmmakers have had ranging success in capturing his style.

Previous Roald Dahl on screen after the jump…

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