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Film Threat Releases Annual "Frigid 50" List
Filed under: Awards, Celebrities and Controversy, Box Office, Quentin Tarantino, Vintage Image of the Day, Lists, Nicole Kidman  Once again, Film Threat has released its annual list of the Coldest People in Hollywood -- the ones whose careers are in the most trouble according to them. Strangely, the actress I would have thought was the natural contender for #1, Nicole Kidman, only makes #6. Of course, if The Golden Compassis a huge hit, it'll reverse a string of box-office misfortunes. Film Threat's advise is for Kidman to seek a job on George Miller's projected Mad Max 4....
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Vintage Image of the Day: Oscar Nominee Marky Mark
Filed under: Vintage Image of the Day, Oscar Watch 
It was inevitable: the now-distinguished actor Mark Wahlberg is nominated for an Oscar and early, embarrassing photos of the former Funky Bunch rapper come out of the woodwork. It was so difficult to choose the right photo, too, but I had a lot of help from MarkWahlbergFan.com, a site with hundreds of photos throughout Wahlberg's career. I was very tempted to share a photo from Wahlberg's 1993 exercise video, Form ... Focus ... Fitness, the Marky Mark Workout, but none of those pictures showed his cute little baby face. The photo from Renaissance Man of...
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Vintage Image of the Day: Meryl Streep in Manhattan
Filed under: Comedy, Vintage Image of the Day, Oscar Watch 
I started watching movies in earnest at about the same time that Meryl Streep was well known for playing a variety of dramatic characters in serious films. I had little interest in heavyweight prestige films like Out of Africa, Sophie's Choice or Silkwood; my favorite Streep role was one of her earliest, as Woody Allen's ex-wife in the 1979 film Manhattan. Not only did she give us a peek at her masterful comic timing, but as you can see above, she actually looked and sounded like the contemporary Meryl Streep, with no foreign accent or...
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Vintage Image of the Day: Peter O'Toole's a Pussycat
Filed under: Comedy, Vintage Image of the Day, Oscar Watch 
My favorite Peter O'Toole movie -- but O'Toole is glorious fun in any movie. Even if the movie is lame overall, I always love watching O'Toole in it. He's been acting in films since 1960, so there are dozens of unmemorable or downright stinky movies in his filmography. I remember seeing Club Paradise in theaters -- how could it fail with a cast that included Robin Williams, Rick Moranis and Peter O'Toole, and was directed by Harold Ramis? And my first press junket ever was in college for the otherwise forgettable comedy King Ralph;...
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Vintage Image of the Day: Eddie Murphy in Trading Places
Filed under: Comedy, Vintage Image of the Day, Oscar Watch 
I'm continuing to find photos of this year's Academy Award nominees from earlier in their careers. This time it's Eddie Murphy, who's up for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Dreamgirls. My husband and I were in the mood to watch an Eddie Murphy comedy last week, but we didn't think we'd like Norbit. Fortunately, Austin Film Festival was holding a special screening of one of Murphy's first films, Trading Places, the 1983 film in which he co-stars with Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Ackroyd, as shown in the above publicity...
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Vintage Image of the Day: Helen Mirren's Hussy
Filed under: Vintage Image of the Day, Oscar Watch 
With the Oscar ceremony just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to devote Vintage Image of the Day to pictures of the current nominees from years past, as I did last year. I'm starting with the woman generally considered a shoo-in for Best Actress: Helen Mirren. Mirren has been acting for films and television since the late 1960s, so there are plenty of opportunities for interesting photos. She hasn't always played queens and refined ladies, either. One of Mirren's earliest films, the 1969 film Age of Consent, was criticized for showing too much of her,...
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Vintage Image of the Day: Ruth Brown in Hairspray
Filed under: Music & Musicals, Vintage Image of the Day, Obits, Cinematical Indie 
R&B singer Ruth Brown, who was born on this day in 1928, is more likely to be remembered for her musical career than her film appearances. Of her half-dozen or so movie and television roles, the one that leaps to mind is her portrayal of Motormouth Maybelle in the 1988 film Hairspray, as shown above. Brown's flamboyant performance (including the blonde wig) made her a standout in the John Waters movie. As you probably know, the movie was adapted into a Broadway musical, which is being adapted into another movie...
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Vintage Image of the Day: Happy 102, Charles Lane
Filed under: Classics, Vintage Image of the Day, Cinematical Indie 
It's a rare treat to be able to share a photo from a 1930s film featuring an actor who is still with us today. Charles Lane turned 102 on Friday, and has had a long and varied film and television career. He has 328 appearances credited in IMDb, from 1931 to 1995, so you've surely seen him somewhere. The above photo is from You Can't Take It with You, the 1938 adaptation of the Kaufman and Hart play directed by Frank Capra. That's Lionel Barrymore on the left as the grandfather of...
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Vintage Image of the Day: Eat Your Heart Out, Ann Miller
Filed under: Classics, Music & Musicals, Vintage Image of the Day 
Actress/dancer Ann Miller died three years ago yesterday after an amazingly long Hollywood career. She was barely 14 years old (having lied about her age) when she appeared as Ginger Rogers' dance partner in the 1937 film Stage Door, one of my favorite movies, and her last feature film was Mulholland Drive in 2001. In between, her roles included a would-be dancer in You Can't Take it With You, the elegant ex in Easter Parade, and a dancing anthropologist in On...
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Vintage Image of the Day: Solveig Dommartin and Wings of Desire
Filed under: Foreign Language, Vintage Image of the Day, Obits, Cinematical Indie 
The only film in which I've seen French actress Solveig Dommartin has been Wings of Desire, one of my favorite movies, directed by Wim Wenders. I don't own the DVD, because I love watching this gorgeous-looking film in a theater. I first saw the movie in the summer of 1989 when I spent a summer working in London, and at first I thought I hated it. A day later, I realized how much I liked the movie. Before I left London, I bought a gorgeous oversized poster that I...
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