Podcasts about best supporting actress oscar

We're back with an Oscar winner this week. Regina King came to prominence in the early '90s for her roles in Boyz n the Hood, Jerry Maguire and Enemy of the State. She only became more prominent through the 2000s with roles in A Cinderella Story and The Boondocks. An accomplished director in her own right, King has directed multiple TV episodes and the film One Night in Miami... In 2018, she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk. King has continued to act and direct, with great success in the likes of Netflix's The Harder They Fall and Shirley. Andrew Twitter: @Andrew_Carroll0 Stephen Twitter: @StephenPorzio I Know That Face Twitter: @IKnowThatFaceP1 / Instagram: @iknowthatface / Facebook: @iknowthatfacepod Edited by Andrew Carroll and Stephen Porzio Intro and Outro Music: No Boundaries (motorik groove) by Keshco. Licence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nothing Like the Sun, or as it is written on the album, "...Nothing Like the Sun,"  is the second solo studio album by former Police bassist and front man Sting.  The title comes from Shakespeare's sonnet number 130 which contains the lines, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun."  Sting was met on the street one evening, who asked him, "How beautiful is the moon?"  Sting responded with this line from the sonnet.  Two events play a lot of influence on this album.  First, Sting's mother died in 1986, inspiring the lyrics to the opening track, "Lazarus Heart."  Second Sting joined the Conspiracy of Hope tour for Amnesty International, and through this tour was exposed to victims of government oppression in Latin America.  He was particularly moved by people in Chile for whom loved ones had "disappeared" in government actions, and wrote "They Dance Alone" as a description of the mourners who would dance the traditional Cueca by themselves with a picture of their loved ones pinned to their clothes.Sting's first solo album leaned into jazz.  This second album continues to have a jazz influence but reaches across a number of other genres including reggae, funk, acoustic rock, soft rock, and world music.  He brought in a number of solid musicians into the recording sessions including Gil Evans, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Branford Marsalis, and even his fellow Police alumnus Andy SummersSting would continue to further success after this album, which peaked at number 9 on the Billboard 200 chart.  In the UK, ...Nothing Like the Sun debuted and peaked at number 1 on the UK albums chart.Bruce presents this adult contemporary album for this week's podcast. Be Still My Beating HeartThis second single from the album went to number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.  The lyrics are quite mature, describing the head telling the heart to settle down in the midst of an intense romance.  The title was likely inspired by a 19th Century poem from Mary Elizabeth Coleridge.  Andy Summers is playing guitar on this track.  Little WingMost of this album is original music written by Sting, but this one is a deeper cut and a cover.  Jimi Hendrix wrote "Little Wing" in 1967, and it appears on his "Axis" album.  Gil Evans did a jazz arrangement of this piece in 1974, and provided this arrangement and backing with his orchestra for this cover.  Sting's version runs just over 5 minutes, giving it a run time just over double that of the original Hendrix version.  Rock SteadyAnother deep cut, this song is Stings humorous look at a couple who have volunteered to join a cruise, and later find out that they are joining Noah on the Ark.  "Life may be tough, but we're sailing with the Lord."  FragileThis is the fourth single from the album, and is a gorgeous acoustic piece.  This anti-war song was likely inspired by Sting's work with Amnesty International. ENTERTAINMENT TRACK:That's Amore by Dean Martin (from the motion picture “Moonstruck”) This romance comedy starring Cher and Nicolas Cage delivered a Best Actress Oscar to Cher and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar to Olympia Dukakis.  STAFF PICKS:The Promise by When In RomeRob starts this week's staff picks with the only hit from a British new wave trio.  This track went to number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and became a popular song to play at weddings later on.  It gained a revival in popularity when it was used in the soundtrack to "Napoleon Dynamite" in 2004.  Got My Mind Set On You by George HarrisonLynch brings us a cover of a song originally written by Rudy Clark and recorded by James Ray in 1962.  It is off Harrison's comeback album, "Cloud Nine."  Harrison worked with Jeff Lynne on the album because he wanted a producer who wouldn't be intimidated by working with a Beatle.  The teamwork went well, and the two would go on to form "The Traveling Wilburys" supergroup shortly thereafter.Dude (Looks Like a Lady) by AerosmithWayne features one of many hits from Aerosmith's monster "Permanent Vacation" album.  The lyrics tell the tale of a man finding out that the "girl" he has bee pursuing at a club was a man dressed up as a woman.  The idea for the song came from Motley Crue singer Vince Neil being mistaken frequently for a woman with long blonde hair.Mission by RushBruce closes out the staff picks with a song which arose from a conversation between Neal Peart and Geddy Lee about the perception people have that the rich and famous have easier lives.  The lyrics reflect how every life has its own difficulties, and perhaps those who are highly successful would often wish for a more plain and settled life at times.   INSTRUMENTAL TRACK:Bailando/Aquatic Park by Carlos SantanaGuitar virtuoso Carlos Santana takes us out this week with a track from his solo album, "Blues for Salvador." Thanks for listening to “What the Riff?!?” NOTE: To adjust the loudness of the music or voices, you may adjust the balance on your device. VOICES are stronger in the LEFT channel, and MUSIC is stronger on the RIGHT channel.Please follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/whattheriffpodcast/, and message or email us with what you'd like to hear, what you think of the show, and any rock-worthy memes we can share.Of course we'd love for you to rate the show in your podcast platform!**NOTE: What the Riff?!? does not own the rights to any of these songs and we neither sell, nor profit from them. We share them so you can learn about them and purchase them for your own collections.

For our "Two Shot" episode of Best Supporting Acting Winners, Madeline, Julian and Emilio keep things local, and with the help of actor/teacher/fight director Ron Piretti, they dive into both film adaptations of the beloved musical 'West Side Story'.  Both the Jerome Robbins original and the Steven Spielberg remake have the distinction of earning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in their respective years for their portrayals of the same character, Anita, by Rita Moreno in 1961 and Ariana DeBose in 2021.  In addition to exploring what makes Anita such an indelible and celebrated character, the group explores the ways in which the remake expands the world its characters inhabit, discuss which character portrayals they enjoyed the most, how the climactic "Rumble" is depicted on stage vs on film, the effect that differences in the order of musical numbers has on the greater narrative, and much more! Ron Piretti is a teaching artist for The Barrow Group in NYC, and you can find him and his work at ronpiretti.netIf you enjoy our podcast, please rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice.  This really helps us find new listeners and grow!Follow us on IG and TikTok: @sleeplesscinematicpodSend us an email at sleeplesscinematicpod@gmail.comOn Letterboxd? Follow Julian at julian_barthold and Madeline at patronessofcats       

Girl, Interrupted was the 70th-highest grossing movie of 1999, released in a very limited run just before Christmas to make it eligible for awards season. It would ultimately go on to earn $48 million worldwide on a $40 million budget. Directed and co-written by Copland director James Mangold from the memoir "Girl, Interrupted" by Susanna Kaysen, the film was a longtime dream project for star Winona Ryder, who fought hard for years to get it made. It was presented as obvious Oscar bait, but the film had a mixed response from audiences and critics, who found it uneven and lacking a narrative core. Still, Girl, Interrupted earned universal praise for its performances, including the breakthrough one from Angeline Jolie, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as the sociopathic Lisa. It was also praised for what at the time was an unusually nuanced and sensitive portrayal of mental health disorders. But how has Girl, Interrupted aged? Was it too ahead of its time, or is it too of its time to stand on its own today? John and Julia welcomed Film Twitter superstar Jane Altoids for her take. Jane is on Twitter @staticbluebat

The movie musical makes a big-time comeback in 2002 with Rob Marshall's adaptation of the Broadway hit Chicago.  Catherine Zeta-Jones takes home a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her efforts, in addition to the coveted Best Picture award. Christy Cuomo and Kevin Howard round out the guest list for this fun discussion!Follow us: Instagram Facebook Watch us on YouTube!

Everything Beyoncé touches turns into solid gold soul, even country music.Her latest single, 'Texas Hold ‘Em,' is a number one hit on the Billboard country charts, making her the first black woman to ever achieve such a milestone in a genre of music that, despite its roots in black culture, has traditionally excluded artists of color.Even Dolly Parton is a big fan and congratulated her on social media. But whenever you break a boundary, there's bound to be some backlash.Today comedian Matt Brown joins us to talk about the popularity of Beyonce's Texas Hold ‘Em, and how popular culture is a powerful tool in breaking down barriers of inequality.Listen as we look back on the new documentary Thriller 40 that examines how Michael Jackson's album Thriller changed the face of music and helped hip-hop go mainstream, The Color Purple Musical Film gets a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for Danielle Brooks and Matt's third part docu series on Whitney Houston's musical style is now live his YouTube channel Black Music Archive.FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM:★ instagram.com/faustofernos★ instagram.com/marcfelion★ instagram.com/msbrowncomedyBLACK MUSIC ARCHIVE: ★ https://www.youtube.com/BlackMusicArchivePlus--➤ Did Beyoncé's “Texas Hold ‘Em” rip off the theme song from Franklin the Turtle, a Canadian Kids cartoon? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AWr-E7ZnuuY➤ Ricky Martin has a foot fetish.➤ LGBTQ sections of popular news sites close up shop. Yikes. What does this mean for you and me?➤ Barbara Streisand says not looking like the girls in the magazine was critical to her success.

"Welcome to your Black History Moment, presented by Tigress315Radio. Join us in celebrating the rich tapestry of African American culture. Follow us and catch the vibes on tigress315radio.com or various music streams. Let's honor the legacy together!" Whoopi Goldberg Before being an established host on the View, Whoopi Goldberg established herself as a successful actress. Before her fame, many people doubted her acting skills because of her looks and skin color. But she didn't let that stop her and soon became one of the few actresses who has ever won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony award. Goldberg won a Best Actress Golden globe in 1985 for her role in, The Color Purple, and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Ghost in 1990.     

Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "West Side Story". --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rocky-seale7/message

The name ANNE REVERE may not ring a bell to many today, but during the 1940s, the Broadway-trained, Tony-winning actress, who was a descendant of Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere, was one of the most revered character actresses in Hollywood. She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1944 for National Velvet and left an indelible mark on the landscape of film as Gregory Peck's sympathetic mother in Gentleman's Agreement in 1947. Learn about her life, career, and the shameful witch hunt of an obsessed Wisconsin Senator looking to make a name for himself that ended her brilliant Hollywood career. _________________________________________ Sources: The Film Encyclopedia (1994), By Ephraim Katz;  Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia (1994), by Leonard Maltin; The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist: Seventy-Five Years Later (2022), by Larry Ceplair; Un-American Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era (2007), by Peter Stanfield, et. al; Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Black List (2012), by Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle; “Anne Revere Begins Again” by Robert Fray, After Dark magazine, December 1970;  “Anne Revere Bio,” Spartacus Educational, by John Simon; “Horse Sense: What I Learned About Bring A Mother From ‘National Velvet's' Arminty Brown,” by Dana Stevens, Slate.com, April 11, 2014; “Anne Revere, 87, Actress, Dies; Was Movie Mother of Many Stars,” by Peter B. Flint, The New York Times, December 19, 1990; imdb.com; _____________________________________________ http://www.airwavemedia.com Please contact sales@advertisecast.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Randa and Dee from the Switchblade Sisters Social Club podcast join Flixwatcher to review Randa's choice I, Tonya. I, Tonya (2017) is mockumentary biographical sports film that follows the life and career of American figure skater Tonya Harding and her involvement in the assault of Nancy Kerrigan that led to the end of her professional skating career. Directed by Craig (Lars and the Real Girl) Gillespie it stars Margot Robbie as Tonya (earning her a Best Actress Oscar nomination), Allison Janney as LaVona Golden, Tonya's abusive mother (winner her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar), Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gillooly, Tonya's abusive ex-husband and Paul Walter Hauser as Shawn Eckardt, Jeff's friend and partner in the assault on Nancy Kerrigan. I, Tonya blurs the lines between fact and fiction, using the Rashomon effect to tell story of Tonya's rise to fan and the infamous incident, what is clear though is that Tonya was let down by everyone and suffered discrimination that other skaters didn't face. The recommendability scores for I, Tonya were very high and due to Randa's peference for watching films on her phone for small screen to give an impressive overall rating of 4.21.   [supsystic-tables id=323]   Episode #310 Crew Links Thanks to the Episode #310 Crew of Diana and Randa from @ssscpodcast You can find their website here And at https://switchbladesisterssocialclub.com/     Please make sure you give them some love   More about I, Tonya For more info on I, Tonya you can visit I, Tonya IMDB page here or I, Tonya Rotten Tomatoespage here. Final Plug! Subscribe, Share and Review us on iTunes If you enjoyed this episode of Flixwatcher Podcast you probably know other people who will like it too! Please share it with your friends and family, review us, and join us across ALL of the Social Media links below. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the Alternative Oscars! AKA the Anders and Adam-emy Awards: Each episode we pick a different year in Oscars history and attempt to correct the record, stripping the undeserving of their garlands while recognizing those who were cruelly overlooked. This time, we will be casting our eye back to… the 69th Academy Awards. It was held March 24th 1997 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California and hosted by Billy Crystal. The big winner that night was Anthony Minghella's epic romance The English Patient starring Ralph Fiennes, Willem Dafoe, Kristen Scott Thomas and Juliette Binoche, who went home with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar that night. It won 9 Oscars out of its 12 nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. It won over films like Fargo, Secrets & Lies, Jerry Maguire and Shine. Did it deserve to win? Listen to the episode and find out! Subscribe/Follow and check out the rest of the podcast!Listen to and check out all the episodes we recommended to each other during Lockdown here on Letterboxd.Check out Anders's review of the Netflix show Beef!Follow us at @holmesmoviespod.Follow Adam Holmes at @NorthamptonDane.Follow Anders Holmes at @fabricius91.Also check us out on Letterboxd!AndersAdam Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to this week's episode of Hollywolves. Here are the top stories making headlines this week:Firstly, the entertainment industry is mourning the loss of two legends, Lance Riddick and Bobby Caldwell, who passed away this week. Riddick was a prolific actor, known for his roles in hit TV shows and films, while Caldwell was a renowned R&B singer and musician.In music news, Eurovision 2023 could have potentially made history by featuring entries from UK and Germany by Asian artists. The move would have been hailed as a step towards greater diversity and representation in the music industry. However, the collaboration between rapper Doechii and controversial colorist and convicted rapist Kodak Black is causing controversy online, with many calling for a boycott of their work.In film news, Angela Bassett lost out on the Best Supporting Actress Oscar this year, despite being a favorite to win. Fans were disappointed with the result and took to social media to express their disappointment.Meanwhile, there are concerns that TikTok could be banned in the US due to security concerns. The social media platform has been the subject of scrutiny from lawmakers in recent months.In the superhero movie news, the Synderverse event will be happening soon commerating Zack Snyder's prolific movie run for DC superhero films. However, rumors are circulating that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has blocked the appearance of his character, Black Adam, in the upcoming Shazam 2 film.Speaking of Shazam 2, the highly-anticipated superhero sequel has finally hit theaters, and the Hollywolves discuss give their review of the movie. Also, Matt reveals his secret crush. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 2023 Oscars were this week, and Jamie Lee Curtis walked away with Best Supporting Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Kevin Milne talked about her first interview after the fact and addressed her response to a question about what her Oscar-nominated parents may have thought from beyond the grave. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Silicon Valley Bank failed on Friday after many people who have tried to get their money out of the bank. The bank does not have enough money to give to their customers. Tiger Woods is going back at his ex-girlfriend who is suing him for $30M saying that they did not have any type of agreement. Angela Bassett lost the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to Jaime Lee Curtis and people are upset that she was snubbed, AGAIN. Black Twitter reacted to Angela Bassett losing and the RSMS crew asked why do we keep going if we keep losing. The Rickey Smiley Morning Show talked about Daylight Savings Time and how many people do not like it anymore. Listen to find out what percentage of the country wants to get rid of it. Tyrese has said that he was off his rocker when he was on social media making all of those claims. He said he was taking anti-depression meds and it made him say things that weren't true. And Shaq is said to finally be a billionaire. AND MUCH MORE!!!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Battle4Freedom (2023) Transcendental Hurtitation - Remote Indignation SyndromeWebsite: http://www.battle4freedom.comNetwork: https://www.mojo50.comStreaming: https://www.rumble.com/c/Battle4FreedomStreaming LIVE on RUMBLE @ https://rumble.com/v2cwxhs-battle4freedom-2023-transcendental-hurtitation-remote-indignation-syndrome.html-- Isaiah 1:17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.Deuteronomy 10:18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.-- Killing those who train men to fish!-- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11849277/Home-Depot-founder-Bernie-Marcus-warns-Americans-wake-woke-Silicon-Valley-Bank-goes-bust.htmlHome Depot founder Bernie Marcus warns Americans to 'wake up' after 'woke' Silicon Valley Bank goes bust - because it was 'more concerned about global warming than shareholder returns'-- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11850687/Indiana-University-School-Medicine-forcing-year-students-sex-gender-primer.htmlIndiana University School of Medicine is forcing first year students to take woke 'sex and gender primer' lessons that claim cervical cancer screenings should be offered to 'people' not 'women' in order to be inclusive-- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11841385/60-MILLION-Americans-households-multigenerational.html'Who's making dinner?' Record 60 MILLION Americans are now living in multigenerational households as spiraling living costs force retirees, adult children and grandkids to move under one roof-- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11851403/Gun-pulled-man-maced-face-family-drag-event-Ohio.htmlGun pulled and man maced in the face as Neo-Nazis, 'White Lives Matter' protesters and Proud Boys clash with rainbow-clad LGBTQ supporters at a family drag event in Ohio-- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-11852477/Oscars-2023-Angela-Bassetts-reaction-losing-Supporting-Actress-gong-goes-viral.html'Sore loser is never a good look!' Angela Bassett's crestfallen reaction to losing Best Supporting Actress Oscar to Jamie Lee Curtis goes viral - as fans claims star was ROBBED of gong-- https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an-anti-abortion-judge-overseeing-a-texas-lawsuit-that-could-ban-an-abortion-pill-wanted-to-delay-announcing-the-hearing-date-the-washington-post-reported/ar-AA18xfddAn anti-abortion judge overseeing a Texas lawsuit that could ban an abortion pill wanted to delay announcing the hearing date, The Washington Post reported-- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11851449/Stanford-APOLOGIZES-pious-dean-equity-joined-woke-student-mob-taunting-him.htmlStanford APOLOGIZES after pious dean of 'equity' joined her woke student mob in taunting a Trump-appointed judge who was invited to speak on campus

Happy Oscars Week!Morgan and Chels are joined by friend, Oscar historian, and Glenn Close enthusiast Kevin Jacobsen of And the Runner-Up Is to share their Top 3 favorite Best Supporting Actress Oscar winners. Awards are upon us and it's always fun to reflect on past Oscar winners and actresses are forever the most fun. We look back on the gals that left the biggest impressions on us, broke barriers, and made heartbreak feel good. Subscribe and leave us a review!Follow Kevin!And the Runner-Up IsAwardsWatch Follow us!TwitterInstagramCover Art by the incredible Grace Aki

The first of a two-part series on the short-lived 80s American distribution company responsible for Dirty Dancing. ----more---- The movies covered on this episode: Alpine (1987, Fredi M. Murer) Anna (1987, Yurek Bogayevicz) Billy Galvin (1986, John Grey) Blood Diner (1987, Jackie Kong) China Girl (1987, Abel Ferrera) The Dead (1987, John Huston) Dirty Dancing (1987, Emile Ardolino) Malcolm (1986, Nadia Tess) Personal Services (1987, Terry Jones) Slaughter High (1986, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten and George Dugdale) Steel Dawn (1987, Lance Hook) Street Trash (1987, Jim Muro)   TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   Have you ever thought “I should do this thing” but then you never get around to it, until something completely random happens that reminds you that you were going to do this thing a long time ago?   For this week's episode, that kick in the keister was a post on Twitter from someone I don't follow being retweeted by the great film critic and essayist Walter Chaw, someone I do follow, that showed a Blu-ray cover of the 1987 Walter Hill film Extreme Prejudice. You see, Walter Chaw has recently released a book about the life and career of Walter Hill, and this other person was showing off their new purchase. That in and of itself wasn't the kick in the butt.   That was the logo of the disc's distributor.   Vestron Video.   A company that went out of business more than thirty years before, that unbeknownst to me had been resurrected by the current owner of the trademark, Lionsgate Films, as a specialty label for a certain kind of film like Ken Russell's Gothic, Beyond Re-Animator, CHUD 2, and, for some reason, Walter Hill's Neo-Western featuring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe and Rip Torn. For those of you from the 80s, you remember at least one of Vestron Pictures' movies. I guarantee it.   But before we get there, we, as always, must go back a little further back in time.   The year is 1981. Time Magazine is amongst the most popular magazines in the world, while their sister publication, Life, was renowned for their stunning photographs printed on glossy color paper of a larger size than most magazines. In the late 1970s, Time-Life added a video production and distribution company to ever-growing media empire that also included television stations, cable channels, book clubs, and compilation record box sets. But Time Life Home Video didn't quite take off the way the company had expected, and they decided to concentrate its lucrative cable businesses like HBO. The company would move Austin Furst, an executive from HBO, over to dismantle the assets of Time-Life Films. And while Furst would sell off the production and distribution parts of the company to Fox, and the television department to Columbia Pictures, he couldn't find a party interested in the home video department. Recognizing that home video was an emerging market that would need a visionary like himself willing to take big risks for the chance to have big rewards, Furst purchased the home video rights to the film and video library for himself, starting up his home entertainment company.   But what to call the company?   It would be his daughter that would come up with Vestron, a portmanteau of combining the name of the Roman goddess of the heart, Vesta, with Tron, the Greek word for instrument. Remember, the movie Tron would not be released for another year at this point.   At first, there were only two employees at Vestron: Furst himself, and Jon Pesinger, a fellow executive at Time-Life who, not unlike Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire, was the only person who saw Furst's long-term vision for the future.   Outside of the titles they brought with them from Time-Life, Vestron's initial release of home video titles comprised of two mid-range movie hits where they were able to snag the home video rights instead of the companies that released the movies in theatres, either because those companies did not have a home video operation yet, or did not negotiate for home video rights when making the movie deal with the producers. Fort Apache, The Bronx, a crime drama with Paul Newman and Ed Asner, and Loving Couples, a Shirley MacLaine/James Coburn romantic comedy that was neither romantic nor comedic, were Time-Life productions, while the Burt Reynolds/Dom DeLuise comedy The Cannonball Run, was a pickup from the Hong Kong production company Golden Harvest, which financed the comedy to help break their local star, Jackie Chan, into the American market. They'd also make a deal with several Canadian production companies to get the American home video rights to titles like the Jack Lemmon drama Tribute and the George C. Scott horror film The Changeling.   The advantage that Vestron had over the major studios was their outlook on the mom and pop rental stores that were popping up in every city and town in the United States. The major studios hated the idea that they could sell a videotape for, say, $99.99, and then see someone else make a major profit by renting that tape out fifty or a hundred times at $4 or $5 per night. Of course, they would eventually see the light, but in 1982, they weren't there yet.   Now, let me sidetrack for a moment, as I am wont to do, to talk about mom and pop video stores in the early 1980s. If you're younger than, say, forty, you probably only know Blockbuster and/or Hollywood Video as your local video rental store, but in the early 80s, there were no national video store chains yet. The first Blockbuster wouldn't open until October 1985, in Dallas, and your neighborhood likely didn't get one until the late 1980s or early 1990s. The first video store I ever encountered, Telford Home Video in Belmont Shores, Long Beach in 1981, was operated by Bob Telford, an actor best known for playing the Station Master in both the original 1974 version of Where the Red Fern Grows and its 2003 remake. Bob was really cool, and I don't think it was just because the space for the video store was just below my dad's office in the real estate company that had built and operated the building. He genuinely took interest in this weird thirteen year old kid who had an encyclopedic knowledge of films and wanted to learn more. I wanted to watch every movie he had in the store that I hadn't seen yet, but there was one problem: we had a VHS machine, and most of Bob's inventory was RCA SelectaVision, a disc-based playback system using a special stylus and a groove-covered disc much like an LP record. After school each day, I'd hightail it over to Telford Home Video, and Bob and I would watch a movie while we waited for customers to come rent something. It was with Bob that I would watch Ordinary People and The Magnificent Seven, The Elephant Man and The Last Waltz, Bus Stop and Rebel Without a Cause and The French Connection and The Man Who Fell to Earth and a bunch of other movies that weren't yet available on VHS, and it was great.   Like many teenagers in the early 1980s, I spent some time working at a mom and pop video store, Seacliff Home Video in Aptos, CA. I worked on the weekends, it was a third of a mile walk from home, and even though I was only 16 years old at the time, my bosses would, every week, solicit my opinion about which upcoming videos we should acquire. Because, like Telford Home Video and Village Home Video, where my friends Dick and Michelle worked about two miles away, and most every video store at the time, space was extremely limited and there was only space for so many titles. Telford Home Video was about 500 square feet and had maybe 500 titles. Seacliff was about 750 square feet and around 800 titles, including about 50 in the tiny, curtained off room created to hold the porn. And the first location for Village Home Video had only 300 square feet of space and only 250 titles. The owner, Leone Keller, confirmed to me that until they moved into a larger location across from the original store, they were able to rent out every movie in the store every night.    For many, a store owner had to be very careful about what they ordered and what they replaced. But Vestron Home Video always seemed to have some of the better movies. Because of a spat between Warner Brothers and Orion Pictures, Vestron would end up with most of Orion's 1983 through 1985 theatrical releases, including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money, the Nick Nolte political thriller Under Fire, the William Hurt mystery Gorky Park, and Gene Wilder's The Woman in Red. They'd also make a deal with Roger Corman's old American Independent Pictures outfit, which would reap an unexpected bounty when George Miller's second Mad Max movie, The Road Warrior, became a surprise hit in 1982, and Vestron was holding the video rights to the first Mad Max movie. And they'd also find themselves with the laserdisc rights to several Brian DePalma movies including Dressed to Kill and Blow Out. And after Polygram Films decided to leave the movie business in 1984, they would sell the home video rights to An American Werewolf in London and Endless Love to Vestron.   They were doing pretty good.   And in 1984, Vestron ended up changing the home video industry forever.   When Michael Jackson and John Landis had trouble with Jackson's record company, Epic, getting their idea for a 14 minute short film built around the title song to Jackson's monster album Thriller financed, Vestron would put up a good portion of the nearly million dollar budget in order to release the movie on home video, after it played for a few weeks on MTV. In February 1984, Vestron would release a one-hour tape, The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, that included the mini-movie and a 45 minute Making of featurette. At $29.99, it would be one of the first sell-through titles released on home video.   It would become the second home videotape to sell a million copies, after Star Wars.   Suddenly, Vestron was flush with more cash than it knew what to do with.   In 1985, they would decide to expand their entertainment footprint by opening Vestron Pictures, which would finance a number of movies that could be exploited across a number of platforms, including theatrical, home video, cable and syndicated TV. In early January 1986, Vestron would announce they were pursuing projects with three producers, Steve Tisch, Larry Turman, and Gene Kirkwood, but no details on any specific titles or even a timeframe when any of those movies would be made.   Tisch, the son of Loews Entertainment co-owner Bob Tisch, had started producing films in 1977 with the Peter Fonda music drama Outlaw Blues, and had a big hit in 1983 with Risky Business. Turman, the Oscar-nominated producer of Mike Nichols' The Graduate, and Kirkwood, the producer of The Keep and The Pope of Greenwich Village, had seen better days as producers by 1986 but their names still carried a certain cache in Hollywood, and the announcement would certainly let the industry know Vestron was serious about making quality movies.   Well, maybe not all quality movies. They would also launch a sub-label for Vestron Pictures called Lightning Pictures, which would be utilized on B-movies and schlock that maybe wouldn't fit in the Vestron Pictures brand name they were trying to build.   But it costs money to build a movie production and theatrical distribution company.   Lots of money.   Thanks to the ever-growing roster of video titles and the success of releases like Thriller, Vestron would go public in the spring of 1985, selling enough shares on the first day of trading to bring in $440m to the company, $140m than they thought they would sell that day.   It would take them a while, but in 1986, they would start production on their first slate of films, as well as acquire several foreign titles for American distribution.   Vestron Pictures officially entered the theatrical distribution game on July 18th, 1986, when they released the Australian comedy Malcolm at the Cinema 2 on the Upper East Side of New York City. A modern attempt to create the Aussie version of a Jacques Tati-like absurdist comedy about modern life and our dependance on gadgetry, Malcolm follows, as one character describes him a 100 percent not there individual who is tricked into using some of his remote control inventions to pull of a bank robbery. While the film would be a minor hit in Australia, winning all eight of the Australian Film Institute Awards it was nominated for including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and three acting awards, the film would only play for five weeks in New York, grossing less than $35,000, and would not open in Los Angeles until November 5th, where in its first week at the Cineplex Beverly Center and Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion Cinemas, it would gross a combined $37,000. Go figure.   Malcolm would open in a few more major markets, but Vestron would close the film at the end of the year with a gross under $200,000.   Their next film, Slaughter High, was a rather odd bird. A co-production between American and British-based production companies, the film followed a group of adults responsible for a prank gone wrong on April Fool's Day who are invited to a reunion at their defunct high school where a masked killer awaits inside.   And although the movie takes place in America, the film was shot in London and nearby Virginia Water, Surrey, in late 1984, under the title April Fool's Day. But even with Caroline Munro, the British sex symbol who had become a cult favorite with her appearances in a series of sci-fi and Hammer horror films with Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee, as well as her work in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, April Fool's Day would sit on the proverbial shelf for nearly two years, until Vestron picked it up and changed its title, since Paramount Pictures had released their own horror film called April Fools Day earlier in the year.   Vestron would open Slaughter High on nine screens in Detroit on November 14th, 1986, but Vestron would not report grosses. Then they would open it on six screen in St. Louis on February 13th, 1987. At least this time they reported a gross. $12,400. Variety would simply call that number “grim.” They'd give the film one final rush on April 24th, sending it out to 38 screens in in New York City, where it would gross $90,000. There'd be no second week, as practically every theatre would replace it with Creepshow 2.   The third and final Vestron Pictures release for 1986 was Billy Galvin, a little remembered family drama featuring Karl Malden and Lenny von Dohlen, originally produced for the PBS anthology series American Playhouse but bumped up to a feature film as part of coordinated effort to promote the show by occasionally releasing feature films bearing the American Playhouse banner.   The film would open at the Cineplex Beverly Center on December 31st, not only the last day of the calendar year but the last day a film can be released into theatres in Los Angeles to have been considered for Academy Awards. The film would not get any major awards, from the Academy or anyone else, nor much attention from audiences, grossing just $4,000 in its first five days. They'd give the film a chance in New York on February 20th, at the 23rd Street West Triplex, but a $2,000 opening weekend gross would doom the film from ever opening in another theatre again.   In early 1987, Vestron announced eighteen films they would release during the year, and a partnership with AMC Theatres and General Cinema to have their films featured in those two companies' pilot specialized film programs in major markets like Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston and San Francisco.   Alpine Fire would be the first of those films, arriving at the Cinema Studio 1 in New York City on February 20th. A Swiss drama about a young deaf and mentally challenged teenager who gets his older sister pregnant, was that country's entry into the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race. While the film would win the Golden Leopard Award at the 1985 Locarno Film Festival, the Academy would not select the film for a nomination, and the film would quickly disappear from theatres after a $2,000 opening weekend gross.   Personal Services, the first film to be directed by Terry Jones outside of his services with Monty Python, would arrive in American theatres on May 15th. The only Jones-directed film to not feature any other Python in the cast, Personal Services was a thinly-disguised telling of a 1970s—era London waitress who was running a brothel in her flat in order to make ends meet, and featured a standout performance by Julie Walters as the waitress turned madame. In England, Personal Services would be the second highest-grossing film of the year, behind The Living Daylights, the first Bond film featuring new 007 Timothy Dalton. In America, the film wouldn't be quite as successful, grossing $1.75m after 33 weeks in theatres, despite never playing on more than 31 screens in any given week.   It would be another three months before Vestron would release their second movie of the year, but it would be the one they'd become famous for.   Dirty Dancing.   Based in large part on screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's own childhood, the screenplay would be written after the producers of the 1980 Michael Douglas/Jill Clayburgh dramedy It's My Turn asked the writer to remove a scene from the screenplay that involved an erotic dance sequence. She would take that scene and use it as a jumping off point for a new story about a Jewish teenager in the early 1960s who participated in secret “Dirty Dancing” competitions while she vacationed with her doctor father and stay-at-home mother while they vacationed in the Catskill Mountains. Baby, the young woman at the center of the story, would not only resemble the screenwriter as a character but share her childhood nickname.   Bergstein would pitch the story to every studio in Hollywood in 1984, and only get a nibble from MGM Pictures, whose name was synonymous with big-budget musicals decades before. They would option the screenplay and assign producer Linda Gottlieb, a veteran television producer making her first major foray into feature films, to the project. With Gottlieb, Bergstein would head back to the Catskills for the first time in two decades, as research for the script. It was while on this trip that the pair would meet Michael Terrace, a former Broadway dancer who had spent summers in the early 1960s teaching tourists how to mambo in the Catskills. Terrace and Bergstein didn't remember each other if they had met way back when, but his stories would help inform the lead male character of Johnny Castle.   But, as regularly happens in Hollywood, there was a regime change at MGM in late 1985, and one of the projects the new bosses cut loose was Dirty Dancing. Once again, the script would make the rounds in Hollywood, but nobody was biting… until Vestron Pictures got their chance to read it.   They loved it, and were ready to make it their first in-house production… but they would make the movie if the budget could be cut from $10m to $4.5m. That would mean some sacrifices. They wouldn't be able to hire a major director, nor bigger name actors, but that would end up being a blessing in disguise.   To direct, Gottlieb and Bergstein looked at a lot of up and coming feature directors, but the one person they had the best feeling about was Emile Ardolino, a former actor off-Broadway in the 1960s who began his filmmaking career as a documentarian for PBS in the 1970s. In 1983, Ardolino's documentary about National Dance Institute founder Jacques d'Amboise, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin', would win both the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Entertainment Special.   Although Ardolino had never directed a movie, he would read the script twice in a week while serving on jury duty, and came back to Gottlieb and Bergstein with a number of ideas to help make the movie shine, even at half the budget.   For a movie about dancing, with a lot of dancing in it, they would need a creative choreographer to help train the actors and design the sequences. The filmmakers would chose Kenny Ortega, who in addition to choreographing the dance scenes in Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, had worked with Gene Kelly on the 1980 musical Xanadu. Well, more specifically, was molded by Gene Kelly to become the lead choreographer for the film. That's some good credentials.   Unlike movies like Flashdance, where the filmmakers would hire Jennifer Beals to play Alex and Marine Jahan to perform Alex's dance scenes, Emile Ardolino was insistent that the actors playing the dancers were actors who also dance. Having stand-ins would take extra time to set-up, and would suck up a portion of an already tight budget. Yet the first people he would meet for the lead role of Johnny were non-dancers Benecio del Toro, Val Kilmer, and Billy Zane. Zane would go so far as to do a screen test with one of the actresses being considered for the role of Baby, Jennifer Grey, but after screening the test, they realized Grey was right for Baby but Zane was not right for Johnny.   Someone suggested Patrick Swayze, a former dancer for the prestigious Joffrey Ballet who was making his way up the ranks of stardom thanks to his roles in The Outsiders and Grandview U.S.A. But Swayze had suffered a knee injury years before that put his dance career on hold, and there were concerns he would re-aggravate his injury, and there were concerns from Jennifer Grey because she and Swayze had not gotten along very well while working on Red Dawn. But that had been three years earlier, and when they screen tested together here, everyone was convinced this was the pairing that would bring magic to the role.   Baby's parents would be played by two Broadway veterans: Jerry Orbach, who is best known today as Detective Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order, and Kelly Bishop, who is best known today as Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls but had actually started out as a dancer, singer and actor, winning a Tony Award for her role in the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line. Although Bishop had originally been cast in a different role for the movie, another guest at the Catskills resort with the Housemans, but she would be bumped up when the original Mrs. Houseman, Lynne Lipton, would fall ill during the first week of filming.   Filming on Dirty Dancing would begin in North Carolina on September 5th, 1986, at a former Boy Scout camp that had been converted to a private residential community. This is where many of the iconic scenes from the film would be shot, including Baby carrying the watermelon and practicing her dance steps on the stairs, all the interior dance scenes, the log scene, and the golf course scene where Baby would ask her father for $250. It's also where Patrick Swayze almost ended his role in the film, when he would indeed re-injure his knee during the balancing scene on the log. He would be rushed to the hospital to have fluid drained from the swelling. Thankfully, there would be no lingering effects once he was released.   After filming in North Carolina was completed, the team would move to Virginia for two more weeks of filming, including the water lift scene, exteriors at Kellerman's Hotel and the Houseman family's cabin, before the film wrapped on October 27th.   Ardolino's first cut of the film would be completed in February 1987, and Vestron would begin the process of running a series of test screenings. At the first test screening, nearly 40% of the audience didn't realize there was an abortion subplot in the movie, even after completing the movie. A few weeks later, Vestron executives would screen the film for producer Aaron Russo, who had produced such movies as The Rose and Trading Places. His reaction to the film was to tell the executives to burn the negative and collect the insurance.   But, to be fair, one important element of the film was still not set.   The music.   Eleanor Bergstein had written into her script a number of songs that were popular in the early 1960s, when the movie was set, that she felt the final film needed. Except a number of the songs were a bit more expensive to license than Vestron would have preferred. The company was testing the film with different versions of those songs, other artists' renditions. The writer, with the support of her producer and director, fought back. She made a deal with the Vestron executives. They would play her the master tracks to ten of the songs she wanted, as well as the copycat versions. If she could identify six of the masters, she could have all ten songs in the film.   Vestron would spend another half a million dollars licensing the original recording.    The writer nailed all ten.   But even then, there was still one missing piece of the puzzle.   The closing song.   While Bergstein wanted another song to close the film, the team at Vestron were insistent on a new song that could be used to anchor a soundtrack album. The writer, producer, director and various members of the production team listened to dozens of submissions from songwriters, but none of them were right, until they got to literally the last submission left, written by Franke Previte, who had written another song that would appear on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, “Hungry Eyes.”   Everybody loved the song, called “I've Had the Time of My Life,” and it would take some time to convince Previte that Dirty Dancing was not a porno. They showed him the film and he agreed to give them the song, but the production team and Vestron wanted to get a pair of more famous singers to record the final version.   The filmmakers originally approached disco queen Donna Summer and Joe Esposito, whose song “You're the Best” appeared on the Karate Kid soundtrack, but Summer would decline, not liking the title of the movie. They would then approach Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates and Kim Carnes, but they'd both decline, citing concerns about the title of the movie. Then they approached Bill Medley, one-half of The Righteous Brothers, who had enjoyed yet another career resurgence when You Lost That Lovin' Feeling became a hit in 1986 thanks to Top Gun, but at first, he would also decline. Not that he had any concerns about the title of the film, although he did have concerns about the title, but that his wife was about to give birth to their daughter, and he had promised he would be there.   While trying to figure who to get to sing the male part of the song, the music supervisor for the film approached Jennifer Warnes, who had sung the duet “Up Where We Belong” from the An Officer and a Gentleman soundtrack, which had won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and sang the song “It Goes Like It Goes” from the Norma Rae soundtrack, which had won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Warnes wasn't thrilled with the song, but she would be persuaded to record the song for the right price… and if Bill Medley would sing the other part. Medley, flattered that Warnes asked specifically to record with him, said he would do so, after his daughter was born, and if the song was recorded in his studio in Los Angeles. A few weeks later, Medley and Warnes would have their portion of the song completed in only one hour, including additional harmonies and flourishes decided on after finishing with the main vocals.   With all the songs added to the movie, audience test scores improved considerably.   RCA Records, who had been contracted to handle the release of the soundtrack, would set a July 17th release date for the album, to coincide with the release of the movie on the same day, with the lead single, I've Had the Time of My Life, released one week earlier. But then, Vestron moved the movie back from July 17th to August 21st… and forgot to tell RCA Records about the move. No big deal. The song would quickly rise up the charts, eventually hitting #1 on the Billboard charts.   When the movie finally did open in 975 theatres in August 21st, the film would open to fourth place with $3.9m in ticket sales, behind Can't Buy Me Love in third place and in its second week of release, the Cheech Marin comedy Born in East L.A., which opened in second place, and Stakeout, which was enjoying its third week atop the charts.   The reviews were okay, but not special. Gene Siskel would give the film a begrudging Thumbs Up, citing Jennifer Grey's performance and her character's arc as the thing that tipped the scale into the positive, while Roger Ebert would give the film a Thumbs Down, due to its idiot plot and tired and relentlessly predictable story of love between kids from different backgrounds.   But then a funny thing happened…   Instead of appealing to the teenagers they thought would see the film, the majority of the audience ended up becoming adults. Not just twenty and thirty somethings, but people who were teenagers themselves during the movie's timeframe. They would be drawn in to the film through the newfound sense of boomer nostalgia that helped make Stand By Me an unexpected hit the year before, both as a movie and as a soundtrack.   Its second week in theatre would only see the gross drop 6%, and the film would finish in third place.   In week three, the four day Labor Day weekend, it would gross nearly $5m, and move up to second place. And it would continue to play and continue to bring audiences in, only dropping out of the top ten once in early November for one weekend, from August to December. Even with all the new movies entering the marketplace for Christmas, Dirty Dancing would be retained by most of the theatres that were playing it. In the first weekend of 1988, Dirty Dancing was still playing in 855 theaters, only 120 fewer than who opened it five months earlier. Once it did started leaving first run theatres, dollar houses were eager to pick it up, and Dirty Dancing would make another $6m in ticket sales as it continued to play until Christmas 1988 at some theatres, finishing its incredible run with $63.5m in ticket sales.   Yet, despite its ubiquitousness in American pop culture, despite the soundtrack selling more than ten million copies in its first year, despite the uptick in attendance at dance schools from coast to coast, Dirty Dancing never once was the #1 film in America on any weekend it was in theatres. There would always be at least one other movie that would do just a bit better.   When awards season came around, the movie was practically ignored by critics groups. It would pick up an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and both the movie and Jennifer Grey would be nominated for Golden Globes, but it would be that song, I've Had the Time of My Life, that would be the driver for awards love. It would win the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The song would anchor a soundtrack that would also include two other hit songs, Eric Carmen's “Hungry Eyes,” and “She's Like the Wind,” recorded for the movie by Patrick Swayze, making him the proto-Hugh Jackman of the 80s. I've seen Hugh Jackman do his one-man show at the Hollywood Bowl, and now I'm wishing Patrick Swayze could have had something like that thirty years ago.   On September 25th, they would release Abel Ferrera's Neo-noir romantic thriller China Girl. A modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written by regular Ferrera writer Nicholas St. John, the setting would be New York City's Lower East Side, when Tony, a teenager from Little Italy, falls for Tye, a teenager from Chinatown, as their older brothers vie for turf in a vicious gang war. While the stars of the film, Richard Panebianco and Sari Chang, would never become known actors, the supporting cast is as good as you'd expect from a post-Ms. .45 Ferrera film, including James Russo, Russell Wong, David Caruso and James Hong.   The $3.5m movie would open on 110 screens, including 70 in New York ti-state region and 18 in Los Angeles, grossing $531k. After a second weekend, where the gross dropped to $225k, Vestron would stop tracking the film, with a final reported gross of just $1.26m coming from a stockholder's report in early 1988.   Ironically, China Girl would open against another movie that Vestron had a hand in financing, but would not release in America: Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride. While the film would do okay in America, grossing $30m against its $15m, it wouldn't translate so easily to foreign markets.   Anna, from first time Polish filmmaker Yurek Bogayevicz, was an oddball little film from the start. The story, co-written with the legendary Polish writer/director Agnieszka Holland, was based on the real-life friendship of Polish actresses Joanna (Yo-ahn-nuh) Pacuła (Pa-tsu-wa) and Elżbieta (Elz-be-et-ah) Czyżewska (Chuh-zef-ska), and would find Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova making her feature acting debut as Krystyna, an aspiring actress from Czechoslovakia who goes to New York City to find her idol, Anna, who had been imprisoned and then deported for speaking out against the new regime after the 1968 Communist invasion. Nearly twenty years later, the middle-aged Anna struggles to land any acting parts, in films, on television, or on the stage, who relishes the attention of this beautiful young waif who reminds her of herself back then.   Sally Kirkland, an American actress who got her start as part of Andy Warhol's Factory in the early 60s but could never break out of playing supporting roles in movies like The Way We Were, The Sting, A Star is Born, and Private Benjamin, would be cast as the faded Czech star whose life seemed to unintentionally mirror the actress's. Future Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis would be featured in a small supporting role, as would the then sixteen year old Sofia Coppola.   The $1m movie would shoot on location in New York City during the winter of late 1986 and early 1987, and would make its world premiere at the 1987 New York Film Festival in September, before opening at the 68th Street Playhouse on the Upper East Side on October 30th. Critics such as Bruce Williamson of Playboy, Molly Haskell of Vogue and Jami Bernard of the New York Post would sing the praises of the movie, and of Paulina Porizkova, but it would be Sally Kirkland whom practically every critic would gush over. “A performance of depth and clarity and power, easily one of the strongest female roles of the year,” wrote Mike McGrady of Newsday. Janet Maslim wasn't as impressed with the film as most critics, but she would note Ms. Kirkland's immensely dignified presence in the title role.   New York audiences responded well to the critical acclaim, buying more than $22,000 worth of tickets, often playing to sell out crowds for the afternoon and evening shows. In its second week, the film would see its gross increase 12%, and another 3% increase in its third week. Meanwhile, on November 13th, the film would open in Los Angeles at the AMC Century City 14, where it would bring in an additional $10,000, thanks in part to Sheila Benson's rave in the Los Angeles Times, calling the film “the best kind of surprise — a small, frequently funny, fine-boned film set in the worlds of the theater and movies which unexpectedly becomes a consummate study of love, alienation and loss,” while praising Kirkland's performance as a “blazing comet.”   Kirkland would make the rounds on the awards circuit, winning Best Actress awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes, and the Independent Spirit Awards, culminating in an Academy Award nomination, although she would lose to Cher in Moonstruck.   But despite all these rave reviews and the early support for the film in New York and Los Angeles, the film got little traction outside these two major cities. Despite playing in theatres for nearly six months, Anna could only round up about $1.2m in ticket sales.   Vestron's penultimate new film of 1987 would be a movie that when it was shot in Namibia in late 1986 was titled Peacekeeper, then was changed to Desert Warrior when it was acquired by Jerry Weintraub's eponymously named distribution company, then saw it renamed again to Steel Dawn when Vestron overpaid to acquire the film from Weintraub, because they wanted the next film starring Patrick Swayze for themselves.   Swayze plays, and stop me if you've heard this one before, a warrior wandering through a post-apocalyptic desert who comes upon a group of settlers who are being menaced by the leader of a murderous gang who's after the water they control. Lisa Niemi, also known as Mrs. Patrick Swayze, would be his romantic interest in the film, which would also star AnthonY Zerbe, Brian James, and, in one of his very first acting roles, future Mummy co-star Arnold Vosloo.   The film would open to horrible reviews, and gross just $312k in 290 theatres. For comparison's sake, Dirty Dancing was in its eleventh week of release, was still playing 878 theatres, and would gross $1.7m. In its second week, Steel Dawn had lost nearly two thirds of its theatres, grossing only $60k from 107 theatres. After its third weekend, Vestron stopped reporting grosses. The film had only earned $562k in ticket sales.   And their final release for 1987 would be one of the most prestigious titles they'd ever be involved with. The Dead, based on a short story by James Joyce, would be the 37th and final film to be directed by John Huston. His son Tony would adapt the screenplay, while his daughter Anjelica, whom he had directed to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar two years earlier for Prizzi's Honor, would star as the matriarch of an Irish family circa 1904 whose husband discovers memoirs of a deceased lover of his wife's, an affair that preceded their meeting.   Originally scheduled to shoot in Dublin, Ireland, The Dead would end up being shot on soundstages in Valencia, CA, just north of Los Angeles, as the eighty year old filmmaker was in ill health. Huston, who was suffering from severe emphysema due to decades of smoking, would use video playback for the first and only time in his career in order to call the action, whirling around from set to set in a motorized wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached to it. In fact, the company insuring the film required the producers to have a backup director on set, just in case Huston was unable to continue to make the film. That stand-in was Czech-born British filmmaker Karel Reisz, who never once had to stand-in during the entire shoot.   One Huston who didn't work on the film was Danny Huston, who was supposed to shoot some second unit footage for the film in Dublin for his father, who could not make any trips overseas, as well as a documentary about the making of the film, but for whatever reason, Danny Huston would end up not doing either.   John Huston would turn in his final cut of the film to Vestron in July 1987, and would pass away in late August, a good four months before the film's scheduled release. He would live to see some of the best reviews of his entire career when the film was released on December 18th. At six theatres in Los Angeles and New York City, The Dead would earn $69k in its first three days during what was an amazing opening weekend for a number of movies. The Dead would open against exclusive runs of Broadcast News, Ironweed, Moonstruck and the newest Woody Allen film, September, as well as wide releases of Eddie Murphy: Raw, Batteries Not Included, Overboard, and the infamous Bill Cosby stinker Leonard Part 6.   The film would win the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture of the year, John Huston would win the Spirit Award and the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, Anjelica Huston would win a Spirit Award as well, for Best Supporting Actress, and Tony Huston would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. But the little $3.5m film would only see modest returns at the box office, grossing just $4.4m after a four month run in theatres.   Vestron would also release two movies in 1987 through their genre Lightning Pictures label.   The first, Blood Diner, from writer/director Jackie Kong, was meant to be both a tribute and an indirect sequel to the infamous 1965 Herschell Gordon Lewis movie Blood Feast, often considered to be the first splatter slasher film. Released on four screens in Baltimore on July 10th, the film would gross just $6,400 in its one tracked week. The film would get a second chance at life when it opened at the 8th Street Playhouse in New York City on September 4th, but after a $5,000 opening week gross there, the film would have to wait until it was released on home video to become a cult film.   The other Lightning Pictures release for 1987, Street Trash, would become one of the most infamous horror comedy films of the year. An expansion of a short student film by then nineteen year old Jim Muro, Street Trash told the twin stories of a Greenpoint, Brooklyn shop owner who sell a case of cheap, long-expired hooch to local hobos, who hideously melt away shortly after drinking it, while two homeless brothers try to deal with their situation as best they can while all this weirdness is going on about them.   After playing several weeks of midnight shows at the Waverly Theatre near Washington Square, Street Trash would open for a regular run at the 8th Street Playhouse on September 18th, one week after Blood Diner left the same theatre. However, Street Trash would not replace Blood Diner, which was kicked to the curb after one week, but another long forgotten movie, the Christopher Walken-starrer Deadline. Street Trash would do a bit better than Blood Diner, $9,000 in its first three days, enough to get the film a full two week run at the Playhouse. But its second week gross of $5,000 would not be enough to give it a longer playdate, or get another New York theatre to pick it up. The film would get other playdates, including one in my secondary hometown of Santa Cruz starting, ironically, on Thanksgiving Day, but the film would barely make $100k in its theatrical run.   While this would be the only film Jim Muro would direct, he would become an in demand cinematographer and Steadicam operator, working on such films as Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, Sneakers, L.A. Confidential, the first Fast and Furious movie, and on The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic for James Cameron. And should you ever watch the film and sit through the credits, yes, it's that Bryan Singer who worked as a grip and production assistant on the film. It would be his very first film credit, which he worked on during a break from going to USC film school.   People who know me know I am not the biggest fan of horror films. I may have mentioned it once or twice on this podcast. But I have a soft spot for Troma Films and Troma-like films, and Street Trash is probably the best Troma movie not made or released by Troma. There's a reason why Lloyd Kaufman is not a fan of the movie. A number of people who have seen the movie think it is a Troma movie, not helped by the fact that a number of people who did work on The Toxic Avenger went to work on Street Trash afterwards, and some even tell Lloyd at conventions that Street Trash is their favorite Troma movie. It's looks like a Troma movie. It feels like a Troma movie. And to be honest, at least to me, that's one hell of a compliment. It's one of the reasons I even went to see Street Trash, the favorable comparison to Troma. And while I, for lack of a better word, enjoyed Street Trash when I saw it, as much as one can say they enjoyed a movie where a bunch of bums playing hot potato with a man's severed Johnson is a major set piece, but I've never really felt the need to watch it again over the past thirty-five years.   Like several of the movies on this episode, Street Trash is not available for streaming on any service in the United States. And outside of Dirty Dancing, the ones you can stream, China Girl, Personal Services, Slaughter High and Steel Dawn, are mostly available for free with ads on Tubi, which made a huge splash last week with a confounding Super Bowl commercial that sent millions of people to figure what a Tubi was.   Now, if you were counting, that was only nine films released in 1987, and not the eighteen they had promised at the start of the year. Despite the fact they had a smash hit in Dirty Dancing, they decided to push most of their planned 1987 movies to 1988. Not necessarily by choice, though. Many of the films just weren't ready in time for a 1987 release, and then the unexpected long term success of Dirty Dancing kept them occupied for most of the rest of the year. But that only meant that 1988 would be a stellar year for them, right?   We'll find out next episode, when we continue the Vestron Pictures story.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again next week.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

The first of a two-part series on the short-lived 80s American distribution company responsible for Dirty Dancing. ----more---- The movies covered on this episode: Alpine (1987, Fredi M. Murer) Anna (1987, Yurek Bogayevicz) Billy Galvin (1986, John Grey) Blood Diner (1987, Jackie Kong) China Girl (1987, Abel Ferrera) The Dead (1987, John Huston) Dirty Dancing (1987, Emile Ardolino) Malcolm (1986, Nadia Tess) Personal Services (1987, Terry Jones) Slaughter High (1986, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten and George Dugdale) Steel Dawn (1987, Lance Hook) Street Trash (1987, Jim Muro)   TRANSCRIPT From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   Have you ever thought “I should do this thing” but then you never get around to it, until something completely random happens that reminds you that you were going to do this thing a long time ago?   For this week's episode, that kick in the keister was a post on Twitter from someone I don't follow being retweeted by the great film critic and essayist Walter Chaw, someone I do follow, that showed a Blu-ray cover of the 1987 Walter Hill film Extreme Prejudice. You see, Walter Chaw has recently released a book about the life and career of Walter Hill, and this other person was showing off their new purchase. That in and of itself wasn't the kick in the butt.   That was the logo of the disc's distributor.   Vestron Video.   A company that went out of business more than thirty years before, that unbeknownst to me had been resurrected by the current owner of the trademark, Lionsgate Films, as a specialty label for a certain kind of film like Ken Russell's Gothic, Beyond Re-Animator, CHUD 2, and, for some reason, Walter Hill's Neo-Western featuring Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe and Rip Torn. For those of you from the 80s, you remember at least one of Vestron Pictures' movies. I guarantee it.   But before we get there, we, as always, must go back a little further back in time.   The year is 1981. Time Magazine is amongst the most popular magazines in the world, while their sister publication, Life, was renowned for their stunning photographs printed on glossy color paper of a larger size than most magazines. In the late 1970s, Time-Life added a video production and distribution company to ever-growing media empire that also included television stations, cable channels, book clubs, and compilation record box sets. But Time Life Home Video didn't quite take off the way the company had expected, and they decided to concentrate its lucrative cable businesses like HBO. The company would move Austin Furst, an executive from HBO, over to dismantle the assets of Time-Life Films. And while Furst would sell off the production and distribution parts of the company to Fox, and the television department to Columbia Pictures, he couldn't find a party interested in the home video department. Recognizing that home video was an emerging market that would need a visionary like himself willing to take big risks for the chance to have big rewards, Furst purchased the home video rights to the film and video library for himself, starting up his home entertainment company.   But what to call the company?   It would be his daughter that would come up with Vestron, a portmanteau of combining the name of the Roman goddess of the heart, Vesta, with Tron, the Greek word for instrument. Remember, the movie Tron would not be released for another year at this point.   At first, there were only two employees at Vestron: Furst himself, and Jon Pesinger, a fellow executive at Time-Life who, not unlike Dorothy Boyd in Jerry Maguire, was the only person who saw Furst's long-term vision for the future.   Outside of the titles they brought with them from Time-Life, Vestron's initial release of home video titles comprised of two mid-range movie hits where they were able to snag the home video rights instead of the companies that released the movies in theatres, either because those companies did not have a home video operation yet, or did not negotiate for home video rights when making the movie deal with the producers. Fort Apache, The Bronx, a crime drama with Paul Newman and Ed Asner, and Loving Couples, a Shirley MacLaine/James Coburn romantic comedy that was neither romantic nor comedic, were Time-Life productions, while the Burt Reynolds/Dom DeLuise comedy The Cannonball Run, was a pickup from the Hong Kong production company Golden Harvest, which financed the comedy to help break their local star, Jackie Chan, into the American market. They'd also make a deal with several Canadian production companies to get the American home video rights to titles like the Jack Lemmon drama Tribute and the George C. Scott horror film The Changeling.   The advantage that Vestron had over the major studios was their outlook on the mom and pop rental stores that were popping up in every city and town in the United States. The major studios hated the idea that they could sell a videotape for, say, $99.99, and then see someone else make a major profit by renting that tape out fifty or a hundred times at $4 or $5 per night. Of course, they would eventually see the light, but in 1982, they weren't there yet.   Now, let me sidetrack for a moment, as I am wont to do, to talk about mom and pop video stores in the early 1980s. If you're younger than, say, forty, you probably only know Blockbuster and/or Hollywood Video as your local video rental store, but in the early 80s, there were no national video store chains yet. The first Blockbuster wouldn't open until October 1985, in Dallas, and your neighborhood likely didn't get one until the late 1980s or early 1990s. The first video store I ever encountered, Telford Home Video in Belmont Shores, Long Beach in 1981, was operated by Bob Telford, an actor best known for playing the Station Master in both the original 1974 version of Where the Red Fern Grows and its 2003 remake. Bob was really cool, and I don't think it was just because the space for the video store was just below my dad's office in the real estate company that had built and operated the building. He genuinely took interest in this weird thirteen year old kid who had an encyclopedic knowledge of films and wanted to learn more. I wanted to watch every movie he had in the store that I hadn't seen yet, but there was one problem: we had a VHS machine, and most of Bob's inventory was RCA SelectaVision, a disc-based playback system using a special stylus and a groove-covered disc much like an LP record. After school each day, I'd hightail it over to Telford Home Video, and Bob and I would watch a movie while we waited for customers to come rent something. It was with Bob that I would watch Ordinary People and The Magnificent Seven, The Elephant Man and The Last Waltz, Bus Stop and Rebel Without a Cause and The French Connection and The Man Who Fell to Earth and a bunch of other movies that weren't yet available on VHS, and it was great.   Like many teenagers in the early 1980s, I spent some time working at a mom and pop video store, Seacliff Home Video in Aptos, CA. I worked on the weekends, it was a third of a mile walk from home, and even though I was only 16 years old at the time, my bosses would, every week, solicit my opinion about which upcoming videos we should acquire. Because, like Telford Home Video and Village Home Video, where my friends Dick and Michelle worked about two miles away, and most every video store at the time, space was extremely limited and there was only space for so many titles. Telford Home Video was about 500 square feet and had maybe 500 titles. Seacliff was about 750 square feet and around 800 titles, including about 50 in the tiny, curtained off room created to hold the porn. And the first location for Village Home Video had only 300 square feet of space and only 250 titles. The owner, Leone Keller, confirmed to me that until they moved into a larger location across from the original store, they were able to rent out every movie in the store every night.    For many, a store owner had to be very careful about what they ordered and what they replaced. But Vestron Home Video always seemed to have some of the better movies. Because of a spat between Warner Brothers and Orion Pictures, Vestron would end up with most of Orion's 1983 through 1985 theatrical releases, including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money, the Nick Nolte political thriller Under Fire, the William Hurt mystery Gorky Park, and Gene Wilder's The Woman in Red. They'd also make a deal with Roger Corman's old American Independent Pictures outfit, which would reap an unexpected bounty when George Miller's second Mad Max movie, The Road Warrior, became a surprise hit in 1982, and Vestron was holding the video rights to the first Mad Max movie. And they'd also find themselves with the laserdisc rights to several Brian DePalma movies including Dressed to Kill and Blow Out. And after Polygram Films decided to leave the movie business in 1984, they would sell the home video rights to An American Werewolf in London and Endless Love to Vestron.   They were doing pretty good.   And in 1984, Vestron ended up changing the home video industry forever.   When Michael Jackson and John Landis had trouble with Jackson's record company, Epic, getting their idea for a 14 minute short film built around the title song to Jackson's monster album Thriller financed, Vestron would put up a good portion of the nearly million dollar budget in order to release the movie on home video, after it played for a few weeks on MTV. In February 1984, Vestron would release a one-hour tape, The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, that included the mini-movie and a 45 minute Making of featurette. At $29.99, it would be one of the first sell-through titles released on home video.   It would become the second home videotape to sell a million copies, after Star Wars.   Suddenly, Vestron was flush with more cash than it knew what to do with.   In 1985, they would decide to expand their entertainment footprint by opening Vestron Pictures, which would finance a number of movies that could be exploited across a number of platforms, including theatrical, home video, cable and syndicated TV. In early January 1986, Vestron would announce they were pursuing projects with three producers, Steve Tisch, Larry Turman, and Gene Kirkwood, but no details on any specific titles or even a timeframe when any of those movies would be made.   Tisch, the son of Loews Entertainment co-owner Bob Tisch, had started producing films in 1977 with the Peter Fonda music drama Outlaw Blues, and had a big hit in 1983 with Risky Business. Turman, the Oscar-nominated producer of Mike Nichols' The Graduate, and Kirkwood, the producer of The Keep and The Pope of Greenwich Village, had seen better days as producers by 1986 but their names still carried a certain cache in Hollywood, and the announcement would certainly let the industry know Vestron was serious about making quality movies.   Well, maybe not all quality movies. They would also launch a sub-label for Vestron Pictures called Lightning Pictures, which would be utilized on B-movies and schlock that maybe wouldn't fit in the Vestron Pictures brand name they were trying to build.   But it costs money to build a movie production and theatrical distribution company.   Lots of money.   Thanks to the ever-growing roster of video titles and the success of releases like Thriller, Vestron would go public in the spring of 1985, selling enough shares on the first day of trading to bring in $440m to the company, $140m than they thought they would sell that day.   It would take them a while, but in 1986, they would start production on their first slate of films, as well as acquire several foreign titles for American distribution.   Vestron Pictures officially entered the theatrical distribution game on July 18th, 1986, when they released the Australian comedy Malcolm at the Cinema 2 on the Upper East Side of New York City. A modern attempt to create the Aussie version of a Jacques Tati-like absurdist comedy about modern life and our dependance on gadgetry, Malcolm follows, as one character describes him a 100 percent not there individual who is tricked into using some of his remote control inventions to pull of a bank robbery. While the film would be a minor hit in Australia, winning all eight of the Australian Film Institute Awards it was nominated for including Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and three acting awards, the film would only play for five weeks in New York, grossing less than $35,000, and would not open in Los Angeles until November 5th, where in its first week at the Cineplex Beverly Center and Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion Cinemas, it would gross a combined $37,000. Go figure.   Malcolm would open in a few more major markets, but Vestron would close the film at the end of the year with a gross under $200,000.   Their next film, Slaughter High, was a rather odd bird. A co-production between American and British-based production companies, the film followed a group of adults responsible for a prank gone wrong on April Fool's Day who are invited to a reunion at their defunct high school where a masked killer awaits inside.   And although the movie takes place in America, the film was shot in London and nearby Virginia Water, Surrey, in late 1984, under the title April Fool's Day. But even with Caroline Munro, the British sex symbol who had become a cult favorite with her appearances in a series of sci-fi and Hammer horror films with Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee, as well as her work in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, April Fool's Day would sit on the proverbial shelf for nearly two years, until Vestron picked it up and changed its title, since Paramount Pictures had released their own horror film called April Fools Day earlier in the year.   Vestron would open Slaughter High on nine screens in Detroit on November 14th, 1986, but Vestron would not report grosses. Then they would open it on six screen in St. Louis on February 13th, 1987. At least this time they reported a gross. $12,400. Variety would simply call that number “grim.” They'd give the film one final rush on April 24th, sending it out to 38 screens in in New York City, where it would gross $90,000. There'd be no second week, as practically every theatre would replace it with Creepshow 2.   The third and final Vestron Pictures release for 1986 was Billy Galvin, a little remembered family drama featuring Karl Malden and Lenny von Dohlen, originally produced for the PBS anthology series American Playhouse but bumped up to a feature film as part of coordinated effort to promote the show by occasionally releasing feature films bearing the American Playhouse banner.   The film would open at the Cineplex Beverly Center on December 31st, not only the last day of the calendar year but the last day a film can be released into theatres in Los Angeles to have been considered for Academy Awards. The film would not get any major awards, from the Academy or anyone else, nor much attention from audiences, grossing just $4,000 in its first five days. They'd give the film a chance in New York on February 20th, at the 23rd Street West Triplex, but a $2,000 opening weekend gross would doom the film from ever opening in another theatre again.   In early 1987, Vestron announced eighteen films they would release during the year, and a partnership with AMC Theatres and General Cinema to have their films featured in those two companies' pilot specialized film programs in major markets like Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston and San Francisco.   Alpine Fire would be the first of those films, arriving at the Cinema Studio 1 in New York City on February 20th. A Swiss drama about a young deaf and mentally challenged teenager who gets his older sister pregnant, was that country's entry into the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar race. While the film would win the Golden Leopard Award at the 1985 Locarno Film Festival, the Academy would not select the film for a nomination, and the film would quickly disappear from theatres after a $2,000 opening weekend gross.   Personal Services, the first film to be directed by Terry Jones outside of his services with Monty Python, would arrive in American theatres on May 15th. The only Jones-directed film to not feature any other Python in the cast, Personal Services was a thinly-disguised telling of a 1970s—era London waitress who was running a brothel in her flat in order to make ends meet, and featured a standout performance by Julie Walters as the waitress turned madame. In England, Personal Services would be the second highest-grossing film of the year, behind The Living Daylights, the first Bond film featuring new 007 Timothy Dalton. In America, the film wouldn't be quite as successful, grossing $1.75m after 33 weeks in theatres, despite never playing on more than 31 screens in any given week.   It would be another three months before Vestron would release their second movie of the year, but it would be the one they'd become famous for.   Dirty Dancing.   Based in large part on screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein's own childhood, the screenplay would be written after the producers of the 1980 Michael Douglas/Jill Clayburgh dramedy It's My Turn asked the writer to remove a scene from the screenplay that involved an erotic dance sequence. She would take that scene and use it as a jumping off point for a new story about a Jewish teenager in the early 1960s who participated in secret “Dirty Dancing” competitions while she vacationed with her doctor father and stay-at-home mother while they vacationed in the Catskill Mountains. Baby, the young woman at the center of the story, would not only resemble the screenwriter as a character but share her childhood nickname.   Bergstein would pitch the story to every studio in Hollywood in 1984, and only get a nibble from MGM Pictures, whose name was synonymous with big-budget musicals decades before. They would option the screenplay and assign producer Linda Gottlieb, a veteran television producer making her first major foray into feature films, to the project. With Gottlieb, Bergstein would head back to the Catskills for the first time in two decades, as research for the script. It was while on this trip that the pair would meet Michael Terrace, a former Broadway dancer who had spent summers in the early 1960s teaching tourists how to mambo in the Catskills. Terrace and Bergstein didn't remember each other if they had met way back when, but his stories would help inform the lead male character of Johnny Castle.   But, as regularly happens in Hollywood, there was a regime change at MGM in late 1985, and one of the projects the new bosses cut loose was Dirty Dancing. Once again, the script would make the rounds in Hollywood, but nobody was biting… until Vestron Pictures got their chance to read it.   They loved it, and were ready to make it their first in-house production… but they would make the movie if the budget could be cut from $10m to $4.5m. That would mean some sacrifices. They wouldn't be able to hire a major director, nor bigger name actors, but that would end up being a blessing in disguise.   To direct, Gottlieb and Bergstein looked at a lot of up and coming feature directors, but the one person they had the best feeling about was Emile Ardolino, a former actor off-Broadway in the 1960s who began his filmmaking career as a documentarian for PBS in the 1970s. In 1983, Ardolino's documentary about National Dance Institute founder Jacques d'Amboise, He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin', would win both the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children's Entertainment Special.   Although Ardolino had never directed a movie, he would read the script twice in a week while serving on jury duty, and came back to Gottlieb and Bergstein with a number of ideas to help make the movie shine, even at half the budget.   For a movie about dancing, with a lot of dancing in it, they would need a creative choreographer to help train the actors and design the sequences. The filmmakers would chose Kenny Ortega, who in addition to choreographing the dance scenes in Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, had worked with Gene Kelly on the 1980 musical Xanadu. Well, more specifically, was molded by Gene Kelly to become the lead choreographer for the film. That's some good credentials.   Unlike movies like Flashdance, where the filmmakers would hire Jennifer Beals to play Alex and Marine Jahan to perform Alex's dance scenes, Emile Ardolino was insistent that the actors playing the dancers were actors who also dance. Having stand-ins would take extra time to set-up, and would suck up a portion of an already tight budget. Yet the first people he would meet for the lead role of Johnny were non-dancers Benecio del Toro, Val Kilmer, and Billy Zane. Zane would go so far as to do a screen test with one of the actresses being considered for the role of Baby, Jennifer Grey, but after screening the test, they realized Grey was right for Baby but Zane was not right for Johnny.   Someone suggested Patrick Swayze, a former dancer for the prestigious Joffrey Ballet who was making his way up the ranks of stardom thanks to his roles in The Outsiders and Grandview U.S.A. But Swayze had suffered a knee injury years before that put his dance career on hold, and there were concerns he would re-aggravate his injury, and there were concerns from Jennifer Grey because she and Swayze had not gotten along very well while working on Red Dawn. But that had been three years earlier, and when they screen tested together here, everyone was convinced this was the pairing that would bring magic to the role.   Baby's parents would be played by two Broadway veterans: Jerry Orbach, who is best known today as Detective Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order, and Kelly Bishop, who is best known today as Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls but had actually started out as a dancer, singer and actor, winning a Tony Award for her role in the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line. Although Bishop had originally been cast in a different role for the movie, another guest at the Catskills resort with the Housemans, but she would be bumped up when the original Mrs. Houseman, Lynne Lipton, would fall ill during the first week of filming.   Filming on Dirty Dancing would begin in North Carolina on September 5th, 1986, at a former Boy Scout camp that had been converted to a private residential community. This is where many of the iconic scenes from the film would be shot, including Baby carrying the watermelon and practicing her dance steps on the stairs, all the interior dance scenes, the log scene, and the golf course scene where Baby would ask her father for $250. It's also where Patrick Swayze almost ended his role in the film, when he would indeed re-injure his knee during the balancing scene on the log. He would be rushed to the hospital to have fluid drained from the swelling. Thankfully, there would be no lingering effects once he was released.   After filming in North Carolina was completed, the team would move to Virginia for two more weeks of filming, including the water lift scene, exteriors at Kellerman's Hotel and the Houseman family's cabin, before the film wrapped on October 27th.   Ardolino's first cut of the film would be completed in February 1987, and Vestron would begin the process of running a series of test screenings. At the first test screening, nearly 40% of the audience didn't realize there was an abortion subplot in the movie, even after completing the movie. A few weeks later, Vestron executives would screen the film for producer Aaron Russo, who had produced such movies as The Rose and Trading Places. His reaction to the film was to tell the executives to burn the negative and collect the insurance.   But, to be fair, one important element of the film was still not set.   The music.   Eleanor Bergstein had written into her script a number of songs that were popular in the early 1960s, when the movie was set, that she felt the final film needed. Except a number of the songs were a bit more expensive to license than Vestron would have preferred. The company was testing the film with different versions of those songs, other artists' renditions. The writer, with the support of her producer and director, fought back. She made a deal with the Vestron executives. They would play her the master tracks to ten of the songs she wanted, as well as the copycat versions. If she could identify six of the masters, she could have all ten songs in the film.   Vestron would spend another half a million dollars licensing the original recording.    The writer nailed all ten.   But even then, there was still one missing piece of the puzzle.   The closing song.   While Bergstein wanted another song to close the film, the team at Vestron were insistent on a new song that could be used to anchor a soundtrack album. The writer, producer, director and various members of the production team listened to dozens of submissions from songwriters, but none of them were right, until they got to literally the last submission left, written by Franke Previte, who had written another song that would appear on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, “Hungry Eyes.”   Everybody loved the song, called “I've Had the Time of My Life,” and it would take some time to convince Previte that Dirty Dancing was not a porno. They showed him the film and he agreed to give them the song, but the production team and Vestron wanted to get a pair of more famous singers to record the final version.   The filmmakers originally approached disco queen Donna Summer and Joe Esposito, whose song “You're the Best” appeared on the Karate Kid soundtrack, but Summer would decline, not liking the title of the movie. They would then approach Daryl Hall from Hall and Oates and Kim Carnes, but they'd both decline, citing concerns about the title of the movie. Then they approached Bill Medley, one-half of The Righteous Brothers, who had enjoyed yet another career resurgence when You Lost That Lovin' Feeling became a hit in 1986 thanks to Top Gun, but at first, he would also decline. Not that he had any concerns about the title of the film, although he did have concerns about the title, but that his wife was about to give birth to their daughter, and he had promised he would be there.   While trying to figure who to get to sing the male part of the song, the music supervisor for the film approached Jennifer Warnes, who had sung the duet “Up Where We Belong” from the An Officer and a Gentleman soundtrack, which had won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and sang the song “It Goes Like It Goes” from the Norma Rae soundtrack, which had won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Warnes wasn't thrilled with the song, but she would be persuaded to record the song for the right price… and if Bill Medley would sing the other part. Medley, flattered that Warnes asked specifically to record with him, said he would do so, after his daughter was born, and if the song was recorded in his studio in Los Angeles. A few weeks later, Medley and Warnes would have their portion of the song completed in only one hour, including additional harmonies and flourishes decided on after finishing with the main vocals.   With all the songs added to the movie, audience test scores improved considerably.   RCA Records, who had been contracted to handle the release of the soundtrack, would set a July 17th release date for the album, to coincide with the release of the movie on the same day, with the lead single, I've Had the Time of My Life, released one week earlier. But then, Vestron moved the movie back from July 17th to August 21st… and forgot to tell RCA Records about the move. No big deal. The song would quickly rise up the charts, eventually hitting #1 on the Billboard charts.   When the movie finally did open in 975 theatres in August 21st, the film would open to fourth place with $3.9m in ticket sales, behind Can't Buy Me Love in third place and in its second week of release, the Cheech Marin comedy Born in East L.A., which opened in second place, and Stakeout, which was enjoying its third week atop the charts.   The reviews were okay, but not special. Gene Siskel would give the film a begrudging Thumbs Up, citing Jennifer Grey's performance and her character's arc as the thing that tipped the scale into the positive, while Roger Ebert would give the film a Thumbs Down, due to its idiot plot and tired and relentlessly predictable story of love between kids from different backgrounds.   But then a funny thing happened…   Instead of appealing to the teenagers they thought would see the film, the majority of the audience ended up becoming adults. Not just twenty and thirty somethings, but people who were teenagers themselves during the movie's timeframe. They would be drawn in to the film through the newfound sense of boomer nostalgia that helped make Stand By Me an unexpected hit the year before, both as a movie and as a soundtrack.   Its second week in theatre would only see the gross drop 6%, and the film would finish in third place.   In week three, the four day Labor Day weekend, it would gross nearly $5m, and move up to second place. And it would continue to play and continue to bring audiences in, only dropping out of the top ten once in early November for one weekend, from August to December. Even with all the new movies entering the marketplace for Christmas, Dirty Dancing would be retained by most of the theatres that were playing it. In the first weekend of 1988, Dirty Dancing was still playing in 855 theaters, only 120 fewer than who opened it five months earlier. Once it did started leaving first run theatres, dollar houses were eager to pick it up, and Dirty Dancing would make another $6m in ticket sales as it continued to play until Christmas 1988 at some theatres, finishing its incredible run with $63.5m in ticket sales.   Yet, despite its ubiquitousness in American pop culture, despite the soundtrack selling more than ten million copies in its first year, despite the uptick in attendance at dance schools from coast to coast, Dirty Dancing never once was the #1 film in America on any weekend it was in theatres. There would always be at least one other movie that would do just a bit better.   When awards season came around, the movie was practically ignored by critics groups. It would pick up an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, and both the movie and Jennifer Grey would be nominated for Golden Globes, but it would be that song, I've Had the Time of My Life, that would be the driver for awards love. It would win the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The song would anchor a soundtrack that would also include two other hit songs, Eric Carmen's “Hungry Eyes,” and “She's Like the Wind,” recorded for the movie by Patrick Swayze, making him the proto-Hugh Jackman of the 80s. I've seen Hugh Jackman do his one-man show at the Hollywood Bowl, and now I'm wishing Patrick Swayze could have had something like that thirty years ago.   On September 25th, they would release Abel Ferrera's Neo-noir romantic thriller China Girl. A modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written by regular Ferrera writer Nicholas St. John, the setting would be New York City's Lower East Side, when Tony, a teenager from Little Italy, falls for Tye, a teenager from Chinatown, as their older brothers vie for turf in a vicious gang war. While the stars of the film, Richard Panebianco and Sari Chang, would never become known actors, the supporting cast is as good as you'd expect from a post-Ms. .45 Ferrera film, including James Russo, Russell Wong, David Caruso and James Hong.   The $3.5m movie would open on 110 screens, including 70 in New York ti-state region and 18 in Los Angeles, grossing $531k. After a second weekend, where the gross dropped to $225k, Vestron would stop tracking the film, with a final reported gross of just $1.26m coming from a stockholder's report in early 1988.   Ironically, China Girl would open against another movie that Vestron had a hand in financing, but would not release in America: Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride. While the film would do okay in America, grossing $30m against its $15m, it wouldn't translate so easily to foreign markets.   Anna, from first time Polish filmmaker Yurek Bogayevicz, was an oddball little film from the start. The story, co-written with the legendary Polish writer/director Agnieszka Holland, was based on the real-life friendship of Polish actresses Joanna (Yo-ahn-nuh) Pacuła (Pa-tsu-wa) and Elżbieta (Elz-be-et-ah) Czyżewska (Chuh-zef-ska), and would find Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova making her feature acting debut as Krystyna, an aspiring actress from Czechoslovakia who goes to New York City to find her idol, Anna, who had been imprisoned and then deported for speaking out against the new regime after the 1968 Communist invasion. Nearly twenty years later, the middle-aged Anna struggles to land any acting parts, in films, on television, or on the stage, who relishes the attention of this beautiful young waif who reminds her of herself back then.   Sally Kirkland, an American actress who got her start as part of Andy Warhol's Factory in the early 60s but could never break out of playing supporting roles in movies like The Way We Were, The Sting, A Star is Born, and Private Benjamin, would be cast as the faded Czech star whose life seemed to unintentionally mirror the actress's. Future Snakes on a Plane director David R. Ellis would be featured in a small supporting role, as would the then sixteen year old Sofia Coppola.   The $1m movie would shoot on location in New York City during the winter of late 1986 and early 1987, and would make its world premiere at the 1987 New York Film Festival in September, before opening at the 68th Street Playhouse on the Upper East Side on October 30th. Critics such as Bruce Williamson of Playboy, Molly Haskell of Vogue and Jami Bernard of the New York Post would sing the praises of the movie, and of Paulina Porizkova, but it would be Sally Kirkland whom practically every critic would gush over. “A performance of depth and clarity and power, easily one of the strongest female roles of the year,” wrote Mike McGrady of Newsday. Janet Maslim wasn't as impressed with the film as most critics, but she would note Ms. Kirkland's immensely dignified presence in the title role.   New York audiences responded well to the critical acclaim, buying more than $22,000 worth of tickets, often playing to sell out crowds for the afternoon and evening shows. In its second week, the film would see its gross increase 12%, and another 3% increase in its third week. Meanwhile, on November 13th, the film would open in Los Angeles at the AMC Century City 14, where it would bring in an additional $10,000, thanks in part to Sheila Benson's rave in the Los Angeles Times, calling the film “the best kind of surprise — a small, frequently funny, fine-boned film set in the worlds of the theater and movies which unexpectedly becomes a consummate study of love, alienation and loss,” while praising Kirkland's performance as a “blazing comet.”   Kirkland would make the rounds on the awards circuit, winning Best Actress awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes, and the Independent Spirit Awards, culminating in an Academy Award nomination, although she would lose to Cher in Moonstruck.   But despite all these rave reviews and the early support for the film in New York and Los Angeles, the film got little traction outside these two major cities. Despite playing in theatres for nearly six months, Anna could only round up about $1.2m in ticket sales.   Vestron's penultimate new film of 1987 would be a movie that when it was shot in Namibia in late 1986 was titled Peacekeeper, then was changed to Desert Warrior when it was acquired by Jerry Weintraub's eponymously named distribution company, then saw it renamed again to Steel Dawn when Vestron overpaid to acquire the film from Weintraub, because they wanted the next film starring Patrick Swayze for themselves.   Swayze plays, and stop me if you've heard this one before, a warrior wandering through a post-apocalyptic desert who comes upon a group of settlers who are being menaced by the leader of a murderous gang who's after the water they control. Lisa Niemi, also known as Mrs. Patrick Swayze, would be his romantic interest in the film, which would also star AnthonY Zerbe, Brian James, and, in one of his very first acting roles, future Mummy co-star Arnold Vosloo.   The film would open to horrible reviews, and gross just $312k in 290 theatres. For comparison's sake, Dirty Dancing was in its eleventh week of release, was still playing 878 theatres, and would gross $1.7m. In its second week, Steel Dawn had lost nearly two thirds of its theatres, grossing only $60k from 107 theatres. After its third weekend, Vestron stopped reporting grosses. The film had only earned $562k in ticket sales.   And their final release for 1987 would be one of the most prestigious titles they'd ever be involved with. The Dead, based on a short story by James Joyce, would be the 37th and final film to be directed by John Huston. His son Tony would adapt the screenplay, while his daughter Anjelica, whom he had directed to a Best Supporting Actress Oscar two years earlier for Prizzi's Honor, would star as the matriarch of an Irish family circa 1904 whose husband discovers memoirs of a deceased lover of his wife's, an affair that preceded their meeting.   Originally scheduled to shoot in Dublin, Ireland, The Dead would end up being shot on soundstages in Valencia, CA, just north of Los Angeles, as the eighty year old filmmaker was in ill health. Huston, who was suffering from severe emphysema due to decades of smoking, would use video playback for the first and only time in his career in order to call the action, whirling around from set to set in a motorized wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached to it. In fact, the company insuring the film required the producers to have a backup director on set, just in case Huston was unable to continue to make the film. That stand-in was Czech-born British filmmaker Karel Reisz, who never once had to stand-in during the entire shoot.   One Huston who didn't work on the film was Danny Huston, who was supposed to shoot some second unit footage for the film in Dublin for his father, who could not make any trips overseas, as well as a documentary about the making of the film, but for whatever reason, Danny Huston would end up not doing either.   John Huston would turn in his final cut of the film to Vestron in July 1987, and would pass away in late August, a good four months before the film's scheduled release. He would live to see some of the best reviews of his entire career when the film was released on December 18th. At six theatres in Los Angeles and New York City, The Dead would earn $69k in its first three days during what was an amazing opening weekend for a number of movies. The Dead would open against exclusive runs of Broadcast News, Ironweed, Moonstruck and the newest Woody Allen film, September, as well as wide releases of Eddie Murphy: Raw, Batteries Not Included, Overboard, and the infamous Bill Cosby stinker Leonard Part 6.   The film would win the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture of the year, John Huston would win the Spirit Award and the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director, Anjelica Huston would win a Spirit Award as well, for Best Supporting Actress, and Tony Huston would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. But the little $3.5m film would only see modest returns at the box office, grossing just $4.4m after a four month run in theatres.   Vestron would also release two movies in 1987 through their genre Lightning Pictures label.   The first, Blood Diner, from writer/director Jackie Kong, was meant to be both a tribute and an indirect sequel to the infamous 1965 Herschell Gordon Lewis movie Blood Feast, often considered to be the first splatter slasher film. Released on four screens in Baltimore on July 10th, the film would gross just $6,400 in its one tracked week. The film would get a second chance at life when it opened at the 8th Street Playhouse in New York City on September 4th, but after a $5,000 opening week gross there, the film would have to wait until it was released on home video to become a cult film.   The other Lightning Pictures release for 1987, Street Trash, would become one of the most infamous horror comedy films of the year. An expansion of a short student film by then nineteen year old Jim Muro, Street Trash told the twin stories of a Greenpoint, Brooklyn shop owner who sell a case of cheap, long-expired hooch to local hobos, who hideously melt away shortly after drinking it, while two homeless brothers try to deal with their situation as best they can while all this weirdness is going on about them.   After playing several weeks of midnight shows at the Waverly Theatre near Washington Square, Street Trash would open for a regular run at the 8th Street Playhouse on September 18th, one week after Blood Diner left the same theatre. However, Street Trash would not replace Blood Diner, which was kicked to the curb after one week, but another long forgotten movie, the Christopher Walken-starrer Deadline. Street Trash would do a bit better than Blood Diner, $9,000 in its first three days, enough to get the film a full two week run at the Playhouse. But its second week gross of $5,000 would not be enough to give it a longer playdate, or get another New York theatre to pick it up. The film would get other playdates, including one in my secondary hometown of Santa Cruz starting, ironically, on Thanksgiving Day, but the film would barely make $100k in its theatrical run.   While this would be the only film Jim Muro would direct, he would become an in demand cinematographer and Steadicam operator, working on such films as Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, Sneakers, L.A. Confidential, the first Fast and Furious movie, and on The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic for James Cameron. And should you ever watch the film and sit through the credits, yes, it's that Bryan Singer who worked as a grip and production assistant on the film. It would be his very first film credit, which he worked on during a break from going to USC film school.   People who know me know I am not the biggest fan of horror films. I may have mentioned it once or twice on this podcast. But I have a soft spot for Troma Films and Troma-like films, and Street Trash is probably the best Troma movie not made or released by Troma. There's a reason why Lloyd Kaufman is not a fan of the movie. A number of people who have seen the movie think it is a Troma movie, not helped by the fact that a number of people who did work on The Toxic Avenger went to work on Street Trash afterwards, and some even tell Lloyd at conventions that Street Trash is their favorite Troma movie. It's looks like a Troma movie. It feels like a Troma movie. And to be honest, at least to me, that's one hell of a compliment. It's one of the reasons I even went to see Street Trash, the favorable comparison to Troma. And while I, for lack of a better word, enjoyed Street Trash when I saw it, as much as one can say they enjoyed a movie where a bunch of bums playing hot potato with a man's severed Johnson is a major set piece, but I've never really felt the need to watch it again over the past thirty-five years.   Like several of the movies on this episode, Street Trash is not available for streaming on any service in the United States. And outside of Dirty Dancing, the ones you can stream, China Girl, Personal Services, Slaughter High and Steel Dawn, are mostly available for free with ads on Tubi, which made a huge splash last week with a confounding Super Bowl commercial that sent millions of people to figure what a Tubi was.   Now, if you were counting, that was only nine films released in 1987, and not the eighteen they had promised at the start of the year. Despite the fact they had a smash hit in Dirty Dancing, they decided to push most of their planned 1987 movies to 1988. Not necessarily by choice, though. Many of the films just weren't ready in time for a 1987 release, and then the unexpected long term success of Dirty Dancing kept them occupied for most of the rest of the year. But that only meant that 1988 would be a stellar year for them, right?   We'll find out next episode, when we continue the Vestron Pictures story.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again next week.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

After an extended holiday hiatus, cohosts Dino and Mike are back on the mics to close off Season 3 before they bid the concepts of seasons farewell due to their inability to properly count in I Eat Movies #30: Mike's First Time - Inside Moves (1980). Honoring the late Richard Donner, Mike and Dino examine a more intimate, character driven opus from the man behind Superman: The Movie and the Lethal Weapon films that he hailed as his personal favorite amongst all his features. A notable black sheep in a sea of bigger-budgeted studio fare, John Savage (The Deer Hunter) stars as a broken man who unsuccessfully attempts suicide only to find new purpose through the regulars of a local bar and a best friend in a bartender (David Morse, The Green Mile) with ambitions of becoming a pro basketball player. Pride, loyalty, friendship and the concept of community are all discussed in this virtually forgotten opus co-written by Barry Levinson (Diner, Rain Man) and Valerie Curtin (And Justice for All, Best Friends) and co-starring Diana Scarwind (Mommie Dearest, Psycho III) who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role.

Recorded - 10/30/2022 On Episode 197 of the Almost Sideways Movie Podcast, we review two new movies with serious awards buzz for their leading actresses before deep diving an awards darling from 25 years ago that won its star a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Here are the highlights: What We've Been Watching (13:00) Terry Reviews: Winged Migration (Oscar watch) & The Stranger (18:20) Todd Recap: The Usual Suspects re-watch with the girlfriend (20:30) Zach Review: Smile (23:30) Featured Review: Tár (37:00) Featured Review: Till 25th Anniversary Deep Dive: L.A. Confidential (55:00) Trivia (1:10:40) First Impressions & Terry's Secret List (1:24:40) Mt. Rushmore of Color Film Noir & Recasting (1:52:40) Highest WAR, Worst Performance, Minor Character (2:08:10) Stickman, Douchebag, Scene, Conspiracies (2:24:30) LVP, MVP, Quote of the Day Find AlmostSideways everywhere! Website almostsideways.com Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AlmostSidewayscom-130953353614569/ AlmostSideways Twitter: @almostsideways Terry's Twitter: @almostsideterry Zach's Twitter: @pro_zach36 Adam's Twitter: @adamsideways Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/almostsideways-podcast/id1270959022 Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7oVcx7Y9U2Bj2dhTECzZ4m Stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/almost-sideways-movie-podcast YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfEoLqGyjn9M5Mr8umWiktA/featured?view_as=subscriber

"Does anybody here know how many times I had to watch 'Funny Lady'?" We watched In & Out (1997) with our friend Chris (@golden_girls_posters) and Hot damn, what a faboulous window treatment... wait that was a trick! We still have questions about the premise, but you can't beat this cast with a stick.  Kevin Kline nails it as an in the closet (?) high school teacher who gets outed by a famous former student.  Somehow his mincing and general gayness isnt quite as offensive as a certain soon-to-be-former talk show host and we were still loling at the physical humor.  Joan Cusack once again steals every scene she's in and absolutely deserves her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.  I still think Debbie Reynolds dressed as Thelma Harper is a hate crime especially in a movie as gay as this but it was 1997.  Times and attitudes have changed but thanks to some knock out comedic performances this movie doesn't need to get cancelled... yet.   Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts! www.patreon.com/moviesthatmadeusgay Facebook/Instagram: @moviesthatmadeusgay Twitter: @MTMUGPod Scott Youngbauer: Twitter @oscarscott / Instagram @scottyoungballer Peter Lozano: Twitter/Instagram @peterlasagna

Tom and Jenny talk about the wildly entertaining 2017 film, a dark comedy detailing the events surrounding Tonya Harding and her alleged involvement in kneecapping her figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan back in the 90s. It stars Margo Robbie, Sebastian Stan, and Allison Janney, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her grimly hilarious … Continue reading Matinee LIVE: I, Tonya (2017)

Today on Wussy Movie Club, we are joined by filmmaker and SCAD professor Quinn Orear to  discuss his pick for the Official Queer Cannon -- ‘Tootsie'!   This 1982 Sydney Pollack film stars Dustin Hoffman as a struggling actor who puts on a feminine disguise to land a big job. Jessica Lange won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in ‘Tootsie'.    Will the film be officially recognized as Queer cannon? I'm Daniel Shaw and I'm Johne Kilberg and we're here to break down the fashion, the herstory, and the queerness of ‘Tootsie''.    WUSSY Movie Club is a weekly roundtable movie podcast examines films a Queer lens, featuring themed seasons and special interviews with Queer filmmakers. Every Wednesday, a rotating cast of LGBTQIA+ voices will dish on their favorite films of past and present. Join the club and be a part of the discussion!   WUSSY Movie Club is part of the WUSSY Podcast Network, hosted by WUSSY Mag (@wussymag)   Produced by Jon Dean @jondeanphoto   Podcast Art created by Nick Sheridan @glass.knuckles   Podcast Music by DJ Helix @1djhelix   Join the WUSSY Movie Club on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/wussymovieclub/    Follow WUSSY Movie Club on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/WussyMovieClub/

Actress, Comedian, and TV host Whoopi Goldberg is the first Black person to win the coveted EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar & Tony) Award.Within Goldberg's amazing career she has received two Academy Award nominations, for her contributions in The Color Purple and Ghost, winning for Ghost. Goldberg was also recognized as the first African American to have received Academy Award nominations for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.Following the academy award, Goldberg won two Golden Globe for Best Actress (1986) for her contribution in The Color Purple, and Best Supporting Actress in 1991 for Ghost (Ghost also won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role).Goldberg starring in “Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway” won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1985. Not only did Whoppi Goldberg win the Grammy but she became only the second solo woman performer at the time to receive the award and the first African-American woman. Only three women performers have ever received the Best Comedy Recording award.In 1990, Goldberg received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as “Oda Mae Brown” in the hit movie Ghost. In 2002 Whoopi Goldberg won the Tony Award for her contribution as a producer for Thoroughly Modern Millie.  Goldberg outdid herself where she was rewarded with eight Daytime Emmy nominations and went home with two. The acting veteran received nine a total of Primetime Emmy nominations. Concluding Goldberg's long list of awards was her Daytime Emmy Award in 2009, for Outstanding Talk Show Host for her role on The View.WHOOPI GOLDBERGhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopi_GoldbergALL SIXTEEN E.G.O.T WINNERShttps://www.thewrap.com/all-egot-winners-audrey-hepburn-whoopi-goldberg-mel-brooks/

Kirsten Dunst been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of an emotionally frail wife of a Montana rancher. "The Power of the Dog" star joins us. And, The Freedom Convoy began as a rejection of a vaccine mandate for truckers entering Canada. But the protests have since morphed into something different. Ciaran O'Connor, who tracks online extremism, has been following developments.

Catch up with ALLISON INTERVIEWS Host, Allison Kugel: YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYOTAqng5TB22edmQTBkwQw Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theallisonkugel/ Allison Interviews Blog - www.allisoninterviews.com Support the ALLISON INTERVIEWS Podcast - https://anchor.fm/allison-interviews/support Allison's Memoir, Journaling Fame: A memoir of a life unhinged and on the record - https://amzn.to/2ZxJvUE Oscar winning actress Geena Davis has starred in some of entertainment's most talked about and celebrated films including Tootsie, Beetlejuice, The Accidental Tourist for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, Thelma & Louise, A League of Their Own, Hero, and Stuart Little among others. In 2005 and 2006, Davis tackled the fictional role of the first female U.S. President in the television series, Commander in Chief. As founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Davis, along with her team, have worked tirelessly gathering scientifically backed data about how girls and women, as well as people with disabilities, varied body types and the LGBTQ+ community are portrayed in media and on screen. Her research has had an enormous impact on Hollywood creators, and has helped to move the ball forward in the development and distribution of more accurate and more inclusive on screen portrayals. Learn more about the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and get involved at www.seejane.org. Follow on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @geenadavisorg --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/allison-interviews/support

The year is 2003 and the nominees are: 1. Kathy Bates - About Schmidt 2. Queen Latifah - Chicago 3. Meryl Streep - Adaptation 4. Julianne Moore - The Hours 5. Catherine Zeta-Jones - Chicago - In 2003 Catherine Zeta-Jones won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her first and only nomination for Chicago. During the Golden Globes she was campaigned as a lead and then later went to supporting for the BAFTA's and Oscars. This was an interesting year because Adaptation revived Meryl Streep's career. A lot of people expected Streep or Julianne Moore to be Zeta-Jones' biggest threat. Queen Latifah was also nominated for Chicago and Kathy Bates was nominated for the famous hot tub scene in About Schmidt. Join host Kyle Brownrigg with guest host Robert Watson as they discuss. . . . . . . . . . . . . #bestactress #supporting #oscars #academyawards #hollywood #silverscreen #vintage #gay #queer #lgbtq #canada #losangeles #gaypodcast #robbed #snubbed #film #movie #podcast #supporting #lead #kathybates #aboutschmidt #queenlatifah #chicago #merylstreep #adaptation #juliannemoore #thehours #catherinezetajones #gaysofinsta

Rita Moreno is one of the most decorated performers of our time, so why did she go seven years with hardly any film work after winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1961? I mean, do you really need to be told? Moreno is this week's guest star and she is truly that. Of the shows we've covered so far Moreno stands out for her commitment to working with the Muppets as peers, which you learn more about in this 2018 New Yorker piece on her experience. We also talk at length about a very specific type of TV talk show from the 70's, the time Dick Cavett rode to Doug's rescue in a coffee shop and why the soon to be remade (by Steven Spielberg no less) West Side Story still resonates. Our email address is 120overeighty@gmail.com so feel free to reach out with stories and thoughts about the Muppets. Nest Week: We'll talk about one comedian with another. Ryan Beck joins us to discuss Ruth Buzzi. Credits: The Muppet Show - The Walt Disney Company FAIR USE ACT DISCLAIMER Fair Use: Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Fair Use Definition: Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching and scholarship. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test.

My guest this week and I worked together in Cancun during the 2004-2005 season. His first season was in Club Med Cancun in November 2003, where he was the Entertainer/Animator of the resort and is none other than Bob Dougherty, AKA “Bobby D”. Bob worked for both Disney Cruises and Club Med, so that makes him a double-threat for this podcast. He is also able to offer candid insight on the differences between cruise ships and resorts. Bob even tells a great story of working with a pre-American Idol 7th place finisher, pre-Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson aboard Disney Cruises. I admired Bob's work ethic, sense of humor and commitment during my time in Cancun and I can't wait for you to hear his story. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Please check out Bob's music videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUg56nAAJfs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW9-2KebO1I&list=PLrqqU5xLSq9Nr8qMPWdVJMEMz_JZ_MW_N&index=43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9YXw4WTWvY&list=PLrqqU5xLSq9Nr8qMPWdVJMEMz_JZ_MW_N&index=33  

In 2004 Renée Zellweger went home with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Cold Mountain, arguably the most overrated mountain in cinema history. Every actress in this category is incredible however the general consensus for this episode was that Renée had Harvey Weinstein on her side and this was likely a career Oscar for her (meaning - “she’s been so incredible in the past, just give it to her”). There were some major contenders here - Shohreh Aghdashloo for House of Sand and Fog (aka Jennifer Connelly as the inconvenienced white woman), Marcia Gay Harden for Mystic River, Patricia Clarkson for Pieces of April, and Holly Hunter for Thirteen. Join host Kyle Brownrigg with guest host Rob Browne as they pick their winner.

JoJo's Bizarre Podcast is on the bleeding edge this week, as we take a look at brand-new anime, Akudama Drive. We also talk about home improvement, "booyakasha," basketball player stats, outdated methods of execution, and Marisa Tomei's Best Supporting Actress Oscar for My Cousin Vinny. For heaven's sake, rate and review us on iTunes! and check out our Patreon

Dianne Wiest nabs her second Best Supporting Actress Oscar, once again in a Woody Allen vehicle, as a deluded, almost-has been Broadway diva drunk on paint remover in "Bullets Over Broadway." Wiest's vocal work as Helen Sinclair, her navigation of some of the script's best lines, and her ability to pivot emotional extremes on a dime are well-deserved of that year's award, but co-stars and fellow nominees Jennifer Tilly and Chazz Palminteri also shine, as well as Jim Broadbent and Tracy Ullman (but not so much Mary Louise Parker). Email: thebsapod@gmail.com Twitter: @bsapod Colin Drucker Twitter: @colindrucker Instagram: @colindrucker_ Nick Kochanov Twitter: @nickkochanov Instagram: @nickkochanov

We were so enamored with Ingrid Bergman in "Cactus Flower" that we needed to see what she got her own Best Supporting Actress Oscar for. Well, 1974's "Murder on the Orient Express" is a long haul of a movie, and Bergman's fretful Greta is but a brief stop in the all-star cast of culprits. Perhaps she was right when she said it should have gone to Valentina Cortese instead. Nevertheless, Bergman is the best thing about the movie (next to the perfectly aged sight of Sean Connery) while Michael York's mustache is the worst. To say nothing of the longest champagne toast in the history of cross-country train travel, Albert Finney's puzzling putz Poirot, too many scenes of men talking, and Lauren Bacall. Email: thebsapod@gmail.com Twitter: @bsapod Colin Drucker Twitter: @colindrucker Instagram: @colindrucker_ Nick Kochanov Twitter: @nickkochanov Instagram: @nickkochanov

The 1993 Best Supporting Actress Oscar race was a complete toss up with the likes of Judy Davis, Joan Plowright, Miranda Richardson, Vanessa Redgraves, and Marisa…something? Who? Odds were on Redgraves or Richardson and when Jack Palance announced Tomei as the winner it began an Oscar conspiracy theory that has followed Tomei for almost her entire career. Join host Kyle Brownrigg and guest host Arianne Tong (Host of Group Therapy Podcast) as they discuss one of the biggest Oscar upsets of all time.

We are blush and bashful over this week's episode! We are celebrating the women of "Steel Magnolias" and all of their best moments, from Truvy's chain to M'Lynn's meltdown. We discuss why Julia Roberts was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar (and won the Golden Globe), why Sally Field wasn't nominated for an Oscar, the star power of Dolly Parton, who we'd cast in a remake, some love for the wilted 2012 remake and which magnolia we see in ourselves. Follow us! Email: thebsapod@gmail.com Twitter: @bsapod Colin Drucker Twitter: @colindrucker Instagram: @colindrucker_ Nick Kochanov Twitter: @nickkochanov Instagram: @nickkochanov

While Jessica Lange is GREAT as Julie in "Tootsie," is she the Best Supporting Actress of 1982? Or is life imitating art when it comes to co-star Teri Garr's solid but unrewarded work as Sandy? And maybe it all should have gone to Kim Stanley anyway, who knows. We also discuss our mixed emotions on Marriage Story, a hit parade of a musical from the UK and this year's potential shoe-in for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Follow us! Email: thebsapod@gmail.com Twitter: @bsapod Colin Drucker Twitter: @colindrucker Instagram: @colindrucker_ Nick Kochanov Twitter: @nickkochanov Instagram: @nickkochanov

Episode 54: I, Tonya This 2017 movie details the rise and fall of Tonya Harding, an American figure skater who rose to prominence and then notoriety in the early 1990s. A gritty, darkly humorous movie with some superb performances, notably Margot Robbie in the title role and Alison Janney, who was to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Tonya’s mother. The movie manages to balance gripping entertainment and humour yet never loses sight of the underlying pathos of the real story. Our task is to determine how close to that real-life story the movie manages to remain. We hope you’ll join us.

Entrevista con Katy Jurado 1984 • Katy Jurado en Español. Katy won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work in the 1954 Spencer . Tracy film, Broken Lance. Ms Jurado also won three Silver Ariel awards, the Mexican Oscars, for her portrayals as well as being nominated many more times for Academy Awards. High Noon was a highlight in her international film career

***This is a Spoiler Free Episode*** It’s our 2017-18 Best Supporting Actress Overview, and we avoid all spoilers. Twitter Update (We’re now at MMandOscar.) WHY SHE’LL LOSE/WHY SHE’LL WIN THE 2017/18 BEST ACTRESS OSCAR: Mary J. Blige - 3:06 Allison Janney - 11:38 Lesley Manville - 20:17 Laurie Metcalf - 27:40 Octavia Spencer - 36:15 Perfecting Perfection - 43:11 Final Thoughts - 49:52 Here’s our overview of this year’s Best Supporting Actress category. The format is simple. We make the case against and for each of the 5 nominees. Then we rank them in a segment we’ve pompously entitled, Perfecting Perfection. This might be the most competitive category of the 4 acting awards. For it takes some mental gymnastics to argue against the nominees. Mary J. Blige might already be too successful in other fields? Is Allison Janney’s character too bad a mom? Was Lesley Manville too subtle? Has Laurie Metcalf’s performance been outshined after folks take in what her costar Saoirse Ronan put out there? And is Octavia Spencer always this good and therefore what, we don’t give her any credit? The cases for these actresses are easier to make. The performance by Mary J. Blige sharecropper in Mudbound is about as dressed down and anti-Diva as we can get. Allison Janney deserves all of the favoritism after making us empathize with such an abrasive character. Lesley Manville peers into our souls, Laurie Metcalf reminds all us problem children of every good mom, and yes!, Octavia Spencer is always this good! Why is that a bad thing??!! We’ve had too much fun once again, and we hope you’ve enjoyed listening. Stay tuned as we’ll finish covering the rest of the Big 7 categories, including Original Screenplay, Director, and Best Picture. If you want deep dives into each performance, bio/filmographies of all the nominees, and spoiler music you can accomplish great things during, then please reference our Oscar Sprint Profile episodes. There are Hollywood News and Award Season updates sprinkled throughout. The Star Wars, Cloverfield, and Black Panther pods are movie events we MUST cover, and there’s a lot of fun stuff still to come. Feel free to chat with us on social media. We’ll be LIVE Tweeting the Indie Spirits from at MMandOscar . We’re all over Instagram, Facebook, GMail, and we’re beginning a lifestyle on Reddit. Do please comment, follow, subscribe, like, & review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher, or Podcast Addict. These are early days for our show, we’re committed for the long haul, and we just wanna have fun and grow an audience. So of course, if you enjoy our little show, please help us spread the word. As always, thanks for listening. Reality can suck. Do watch movies with us.

Brett hosts Josh, Stevie, and Pappy in reviewing and spoiling the 1992 court room movie classic My Cousin Vinny, staring Joe Pesci and the performance that won Marisa Tomei the 1992 Best Supporting Actress Oscar! New York lawyer Vinny has never won a case. When his teenage cousin Bill and his friend Stan are accused of murder in a backwater Alabama town, it's up to the nervous Vinny to save him from jail, even though he's only ever tried personal injury cases before, and none of them successfully. Release date: March 13, 1992 (USA) Director: Jonathan Lynn Screenplay: Dale Launer Awards: Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, MTV Movie Award for Next Generation Nominations: MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance Cast overview: Joe Pesci - Vinny Gambini Ralph Macchio - Bill Gambini Marisa Tomei - Mona Lisa Vito Mitchell Whitfield - Stan Rothenstein Fred Gwynne - Judge Chamberlain Haller Bruce McGill - Sheriff Farley Lane Smith - Jim Trotter III Lou Walker - Grits Cook Thanks for listening to Spoilers Movie Review Podcast! We are a pop culture podcast specializing in reviewing movies. Expect retrospective "Movie Review" episodes (Thursdays) where one of our hosts chooses the film we’ll discuss. The “Yes or No” segment will rank the movie; the possible flaccidity of Viggo Mortensen's penis will be determined, and trivia will be played to select the next host/movie. As a bonus, we do additional Spoilers! episodes where we discuss something new in pop culture like: Rick and Morty, Documentary Now, Game of Thrones, what's new in theaters (like Beauty and the Beast or The Boss Baby), Higher, Uncharted (the video game) and our annual Oscar Pick ‘Em Show where we predict who will win the Academy Awards. We celebrate milestones by playing trivia, or getting pap-out drunk and talking about Mel Gibson’s seminal classic “The Passion of the Christ.” We want to hear from you! If you have a movie you would like us to spoil: Tweet us @spoilers_pod ; slide into our DMs on Instagram (podcastspoilers); send us a hate email podcastspoilers@gmail.com ; or call up the rarely used Spoilers! hotline 903-776-4507 (903-SPOIL-07). Thanks for listening, that was Spoilers!

Two Martin Short movies separated by a decade.  We watched Cross My Heart a fairly forgettable romantic comedy featuring a performance worthy of a Best Supporting Actress Oscar from Annette O'Toole's breasts and A Simple Wish a confounding and insane movie about a male fairy godmother who makes a child's life worse at every turn.  If A Simple Wish is one of your favorite movies from childhood you should probably skip the last 20 minutes or so because things take a dark turn in our conversation.  Enjoy!Download Here

The Brady Bunch may be a bizarre version of a drag family, but with poor Jan battling her inner saboteur, Marcia serving us fish day in and day out and RuPaul being an inspiration while also plugging her book (and tape), we dive into how and why "The Brady Bunch Movie" is such a draggy movie. We also discuss the impact of the late Edie WIndsor, rumored Season 10 queens, how colonics work, the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and announce what we're reviewing next!

The Movie Geeks celebrate the 30th anniversary of Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money by speaking with acclaimed actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (Scarface, The Abyss). Ms. Mastrantonio, who co-starred in the film opposite Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance as Carmen. Support this podcast

The Movie Geeks celebrate the 30th anniversary of Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money by speaking with acclaimed actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (Scarface, The Abyss). Ms. Mastrantonio, who co-starred in the film opposite Paul Newman and Tom Cruise, received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance as Carmen.

As an early Mother’s Day treat, Movie Addict Headquarters revisits Cloris Leachman and her son George Englund Jr. during this episode – and what a dynamic mother/son team they are! They talk about Cloris’s extraordinary showbiz career as well as her candid autobiography, titled simply “CLORIS,” which was published in 2009. Cloris boasts a wealth of acting experience to draw from -- and she relates many humorous incidents for listeners to enjoy, while George reveals what it’s like to be his mother’s manager. Cloris has been wowing audiences for over half a century. She’s worked with such megastars as Paul Newman, Meryl Streep, Steve McQueen, Katharine Hepburn, Dianne Keaton and Sissy Spacek. Among her numerous memorable films are The Last Picture Show (which earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar), Young Frankenstein and High Anxiety. Her television career is equally remarkable -- even without considering her sensational appearance on Dancing with the Stars. She’s won nine Emmys for her brilliant work in such shows as Malcolm in the Middle, Mary Tyler Moore, Promised Land and A Brand New Life.