Saturday, November 14, 2009

Birthday Suits: Good Hair, and Good Music.

Celebrating the birthdays of the film-famous. If it's your birthday, we'll sing you a happy one in the comments.

Louise Brooks, Veronica Lake and Josh Duhamel

1906 Louise Brooks, dancer, silent film actress, icon, quotable diva, film critic, memoirist, ...Lost Girl, Lulu. Her hair is legend.
1908 Joseph McCarthy, he saw only Red(s). He's been a villainous figure in movies ever since, whether seen, unseen or fictionalized. See: Guilty by Suspicion, The Way We Were, The Manchurian Candidate, Good Night, and Good Luck. and many more...
1919 Veronica Lake, femme fatale, purveyor of the peek-a-boo bang (her hair also being legend). Kim Basinger didn't even have to get "cut" to look like this goddess in LA Confidential. She just had to sell those glorious blonde waves.
1945 Paul Hirsch, editor of Carrie, Star Wars (Oscar win), Ferris Bueller's Day Off and more...
1951 Zhang Yimou, fine director, awesome goddess worshipper. Think of what he did for both Zhang Ziyi (Hero, The House of Flying Daggers) and Gong Li (Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou, Shanghai Triad)
1952 Chris Noonan, writer/director of the wondrous Babe (1995)
1954 Condoleeza Rice, crazy person. Also played crazily by Thandie Newton in W.
1972 Josh Duhamel actor often seen being chased by giant fucking robots and/or Fergie

How is this for a weird coincidence? Leopold Mozart and Johann van Beethoven were both born on this day in the 18th century. They would go on to father enormously important children. Their offspring are none other than immortal and beloved composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. There have been countless films about musicians over the years and there will be countless more -- silent purists may argue but music was a good match for the movies -- but in this particular arena will anything ever top Amadeus 's enviable success trifecta: critical/commercial/Oscar?

12 comments:

MrW said...

Today, I only have Dick Powell (*1904) to add - but your Mozart and Beethoven anniversaries are definitely wrong: Ludwig van was born some time before December 17th 1770, Wolferl on January 27th 1756. (It really would have been too much of a coincidence.)

Jeff said...

I think you've misread something here, MrW. Nathaniel is talking about the *fathers* of Mozart and Beethoven, both of whom were born on Nov. 14 (but not in the same year, of course).

Moviefan said...

Sorry Jeff, I get the willies when people put Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li in the same sentence. Ziyi is not fit to even carry Gong Li's Louis Vitton purse.
Pretty sure Zhang Yimou even said once that Gong Li was the superior actress.
How sad we have not seen her in a movie for so long.

NATHANIEL R said...

moviefan... agreed that Gong Li is a far superior actress. But in the history of Yimou they do share a similar obsession/position.

Paul Outlaw said...

Nat, bet you had fun making that photomontage. ;-) Thanks!

NATHANIEL R said...

haha. they're always fun to make. though i have to say it's much harder to find photos of people in suits than you'd think!

Jim T said...

Nathaniel, thank you for the Josh Duhamel pic but can you please remove Veronica Lake? :p

MrW said...

Oops...

sphinx said...

Being almost 23 years, i feel in the minority when I proclaim Babe to be one of the most delightful and brilliant films I've ever seen. I'd rather watch Babe for the 17th time than watch any of the transformers movies for the first time thank you very much.

NATHANIEL R said...

sphinx never be ashamed of loving BABE. It's totally a brilliant movie.

Steven said...

At almost 23 years myself, I'm not ashamed at all to say that Babe is one of my favorites. So simple but mighty at heart.

Was Babe the last G-rated movie to be nominated for Best Picture?

~Steven

Term Papers said...

Leopold Mozart and Johann van Beethoven were both born on this day in the 18th century. They would go on to father enormously important children,Well this film script is fantastic but this is very old film.