bobwp 
Jean Harlow (b. 1911) was born. An early sex-symbol, “The Blonde Bombshell” was ‘found’ by Howard Hughes and launched into stardom through her appearance in 1930’s “Hell’s Angels”. She later starred in MGM films of the 1930’s including “Dinner at Eight” (1933) and “Reckless” (1935) before tragically dying of kidney failure at the age of … Read more
Exercising your Damons. Millions of people watching the Oscars would have seen Jimmy Kimmel roasting poor Matt Damon as a part of their long running ‘feud’. At one point he points out that Matt gave up the leading role in “Manchester by the Sea” to star in a “Chinese ponytail movie” that “went on to … Read more
Will Win / Should Win / DID Win It’s time for “the big one” again.  The Oscars will be awarded again on Sunday February 26th in LA (LA Land). Hosting the proceedings this time is Jimmy Kimmel (the one who isn’t Jimmy Fallon) in a debut compering role, and I predict he should … Read more
Dysfunctionally functional. The second of my catch-up films for next Sunday’s Oscars, this time featuring Viggo Mortensen who is up for a Best Actor Oscar. “Captain Fantastic” starts with a dramatic hunting expedition introducing us to the unusual Cash family. Dad Ben (Viggo Mortensen) is bringing up his six kids – Bodevan, Kielyr, Vespyr, Rellian, … Read more
“Sometimes a blind pig finds a truffle”. One of the joys (and stresses) of the run up to the Oscar weekend is to try to catch all the major award films before the big event. As I bitched about in my BAFTA write-up, UK release dates do NOT make this an easy task, with some … Read more