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Monday, February 29, 2016

Hattie McDaniel Takes Home the Gold

Gone with the Wind was a huge smash hit in 1939. Adjusting for inflation, it's still the biggest blockbuster of all time — by 200 million dollars! Isn't it ironic that a movie sympathetic to the antebellum South would be the catalyst for the first African-American to win an Academy Award on February 29, 1940?

Back then, the Academy Awards still tended to reward movies that people had actually seen in theaters. The financial success of Gone with the Wind carried over into eight Oscar wins, including Best Supporting Actress for Hattie McDaniel, the movie's delightful "Mammy."

Hattie McDaniel wins the (Booster) Gold this day in 1940

There's a long-standing, unsubstantiated rumor that Mexican actor Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez was the model for the now-familiar Oscar award first introduced in 1929. However, you can't help but notice the similarity between the famous golden statuette and a certain, golden time-traveler ("The Greatest Model You've Never Heard Of").

Given how much attention has been given lately to the Academy's preference for lily-white talent, ask yourself which is more far-fetched: that the Academy Award of Merit was modeled on a white time-traveler or that it was based on a Mexican? You be the judge.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: academy awards emilio fernandez hattie mcdaniel movies oscars secret history

Monday, March 8, 2010

JLI Movie Fan Casting

If the Academy Awards have you in the mood for movies, Fansites over at Comicbookmovies.com produced a proposed cast list for a JLI movie late last week. While I'm not much for this sort of thing (I'm not a big fan of hypotheticals: I prefer things I can count, like actual comic book appearances, 'natch), they chose television's Teddy Sears as Booster Gold and James Roday as Blue Beetle. That sounds like something that I'd watch. Aw, who am I kidding. I'd watch a movie with Booster and Beetle if they were played by Ethan Suplee and Andy Dick. I'd complain about it, but I'd still watch.

Comments (12) | Add a Comment | Tags: academy awards blue beetle casting comicbookmovie.com movies oscars

tiggerpete posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 10:23 AM
I think the best person to play Booster would be Aaron Eckhardt, he is a great actor (Dark Knight, Thank You For Smoking) and has some good comedic timing, which I think is a must for Booster (no matter how serious things get, he can still find a way to crack wise) as for Ted, I think I might go with Robert Downey Jr. though this would be an expensive cast if one were to fill out the whole roster, any thoughts on who plays Guy, or Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, etc.?

Harry posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 3:35 PM
I'm afraid I'm not the best for the casting game (way too removed from pop culture, old fogie that I am - though my Booster suggestion is Guy Pierce b/c I just rewatched Memento), but I was impressed with the effort by the site. He choose actors that could conceivably be cast if the production were ready for filming. The problem is of all the logistical complications with such a film, casting is low on the list. Look at the Heculean effort put forth by Marvel Entertainment to get an Avengers flick, and DC Enterainment is light years behind them.

Harry posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 3:43 PM
On the other hand, a good script idea and the right medium could be too tempting to pass up. For instance, what if a creative effort similar to Battlestar Galactica went into a Syfy series or miniseries? Forget an origin tale, but open up in full swing middle of the action, completely emersed in the DCU? Have one character speak directly to the audience (breaking fourth wall style - before the Deadpool movie uses it) to catch people up on the needed story elements. Limit production costs by emphasizing the human drama/comedy elements but periodically deliver the CGI goods. Smallville functions well this way... maybe so could the JLI? Although I think the next series of this nature we would see is a WB JSA program.

Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 5:57 PM
I agree, Harry, that the site did such a great job casting in a budget, which is one of the reasons that I linked to it. Wizard has long played the casting game without any such consideration, always resulting in perhaps an ideal cast, but also an impossible one. (It's also funny that you mention a JLI show where the fourth wall is broken, as that is exactly the convention attempted by the awful live-action JLA television pilot a few years back [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118365/].) While I adore the work of Eckhardt and Downy Jr (he could play Amanda Waller and make it work!), I do think they set the bar pretty high for a casting call. I'm loathe to suggest any stars myself, but I'm always a big fan of giving lesser-known stars a shot at playing heroes so that the star doesn't outshine the role. (See Stallone as Judge Dredd for an example of what NOT to do.)

Harry posted on Mar. 8, 2010 at 10:08 PM
The link took me to an error. I am unfamiliar with a JLA pilot. Was it aired?

Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Mar. 9, 2010 at 12:24 AM
Sorry about that link to IMDB, Harry. I was careless, but have fixed the link and thrown in a few more to Wikipedia and, if you dare, YouTube. And no, it never aired so far as I'm aware, but it's made the convention rounds as a bootleg for years.

tiggerpete posted on Mar. 9, 2010 at 4:02 AM
yeah I saw part of it on youtube, it is pretty bad, but I think a JLI tv show could be made using young talent (emphasis on talent) and with a similar effects budget of Smallville and it would work pretty well

Harry posted on Mar. 9, 2010 at 1:00 PM
Good god! That is awful. It is quite possibly the worst thing I have every seen on film. What were they thinking?

Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Mar. 9, 2010 at 5:22 PM
Sorry to have done that to you, Harry, but you just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you? And yes, tiggerpete, I agree completely that the success of any such show would be based entirely on the talent of the actors. I have long believed that the success of any work of fiction is based entirely on the development of the characters, and if the producers focused on stories about the characters more than events, effects, songs, etc, a JLA story would be bound to succeed. Give us some talent that can portray the dysfunctional family dynamic of the old JLI days, and I think you have a success in any media.

Boosterrific [Official Comment] posted on Mar. 12, 2010 at 3:25 AM
Just noticed that on March 4, the DC Message Boards suggested a Kevin Smith-directed Booster Gold movie featuring Jason Lee as Booster and Jason Mewes as Skeets. I don't know if it was intended as a joke, but I thought I'd point it out since we were on the subject.

tiggerpete posted on Mar. 13, 2010 at 8:06 AM
that might be good, Kevin Smith does have a good voice for comic characters, and he does have serious work under his belt as well, but I think that would be mostly comedy oriented, and might devolve into dick and fart jokes, which can be funny from time to time, but not what I want to see out of a Booster Gold movie.

Harry posted on Mar. 13, 2010 at 11:44 AM
Ok, forget my TV movie/miniseries suggestion. I want the team that produced "Zombieland" to do a JLI feature film. The film had the right look and tone (minus the flesh rending undead) that I think would work for JLI. It could be a different take on superheroing in general.

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