This Day in Movie History: December 20

Continuing with my new blog series – This Day in Movie History – December 20th brings us three more important films celebrating their anniversaries and two celebrity birthdays.

It was seventeen years ago today that the influential horror flick Scream opened. Wes Craven was already a legend in the horror genre for The Last House on the Left and especially A Nightmare on Elm Street. Scream would turn into a smash unexpected hit that spawned three sequels and injected some much needed humor and irony into a genre that was growing stale.

22 years ago today marked the opening of Oliver Stone’s controversial JFK. The picture, no matter what you think of its abundant conspiracy theories, is brauvura filmmaking at a high level and earned Oscar nominations for Picture, Director, and Supporting Actor for Tommy Lee Jones.

Another heavily Oscar nominated pic, Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, debuted eleven years ago today. It was considered an Academy heavyweight, but lost Picture and Director to Chicago. It would be four years later before Marty would finally be recognized at the ceremony for The Departed. The film is also notable for beginning the Scorsese/DiCaprio partnership that has since spanned to five films thus far.

Today marks Jonah Hill’s big 3-0! You may know him from some of your favorite comedies of the past near decade – The 40 Yr. Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, 21 Jump Street, and This is The End. He also broke out dramatically in 2011 with an Oscar nominated turn in Moneyball and is again receiving Academy buzz for his role in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. He’ll be seen next summer in the sequel 22 Jump Street.

Finally, today would have marked the 67th birthday of character actor John Spencer. Known to most viewers as Leo McGarry from TV’s “The West Wing”, Spencer also had a successful film career. He turned up in well-known titles including Sea of Love, Presumed Innocent, The Rock, and Cop Land.

Keeping with my theme of connecting the birthday actors in Six Degrees of Separation:

Jonah Hill was in This is the End with James Franco

James Franco was in City by the Sea with Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro was in Cop Land with John Spencer

And that’s today, December 20, in Movie History!

This Day in Movie History: December 19

And now for a new feature on the blog – This Day in Movie History – which will be a daily post showing notable film openings, birthdays, and more that happened on each particular calendar day.

It would make logical sense to begin this year long blog series with today’s current date (duh), so here are five notable happenings from December 19th in Movie History:

1) Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange opened domestically 42 years ago today. This satiric and very violent and disturbing classic earned a Best Picture nomination as well as a directing nod for Kubrick. It lost both categories to The French Connection.

2) Roger Moore’s second outing as James Bond, The Man with the Golden Gun opened 39 years ago today. At the time, this was considered a low point in the 12 year old series and was the lowerst grossing 007 picture at that juncture. Three years later, things would improve considerably with 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me.

3) Sixteen years ago today, James Cameron’s Titanic opened in theaters and became the highest grossing picture of all time while earning a bunch of Oscars, including Picture and Director. Cameron’s record would stand until his next pic 12 years later, Avatar. The film also made Leonardo DiCaprio a superstar.

Moving to birthdays:

4) Kristy Swanson turns 44 years old. You may know her best as the title character in 1992’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which would later turn into a hit TV series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. She also teamed up with Charlie Sheen in 1994’s The Chase and in John Singleton’s 1995 flick Higher Learning.

5) Jake Gyllenhall turns 33 years old. He was just seen in the critically acclaimed Prisoners and received an Oscar nomination for 2005’s Brokeback Mountain. Some other notable roles: Donnie Darko, The Day After Tomorrow, Jarhead, Zodiac, Source Code, and End of Watch.

I’ll also make it a habit to do two birthdays each time and connect the actors through Six Degrees of Separation off the top of my head, so here goes:

Kristy Swanson was in Buffy, the Vampire Slayer with Paul Reubens

Paul Reubens was in Blow with Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp was in Secret Window with Maria Bello

Maria Bello was in Prisoners with Jake Gyllenhall

And there you have it – my first daily rundown on this day – December 19th – in Movie History.

Rate this:

Rate this: