This Date In Movie History: October 8th
Posted on October 8, 2008 by Furious
Filed Under Film History |
So, October 8th has historically been a pretty good day, at least as far as movies are concerned.
Let’s start with the birthdays:
- Matt Damon, the most peculiar choice for People’s Sexiest Man Alive, was born in 1970
- Peter Greene, who has made a solid career out of smaller bad guy roles, took his first breath in 1965
- Paul Hogan, who became the symbol of Australia for an entire generation in Crocodile Dundee, first said G’day Mate in 1939
- Cornelius Crane Chase first realized he was Chevy Chase and you’re not in 1943
- Three-time Oscar nominee Sigourney Weaver, who’s 50-year old cleavage was on prominent display in Galaxy Quest, was born in 1949
- Michael Dudikoff, the most famous American ninja ever, had yet to make a bad movie in 1954
The pre-2000 movie with the highest grossing opening weekend ending on October 8th was 1984’s Teachers. Nick Nolte starred as a teacher doing all he can to reach his students. He headed a pretty good cast, notably: Morgan Freeman, Laura Dern, Crispin Glover, Richard Mulligan, Ralph Macchio, JoBeth Williams, and Judd Hirsch. It was directed by Arthur Hiller, who would go on to destroy the Alan Smithee legacy with An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn.
Ozzie and Harriett Nelson were married on this day in 1935. Sure they made a few movies and had the longest running live-action sitcom in history, but their biggest contribution to movies was giving birth to Ricky Nelson, who would star along side John Wayne and Dean Martin in one of the greatest Westerns ever made- Rio Bravo.
The Color of Money premiered on this date in 1986, starring Tom Cruise and the late (it feels weird writing that) Paul Newman. Newman won his only Best Actor Oscar for his reprisal of the character “Fast Eddie” Felson, who he originally played in The Hustler.
Paul Thomas Anderson- one of my favorite directors- had two movies make their US premieres, Boogie Nights- one of my favorite movies- in 1997 and Punch-Drunk Love- my favorite movie with a pudding subplot- in 2002.
Q, a solid R-rated movie, made it’s US premiere on this date in 1982. I’ll always remember this movie because my sister and I watched it with our babysitter- the first and last time my parents got a guy babysitter. I think I was six or maybe seven and my sister was five. But I’m not saying that to rag on dudes for being irresponsible, about a year later of one of our girl babysitters inadvertently let us watch the first few minutes of A Clockwork Orange.
Other notable movies:
- Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet was released in 1968 with the hopes of winning every award conceivable
- The quintessential running movie, wherein the main character is in a constant state of quickly moving from scene to scene, and very cringe-worthy Marathon Man was released in 1976
- Superstar introduced the world to amazing dance moves like The Fax Machine and The Pepper Mill in 1999
- John Boorman’s critically successful Hope and Glory, a semi-autobiographical movie about growing up in London during World War II, made it’s West German debut in 1987. There isn’t any information on an East German release
Tags: award, career, character, debut, director, Directors, ending, history, money, Ninja, opening, release, scene, story, weekend
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