On this day in movie history - Vanilla Sky (2001)

 

Vanilla Sky

directed and written by Cameron Crowe,

was released in the United States on December 14, 2001.

Based on Open Your Eyes (1997), Spanish title: Abre los ojos, directed by Alejandro Amenábar.

Music by Nancy Wilson.

Cast:

Tom Cruise, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell, Jason Lee, Noah Taylor, Timothy Spall, Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, Delaina Hlavin, Shalom Harlow, Oona Hart, Ivana Milicevic, Johnny Galecki, Jhaemi Willens, Armand Schultz, Cameron Watson, Robertson Dean, W. Earl Brown, Ray Proscia, Tim Hopper, Alicia Witt, Ken Leung, Carolyn Byrne, Mark Pinter, Jeff Weiss, Conan O’Brien, James Murtaugh, Mark Kozelek, John Fedevich, Bobby Walsh, Stacey Sher, Fred Schruers, Jessica Siemens, Julia Carothers Hughes, Holly Raye, Marty Collins, Mark Bramhall, Jack Hall, David Lewison, Jennifer Griffin, Adam LeGrant, John Kepley, Robin Van Sharner, Laurel Wiley, Nicole Taylor Hart, Julia Decker, Jennifer Marie Kelley, Erin McElmurry, Alice Marie Crowe, Jonathan Sanger, Tommy Lee, Ana Maria Quintana, Paul Haggar, Randy Woodside, Robert F. Harrison, Carly Starr Brullo Niles, Jane Pratt, Patrick McMullen, Steven Colvin, Cindy Crowe, The Great John Sypolt, Michael G. Kehoe, Danielle Wolf, Scotch Ellis Loring, Brent Sexton, Curt Skaggs, Jennifer Gimenez, Lori Lezama, Todd Harrison, Blossom (Benny the Dog), Laura Fraser, Jennifer Aspen, Celina Belizan, Craig Callow, Christie Campagna, Jean Carol, Tony Collucci, Jimmy Federico, Shane Fenton, Janine Foster, Aracelli Frias, Zach Hudson, Marko Jankovic, Ryan Keating, Zachary Lee, Roger Lim, Tara Lipinski, Lucio Luciano, William Mapother, Christy Meyers, Arnold Montey, Jan Munroe, Marie Paquim, Ronald Rand, Louis E. Rosas, Steven Spielberg, Andrei Sterling, Tasha Tae, Bryan Todd, Michael J. Tomaso, Christie Will Wolf.

On this day in music history - The album Top 20 Solo Piano, by Michele McLaughlin (2015)

Top 20 Solo Piano

by Michele McLaughlin

was released on December 14, 2015.

Michelle Obama, on the arts:

The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it.

Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation.

- Michelle Obama.

Recommended reading - The Getaway

 

The Getaway

by Jim Thompson.
 
First published 1958.
Published by Mulholland Books.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0316403970
ISBN-13: 978-0316403979
 
Description:

Doc McCoy is the most skilled criminal alive. But when for the first time in Doc's long criminal career, his shot doesn't hit the mark, everything begins to fall apart. And Doc begins to realize that the perfect bank robbery isn't complete without the perfect getaway to back it up.

THE GETAWAY is the classic story of a bank robbery gone horribly wrong, where the smallest mistakes have catastrophic consequences, and shifting loyalties lead to betrayals and chaos. The basis for the classic Steve McQueen film of the same name, as well as a 1994 remake with Alec Baldwin, Thompson's novel set the bar for every heist story that followed - but as Thompson's proved time and again, nobody's ever done it better than the master.

Recommended reading - A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind

by Sylvia Nasar.
 
First published 1998.
Published by Simon & Schuster.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1451628420
ISBN-13: 978-1451628425
 
Description:
 

Also an Academy Award–winning film starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly – directed by Ron Howard.

 

The powerful, dramatic biography of math genius John Nash, who overcame serious mental illness and schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize.

 

“How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials were sending you messages?” the visitor from Harvard asked the West Virginian with the movie-star looks and Olympian manner. “Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did,” came the answer. “So I took them seriously.”

 

Thus begins the true story of John Nash, the mathematical genius who was a legend by age thirty when he slipped into madness, and who—thanks to the selflessness of a beautiful woman and the loyalty of the mathematics community—emerged after decades of ghostlike existence to win a Nobel Prize for triggering the game theory revolution. The inspiration for an Academy Award–winning movie, Sylvia Nasar’s now-classic biography is a drama about the mystery of the human mind, triumph over adversity, and the healing power of love.

Born on this day – Florine McKinney:

Florine McKinney

Actress

December 13, 1909 – July 28, 1975

Credits:

Little Joe, the Wrangler (1942); Pardon My Sarong (1942); Take a Letter, Darling (1942); Brooklyn Orchid (1942); Unholy Partners (1941); Blossoms in the Dust (1941); You're the One (1941); A Night at Earl Carroll's (1940); The Philadelphia Story (1940); Escape (1940); Oklahoma Renegades (1940); Waterloo Bridge (1940); And One Was Beautiful (1940); Blazing Barriers (1937); A Star Fell from Heaven (1936); Muss 'em Up (1936); Cappy Ricks Returns (1935); Dizzy Dames (1935); Strangers All (1935); Night Life of the Gods (1935); David Copperfield (1935); The Merry Widow (1934); Student Tour (1934); Hollywood Party (1934); Riptide (1934); Dancing Lady (1933); Beauty for Sale (1933); It's Great to Be Alive (1933); Blue of the Night (1933); Cynara (1932); The Cabin in the Cotton (1932); Horse Feathers (1932); The Miracle Man (1932); One Hour with You (1932).

Born on this day – Ross Macdonald:

Ross Macdonald

Writer

December 13, 1915 – July 11, 1983

Credits:

Books:

The Lew Archer novel series: The Moving Target (aka Harper) (1949); The Drowning Pool (1950); The Way Some People Die   (1951); The Ivory Grin / Marked for Murder (1952); Find a Victim (1954); The Barbarous Coast (1956); The Doomsters (1958); The Galton Case (1959); The Wycherly Woman (1961); The Zebra-Striped Hearse (1962); The Chill (1963); The Far Side of the Dollar (1965); Black Money (1966); The Instant Enemy (1968); The Goodbye Look (1969); The Underground Man (1971); Sleeping Beauty (1973); The Blue Hammer (1976); The Name is Archer (1955); Lew Archer, Private Investigator (1977); The Archer Files (2007). The Chet Gordon novel series: The Dark Tunnel / I Die Slowly (1944); Trouble Follows Me (1946). Stand-alone novels, short stories and novellas: Blue City (1947); The Three Roads (1948); Meet Me at the Morgue / Experience with Evil (1954); The Ferguson Affair (1967); The Guilty Ones (1952); The Imaginary Blonde (1953); Midnight Blue (2010); Strangers in Town (2001); Dear Dead Days: 1972 Mystery Writers of America Anthology (1972); Mammoth Book of Short Crime Novels (1986); The Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories (1988); City Sleuths and Tough Guys (1989); Pulp Frictions: Hardboiled Stories (1996); The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories (1996); Writing Los Angeles (2002); Los Angeles Noir 2 (2010); Books to Die For (2012).

Movies and television:

Archer (1975); Blue City (1986); City Detective (1954); Crime Writers (1978); Criminal Behavior (1992); Double Negative (1980); Harper (1966); Harper Days Are Here Again (1975); Le loup de la côte Ouest (2002); Pursuit (1958); Tayna (1992); The Drowning Pool (1975); The Underground Man (1974).