Birthday Take: John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever" (1977)

John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever

Welcome to The Birthday Take, a column dedicated to celebrating Oscar nominees and winners' birthdays by paying tribute to the work that got them noticed. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive retrospective, but more of a highlight of one nominated work that makes them noteworthy. The column will run whenever there is a birthday and will hopefully give a dense exploration of the finest performances and techniques applied to film. So please join me as we blow out the candles and dig into the delicious substance.

The Worst Moments of the 87th Annual Academy Awards

Neil Patrick Harris

With the Oscars officially behind us, it is time to wrap-up the highs and lows of the season. Where the previous post saw an exploration of everything that the show did right, this is a look at the few flubs that maybe didn't work out. It was a hard year to judge because unlike the meandering that dominated last year's ceremony, this year ran like clockwork despite running long and featured a lot of soapbox moments. The following is a look at the moments that maybe didn't work so well at this year's Academy Awards, including some coverage of the best red carpet moment of the ceremony.

This Oscars Ceremony Performers and Presenters Continue to Get Weirder

Lady GaGa

If the current line-up of performers and presenters at the Oscars hasn't gotten you all sorts of excited, curious and confused, then you're about to experience a whirlwind of surprises. While previous reports have announced the familiar line-up of performers who will sing the Best Original Song nominees, there hasn't been too great of an understanding of what the show itself will be like. It has only been a week and it looks like we'll be having one of the craziest ceremonies in years. Or at least one of the most inventive.

Is "Pulp Fiction" Overrated?

John Travolta

On this day in history, director Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction hit American theaters nationwide and in the process, altering how many conceived of cinema. It played fast and loose and gave a profane-laced, pop culture behemoth that earned the 30-year-old director the Palme d'Or and a Best Original Screenplay award with co-writer Roger Avary. For many, it was a renaissance of film innovation equivalent to Citizen Kane or The Godfather, changing the way that independent film would be judged and consumed. With all of the praise coming out to commemorate this anniversary, there's one hypothetical that never gets explored: what if Pulp Fiction was overrated?