This Month in Movie History – June Roundup

Happy birthday, Aaron Sorkin! The master of dialogue-driven stories, Sorkin earned a career that screenwriters around the world revere. From ‘The Social Network’ film to TV series such as ‘The West Wing’ and ‘The Newsroom,’ we admire his style, and we have so much to learn from him.

On this day in history, Steven Spielberg unleashed ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ on the world. Written by the late Melissa Mathison, E.T. was inspired by Spielberg’s childhood imaginary friend. ‘E.T.’ has become one of the most famous stories about friendship, and it ranks as the greatest science fiction film ever made.

“Having your film made is the award. That alone is a miracle,” writer and producer Diablo Cody said. She is 41 this year. Happy birthday to this award-winning scribe of ‘Juno’ (Oscar for Best Original Screenplay), ‘United States of Tara,’ and ‘Young Adult.’

It wasn’t until ‘Psycho’ debuted that viewers were truly convinced urban horror flicks would go mainstream. Before then, monster movies abound, but Joseph Stefano’s screenplay – based on the novel by Robert Bloch – sent chills down audiences’ spines that we still feel today. Stefano is known to have taken many risks in writing this screenplay, including killing off the star halfway through the film.

‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ dazzled audiences with its musical and biographical portrayal of George M. Cohan, known as the man who owned Broadway. The screenplay is credited to Robert Buckner and Edmund Joseph, but the Epstein Brothers (‘Casablanca’) also contributed to this 11942 Academy-Award winning film. It’s been named to several AFI Top 100 lists and was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Billy Wilder was so many things: screenwriter, filmmaker, producer, journalist, and artist. For more than five decades, he created films including ‘Some Like it Hot,’ ‘The Seven Year Itch,’ ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ ‘Double Indemnity,’ and ‘The Apartment.’ AFI honored Wilder with its Lifetime Achievement Award, and he also received the National Medal of Arts. He would have been 113 years old on June 22, but his films will live on in our hearts and minds for many years to come.