Tomorrow’s the Academy Awards (ugh; that time AGAIN)…there will be a live thread Sunday; feel free to jump in and snark away (or read for updates if you can’t bear to watch). Here, as usual, we make no predictions (3Ders = not known for their love of the Current-Run Film). Rather, we look backwards: when men were men, movies were movies, and Kriskey would write in the weekend threads.
Take a look at the links for previous Best Actress and Best Actors, and pick your favorites from the recipients. The dates given are the year of the ceremony (I’ve listed mine with the year of the film). I was surprised to discover that most of my all-time favorite performances were NOT Oscar-winners.
But these were:
5. Gregory Peck (To Kill a Mockingbird/1962) : Because…obviously.
4. Spencer Tracy (Captains Courageous/1937) : This was for playing against type (a poor Portuguese fisherman?). And yet, Tracy’s standard steely-eyed gaze was there in one of my favorite moments: when he faces down John Carradine in defense of Freddie Bartholomew.
3. Richard Dreyfuss (The Goodbye Girl/1977) : He was rumored to be coked up while filming this. I don’t even care. As Elliot moves from obnoxious, know-it-all, arrogant dork to infatuated romantic hero, I swoon right along with Marsha Mason’s Paula.
2. Diane Keaton (Annie Hall/1977) : Because sometimes they SHOULD get the Oscar for playing themselves. [Note: two of the best comic performances -- and certainly two of my favorites -- were from films released in the same year]
1. Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind/1939) : You couldn’t love this Scarlett, but you always agreed with Rhett’s reluctant admiration: “What a woman!”
Jeremy Irons was seriously good in Reversal of Fortune.Haven’t seen it since it came out.
I rewatch that one on DVD every once in a while. It’s held up really well over the years; an endlessly fascinating, multi-layered film that I never seem to get tired of. Irons is indeed great as the enigmatic Von Bulow, and the great Ron Silver matches him as Dershowitz (even though the movie hero-worships him to a near-nauseating degree).
Remember watching that trial on CNN..a farce.
I’ll go with 5 each from the list…
Actress…
1. Olivia de Havilland for The Heiress (1950) — an underknown film with Montgomery Clift as a climber wooing her plain-Jane character. Her father delivers the most devastating pre Great Santini destructive speech and de Havilland’s reaction must’ve gone a fair way towards this Oscar…
2. Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins… always loved it… having kids provides good cover.
3. Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest… more chilling than most horror movies
4. Cher in Moomnstruck… awesome
5. Charlize Theron in MOnster… also more chilling
Actors:
1. Gary Cooper in Sergeant York… saw it again for the umpteenth time last week… awesome.
2. Charlton Heston in Ben Hur
3. Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry
4. George C. Scott in Patton
5. Russell Crowe for A Beautiful Mind (I refuse to recognize Denzel Washington’s “win” for Training Day — an inferior film and acting job — and I like Denzel a lot so nothing personal).
1. Marlon Brando, On The Waterfront
2. George C. Scott, Patton
3. F. Murray Abraham, Amadeus
4. Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs
5. Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump
1. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
2. Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
3. Frances McDormand, Fargo
4. Anne Bancroft, The Miracle Worker
5. Shirley MacLaine, Terms of Endearment
Jack Nicholson shoulda won for “The Shining”
“WENDY,I’M HOME!”
Daniel Day Louis,”My Left Foot”…not “There Will Be Blood”
Kirk Douglas was robbed. Look back at that body of work, not once! I haven’t followed the oscars for thirty years and I probably won’t resume anytime soon.
“Champion”
And the best they can do for Pacino’s Scent of a Woman (when he should have won Supporting that year for playing Ricky Romo).
“You,Williamson,I’m talking to,shithead”.Good call.Glengarry Glen Ross had a lot of Oscar worthy performances.
Argo deserves Best Picture and Ben Affleck was legitimately robbed this year by not even being nominated.
Agreed, but how much did the Jimmah Carter revisionism bug you?
not as much as some I guess…. http://www.threedonia.com/archives/58369/comment-page-1#comment-639305
I wrote this to Scott M on the OT.
Serves me right camping out in this thread before reading that.
Stop, Zero Dark Thirty time!!!
Marlee Matlin – Children of a Lesser God
Claudette Colbert – It Happened One Night
Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
Jodie Foster – Silence of the Lambs
Frances MacDormand – Fargo
Clark Gable – It Happened One Night
Daniel Day-Lewis – My Left Foot
Jamie Foxx – Ray
Nicolas Cage – Leaving Las Vegas
Paul Newman – The Color of Money — sympathy, schmypathy, I loves me some Fast Eddie Felson and this movie
Paul Newman,”The Verdict”
Marlee Matlin rocks. Her scenes as Joy’s deaf lawyer on My Name is Earl were hilariously un-PC.
Oh, fine, I’ll watch that awesome episode again. Raising Hope has its moments, but really miss Earl.
Jack – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Judy Holliday – Born Yesterday
Broderick Crawford – All The King’s Men
Robert De Niro – Raging Bull
Sandra Bullock – The Blind Side
I like all the picks here.
Looking over these lists, I had completely forgotten that Hilary Swank and Sean Penn had both won twice. And that Meryl Streep won again last year.
Actor:
Gary Cooper, Sargent York
Jimmy Stewart, Philadelphia Story
Fredric March, The Best Years of Our Lives (one of my all time favorite movies, so he gets the props for that)
Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs
Robert Duvall, Tender Mercies (I really love this little film)
Actress:
Vivien Leigh, Gone With The Wind
Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver (one of my favorite actresses)
Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday (just because it was so unlikely and unexpected)
Sissy Spacek, Coal Miner’s Daughter
Cher, Moonstruck