Beauty vs Beast: God I Love You
Monday, November 30, 2015 at 3:00PM 
Happy Monday folks, it's Jason from MNPP back from the turkey dead and ready to "Beauty vs Beast" with you all again! Have any of you seen Laurie Metcalf and Bruce Willis doing Stephen King's Misery on Broadway? I have not but as a recently admitted obsessive over Metcalf's work on Getting On - also especially her wild-eyed turn in Scream 2 - I'm curious to see what she does with the role of number one fan Annie Wilkes. (Also please tell me they updated the play and made Annie have a Tumblr account.) The shadow of Kathy Bates' original performance looms large, and speaking of...
Rob Reiner's 1990 film is turning 25 today! The film was a big hit, making over 60 million bucks and earning its leading lady that most rare of rare Oscar wins - one for a horror movie performance. And she certainly earned it, but credit where credit's due: James Caan's performance is always over-shadowed and he's just as good, grounding the film (literally) with every hardworking bead of sweat chugging down his panicked face. The film wouldn't work without him; they play a perfect duet. That said...
PREVIOUSLY We celebrated the holiday last week with all the Christina Ricci Thanksgiving Speechifying you could handle, and y'all went straight for the dark meat - Wednesday Addams, much to her chagrin, is a winner at life! Said denny:
"Ricci's Wednesday Addams may be what turned me into an actressexual. I LOVED her. I think she was my first real actress crush. The Shakespeare scene in the first Addams Family movie was when I well and truly fell. By the time the sequel came out, I was madly in love. It's such a perfect performance. I really hope her show for Amazon as Zelda Fitzgerald gets picked up. I need more Christina Ricci. Lots more."
Reader Comments (19)
I think of the crop of 70's movie actors Caan is the one who is most underrated.
Bless you, Jason. I never hear anyone talk about how note-perfect Laurie Metcalf is in Scream 2 given that she's essentially playing a plot contrivance that makes absolutely no sense.
Kathy Bates all the way. The number one fan gained a lot of number one fans with Misery.
she's essentially playing a plot contrivance that makes absolutely no sense
You never saw nor heard from Mrs. Loomis in the original movie. Saving her as a villain for the sequel is a stroke of genius.
Kathy Bates - not since Piper Laurie in Carrie or Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction had there been such a great female Villain.
@LadyEdith - weren't all three of those characters clearly mentally ill? I don't like to call them villains (male or female) unless they're more evil than crazy. Like Sarah Paulson in 12 Years a Slave or Bryce Dallas Howard in The Help. Mo'Nique in Precious is borderline, but tending villainous.
Good point, Paul. Side note, I've always thought Michael Douglas' character was the real villain in Fatal Attraction. He's the worst.
1990 was a great year for actresses it's really hard to choose between kathy , anjelica or meryl
Mark -- absolutely agree with this. Caan is so good. Loved him in Cinderella Liberty, too.
Amirfarhang -- i love Kathy's win for its atypical quality but I'm all about Anjelica & Meryl that year.
Everyone -- now is the time to remind you that you should retweet my Kathy Bates chat from Los Angeles if you're on twitter :)
Streep was never in the running for a win. Solid for the nomination comfortably holding down fifth place. Woodward suffered because the previous year already saw the oldest Best Actress winner of all time and her role is essentially an old lady role. Roberts' nomination was goofed on. Which is strange considering her performance, youth, box office clout, would easily net her statuette for the work. Huston had a lot going for her. Unfortunately the elephant in the room the end of her off and on relationship with Jack Nicholson was officially over. Why is this important? Because outside of Steep all American actresses in film who want job security after a certain age needs an alpha male connection for the patriarchy to still hire them. Bening is married Beatty. McDormand is married to a Coen.
Kathy Bates had cheerleaders in her corner in the form of Dustin Hoffman and James Caan (despite the tension they had on set). And of course men listen to each other and women were interested in seeing a character actress receive her Cinderella story. God not only did the Academy make the right choice but Misery feels like a movie which would only be successful in the year it was released. In other year subsequent it would have been too goofy and dated.
I love this movie and thats why i saw the play a few weeks ago. Laurie Metcalf was excellent and the staging was really cool, but man did Bruce Willis suck. I've never seen line readings done with such little emotion. I was upset cause i actually really like Willis, but he clearly wasn't giving it his all.
And those who call Caan underrated are really right. He's so good in this film and he doesn't get the credit. In fact Willis really makes you appreciate Caan. Even though i was disappointed in the play this film remains one of my favorite of the horror genre.
3rtfull
I never said that meryl was a contender to win that year! But it doesn't mean that her performance is not great or she is the 5th in that lineup!!! And I think Anjelica's is best of her career but of course i have no problem with kathy's oscar she was excellent and oscar worthy and it was her only chance to win an oscar in her career
Amirfarhang: I was not addressing you.
3rtful
Oh!! I'm so sorry😉
Amirfarhang - Actually I wonder, if Bates hadn't won for Misery, would she have beaten Dench for Supporting Actress in '98?
I wonder, if Bates hadn't won for Misery, would she have beaten Dench for Supporting Actress in '98?
I wonder where she placed behind Dench in the final tally? Because Lynn Redgrave won the Globe. While Bates had Critics Choice and SAG.
Djdeejay
Maybe your right! if judi dench had won for mrs. Brown it would be possible
Kathy is so entertaining in this, but Annie is torturing some poor dude who does not deserve it one lil bit. And I don't know anyone who isn't fully delighted when Paul cracks her skull with that brass pig. Annie gets the bronze--where it counts; Paul gets the gold.
I would love to see Laurie take this on. So cool she's back on Broadway. She's brilliant in Getting On.
amir farhang -- what you said. who cares if Meryl was 5th -- she was AWESOME in that movie. I'd rank it among her top 5 performances.ever.
my best actress list that year (alpha order... unsure of my bronze medal)
BATES Misery
DERN Wild at Heart
FARROW Alice
HUSTON Grfiters (gold)
STREEP Postcards (silver)
but i might be forgetting someone