July. It's a Wrap
Friday, July 31, 2020 at 7:34AM Will this hellscape of a year ever be over? Apparently it will because each month of the year has arrived and then departed even if they've been thrice as long as usual. Here are a dozen or so highlights from July that you might have missed!
• Costumes of Clueless 25 years later, Claudio feels they're even more iconic
• Mira Sorvino Mini-Fest the actress programmed her own retrospective for us
• Let's talk about poop jokes -Michael's brilliant take on Bridesmaids (2011)
• 100 Oldest Living Oscar Nominees -Sadly we had to update this recently
• Eva Green in Dark Shadows Jason considers when a bad movie houses a great star turn
• Smackdown 1957 some people say this is one of Oscar's worst lineups but it was still interesting to discuss
• Almost There: River Phoenix His performance in My Own Private Idaho remains a treasure both of promise fulfilled and agony of what could have been thereafter
• First on Vanity Fair Viola Davis's cover prompted a look back
• Bloody Nose Empty Pockets we keep hearing great things about this doc
• Lana Turner what star power!
• Hamilton on Disney plus
Most Discussed
• Smackdown 1991 Juliette Lewis vs Mercedes Ruehl in a photo finish
• Hamilton for the Oscars? The rise and fall and chaos of 'is it eligible?'
• Olivia de Havilland (RIP) the last superstar of Hollywood's Golden Age
Coming in August
We'll take intermittent trips back to 2005 (any requests?) before the next Smackdown which will feature reconsiderations of Amy Adams in Junebug, Catherine Keener in Capote, Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain, Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener, and Frances McDormand in North Country.
We'll also be celebrating the career of two-time Oscar winner Shelley Winters (any requests?) for her Centennial. The rest will be a surprise to you AND TO US as we haven't planned much!
Reader Comments (33)
Hi,whatever happened to the Pfeifferthon.
Some of my favourite supporting actress performances of 2005...
Emily Watson - The Proposition
Marisa Tomei - Factotum
Avaz Latif - Turtles Can Fly
Pell James - The King
Juliette Binoche - Hidden
Roberta Maxwell - Brokeback Mountain
Frances Conroy - Broken Flowers
Sharon Stone - Broken Flowers
Eva Green - Kingdom Of Heaven (the longer Director's Cut aka "The Good Version")
plus
Rachel Weisz - The Constant Gardener
Honorable mentions to Taraji P. Henson in Hustle & Flow and to Charlotte Rampling in Lemming...
I'd love to read a piece on any of the above performances or films.
My favourite film of 2005 is Innocence (Lucile Hadzihalilovic) which is disturbing, beautiful and ultimately... innocent!
My favourite Shelley Winters performance is Lolita, while my favourite movie starring Shelley Winters is The Night Of The Hunter... so they're my requests!
I cant believe the year is half over... Feels like it was wasted.
So excited for Shelley!! :)
2005 requests that COULD have had a supporting actress contender:
Match Point
Broken Flowers
Crash (yes, I know, but Thandie Newton WON the BAFTA for Supporting Actress afterall)
Nathaniel: I read somewhere that Shelley Winters was considered a beautiful and up-and-coming leading lady until she was cast as the jealous, suspicious secret wife in A Place in the Sun. I've always been a big fan of hers, even before she did her underwater swimming in The Poseidon Adventure.
I guess my comments in portuguese in an article written by a portuguese writer was considered trolling and subsequently censured. Ok...
In the 40s. Winters was considered a sexy actress.
Also in the early 50s
Nat: When can we expect the acting categories Oscar predictions?
2 of my all time favorite movies star Shelley Winters, so "A Place in the Sun" and "The Poseidon Adventure" are always welcome.
maybe something on how Joan Allen should have been an Oscar winner, but was almost completely ignored for "The Upside of Anger". Same with Future Celebrity Husband Kevin Costner.
Let's all get through this together!
alguem -- that was an error on my part as i deleted a lot of comments tagged suspected spam at once. It's an imperfect system and the amount of trolls lately has been untenable to not up the spam filters and comment moderation. apologies.
I understand! Sorry to infer It was censorship. I love your blog and elas taken aback. I am glad It was Just a misuntersdanding. My english os bad and i feel that i can not express my self propperly Sometimes.
Keep doing the good work. I am.sorry about the trolls.
Alguém -- Que comentário foi apagado? Em todo o caso, espero que saibas que aprecio sempre os teus comentários, assim como os dos demais*. Obrigado.
*A não ser quando são trolling e spam, que, infelizmente, tem vindo a acontecer com alguma regularidade. Espero que não fiques ofendido/a com o apagamento acidental do teu feedback.
So, for Cláudio, i asked him to talk about portuguese cinema. I watched a movie called resgate that i liked Very much. And its very different from the traditional portuguese movie that get distributed world wide
Please talk about Shelley Winters’ amazing work in Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama!
As to 2005, I'm sure you've done posts on In Her Shoes in the past, but for an actressing-interested site it may be worth revisiting. I get that some don't want Woody Allen-related posts these days, but maybe something on Match Point? Or, given a recent piece elsewhere on Charlize Theron's action stardom, maybe something considering Aeon Flux as the uh complicated start of that?
2005 is such a good supporting actress oscar year. The nominees were good and so were the ones just outside peering in (Shirley MacLaine, Thandie Newton, ScarJo, Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway, Renee, etc). Everytime I've seen Junebug I've thought it's Adam's best nomination. I wonder if I'll feel the same this time.
Also, even though it had very little impact other than the Indie Spirits, it's fun to think about the rich performances in Nine Lives.
It's also fun to look back on that year and think about how Taraji's career in film was launched.
Loving everything you're all working on at the moment. The Hamilton chat was really interesting and very much looking forward to the Shelley Winters retrospective (any excuse to rewatch A Place in the Sun).
That said it would be great if you finished the April Foolish predictions. We all know that it's a complete guess this year what will even be finished but would be great to hear what you're lookng out for.
I made a mistake. Resgate is a movie from moçambique. Sorry
Was that Hamilton at the Oscars article really this month? It feels a lifetime ago! Time this year is so out of joint.
For me, 2005 is one of the weakest and most frustrating Oscar years. I don't really like any of the Best Picture nominees very much! I'd have much preferred it if they had gone with A History of Violence, The Constant Gardener, Match Point and Caché - perhaps with Good Night, and Good Luck. The Globes were in better shape that year. And to think it was also a 5/5 match between Picture and Directing. I remember thinking that Zhang Yimou might get in for House of Flying Daggers. Alas.
But the supporting actress category is good. Although I think that Scarlett Johansson and Emily Mortimer, both from Match Point, deserved to be in there. Looking forward to the retrospective and the smackdown!
2005 movie recommendation: Serenity
My favorite performance of Shelley Winters' is Lolita. I read that the studio wanted to place her in the Supporting category but she wanted Leading (in one of the most competitive years ever!). I wonder if she got her way and that was what doomed her chances. She and Peter Sellers are the brilliant highlights of a very uneven movie.
I recently saw "Next Stop, Greenwich Village" for the first time and loved it - Shelley Winters is good in it, too, but it's not really her movie. I also have a soft spot for her 70's camp horror run - "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" and "What's the Matter with Helen?" and "Tentacles"
Almost there for Ziyi Zhang and Gong Li.
2005 related requests:
- Podcast on Joan Allen in The Upside of Anger (what happened to her Oscar chances???)
- Woody Allen's Match Point: Woody is best known for his comedies, but how do people feel about his dramatic works (Match Point, Another Woman, etc.). Is he just as good or does he borrow too much from Bergman (I've heard that complaint towards his dramatic works)?
2005 is an interesting year:
Crash is the worst Academy winner in this century,
Brokeback mountain is a masterpiece.
GRizzly man is one of the best documentaries in the last 20 years.
King Kong was a really good remake
Scarlett Johansson was almost there for Matchpoint.
Amy Adams made a breaktrough and I still love her.
2005 is all about Brokeback for me. It's just so good and after revisiting it recently in prep for the smackdown it holds up incredibly well. I wish Anne Hathaway had gotten more attention because her final scene on the phone with Ledger is just as great as anything Williams does in the film. I would've welcomed a double nom for those two.
A Question I need answered is do we consider Ziyi Zhang in 2046 a leading or supporting performance. I lean lead and she was probably considered supp at the time to run different than her bigger lead push for Memoirs.
Laura Linney & Jeff Daniels are so great in Squid in the Whale and deserved lead noms.
Shelley Winters is best for me in A Place in the Sun and The Night of the Hunter. Her oscar wins for me do not represent her at her best even though from the lineup she'd have to be my choice in 65 (looking forward to that smackdown in a couple of months.)
A big YES to a focus on Shelley Winters!! A fascinating performer who was capable of great depth and sensitivity when a director reined her in but also, especially as she got older of hammy, undisciplined though frequently vastly enjoyable work.
I'm sure her major work-Anne Frank, A Place in the Sun, Poseidon Adventure, A Stolen Life, What's the Matter with Helen? etc. will be spotlighted but I'd love to see something about her lesser known early work.
Some suggestions:
The wild South Sea Sinner where she is supported by Liberace!
Johnny Stool Pigeon-a solid gangster flick
Completely dolled up in the Western-Frenchie with Elsa Lanchester as her equally fancy traveling companion.
Mambo where her character surprisingly for a '50's film is very clearly a lesbian
Playing the Marisa Berenson role in the source film for Cabaret-I Am A Camera with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles
The Chapman Report which is delightfully soapy but she and Claire Bloom give nuanced, moving performances while Glynis Johns is all flighty joy as a dizzy society matron with hot pants and an incredibly young Jane Fonda a female Frigidaire.
An Unremarkable Life-she and Patricia Neal play sisters who live together and have settled into a reliant pattern of life disrupted when Mako becomes involved with one of them.
Here are a few links to few other good early films of hers:
Larcency:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tL1kBL3rEs
To Dorothy a Son:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5gB_Tnva9Q
Wives and Lovers-she and Ray Walston are supporting players but they steal the film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-TM4_cArcM
Ohhhh.... has "August" planned an updated prediction of the acting categories ? I know I sound like a broken record and Nathaniel is lurking around this subject like a cat around the hot milk :) ... but I think we should all dream a bit for whatever works ?? And I really wanna know what you guys think MIGHT happen. Big hurray to the Shelley Winters plan. 2005 - fantastic actor line up ! Why did Michelle Yeoh not had a chance for "The Geisha" - or Ziyi Zhang? Or Ellen Page in Hard Candy. Thanks & keep up ur great work
We had one good Smackdown and one dreadful Smackdown. Ironically the better field of nominees had Nathaniel and almost the whole panel fumble spectacularly. Hopefully you guys can have a return to form next time. Would take a dunce to fail 2005 regardless of the winner.
Supporting actress: Robin Wright as Diane in Nine Lives. Her segment with Jason Isaacs is for me the scene of that year. Their chemistry, natural acting, effective, romantic and heart breaking.
The second supporting actress that year who was also outstanding is Maria Bello in A History of Violence. A fantastic performance!! Her chemistry with Viggo is so great!
I want to know more about Shelley Winters please
Match Point is such a gem of a movie. Modern masterpiece.
Supporting actress short list:
Robin Wright - Nine Lives
Rachel Weisz - The Constant Gardener
Juliette Binoche - Cache
Scarlett Johannson - Match Point
Tilda Swinton - The Chronicles of Narnia
Gong Li - Memoirs of a Geisha
Maria Bello - A History of Violence
Eva Green - Kingdom of Heaven directors cut
Jennifer Carpenter - The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Little Fish with a strong Blanchett is an underrated treasure of a movie. The status of Blanchett was building but not yet strong enough for the bigger awards
Sad to hear you’ve had trolls. Luckily I didn’t see any, not including the occasional joke comment/account. Some very good value, others not so much. (Joan Castleman aka Peggy Sue is rarely entertaining.) I do hope that the brilliant performance of Tandy being beloved didn’t get misinterpreted. We do know you are sensitive about Pfeiffer’s 89 loss and often misdirect animosity because of that hang up.
Anyway, am super excited for Shelly Winters and the Smackdown. The comments were so fun and enjoyable on the last one, definitely had me refreshing the page and even visiting it a couple days later to see the discourse and surprisingly on good form jokesters.Whatever policies you had in place then are very productive from a business standpoint!
Anyway will be good to read the thoughts on the very likely outcome of Adams>Weisz>Williams>Keener>McDormand (although last place is in flux)
Hi,whatever happened to Seasons of Bette? It was you best writings of the last few years by a large margin.