1957: Cathleen Nesbitt in "An Affair to Remember"

Before each Smackdown, we look at alternate possibilities to the actual Oscar ballot...

by Nick Taylor

Camila Henriques wrote a great article last week on Deborah Kerr’s performance in An Affair to Remember, a film whose cultural resonance feels like a tribute to the star power of its lead couple. A remake of the romantic drama Love Affair (1939) from its original director Leo McCarey, the film follows wealthy socialites Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) and Nick Ferrante (Cary Grant), who fall in love over the course of an eight-day transatlantic cruise to New York despite being engaged to other people. The relaxed pacing, resplendent colors, high production values, picturesque photography, and appealing slow-burn chemistry between Kerr and Grant reads like an open invitation from McCarey to luxuriate in the sheer handsomeness of what he’s put together. The economy of Love Affair is missed, though for my money the film’s besottedness with itself keeps An Affair to Remember from fully matching the emotional complexity of its predecessor. Especially in the early going, McCarey seems content to let his leads luxuriate in their own charisma without asking them to do all that much. But nonetheless the film is able to evince real moments of depth that linger long after the credits have rolled. And wouldn’t you know that the first such moment arrives when Terry and Nick make a surprise visit to his Grandmother Janou, played in this iteration by Cathleen Nesbitt. 

In both films, Terry and Nick’s time with Janou is the catalyzing event that leads them to acknowledge their love for each other...

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Alec Guinness: Performing obsession

by Cláudio Alves

David Lean's film career is a rather peculiar thing. Before he ever sat on the director's chair, Lean was an editor whose resumé included collaborations with such lofty names of British cinema as Powell and Pressburger. It was during World War II that he started working as a director, adapting several Noël Coward plays and Charles Dickens novels. His early work was a cinema of über-Britishness, one that both celebrated, ravaged, and autopsied the idea of what it was to be British, taking an especially hard look at the effects of the war on society. 

It's strange to consider that this master of the chamber drama, a director of modest style, would go on to become synonymous with the sprawling epics of the 1960s. Apart from some missteps, he'd be as wonderful doing these monstrously big movies as he was doing the small ones, but there's a clear dissonance of approach fragmenting the man's filmography. If there's a transitional piece to be found, a stylistic and thematic bridge, that explains how the humble adapter of prestige literature became the epic maker, it's 1957's The Bridge on the River Kwai… 

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Horror Actressing: Isabelle Adjani in "Possession" (1981)

by Jason Adams

The dissolution of a marriage rendered palpable, ectoplasmic -- Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 cult freak-out slash Cannes winner Possession was birthed mid-divorce from the director, and the labor pains are writ like arterial sprays across its every frame. It's Bergman via Jodorowsky; Scenes From a Marriage on a severe acid trip. The screen's awash in Evil Dead amounts of gunk, puss, a sparkling rainbow of ejaculatory fluids -- several squishy mattresses and one murder scene contingent on barfing later his star Isabelle Adjani takes to the hallway of a West Berlin subway station and acts so much that her insides literally come spilling out of her ears. 

Possession is, it must be said, a lot...

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Streaming Roulette, July: Angels, Witches, Hamilton, and the Czech New Wave

If you're new to the site this is how we share new streaming offerings for the month. We select a handful or two of titles and just randomly hit a place on the scroll bar to see what the film looks like - no cheating.  Ready? Let's play...

[Eavesdropping]
Mum: Look at the lovely sunshine all the other boys are out their playing in the water.
Dad: Pick up your knife.
Mum: You're just like your father.

The Witches (1990) on Netflix
The Grand High Witch watches a young child eating. She hates children! Has any actor had as genius a double feature as Anjelica Huston did in 1990 with The Witches and The Grifters? (Besides Kidman in 2001, of course!) Good lord she was on fire in the late 80s and early 90s. If you've never seen this you should watch it before the remake with Anne Hathaway starts filming. 

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100 Oldest Living Oscar Winners & Nominees

We thought it was time to update our Oldest Living Oscar People list. Pick a few of these giants in 2021 and watch a couple of their movies to appreciate their gift or learn about it for the first time. Our very best wishes of good health and happiness to the following actors, directors and craftsmen who nabbed at least one Oscar honor in their career...

100 OLDEST LIVING OSCAR NOMINEES/WINNERS
LIST LAST UPDATED ON 02/02/21
To see a less Oscar-specific list, here's a bigger 'oldest living actors' list 

99 YEARS OLD

Bill Butler (4/7/21) Oscar stats: 1 nomination
The cinematographer's only nomination was for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), which he shared with Haskell Wexler but '75 also featured a gig as Director of Photography on a tiny picture called Jaws ... maybe you've heard of it? Other Key Works: He later swerved into less prestigious fare like the wildly popular Grease (1978) and multiple Rocky sequels.

Walter Mirisch (11/8/21) Oscar stats: 2 Honoraries | 1 nomination | 1 win
This producer won the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night.  Other key works: The Magnificent Seven, Dracula, Two for the Seesaw, The Hawaiians

98 YEARS OLD

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