Best Supporting Actress in the 80s: An Alternative Oscar History

by Cláudio Alves

Out of Oscar's Best Supporting Actress winners from the 80s, Anjelica Huston is the only one who repeats the feat in my ballot. But not for PRIZZI'S HONOR!

Since the Best Actress post did so well, let's tackle another category in my Alternate Oscar history. We're still keeping with the thespians and the divas, because those are always the most beloved races here at The Film Experience. Once again, I followed Oscar eligibility rules when building these ballots, but also included honorable mentions, ineligible standouts, and some enticing prospects for some future movie-watching adventures. Any and all recommendations are welcome, of course, and you're welcome to tear these lineups to shreds – as if you needed an invitation. From 1980 to 1989, from actresses playing actresses to screen sirens for the videotape age, here are my Best Supporting Actress picks for our "Totally Awesome 80s" month…

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Nicole Kidman Tribute: The Portrait of a Lady (1996)

by Nathaniel R

Madame Merle: I'd give a good deal to be your age again; to have my life before me.
Isabel Archer: Your life is before you yet.

This article was originally intended to grace our "How Had I Never Seen?" series. Jane Campion's The Portrait  of a Lady (1996) has stubbornly remained on my "to see" list for nearly twenty years. I let it sit there, as a shamefully passive intent, not unlike the way Isabel Archer approached her own 'to experience' lists past the age of 24. That's when she marries Mr Osmond in Henry James "The Portrait of a Lady" and her idealism and ambition are utterly flatted by the limits of her imagination, courage, and self-possession. The novel first appeared in serialized form in 1880 and for the following century and a half, Isabel Archer has confounded and/or fascinated readers; Fellow artists, too, like auteur Jane Campion and actress Nicole Kidman...

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Doris Day @ 100: 'With Six You Get Eggroll'

Team Experience has been celebrating Doris Day for her Centennial. 

by Nathaniel R

Most careers peter out. Not so with Doris Day's. The most bankable actress of the first half of the 1960s chose to wrap it up at the first real sign that her popularity was waning. Her last top ten of the year hit was the bizarre comedy The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) but her last film, a blended family comedy called With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), was also a hit albeit not as big as her usual successes. The 1960s were tumultuous on all fronts including ideas about sexuality. The media became snide about Day, infamously dubbing her "The World's Oldest Virgin".

In retrospect, with only anecdotal history to go on, it's fascinating that Doris Day was supposedly rejected on these grounds when Julie Andrews, the box office queen of the second half of the 1960s, was not exactly a repudiation of the Day persona; sunny, funny, wholesome, short-haired musical blonde whose chemistry with male co-stars was undeniable but hardly horny...

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25th Anniversary: "The Portrait of a Lady"

by Nick Taylor

Happy Holidays! We are celebrating a very dear, tumultuous season - awards season - and the current wave of critics prizes has left us with some very exciting developments. It’s perhaps not the biggest shock that Jane Campion’s austere, sensual Western The Power of the Dog has become such a critical darling. It’s the first time in nearly two decades that one of Campion’s phone is in serious consideration but the film’s remarkable showing with awards bodies and the sheer number of Best Director wins she’s accrued are both tremendously deserved and, given the overall trajectory of her career, something of a surprise. 

Releasing her first film since 2009’s Bright Star (and after showrunning the acclaimed series Top of the Lake for two seasons), Campion’s favor with the Academy and critics at large has shifted wildly over the years. As rapturously as The Piano was received, her 1996 bold, purposefully hard-edged adaptation of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady scuttered a lot of that goodwill, and as abrasive as that film is, I can’t for the life of me understand why this torpedoed her prestige reputation so badly...

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Streaming Roulette, Oct: The Manor, Black Widow, 'Just a Girl' and more...

New month and a... oops, we're approaching the halfway mark. How did that happen? It's past time for another round of Streaming Roulette where we point out a handful or two of random titles that are streaming and just for fun, freeze frame them at totally random places in the scroll bar...

I brought a little something to get the party started...

THE MANOR on Prime
Barbara Hershey stars in this new horror film about a woman convinced that residents of a nursing home are being killed. Bruce Davison co-stars so you get two 1990s Oscar nominees in this new film from a director named Axelle Carolyn...

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