Team Top Ten: Oscar's Greatest Losers (Actress Edition)

Hepburn won 4 Oscars. Every win leaves a trail of four lossesAmir here, to bring you our newest Team Top Ten. You may remember we tackled the best directors of the new century in our first episode and each first Tuesday of the month Nathaniel and all the contributors will vote on a new list. This time it’s all about two things I’m sure you all love as much as we do:

...Actresses & Oscar.

This is a list of the greatest performances that lost the Best Actress award. We’ve looked at the pool of 337 performances that were nominated for an Oscar in that category but failed to win and we ranked them in the order of our individual preference, irrespective of the actresses that won in any given year.

It was quite a heavy task, as you can imagine. How would you go about choosing only ten among so many stellar turns? 80 different performances managed to get at least one vote from our contributors. Actresses who have had multiple unsuccessful nominations were generally the victims of an internal spread of votes. Meryl Streep is the most glaring example, of course. Four of her performances garnered votes, but none was popular enough to make the cut. Katharine Hepburn’s performances were similarly divisive, though one of them stood head and shoulders above the rest as you will see below. There were surprising inclusions and even more surprising exclusions but the main takeaway was consensus over performances that have found their place in the critical canon. Only 6 ladies from this new century made the top 30, which is reason to rejoice, in my opinion -- old treasures aren’t forgotten just yet.

Swanson gave good face.

Nathaniel will share runners-up and some juicy trivia and stats because this experiment really deserves a lot more than a list of ten names. For now, however, here are the actresses Team Experience deems the greatest Oscar losers of all time:

THE 10 GREATEST BEST-ACTRESS-LOSING PERFORMANCES
are after the jump...

surprise! Holly Hunter made the list

10. Holly Hunter (Broadcast News, 1987)
Lost to Cher in Moonstruck

"The leads in so many romantic comedies blend together into a blandly likable blur. Not so with Holly Hunter in Broadcast News. She takes the trope of the hardworking professional woman who is great at her job but unlucky in love, and imbues her with a crackling specificity. Far from sanding down her rough edges, Hunter embraces them, from her crying jags, to her stubbornness, to her clumsy grabs at love, to that southern accent she makes no attempt to disguise. Hunter’s Jane Craig topped my ballot because she is the gold standard against which I measure all other romantic comedy performances."
- Michael C.

nine more iconic performances after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Double Indemnity (Pre 'Body Heat' Post Coital)

Hit Me With Your Best Shot Episode 4.8

Double bourbon is fine, Walter."

As a baby cinephile in the 1980s I grew up with Body Heat (1981) as my noir of choice. Before I had any biblical knowledge of my own, I was utterly enthralled by Kathleen Turner's come-hither challenge and roaming hands, William Hurt's 'not-too-smart' insatiable lust and that broken window in a sticky Florida summer. For reasons that seem immature/absurd now, I avoided Double Indemnity for many years afterwards feeling 'I'd already seen it'. Never mind that Body Heat was less a remake than an "inspired by" or that Body Heat's reign as the Best of the Neo Noirs does nothing to diminish the bewitching "rotten to the core" vortex of Double Indemnity's scheming plot and sexual shenanigans.

Different noirs for different eras. But the long shadow that Body Heat cast on my early views of this entire genre is probably why my choice for this week's "Best Shot" is this seemingly minor one from Billy Wilder's 1944 classic. 

Seemingly.

This shot occurs at the end of a long "love scene" early in the picture between Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck --  the collected Best Shot articles have many insightful comments about this unimproveable star turn) and Walter (Fred MacMurray) as they dance around their sexual and murderous desires. The scene is filled with talking in the shadows -- I could watch Stanwyck plot silently and minimistically for another two hours on loop --  and three bits of physical intimacy, an arm grab, a kiss and a 'comforting' embrace. The scene is then interrupted by a narrative flashforward. When we return to the scheming duo, they're presented to us like so. Phyllis side-eyes her willing rube, gazes at her hands (a repetitive gesture... just how much blood is on them?) and stands up to leave with this bit of disingenuously banal needinees...

will you phone me?

Double Indemnity has many gorgeous shot compositions involving diagonal shadows and I love all of them. But its visual prowess and ideas extends beyond venetian blinds. This is an atypical shot in the film's visual composition because, despite the square frame, it's very horizontal... as befits a post-coital tableau.

Yes, they've 100% just had sex even if they're still in the same clothes as before the flash-forward. We've never seen Walter with his guard this down though Phyllis, inscrutable Phyllis is still the exact same woman. Sealing the deal of this scene's brilliance for me is the costuming and cinematography: Phyllis has never before been clothed in such a tactile way (fuzzy sweaters must have equalled instant boners back in the 40s and 50s); and the lighting choice is provocatively counterintuitive since it's Phyllis, the not so innocent and virginal, who is bathed in soft light while Walter in shadow.

P.S. A runner up...

This shot, from the final confrontation between Phyllis and her conquest, could inspire novels out of context it's such rich and decadent. In context, which is what we should be talking about, it's a triump of both Art Direction and Cinematography; that same living room, which we've returned to multiple times, never feels as sinister in any other shot. The composition also allows Walter's shadow to enter the frame before him, which is telling, and then has both the regretful man and his dark shadow in frame, both separated. It's also my favorite example of Double Indemnity's great use of venetian blind shadows -- usually involving Walter -- and the diagonal tension they bring to each of his scenes withough the film having to resort to anything as crude as canted camera angles.

Straight Down The Link...
Aliston Tooey on Phyllis' spidery web
Amiresque "drive thru beer!"
Antagony & Ecstasy on Stanwyck's unparalleled femme fatale triumph
Cinesnatch this week's film coincides with some Best Picture Oscar revisionism here
Entertainment Junkie loves Stanwyck's satisfaction
Film Actually 'the stillness speaks volumes'
The Film's The Thing 'a messy bit of business in Aisle 3"
I Am Derreck on Walter's double secret life
Pussy Goes Grrr the scorpion and the frog
Victim of the Time considers the 'ugliness' of Double Indemnity
We Recycle Movies talks LA Architecture and venetian blinds

.... or see all the stills in chronological order

Next Week, Wednesday May 8th:
David Lean's Summertime (1955) with Katharine Hepburn in Venice. Join us by selecting your own choice for "best shot"

Meow. It's Michelle Pfeiffer's Birthday!

To celebrate the 55th birthday of the one and only I thought we'd resurrect an old post about her Catwoman performance. If she's got nine lives so should this post. Please to enjoy...

Tim Burton's Batman Returns, the best Batman film (you heard me... throw down!) is now 15 21 years old and still one of the best comic book films. The movie didn't change cinema or its genre or significantly alter any careers. But it did send yours truly and millions of other Pfeiffer inclined moviegoers into a pfrenzy, arguably marking the apex of La Pfeiffer's cinematic reign. She was still in Oscar chasing mode (Love Field) and the full fledged move from heavy dramatic lifting into light mainstream fare (One Fine Day) and then blink and you'll miss her erratic appearances (Dark Shadows) was years away.

Ten Best Catwoman Line Deliveries
All the dialogue rocks but these are my favorite Pfeifferian readings

10 "Life's a bitch. Now, so am I"
Blockbusters love to shove quips on the public, in the hopes of catchphrase afterlife. This one’s pretty basic but Michelle sells it with true believer zeal.

9 more purring quips after the jump

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Red Carpet Oscar Pt. 1: "Princess. Puppy. Purse."

For this Oscar Nominee edition of the red carpet convos I am pleased to welcome Courtney from Pajiba!

It's Courtney!

NATHANIEL: Welcome to the Film Experience, Courtney. Since you're a brand new to many readers (unless they're smart enough to read Pajiba!) it's confession time. I wore a Les Miz tee to the Oscars last night but before we dive into what the Best Supporting Actresses were wearing, tell us: what were you wearing last night?!

COURTNEY: Hello, sir! I was looking superb - a vision in flannel, baby vomit elegantly adorning my jeans.

NATHANIEL: Beautiful. Do you hate it when they ask the nominees if their child picked their dress for them? I heard it first with Reese Witherspoon last night but you hear it all the time. 

COURTNEY: I hate the question, and I hate the answers. If children ever actually picked out Oscar gowns, however, that is a ceremony I'd watch. Picture it. It would be some sparkly nonsense and I'd love it. 

Maybe Hugh Jackman would have shown up dressed as Batman. SEE? Automatically a better ceremony.

NATHANIEL: Definitely less matchy-matchy and "on trend" I'll give you that. Rainbow would be the new black. Okay....

SUPPORTING ACTRESS. Anne Hathaway's 'darts' were the talk of twitter last night but there's more than just pointy boobs to discuss.

poll by twiigs.com

*

Anne's halter, Helen's wrinkles, and so-phis-ti-cat-ed Best Actresses after the jump... 

Click to read more ...

Jennifer Lawrence, Press Room Superstar

Whether or not one agrees with her Oscar win (for me she wasn't even close to best of that lineup), there can be no doubt at this point that Jennifer Lawrence is a great celebrity. Whether she's quipping on the red carpet, mugging for photo-ops like she's auditioning for an animated cartoon, shrugging off a standing ovation 'you're just doing that because I fell' or just answering dumb press queries, she rocks it.

Check this out if you haven't yet seen it and be amazed with her ease, humor and comfort in her own skin. She doesn't seem to take her own celebrity all that seriously which is not an uncommon occurence in young actors (see also: Kristen Stewart) but she's smart enough to enjoy it and laugh at its weird 'the world is watching you' excesses rather than twitch with discomfort.

Her performance in Silver Linings Playbook is all right but if you ask me, her Oscar night performance is the real deal. Best best. 

Reporter: Aren't you worried about peaking too soon?
Jen: I am now."