One Last Round of Applause for the Year's Great Actresses!

Last year's performances by leading ladies were so rich, that I could have filled up three Best Actress lists and not once felt of any of the choices as "filler". In fact, 2018's leading actresses were so strong that I'd chuck out all but one of last year's nominees (I'm keeping Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird) if I had 10 spots to give for the two years combined. Check out the chart for more...

Sunset Boulevard. Should we worry or rejoice?

by Nathaniel R

As you have no doubt heard, the 1993 stage musical Sunset Blvd., Andrew Lloyd Webber's adaptation of the film noir classic Sunset Boulevard (1950) now has a green light for the movies. The stage musical premiered in London in '93 with Patti LuPone in the lead role before a legally-fraught switcheroo to Glenn Close for its Broadway debut in '94. The musical would go on to win 7 Tonys (including Best Musical and Best Actress) and roughly ever since then (we're talking 25 years now!) there's been talking of adapting it back to the screen, its original home and subject matter. This wouldn't be the first time that's happened of course. The most recent example is Hairspray which proved a hit in all three incarnations: 1988 / 2002 / 2007.

This project has been talked about for years and now a sudden green light with shooting scheduled for October. Was it Glenn Close's year long comeback of sorts as she undoubtedly came close to winning that elusive Oscar that finally did it...

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Jennifer Jones, the early years and 'years at the top'

HAPPY JENNIFER JONES CENTENNIAL!

 Paolo wasn't kidding when he said that the Centennial of Jennifer Jones (that's today!) would be a challenge. Though we usually have some buy-in for centennials literally no one else on Team TFE volunteered for this one so it'll be short. But I'll do one or two pictures. i'm annoyed that I can't do Duel in the Sun (1946), which I've never seen, but I can't find it to stream. Actually easy availability is how I came up with your choices. So vote and tell me which of these films you most want to discuss:

free polls

But before we get there, and overview of her career.

And the eternal question: How long can any given star can stay at 'the top' from Old Hollywood to the right now...

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Best Dressed Best Actress? (...and a look at the whole decade, too)

Mandatory Red Carpet Lineup Poll!

polls

P.S. In case you've forgotten about our Oscar doll fantasy (You haven't, right?) the whole collection is embedded after the jump. Just think - there's only one more Oscar season to go to complete the decade in film !!! Then we can do all sorts of silly stuff with statistics...

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Ranking the Oscar Clips

by Ben Miller

Of all the decisions the Academy Awards producers/directors must make, the Oscar clip decisions are surely the most covetous -- who among us wouldn't want to chose? They're fairly crucial, too.  I ranked all the clips last year, and Nathaniel was nice enough to let me do it again.  The clips preceding each of the categories ranged from brilliant to “what the hell was that?”  Let’s rank them 20-1…

Cringe-worthy

I sometimes wish I'd never been born at aaaaaaallllllll 🎵

20. Viggo Mortensen, Green Book
19. Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Woo boy.  I would personally defend the work of both of these performances, but the snippets shown on Sunday did not lend any firepower to those arguments.  Viggo gets to wax on like an idiot about not knowing the difference between Russian and German before laying on some casual racism. Malek has plenty of good moments in the Queen biopic, but a simple shot of him lipsyncing reads like an Oscar producer’s opinion on the performance itself seeping through.

Not Doing Anyone Any Favors...

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