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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Would you rather?

Time for another round of our silly hangin' with celebrities game, brought to you via the aspirational pleasures of Instagram.

Would you rather... 

• smell the flowers with Missi Pyle?
• steal a Myrtle Snow painting with Sarah Paulson?
• Read Thelma Adams' new book with the LEOgend?
• enjoy a mud treatment with Michelle Monaghan on the Dead Sea?
• attend a tennis match with Mads Mikkelsen?
• do charity with Liv Tyler & Goldie Hawn?
• dine with Julianne Moore & Kyle Maclachlan?
• see Vox Lux with Carrie Preston & Emily Berg?
• visit an ADR session with Lena Olin?
• have a cup with Henry Golding & Michelle Yeoh?

pictures after the jump to help you decide... 

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Q&A: Artists in Movies and Uninspiring Best Pic Lineups

For this weeks Q&A I asked for an art theme to celebrate the joint birthday of Vincent Van Gogh and Francisco de Goya on this very day! So we'll start with a few art-focused topics before venturing to rando questions.

TOM: Which film about an artist (in any field of the Arts) that you were not particularly knowledgeable about made you want to see/hear the real work by that artist? 

I vastly prefer non-traditional biopics so I'm susceptible to stuff that piques curiosity rather than gives you a greatest hits. So I like bios like Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993). I have some problems with I'm Not There (2007) which is my least favorite Todd Haynes film but I respect the hell out of it conceptually. In terms of movies about painters I definitely became more interested in Francis Bacon after Love is the Devil (1998) and not just because of Daniel Craig in the bathtub! I already cared about Caravaggio before seeing Derek Jarman's Caravaggio but I hope people see that one, too. 

BRIAN: If you had to recommend a budding Cinephile a movie based on an artist, a work of art, or has artistic themes what would it be?

Hmmm. A lot of movies about painting aren't very good (Watching someone paint being only a notch more interesting than watching someone write). So let's do "artistic" theme and the answer there is easily Amadeus (1984). It's such a useful movie to reference in ways both commonplace ("too many notes!") and contemplative (what makes the difference between competent journeyman skill and true genius?). One of my other favorite "art" movies is High Art (1998)...

8 more questions after the jump

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The Honoraries: Jean-Claude Carrière, Part 2

Our 2014 Honorary Oscar tribute series continues with a two-part look at the long fascinating career of Jean-Claude Carrière. Here's Tim with Part Two.

Yesterday, Amir did a wonderful job of introducing us to the supremely gifted and abnormally prolific Jean-Claude Carrière, focusing on his iconic collaboration with Luis Buñuel. As important as that work was for both men, it tells only a fraction of the tale. With nearly a hundred screenplays to his credit in a career that’s still holding steady, 54 years on, it’s simply not possible to reduce the full scope of Carrière’s contribution to cinema to his work just one collaborator.

And so we now turn to Carrière's writing in the years following Buñuel’s death. Given the transgressive, ultra-modern nature of their films together, it’s perhaps a bit surprising that Carrière’s output from the ‘80s to the present would be dominated by prestigious literary adaptations and costume dramas - what could possibly be less transgressive than that? But just as Belle du jour is nothing like the usual late-‘60s erotic drama, so are Carrière’s late-career period pieces only superficially akin to awards-bating fluff. 1979’s The Tin Drum, which he adapted alongside director Volker Schlöndorff and Franz Seitz, is one of the nerviest films about the psychology of Nazi-era Germany ever filmed. In the scenario he provided for Andrzej Wajda’s 1983 French Revolution film Danton, he built a foundation for an angry, vivid drama about the corruption of politics. These are confrontational films, even upsetting.

As the years progressed, Carrière perhaps mellowed, enough to pick up one final Oscar nomination for 1988’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which he shared with that film’s director, Philip Kaufman. Although even here, “mellowing” is a relative term.

(The Unbearable Lightiness of Being, Birth, and Valmont after the jump)

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Podcast Pt 1: Smackdown Companions & Left Feet: A Love Story

As a companion piece to the Supporting Actress Smackdown, we recorded a companion podcast. In the first half we talk misleading movie posters, Oscar campaigns, the outcome of the smackdown, Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot and Paul Mazursky's Enemies A Love Story and directorial,  acting choices, sexism, and point-of-view storytelling.

You can listen at the bottom of the post or download on iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments. We'd love to hear your comments on either film, and what your big takeaway from this month's Smackdown was. 

Smackdown Pt 1: My Left Foot Love Story