Top Ten: Non-Nominated Best Supporting Actresses, 1980s Division

Whew. That title is a mouthful. I know you already know what I mean though, you golden fiends. This very impromptu post is brought to you by a recent Tribeca revival screening of Martin Scorsese's indelible King of Comedy (1983) and this Movie Line interview with Sandra Bernhard herself -- to whom I'm dedicating the list -- who couldn't make it but definitely helped make the movie what it is. My one and only back and forth conversation with Sandra -- over Twitter, the sometimes leveler -- involved how freaking robbed she was for an Oscar nomination for that movie. I couldn't believe I was talking to her but I was not the least bit in doubt that she'd agree with me.

10 Best Non-Nominated Supporting Actress Performances of the 1980s

Honorable Mentions: I think Rosanna Arquette's "Surrender Dorothy" bit in After Hours was quite memorable though the rest of the movie has long since faded; I cherish Martha Plimpton in just about anything but mostly Shy People (1987) and Running on Empty (1988) back in her vibrant teenage River Phoenix-adjacent days.

I Apologize To: Kathy Baker in Street Smart, Mona Washbourne in Stevie (1981), Vanessa Redgrave in Prick up Your Ears and Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places who all won devoted fans for those performances in their respective years (and some awards buzz though not enough for Oscar) but, believe it or not, I haven't seen any of those movies!

10 Bridget Fonda, Scandal (1989)
and nine more divas after the jump...

Click to read more ...

"VIRGIN ALERT! VIRGIN ALERT!"

All male periscopes down!"

Great Moments in Screen Bitchery #2,029

"Mean girls" have been around forever in High School Movies and then they weren't always the villains -- take Grease 2 for an example. The Pink Ladies are such bitches!

Complete the Sentence...

Michelle Pfeiffer stars in "Malavita" opening October 2013

"While Michelle Pfeiffer is at the grocery store I hope she picks up some  _______________ because ____________."

Top Ten 1980s

for discussion fun

Tootsie, one of the inarguably great American comedies

"The Tuesday Top Ten will get more article-like soon," he said (again). "It really will." But it was so much fun to discuss the 1930s and the 1970s, which are arguably the two most respected decades (critically speaking) of American cinema. So how about a decade that gets no respect? The 1980s. The '80s are tough for me to feel discerning about because I lived through them and was a) young and b) just falling in love with the movies and c) just falling hard for the movies so how could the cinema possibly have been hitting its nadir? I still have inordinate fondness for movies that might more safely be called guilty pleasures like Yentl, Superman II, Splash, Return of the Jedi, Clue, and about half of the filmography of John Hughes... and so on. I even like revisiting really bad movies from that decade. 

Off the top of my head my ten favorites of the decades. 

A Sean Young polaroid from the set of Blade Runner

1. The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen)
2. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
3. A Room With a View (James Ivory)
4. Tootsie (Sydney Pollack)
5. Dangerous Liaisons (Stephen Frears)
6. Amadeus (Milos Forman)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen)
8. Aliens (James Cameron)
9. Law of Desire (Pedro Almodovar)
10. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg) 

With apologies too... Silkwood, Reds, Diva, The Empire Strikes Back, The Little Mermaid, The complete works of Michelle Pfeiffer, Moonstruck, Raging Bull, Jean de Florette, Manon of the Spring, The King of Comedy, Heathers, sex lies and videotape, The complete works of Kathleen Turner, The Shining, Victor/Victoria, The Right Stuff, Bull Durham, Little Shop of Horrors, The Terminator, Witness, Broadcast News, Running on Empty, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Raising Arizona. I could go on and on and on but I'd better stop before I start singing Xanadu again.

 

I'd love to hear your lists, both guilty pleasures and critically lauded efforts you think deserve their reputations.

Tues Top Ten: Stars Without (Competitive) Oscars

Do you miss Oscar season or are you glad it's over? I'm feeling a little bit of both right now, which is why this image that a reader sent me is so great. It's Glenn Close & Michelle Pfeiffer on Oscar night in 1989, when they both lost for their roles in Dangerous Liaisons (1988). Michelle did take the stage as a presenter that night (alongside Dennis Quaid).

Who knew that the Merquise de Merteuil and Madame Tourvel could exhibit any such tenderness for each other? (Or maybe the Merquise is just looking for the softest spot on Tourvel's neck in which to sink her fangs?)

So the picture got me to thinking about stars who've never won Oscars despite multiple nods. (Of course the most egregiously mistreated stars in Hollywood are the great actors who've never even been nominated... but that's a different list.) For this Tuesday Top Ten, I thought we'd do things a little differently and the rank will be determined not by my opinion but by Oscar's through the number of nominations. I determine the order if stars have the same number of losing nominations.

TOP TEN WORKING FILMS STARS
WITH MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS WHO'VE
NEVER WON A COMPETITIVE OSCAR

Honorable Mentions: Mickey Rooney, Eleanor Parker, Kirk Douglas (yes, they're all still alive), Jane Alexander, Debra Winger, Diane Ladd and Marsha Mason each won three-to-four nominations but since none of these famous actors are working much or at all in features anymore, I decided to make this a list of top “working” stars instead. As for the bottom third of the top ten list, since there are a lot of stars who’ve earned three nominations without ever winning, I had to make judgement calls as to who to include. So my apologies to: Laura Linney, Joaquin Phoenix and Sigourney Weaver (and others with 3 nominations) who just-missed here.

Johnny Depp, The Dangerous Liaisons girls and more after the jump...

Click to read more ...