1991: Robin Hood Prince of Thieves

by Lynn Lee

- Locksley…I’m gonna cut your heart out with a spoon!

-Why a spoon?

-Because it’s DULL, you twit, it’ll hurt more!”

If you remember anything about Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, it’s probably those lines.  Or, more generally, Alan Rickman’s scrumptiously hammy turn as the villain who bellows them.  Or perhaps you remember Kevin Costner’s complete failure to master anything resembling an English accent.  If you’d just as soon forget Costner ever played Robin Hood, you’re not alone: consensus opinion generally holds that Rickman was the only good thing about the movie, which received tepid reviews at the time of its release and hasn’t exactly aged into a classic. 

It’s worth noting, however, that a lot of people really liked Prince of Thieves at the time...

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Introducing the Smackdown Panel for '91

Are you enjoying our super-sized Supporting Actress Smackdown season? We've already discussed 1947, 1957 (new!), 1981, and 2002. Ready for the fifth episode this season? It's focused on 1991 and it's coming up in just two weeks on Sunday July 26th so get watching and voting. Ready to meet the panel?  

PLEASE WELCOME IN ALPHA ORDER ... 

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1991: Tyra Ferrell in "Boyz n the Hood"

Before each Smackdown (and the next is for 1991), Nick Taylor suggests Supporting Actresses from an alternate ballot... 

What do you call the experience of watching a film with only one or two Oscar nominations to its name and discovering it’s one of the most jaw-dropping, accomplished films of its year? Maybe the Academy honored strong, worthwhile films across the board, maybe it didn’t, but you’re still left wondering how this stone cold masterpiece only got a modicum of the attention it so richly deserved. Case in point for 1991 is Boyz n the Hood, where writer/director John Singleton earned an Original Screenplay nomination and made history as the first black filmmaker ever nominated for Best Director. Boyz n the Hood ranks among the best of an Academy vintage that's largely filled with formally impressive, generically diverse, time-tested films. Its inclusion is even more exciting considering how easily it might not have happened. Who knows what chance it had of cracking the technical categories given how prescriptive those fields are against films as small as Boyz? On the other hand, the inability of Ice Cube or Laurence Fishburne to make headway in that anemic Best Supporting Actor lineup is another matter entirely. But the real topic for today’s sermon is the equally deserving and less regularly heralded performance from Tyra Ferrell, doing the most startling work of the female ensemble from the film's edges...

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To Uma on her 50th Birthday

Happy 50th Uma!by Mark Brinkerhoff 

There is the world before Uma Thurman, and the world after Uma Thurman—or at the very least for the world of actressexuals (unite!). A movie star like no other, her origins are almost as mythical as her stature. The daughter of an erstwhile Buddhist monk and a former high-fashion model—I kid you not—Uma, as mononymous as any great, was born on this date in 1970 and lived mainly in the rural environs of interior New England and upstate New York (Woodstock, to be exact).

 

A self-described awkward, introverted child, she nonetheless cut an arresting figure, catching the acting bug early. She followed in her mother’s footsteps as a professional model starting at the tender age of 15. 

 

Uma's early Vogue cover. Shot by Patrick "We have Patrick" de Marchelier

 

Soon enough she landed in magazines and on the cover—twice—of British Vogue, where her Amazonian proportions and striking visage were put to effective, glam ‘80s use...

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Horror Actressing: Jessica Lange in "Cape Fear"

by Jason Adams

It was said that the director Ken Russell helped the actor Oliver Reed modulate his performances with a scale ranging from "Moody One" to "Moody Two." And while I am in no way insinuating that the actress Jessica Lange has in any way that sort of limited range -- step off, Lange-anistas, I love her too! -- it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to gauge her work on a sliding scale of how much hand fluttering each role involves. And using that system Cape Fear comes out, blissfully, near the top.

Normally if I was feeling inclined to talk about the terrific actressing going on in Martin Scorsese's hot-brained 1991 remake I'd make a bee-line straight for the (rightfully) Oscar-nominated Juliette Lewis, who's the best in show over every single one of her far older and more experienced co-stars...

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