Pt 3 Reader's Ranking: Who should be the next Amy Madigan?

Pt 1 - Team Experience Votes 
Pt 2 - Team Experience Winners 
Pt 3 - AT LONG LAST THE RESULTS OF THE READERS POLL...

WHO SHOULD BE THE NEXT AMY MADIGAN?

ELISABETH SHUE in Leaving Las Vegas (1995). What would it take to get her a comeback role?

We've spent the last couple of weeks bsessing over a question from a reader (thanks, Brian!) and we got so into discussing it at TFE HQ that we asked all of you to vote on the same question. The Team and Readers were unaware of each others vote totals during voting so nobody was influencing anyone. We've poured over the ballots that came in to suss out your passions and determine rankings.  In honor of this new film year, 2026, we'll share the  twenty-six actresses you're collectively rooting hardest for in terms of an Oscar comeback after just one nomination twenty or more years ago. We've included some quotes from your ballots too and hope you enjoy and continue the discussion. After the list, some fun stats. God, we love actresses!

YOUR TOP TWENTY-SIX

just-missed: Lena Olin & Candice Bergen were on as many or more ballots than Elisabeth Shue but weren't as highly ranked on the ballots they did appear on. They almost made it.

And a reader quote I just love to kick things off...

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Nicole Kidman Tribute: Practical Magic (1998)

by Christopher James

The seeds for Big Little Lies were planted nearly 20 years earlier with Practical Magic. Admittedly much goofier than the prestige HBO miniseries, Practical Magic is an unequivocal crowd pleaser stuffed with delightful characters, cozy fall vibes and wicked pleasures. This is thanks to the strange, yet wonderful pairing of Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock...

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Showbiz History: Super Remake, Early Franchise, and A Barrymore

10 random things that happened on this day in history (Aug 15th) as it relates to showbiz...

I am a collage of unaccounted for brush strokes...

1483 The Sistine Chapel is consecrated and holds its first mass at the Vatican. Remember that "anecdote" in Six Degrees of Separation (1993) about slapping the hand of god? What a fantastic play/film. Stockard Channing's nomination that year was so well-earned. In many years that performance would have been my gold medalist, but what a stellar Best Actress year 1993 was. Hunter, Bassett, Channing, etc...

1879 Future Oscar winner Ethel Barrymore (None but the Lonely Heart) born in Philadephia. She is one of only nine women to have ever been nominated for 4 Supporting Actress Oscars. We're discussing that list right now actually ...

1912 Amazing actress Wendy Hiller born in England on this day. She would go on to 3 Oscar nominations and a win (Separate Tables, 1958). On the same day in Pasadena...

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Months of Meryl: Heartburn (1986)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

 

#13 — Rachel Samstad, a New York food writer who is seduced and betrayed by a tomcat D.C. columnist.

MATTHEW: The celebrated run of 80s-era films that cemented Meryl Streep as a master among screen actors is so overwhelmingly remembered for its cadre of self-sacrificing period heroines that it was only inevitable that Streep’s two comedic outings would recede into the background. Based on its critical reception alone, Streep’s 1989 Roseanne Barr match-up She-Devil, which we’ll get around to discussing soon, may very well deserve to be remembered as a curious career outlier — that is, if it deserves to be remembered at all. But what about Heartburn, the all-around more prestigious comic vehicle? The project marked Streep’s first reunion with her Silkwood director Mike Nichols and that film’s co-writer Nora Ephron, from whose thinly-veiled best-seller the film was adapted...

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Six Degrees of Stockard Channing

By Spencer Coile 

John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation is a finely tuned satire of the rich and elite, inviting its audience into the lives of Flan and Ouisa Kittredge, an art dealer and his wife. Through a mixture of broad comedy, close examination of "how the other half lives," and an honest depiction of race relations in the 20th century, his work was not only a Best Play nominee at the 1990 Tony Awards, but was a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It is no surprise that his creation would soon find its home on the screen as well, being adapted into a 1993 film of the same name, directed by Fred Schepisi and written for the screen by Guare. 

Indeed, much can be said about both its stage and screen representation (Nathaniel even wrote about the play's current revival here), from its kooky premise to the performances. Considering the revival's Tony success (nominations for Best Revival of a Play and Best Leading Actor in a Play), not to mention many of its timeless qualities, let's dive into Guare's work and find out what connects us all. 

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