Sunday, September 30, 2007

Supporting Actress Smackdown: 1990


My gradual return to the blogosphere has been selfishly occasioned, I'll admit – how else would I participate in Supporting Actress Sundays? Our host is the ever-redoubtable StinkyLulu, whose commitment to the cause of actressing at the edges ought to be world-renowned by now.

As my tally of hearts might suggest, I found 1990 an eye-catching but faintly disappointing year for the category, if only because there are so many other performances I'd love to have been arguing about instead. Stinky welcomes alternative lists of personal nominations and here's my first shot at one, though the struggle I'm having to whittle it down to five names only underlines the very middling quality of the eventual ballot. From Oscar's nominees, only Whoopi Goldberg, barging her way hilariously through the mush of Ghost, would have a shot at making my fantasy five, in a year of rich pickings for British actresses in particular.

Honourable runners-up for me include Glenn Close's must-have-been-nearly-nominated Sunny von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune, both sustaining the mystery and sneakily enriching it with her comatose narration, and, in a slightly more indulgent register, Frances Sternhagen's sardonic old coot of a local sheriff's wife in Misery. I love both Mai Zetterling's protective granny and Anjelica Huston's scary villainness in Nicolas Roeg's ace The Witches, though either performance could just about qualify as a lead, so that would be cheating.

My finalists are:

Laurie Metcalf in Mike Figgis's Internal Affairs – smashing, credible and sceptical as a tough lesbian cop
Lindsay Duncan, seductively ambiguous as a possibly-vampiric next-door neighbour in Philip Ridley's The Reflecting Skin
Billie Whitelaw as the controlling mother of two psychopaths in The Krays, from another Ridley script
Jennifer Jason Leigh's brilliantly fresh, un-actressy hooker in Miami Blues
and (edging out Whoopi) Harriet Walter as Michel Piccoli's flirty, bilingual sister-in-law in Louis Malle's marvellous Milou en mai

Any to add? Fire away!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

2007, so far

Nick beat me to it this year, but it seems about time for a post-Toronto round-up fielding the best of 2007 as of September. Here's my reply in kind:


BEST PICTURE

1. I’m Not There
2. The Fall
3. Lady Chatterley
4. Conversations with Other Women
5. Yella



BEST DIRECTOR

Pascale Ferran (Lady Chatterley)
Todd Haynes (I’m Not There)
Christian Petzold (Yella)
Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo (The Night of the Sunflowers)
Tarsem (The Fall)



BEST ACTOR

Chris Cooper (Breach)
Aaron Eckhart (Conversations with Other Women)
Ethan Hawke (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead)
Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises)



BEST ACTRESS

Helena Bonham Carter (Conversations With Other Women)
Marina Hands (Lady Chatterley)
Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart)
Laura Linney (Jindabyne)
Catinca Untaru (The Fall)



BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Joseph Gilgun (This is England)
Hippolyte Girardot (Lady Chatterley)
Fabrice Luchini (Molière)
Alfred Molina (The Hoax)
Devid Striesow (The Counterfeiters)



BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Seema Biswas (Water)
Charlotte Gainsbourg (I’m Not There)
Kelli Garner (Lars and the Real Girl)
Deborra-Lee Furness (Jindabyne)
Imelda Staunton (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)



BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

2 Days in Paris
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Conversations with Other Women
Funny Ha Ha
The Gigolos



BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Counterf
eiters
Jindabyne
Lady Chatterley
A Mighty Heart
Zodiac



BEST EDITING

28 Weeks Later...
The Fall
I’m Not There
The Night of the Sunflowers
Yella



BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

28 Weeks Later...
Black Snake Moan
Hallam Foe
I’m Not There
Lady Chatterley



BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

The Fall
Hallam Foe
I’m Not There
Sunshine
Zodiac




BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Blades of Glory
Drawing Restraint 9
I’m Not There
La vie en rose
Yella



BEST SOUND

The Bourne Ultimatum
Drawing Restraint 9
I’m Not There
Lady Chatterley
Sunshine




BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

3.10 to Yuma
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
The Counterfeiters




THE TALLIES


I'm Not There: 8
Lady Chatterley: 7
The Fall: 5
Conversations with Other Women; Yella; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead: 4
The Counterfeiters; Jindabyne: 3
A Mighty Heart; Zodiac; The Night of the Sunflowers; Sunshine; Hallam Foe; Drawing Restraint 9; 28 Weeks Later...: 2

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Unfinished business


At around the point when I jacked in this blogging enterprise, what, eight months ago, there was a post missing: my year-end top ten. Before I offer any mid-term assessments for 2007, here, after a needlessly long drum-roll, is what 2006 would have looked like.

1. Inland Empire A

A nightmarish (not to mention doomed) quest for lost marbles, utterly forbidding and quite mesmerising.

2. The Death of Mr Lazarescu A

The systematic erasure of "Mr L" (identity, I think) before medical death ensues.

3. Black Sun A

A haunting disquisition on what it means to see, narrated by a philosopher who no longer can.

4. Requiem A—

What happens when an illness can't be cured because the cure is the illness.

5. Red Road A—

Stalker cinema par excellence, driven by multiple ambiguous agendas for most of its length.

6. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada A—

An Arriaga jigsaw which worked, in part because the pieces weren't just tossed to the winds but carefully gathered, and lovingly rearranged.

7. Frozen Land A—

Finnish desperation as a virtuoso relay race.

8. A Scanner Darkly A—

Linklater and PKD: a paranoiac's delight, and a riot of free-associating.

9. Deep Water A— (pictured)

The British national psyche at sea in a shattering, superbly crafted doc.

10 United 93 A—/B+

Still one to grapple with on all sorts of levels, and a technical triumph.