skimpole
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Posts posted by skimpole
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Actor
Tom Cruise, Born on the Fourth of July
Kenneth Branagh, Henry V
John Cusack, Say Anything
Martin Landau, Crimes and Misdemeanors
Tony Leung, City of Sadness
Runner-ups: Jeff Goldblum (The Tall Guy), Morgan Freeman (Driving Miss Daisy), Woody Allen (Crimes and Misdemeanors), Ron Silver (Enemies, A Love Story), Raul Julia (Romero), Armin Mueller-Stahl (Music Box), John Hurt (Scandal), Joseph Long (Queen of Hearts), Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing), Michael Gambon (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover), Lothaire Bluteau (Jesus of Montreal), Henry Baranowski (Dekalog), Wojciech Klata (Dekalog),* Donald Sutherland (A Dry White Season), Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot), Chow Yun-Fat (The Killer), Sam Neill (Dead Calm), Billy Zane (Dead Calm), Robin Williams (Dead Poets Society),
*Juvenile Performance of the Year
Actress
Jessica Lange, Music Box
Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy
10nE Skye, Say Anything
Emma Thompson, The Tall Guy
Anita Zagaria, Queen of Hearts
Runner-ups: Meg Ryan (When Harry met Sally), Krystyna Janda (Interrogation), Nicole Kidman (Dead Calm), Jodi Benson (The Little Mermaid), Joanne Whalley (Scandal), Helen Mirren (The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover), Genevieve Lemon (Sweetie), Catherine Wilkening (Jesus of Montreal),
Supporting Actor
Sean Connery, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Morgan Freeman, Glory
Derek Jacobi, Henry V
John Mahoney, Say Anything
Danny Aiello, Do the Right Thing
Runner-ups: Brian Blessed (Henry V), Alan Alda (Crimes and Misdemeanors), John Turturro (Do the Right Thing), Samuel E. Wright (The Little Mermaid), Ian Hawkes (Queen of Hearts), Sam Waterson (Crimes and Misdemeanors), Dan Ackroyd (Driving Miss Daisy), Rowan Atkinson (The Tall Guy), Ray McAnally (My Left Foot), Jerry Orbach (Crimes and Misdemeanors), Denzel Washington (Glory), Ian McKellan (Scandal), Marlon Brando (A Dry White Season),
Supporting Actress
Lena Olin, Enemies, A Love Story
Anjelica Huston, Enemies, A Love Story
Emma Thompson, Henry V
Mia Farrow, Crimes and Misdemeanors
Joan Cusack, Say Anything
Runner-ups: Pat Carroll (The Little Mermaid), Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot), Kyra Sedgwick (Born on the Fourth of July), Margaret Sophie Stein (Enemies, A Love Story), Xin Shufen (City of Sadness), Bridget Fonda (Scandal), Dianne Wiest (Parenthood), Martha Plimpton (Parenthood), Laura San Giacomo (Sex, Lies and Videotape), Joanna Gleason (Crimes and Misdemeanors), Rosie Perez (Do the Right Thing), Ruby Dee (Do the Right Thing), Anjelica Hustron (Crimes and Misdemeanors),
Not seen: Camille Claudel, Shirley Valentine, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Steel Magnolias-------1989 is clearly my least favorite year of the eighties. Driving Miss Daisy is one of the lesser best pictures of the decade, and it still got a best actress nomination. Nor is this my favorite Sean Connery performance, who wouldn't have won, if Landau hadn't been upgraded into Best Actor contention.
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Well they're showing Chungking Express, Weekend and Pink Floyd: the Wall in June, which is all to the good, even if the hours for the last two are absurd.
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I share a birthday with Alfred Hitchcock.
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Here are the films from 1988 that were mentioned that I have not seen as yet.
A Short Film About Killing with Miroslaw Baka, Olaf Lubaszenko, Krzystof Globisz and Jan Tesarz
Lubaszenko actually appears in the same director's A Short Film About Love. Have you seen that movie?
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Four movies this week,with this being "Have I actually seen it before?" week. No, I don't think so. But I did see the funniest scene in Throw Momma from the Train, when Billy Crystal realizes the horrible situation Danny DeVito has placed him in. As for the film itself, DeVito is the best part of it. Crystal himself is rather bland, and while Anne Ramsay is memorably unpleasant, there were more deserving choices for a best supporting actress nominee that year. Parenthood is a movie I saw most of, but not all of, so I knew the basic plot and remembered the best jokes. (Such as Rick Moranis try to turn his four year old daughter into a super genius by making her read "In the Penal Colony.") It has a sitcom vibe, in which the actors all try very hard, but ultimately it's too soft. Serious problems are raised, teenage pregnancy, unwanted pregnancy, a disturbed child, gambling debts, a bad job which is then lost. But ultimately they're all waved away. Rogue One or whatever the exact title is, isn't a bad movie, and one can respect it for the way it answers why we haven't seen any of these people before. It's thoroughly competent, though the attempts to provide emotional weight are no better than in most of the franchise proper. And by punching up the thrills and difficulties it makes the achievements in the original movies look too easy. Fata Morgana is clearly the movie of the week. This early Herzog documentary, which isn't really a documentary, certainly makes things strange, since it consists of shots of the Sahara and Sahel while the Mayan creation myth is recited over it.
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Here are my choices of the 170 films I've seen from 1988 for…
Best Supporting Actor of 1988
5. BILLY ZANE (Hughie Warriner), Dead Calm
Why is Dead Calm a 1988 release? IMDB gives it a 1989 release in both the US and its native Australia.
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Actor
John Cleese, A Fish Called Wanda
Bernard-Pierre Donadieu, The Vanishing
Jeremy Irons, Dead Ringers
Robert De Niro, Midnight Run
Daniel Day-Lewis, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Runner-ups: John Malkovich (Dangerous Liaisons), Charles Grodin (Midnight Run), Miroslaw Baka (A Short Film about Killing), Gene Bervoets (The Vanishing), Davour Dujomic (Time of the Gypsies), Pelle Hvenegaard (Pelle the Conqueror), John Neville (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), Forest Whitaker (Bird), Tsutomu Tatsumi (Grave of the Fireflies), Michael Keaton (Beetlejuice), Tom Hanks (Big), Kevin Costner (Bull Durham), Christian Slater (Heathers), Bernard Hill (Drowning by Numbers), Harrison Ford (Frantic), Gene Hackman (Mississippi Burning), Leslie Nielsen (The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!), Willem Dafoe (The Last Temptation of Christ), Bob Hoskins (Who Framed Roger Rabbit), Charles Fleischer (Who Framed Roger Rabbit), John Cusack (Eight Men Out), Olaf Lubaszenko (A Short film About Love), Derek Jacobi (Little Dorrit), Michalis Zeke (Landscape in the Mist), Ken Gruz (Talking to Strangers), Philippe Noiret (Cinema Paradiso),
Actress
Isabelle Huppert, Story of Women
Jamie Lee Curtis, A Fish Called Wanda
Glenn Close, Dangerous Liaisons
Susan Sarandon, Bull Durham
Juliette Binoche, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Runner-ups: Genevieve Bujold (Dead Ringers), Barbara Hershey (A World Apart), Tania Palaiologou* (Landscape in the Mist), Winona Ryder (Heathers), Noriko Hidaka (My Neighbor Totoro), Chika Sakamoto (My Neighbor Totoro), Grazyna Szapolowska (A Short Film About Love), Kristyna Kohoutova (Alice), Sarah Polley (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), Ayano Shiraishi (Grave of the Fireflies), Jodhi May (A World Apart), Lily Tomlin (Big Business), Joan Plowright (Drowning by Numbers), Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown), Meryl Streep (A Cry in the Dark),
*Juvenile Performance of the Year
Supporting Actor
Kevin Kline, A Fish Called Wanda
Pete Postelthwaite, Distant Voices, Still Lives
Michael Palin, A Fish Called Wanda
1987 film nominated in 1988 Max von Sydow, Pelle the Conqueror
Alan Rickman, Die Hard
Substitute for von Sydow
Krzysztof Globisz, A Short Film About Killing
Runner-ups: Harvey Keitel (The Last Temptation of Christ), Yaphet Kotto (Midnight Run), Eric Idle (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), Dennis Farina (Midnight Run), Robin Williams (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), Jan Tesarz (A Short Film About Killing), Francois Cluzet (Story of Women), Christopher Lloyd (Who Framed Roger Rabbit), John Ashton (Midnight Run), Stratos Tzortzoglou (Landscape in the Mist), Alec Guinness (Little Dorrit), Dean Williams (Distant Voices, Still Lives), Jason Edwards (Drowning by Numbers),
Supporting Actress
Lena Olin, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Michelle Pfeiffer, Dangerous Liaisons
Freda Dowie, Distant Voices, Still Lives
Lorraine Ashbourne, Distant Voices, Still Lives
Barbara Hershey, The Last Temptation of Christ
Runner-ups: Winona Ryder (Beetlejuice), Angela Walsh (Distant Voices, Still Lives), Johanna ter Steege (The Vanishing), Sinolicka Trpkova (Time of the Gypsies), Kathleen Turner (Who Framed Roger Rabbit), Uma Thurman (Dangerous Liaisons), Emanuelle Seigner (Frantic), Geena Davis (The Accidental Tourist), Caron Tate (Talking to Strangers), Joan Greenwood (Little Dorrit), Uma Thurman (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen), Natalie Morse (Drowning by Numbers),
Not seen: Stand and Deliver, The Accused, Gorillas in the Mist, Tucker: the Man and His Dream, Running on Empty, Married to the Mob--------Rather striking that this years include two 1987 movies nominated for 1988 Oscars and three movies which I though were released in 1989 but actually premiered in 1989.
--------My top 5 consists of a documentary and two animated movies, so my nominees are a little lower of my list for this year.
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I saw The Wizard of Oz and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in September and May of 1976 respectively. I saw The Shaggy Dog in September 1975, I think. I saw Robin Hood, the Disney animated movie when it reached my small town. It was released in November 1973 so it may have taken a year or two for it get to my town. But it's possible that I saw Hansel and Gretel, a 1954 puppet movie before then.
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Thomas More's final speech in A Man for all Seasons:
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I want to say more about my 1986 Best Actor choice, Erland Josephson in The Sacrifice. The last of Tarkovsky's seven movies, it gains special weight since Tarkovsky died shortly after it was completed. (Apparently Tarkovsky didn't know he was dying until after it was completed.) Two of his movies are based on science fiction novels. His first movie is a war movie, and the fourth is a portrait of his childhood which could be described as The Tree of Life for those who thought The Tree of Life was too audience friendly. That leaves three movies: Andrei Rublev, Nostalghia, and The Sacrifice. At the climax of each movie is an act of faith, done with stunning long takes and tracking shots. In the first Nikolai Burlyayev must craft a giant church bell, which he does even though it is revealed he does not actually know how to do it. In the second Oleg Yankovsky must carry a lighted candle back and forth an empty pool to save the world. And in the third Erland Josephson burns down his entire house after successfully getting God to save the world from a nuclear holocaust.
It is very easy to imagine such a gesture falling flat. One reason it doesn't is the stringency and integrity of Tarkovsky's style. A second reason is that one feels the whole weight of Russian history is behind these measures. One reason why Nostalghia works and On the Beach, for example, does not is that the experience of total war is so much more real for Tarkovsky than it is for Americans (let alone Stanley Kramer). And third, the metaphors are larger than and do not require religious belief. Burlyayev's acts, for example, is not simply an example of faith in a horrible world. It shows the creativity of ordinary, indeed working people, in an atmosphere more likely to crush him. This is a metaphor obviously relevant to 20th century Russia but not only there.
Which leads us to Josephson's performance. What does he provide to the table. Having rewatched it earlier today one sees his considerable intelligence, the way he talks about ordinary matters in his character's life, as well as more complex serious issues. He discusses these with dignity, calmly and reasonably. It's not that he's not emotional or sympathetic, it's that he doesn't make any obvious play to our sympathies. So when, halfway through the movie, he begs God to save the world and is willing to give everything up to do it, This is not an easy thing to do, but one cannot doubt his good faith in doing so.
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Inner Space
I'm possessed!
Much of Full Metal Jacket isn't quotable. But there is this:
Private Joker: How can you shoot women or children?
Door Gunner: Easy! Ya just don't lead 'em so much!
Angel Heart
They say there's just enough religion in the world to make men hate one another, but not enough to make them love.
I know who I am!
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The Princess Bride is extraordinarily quotable:
Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia," but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line!"
Vizzini: He didn't fall?! Inconceivable!
Inigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Inigo: HELLO! MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA! YOU KILLED MY FATHER! PREPARE TO DIE! [corners Count Rugen, knocks his sword aside, and slashes his cheek, giving him a scar identical to Inigo's] Offer me money. Count Rugen: Yes!
Inigo: Power, too, promise me that. [He slashes his other cheek]
Count Rugen: All that I have and more. Please.
Inigo: Offer me everything I ask for.
Count Rugen: Anything you want... [Rugen knocks Inigo's sword aside and lunges, but gets his arm caught by Inigo, who stabs his sword into Rugen's stomach]
Inigo: [coldly] I want my father back, you son of a ****.
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Leading vs. Supporting Categories in 1988 …
IMO John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline are all leads in A Fish Called Wanda. Oscar put Kline in the supporting category which he benefited from and won. BAFTA had him as a lead.
Johanna Ter Steege is supporting in The Vanishing.
But Donnadieu and Bervoets are both leads in The Vanishing, right?
IMO A Fish Called Wanda is so clearly Cleese's movie that he's the only lead. (One side effect of Kline's shift into lead for BAFTA was that the English Cleese and Palin could both win awards while the American Kline would lose).
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I saw four movies last week. The main achievement of The Robe is that it makes one appreciate the Wyler Ben-Hur. Apparently so stodgy, it appears much more impressive in its craftsmanship and comparative subtlety. Not particular interesting on its own merits, The Robe is basically, in the words of Jonathan Rosenbaum, "pious claptrap," with neither wit, action, cleverness or genuine emotional substance. Look Back in Anger is better, and it's better than many other examples of the British New Wave. But it's striking that while the original play was heralded at the time for trying to break through the upper middle class hegemony on the British stage, the movie version doesn't have much of a reputation. It's basically competent, and outside the original stage setting the challenge to a certain middle class middlebrow view has less effect. This is especially so for American audiences, where the genteel tradition was never so strong. King Lear is perhaps the most recondite of Godard's movies. After the original run of movies from 1960 to 1967 that made his reputation, he then engaged on more ideological films, and then in 1980 returned to narrative films of a sort. But he became increasingly interested in pure cinema. So the movie itself isn't actually an adaptation of the Shakespeare play. Much of it is set in an apocalyptic future where a descendant of Shakespeare tries to get two people (Burgess Meredith and Molly Ringwald) to recite key lines from the play. Important in Godard's evolution, but not for all tastes. Not remotely. My Life as a Zucchini is a charming, if somewhat short French animated movie that was nominated for best animated feature this year. This story of an orphan, who slowly becomes friends with his six fellow orphans, is a stop-animated movie. The characters are basically dolls, though not very lifelike ones. It's a hopeful film, though the traumas that got the children to the orphanage in the first place are given their due weight.
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Binoche as lead, Olin as supporting?
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Actor
Babek Ahmed Pour, Where is the Friend's Home*
Mickey Rourke, Angel Heart
Christian Bale, Empire of the Sun
1985 movie nominated in 1987 Anton Glanzelius, My Life as a Dog
Bruno Ganz, Wings of Desire
Substitute for Glanzelius
Joe Mantegna, House of Games
*Juvenile Performance of the Year
Runner-ups: Sebastian Rice-Edwards (Hope and Glory), Richard E. Grant (Withnail and I), Steve Martin (Roxanne), Martin Short (Innerspace), Dennis Quaid (Innerspace), John Lone (The Last Emperor), Albert Brooks (Broadcast News), Dustin Hoffman (Ishtar), Donal McCann (The Dead), Warren Beatty (Ishtar), Michael Douglas (Wall Street), Kevin Costner (No Way Out), Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket), Issiaki Kane (Yeelen), Nicolas Cage (Raising Arizona), Anthony Hopkins (84 Charing Cross Road), Seth Green (Radio Days), Antonio Banderas (Law of Desire), Nicolas Cage (Moonstruck), Danny De Vito (Throw Momma From the Train)
Actress
Holly Hunter, Raising Arizona
Christine Lahti, Housekeeping
Anjelica Huston, The Dead
Lindsay Crouse, House of Games
Lillian Gish, The Whales of August
Runner-ups: Sara Walker (Housekeeping), Cher (Moonstruck), Holly Hunter (Broadcast News), Gong Li (Red Sorghum), Isabelle Adjani (Ishtar), Bette Davis (The Whales of August), Stephane Audran (Babette's Feast),
Supporting Actor
R. Lee Emery, Full Metal Jacket
Robert De Niro, Angel Heart/The Untouchables
Sean Connery, The Untouchables
Mandy Patinkin, The Princess Bride
Peter Falk, Wings of Desire/The Princess Bride
Runner-ups: Gene Hackman (No Way Out), Vincent D'Onofrio (Full Metal Jacket), Andy Garcia (The Untouchables), Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride), Ying Ruocheng (The Last Emperor), Adam Baldwin (Full Metal Jacket), John Malkovich (Empire of the Sun), Ian Bannen (Hope and Glory), Tomas von Bromsen (My Life as a Dog), Vincent Price (The Whales of August), Christopher Guest (The Princess Bride), Kevin McCarthy (Innerspace), Peter O'Toole (The Last Emperor), Charles Martin Smith (The Untouchables), Stocker Fontelieu (Angel Heart), Joe Pantoliano (Empire of the Sun), Edward Herrmann (The Lost Boys), Robert Picardo (Innerspace), Billy Drag (The Untouchables), Ricky Jay (House of Games), Danny Aiello (Moonstruck), Lance Henriksen (Near Dark), Jarl Kulle (Babette's Feast),
Supporting Actress
Meg Ryan, Innerspace
Lisa Bonet, Angel Heart
1985 Movie Nominated in 1987 Melinda Kinnaman, My Life as a Dog
Sammi Davis, Hope and Glory
Olympia Dukakis, Moonstruck
Substitute for Kinnaman
Charlotte Rampling, Angel Heart
Runner-ups: Andrea Burchill (Housekeeping), Sarah Miles (Hope and Glory), Geraldine Muir (Hope and Glory), Solveig Dommartin (Wings of Desire), Mia Farrow (Radio Days), Wendy Schaal (Innerspace), Joan Chen (The Last Emperor), Dianne Wiest (The Lost Boys), Ing-Marie Carlsson (My Life as a Dog), Fiona Lewis (Innerspace), Miranda Richardson (Empire of the Sun), Ann Sothern (The Whales of August), Birgitte Felderspiel (Babette's Feast), Dianne Wiest (Radio Days), Molly Ringwald (King Lear),
Not seen: Ironweed, Anna, Street Smart, Cry Freedom, Gaby: A True Story,--------The average age of the Best Actor nominees is surprisingly low.
--------This is not the last time Abbas Kiarostami directs a winning lead performance.
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I wanted to post some commentary of my choice for Best Actor this year, Erland Josephson in The Sacrifice. But I couldn't find any that quite fit. So here are some photos instead:
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Yay! TCM is going to show Z, A Canterbury Tale and show the premieres of Weekend and Pink Floyd: the Wall. Except it insists on showing all of them in the middle of the night. At least Death in Venice starts just after midnight.
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Has there ever been a successful romance where the successful suitor argues "I have loved you all my life, and the fact that I never told you this and spent a decade sleeping with other women is entirely your fault."
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I have indeed seen it. In fact I've seen it twice. It's visually very attractive, though of the seven best picture nominees I've seen I prefer Manchester by the Sea.
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More great musical scenes
Under the Cherry Moon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fIhMaX7qx0
Absolute Beginners
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Great musical scenes from 1985
Blue Velvet
Mauvais Sang
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In point of fact, TCM has shown Donkey Skin and Bay of Angels before.
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0-15 Voyage to the Moon
16-30 La Jetee
31-45 A Day in the Country
46-60 The Navigator
61-75 Duck Soup
76-90 Yellow Submarine
91-105 Help!
106-120 Grand Illusion
121-135 Murder on the Orient Express
136-150 The Confession
151-180 Apocalypse Now
181-210 The Godfather, Part II
211-240 Lawrence of Arabia
241-270 The Sorrow and the Pity
271-300 Mysteries of Lisbon
301-330 Les Miserables (1934 France)
331-360 La Commune, Paris 1871
361-400 The Best of Youth
401-500 Satantango
501-600 Shoah
601- Out 1: Noli me Tangere
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The Leopard / Il gattopardo (1963) - dir. Luchino Visconti
in General Discussions
Posted
It's certainly one of my favorite films. In our choices for best performances of 1963 I gave Lancaster best actor, Delon best supporting actor and Cardinale best support actress. I also provided a post of Roger Ebert's review, which you can see here: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-leopard-1963