Big Magilla wrote:I suspect Kudrow suffered from the stigma of being thought of as a TV actress rather than a serious film star.
That didn't prevent Helen Hunt from not only getting nominated but WINNING the year before.
True, but she was a rare exception and there was already backlash to her win, so it could well be the reason, but I don't really know, just speculating on this one.
As for Michael Caine, he may have suffered from category confusion - his seemed like a supporting role, but he was being pushed for lead, where in fact he was nominated for a BAFTA and won the Golden Globe for Best Actor - Comedy.
Big Magilla wrote:I suspect Kudrow suffered from the stigma of being thought of as a TV actress rather than a serious film star.
That didn't prevent Helen Hunt from not only getting nominated but WINNING the year before.
I remember rooting for Judi Dench from this year since she was such a delight in her eight minutes of screentime in Shakespeare in Love. But the best performance in this category is that of Rachel Griffiths but I can't in good conscience vote for her because, yeah, it's category fraud (but she's an unknown at the time so who could entirely blame them for doing it?)
Brenda Blethyn was a bit over-the-top in Little Voice. Very surprising she managed to get in without Horrocks or Michael Caine (who gave the best performance in that film, IMO). Kathy Bates and Lynn Redgrave were also both terrific. But I think I'll still stick with Dench.
I don't know I kind of enjoyed Brenda Blethyn's shrill and annoying role. The performance felt right for the kind of character she was playing in small town Britain. Very kitchen sinkish!
Never understood Rachel Griffith's nod but Kathy Bates is amusing. Dench commands the screen whenever she appears and I thought she deserved the Oscar over this bunch.
I did not get Redgrave's acclaim in Gods.....thought she was unbearably annoying............maybe it was the accent? I love the film and maybe I should watch it again to re-evaluate her performance.
Voted for Dench although it was unbelievable that Joan Allen was not nominated for Pleasantville.
My top picks of 1998:
Joan Allen, Pleasantville
Judi Dench, Shakespeare in Love
Lisa Kudrow, The Opposite of Sex
Kathy Bates, Primary Colors
Brenda Blethyn, Little Voice
Blethyn's performance surely has to be one of the worst every nominated for an Oscar. It's one thing nominating her for another of Mike Leigh's grotesque working class women but for this screeching caricature? And yet they ignored Michael Caine's lovely performance, which was the single saving grace of a lousy film.
Dench delivers her lines with aplomb and is fun whenever she's on screen, so I never had a huge problem with her win.
Griffiths is a terrific actress who I wish had been nominated for Muriel's Wedding. She's very good in Hilary and Jackie, but as already mentioned, its clearly a leading role.
I quite liked Primary Colors but thought Adrian Lester was the stand-out. Bates is OK, but I never understood why she won awards recognition for it. Felt like an easy performance at the time with little depth and nowadays I remember next to nothing about her in the film.
So I vote for Redgrave. Once you get past the accent its a wise, witty performance and the clear stand-out here.
My top five
1. Angelina Jolie, Playing by Heart
2. Joan Allen, Pleasantville
3. Kate Beckinsale, The Last Days of Disco
4. Marisa Tomei, Slums of Beverly Hills
5. Lynn Redgrave, Gods and Monsters
Brenda Blethyn is excruciating in the long-forgotten Little Voice, while Rachel Griffiths has the opposite problem -- she barely registers at all.
Kathy Bates is amusing enough, I guess, in Primary Colors, but there's no shading to her performance so that the plot twist involving her makes no sense at all and is rather incomprehensible.
Judy Dench certainly makes her brief screen time count, and I'd have no problem with her winning for such a small part if there hadn't been someone more eminently deserving.
Lynn Redgrave gives a unique performance in Gods and Monsters -- she's extremely funny but also provides the other two main characters (and the film) with a center of gravity. She's a perfect foil for both Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser, and is as touching as she is humorous.
My Own Top 5:
1. Lisa Kudrow in The Opposite Of Sex
2. Lynn Redgrave in Gods and Monsters
3. Barbara Hershey in A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries
4. Joan Allen in Pleasantville
5. Maggie Leung in Chinese Box
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Kathy Bates give by far the best performance of this line-up and I will second Big Magilla that it is probably her best screen performance to date.
I thought Rachel Griffiths was good in Hilary and Jackie but it was a clear case of category fraud.
Dench & Redgrave were nothing special but gave great performances compared with the worst performance nominated in this category up until this time: Brenda Bleythn in Little Voice. Her performance is simply too too much. I saw Little Voice on stage and whilst it was not great theatre it was a satisfying and charming little piece. The film is anything but and Brenda Bleythn is partly to blame (I loathed Jane Horrocks almost as much). She comes on way way too strong and is overpowering in a destructive manner (whilst Horrocks is simply annoying).
Bleythn is capable of subtle work but she needs a very strong director to keep her in line.
The best performance of the year though was Lisa Kudrow in The Opposite of Sex. Any theories of why she was nominated?
TV actress stigma, not promoted probably by Sony Pictures, Miramax blitzing with a supporting actress campaign for Bleyth. Clearly the New York Film Critics did have much influence in this case which is such a shame as Kudrow has constantly done great work over the last 12 years, including shitty films that don't deserve it. She's one of the funniest women on the screen.
My choices were:
1. Lisa Kudrow for The Opposite of Sex
2. Kathy Bates for Primary Colors
3. Marisa Tomei for The Slums of Beverly Hills
4. Theresa Russell for Wild Things
5. Patricia Clarkson for High Art
Also of note were Queen Latifah in Living Out Loud & Renee Zellweger in One True Thing.
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And so we begin our adventure in deja vu, many of us having vivid memories of our discussions of 1998 in the moment.
How much have we changed our opinions about things in the intervening years?
At the time I was supportive of all five of this year's nominees, but as time has gone on I've become dismissive of one and can't recall one of the others at all.
Brenda Blethyn's loud-mouthed mother in Little Voice seemed like something of an acting tour-de-force at the time, but now just seems, well, just loud. Substitute Joan Allen's socially repressed mother in Pleasantville, a film I failed to appreciate then, but find myself liking more and more as time goes by.
Rachel Griffiths has become one of TV's best actresses in two TV series, Six Feet Under and Brothers and Sisters, but at the time of Hilary and Jackie she was a relative unknown thirty year-old actress from Australia whose only important prior credit was in Muriel's Wedding. I remember liking her very much as Emily Wason's sister, and even had the film briefly on my ten-best list for the year, but now can't remember anything about it other than that Watson played the cello, developed multiple sclerosis and stole, or tried to steal, Griffith's husband. Substitute another TV actress, Lisa Kudrow as the acid tongued spinstersister of Martin Donovan's late lover in The Opposite of Sex.
Kathy Bates had what was probably her best screen role to date as the unhinged lesbian media consultant in the Clinton spoof, Primary Colors. Had she not already won for Misery eight years earlier, she might have been a more formidable contender.
Judi Dench was a total delight in her few moments of screen time as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love and certainly worthy of a nomination, but the win? Not in a year that we have Lynn Redgrave channeling Una O'Connor as James Whale's Hungarian housekeeper in Gods and Monsters. Then as now, my vote goes to this always under-rated and criminally under-utilized great acting talent.
