Last Seen Movie - The Latest Movie You Have Seen; ratings

[Big Magilla]

Given the from-hunger quality of the best actress slate as it was, it's painful to even consider who might have taken a fifth available slot. Karen Black in Day of the Locust? Streisand in Funny Lady? The least offensive choice by far would have been Florinda Bolkan in a Brief vacation -- who was actually on the short list -- but, with Jackson, Adjani and Kane already there for wee pictures, I'm not certain another could have prevailed over something from a studio.

Bolkan was my choice over Ann-Margret in lead; Barbara Harris in Nashville was my choice over Vaccaro in support.

[Big Magilla]

Louise Fletcher has no business being nominated for Best Lead Actress though, let alone winning. She's pretty good but this is clearly a supporting role.

Agreed

Isabelle Adjani should have won

If Louise Fletcher had instead been nominated in the supporting category wonder who she would have bumped off the nominee's list and who would have taken her slot in the best actress category?

I agree Isabelle Adjani gave the year's best performance by a lead actress in 1975, but there's no way Louise Fletcher would have been nominated in support after all the hullabaloo preceding the nominations.

Her role had been conceived as a major star turn and was offered to Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn, Geraldine Page, Colleen Dewhurst, Angela Lansbury and just about every middle-aged actress in Hollywood, all of whom turned it down. Had any of those then very big stars played the part it surely would have garnered them a lead nomination, not a supporting one. To add insult to injury, Burstyn, who won the year before for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore went on national TV and said they should suspend the best actress award that year because of the lack of good roles for women, which had all the columnists wondering whether she would have thought so if she had in fact played Nurse Ratched herself.

In addition, Lily Tomlin's role in Nashville had been written by and for Fletcher whose husband Jerry Bick was Robert Altman's producer. When the two men had a falling out Altman fired Fletcher even though she had nothing to do with the argument. Fletcher clearly had sentiment on her side.

But to answer the question, if they had relegated her to support, the one to have been bumped would have been either Sylvia Miles or Brenda Vaccaro, probably Vaccaro.

[Mister Tee]

Louise Fletcher has no business being nominated for Best Lead Actress though, let alone winning. She's pretty good but this is clearly a supporting role.

Agreed

Isabelle Adjani should have won

If Louise Fletcher had instead been nominated in the supporting category wonder who she would have bumped off the nominee's list and who would have taken her slot in the best actress category?

I'd assume Vaccaro or Miles, the weakest of the nominees, would have been bumped, but you never know with the Academy -- for all I know, Ronee Blakely (who was as valid for a lead nomination as Fletcher) would have been the unlucky one.

Given the from-hunger quality of the best actress slate as it was, it's painful to even consider who might have taken a fifth available slot. Karen Black in Day of the Locust? Streisand in Funny Lady? The least offensive choice by far would have been Florinda Bolkan in a Brief vacation -- who was actually on the short list -- but, with Jackson, Adjani and Kane already there for wee pictures, I'm not certain another could have prevailed over something from a studio.

[Reza]

Louise Fletcher has no business being nominated for Best Lead Actress though, let alone winning. She's pretty good but this is clearly a supporting role.

Agreed

Isabelle Adjani should have won

If Louise Fletcher had instead been nominated in the supporting category wonder who she would have bumped off the nominee's list and who would have taken her slot in the best actress category?



Edited By Reza on 1248703589

[Reza]

Le Sauvage (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1975) 3/10

Silly chase film that goes on and on although the two leads - Yves Montand and Catherine Deneuve - are quite appealing. I was surprised to find Tony Roberts and Dana Wynter in supporting roles.

Fort Saganne (Alain Corneau, 1985) 5/10

Gerard Depardieu and Phillipe Noiret are both excellent in a story set in the Sahara desert about the French Foreign Legion. Filmed on an epic scale, it has beautifully photographed (shot by future director Bruno Nuytten) battle scenes in the desert but the script is dramatically uneven and at 190 min the film is simply too long. The two female stars both come off badly. Sophie Marceau is stiff while Catherine Deneuve looks and seems too modern for the period the film is set in (pre-WWI).

[Penelope]

Edith Scob can currently (and gloriously) be seen as the mother in Summer Hours.

Yes, she's wonderful. Do we know if Summer Hours is eligible for the Oscars? I'd so love to see her nominated for Supporting Actress.

[Damien]

Eyes Without a Face (1960; Georges Franju) 7/10

Well done but a bit too leisurely paced, making it more tense than scary or even thrilling; but Alida Valli and (especially) Edith Scob are terrific and the finale does pack a wallop.

Edith Scob can currently (and gloriously) be seen as the mother in Summer Hours.

[Penelope]

Eyes Without a Face (1960; Georges Franju) 7/10

Well done but a bit too leisurely paced, making it more tense than scary or even thrilling; but Alida Valli and (especially) Edith Scob are terrific and the finale does pack a wallop.

[Zahveed]

The Hurt Locker - 7/10

The scenes that work are really good, but most of it is a series of tension builds. The combat is pretty realistic and the film's metaphor works nicely too.

[Sabin]

/Forgetting Sarah Marshall/ (dir. Nicholas Stoller) - 6/10
It's fine.

[Mister Tee]

Catching up on a batch of recent Netflix-ers:

La Guerre est Finie -- Resnais portrait of a professional revolutionary that manages to be both tense and melancholy. I'm glad I didn't see it when it first came out (when I was 15); I wouldn't have remotely comprehended it. Today I respond to its sense of futility (a guy still trying to undermine Franco three decades after his victory!) but also its nobility.

Cadillac Records -- minor but enjoyable. Unlike many here, I've never much responded to Adrien Brody, but I thought he scored well here. And Beyonce showed far more acting ability than she did in Dreamgirls. Great music, unsurprisingly.

Brighton Rock -- OK, though I sometimes have trouble stomaching Graham Greene's religiosity, especially when it makes characters (like the ingenue) behave in ways I consider imbecilic. Cool ending. Oh, and they never mention what the title means. My recollection, from reading the book about 40 years ago, is it referred to candy sold on the boardwalk.

Paranoid Park -- Gus van Sant intertwines a noir-ish situation with his usual obsessions. I don't think the style -- esp. the frequent long, aimless walks -- works as well as it did in Elephant. But a solid effort.

Le Plaisir -- does anyone know if there are variously edited versions of this film? I'm aware the narration changes based on the print, but I read one write-up that mentioned the longest, brothel/first communion section of the film as closing out the work, where it was the mid-point of what I saw. Anyway...Ophuls is truly a one of a kind; his use of space is just beyond any other director's I can think of -- and it's not just tracking shots to show off, but shots that reveal character in unique ways. I don't rate this quite on the level of La Ronde or Earrings of Madame de, but I wouldn't have missed it.



Edited By Mister Tee on 1248647797

[mlrg]

Louise Fletcher has no business being nominated for Best Lead Actress though, let alone winning. She's pretty good but this is clearly a supporting role.

Agreed

Isabelle Adjani should have won

[mlrg]

Norma Rae (1979) - Martin Ritt

8/10

A very deserving oscar win for Sally Field (although I haven't seen The Rose yet)

[Sabin]

/One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest/ (dir. Milos Forman) - 10/10
So...yeah.

I haven't seen this one since high school and I was bracing myself for an overrated, Oscar-winning bore. Nope. Loved it to the point where I felt my fingers on Nurse Ratchdt's throat. What this film botched though (more specifically, what Forman botched) is the build before one of the All-Time Greatest Scenes of My Life...where Mac finds out that everyone there is a voluntary! He flips his shit so hilariously and the scene snowballs from there...and it's oddly muted. Weird.

This film is pretty glorious. I love it. Louise Fletcher has no business being nominated for Best Lead Actress though, let alone winning. She's pretty good but this is clearly a supporting role.

[Big Magilla]

1956-Columbia wanted to campaign Rosalind Russell in Picnic in support. Russell howled and was not nominated in either category.

Damien briefly discussed this episode in Inside Oscar. Roz called the idea of her being nominated in the supporting category (and I think it was a genuine supporting performance) "carpetbagging." A carpetbagger is defined an "an opportunistic and exploitative outsider." Interesting. She was a major star with many leading roles to her credit when she decided to take a supporting role in what was probably a prestige project. But, I guess because of her status as a movie star, she saw competing for a supporting Oscar against actors who regularly play supporting roles as "opportunistic and exploitative." Interesting way to look at it.

That was pretty much the thinking in those days.

Interestingly the actress who created the role on Broadway was nominated the following year for a part she was lucky enough to reprise on screen and eventually won an Oscar for reprising another role she created on Broadway. That was, of course, Eileen Heckart.