HarryGoldfarb wrote:I did it and got it wrong! Intended to vote for Hiller but mechanically voted for Dennis. I'm a sucker for period dramas, and while WAOVW is higher in my esteem than AMFAS, I find Hiller extremely compelling in her few scenes. Dennis was an obvious and I knew she was going to win this easily so I had decided to go for Hiller.
Practice makes perfect. We could have used your vote for Hiller.
There is no rule that you have to see four of the five nominees to vote but it helps to have seen more than just the winner or the performer in the most popular film.
HarryGoldfarb wrote:And Page, well... I have this curious infatuation with her... Loved her in Zhivago, in Chaplin and specially in Hable con Ella (her depiction of the dance she's conceiving is pure magic, love her voice). In YABBN she was nice but not award worthy...
I think you are confusing Geraldine Page and Geraldine Chaplin.
Really, I should just have called him out for being catty. What's the Italian onomatopoeia for "meow"?
Quite frankly, you're right. Italiano isn't worth the breath. I shouldn't let him get to me and I'll try just to ignore him. He reminds me a lot of Sarah Palin. Always certain he's right even when he's wrong and can never admit when he's wrong.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
By the way... I entered this poll cause this was going to be my first vote. I hadn't voted in the previous polls cause I haven't seen all the nominees in them... Out of these five, I still have to see Hawaii, but am I allow to vote having watching the remaining 4?
I did it and got it wrong! Intended to vote for Hiller but mechanically voted for Dennis. I'm a sucker for period dramas, and while WAOVW is higher in my esteem than AMFAS, I find Hiller extremely compelling in her few scenes. Dennis was an obvious and I knew she was going to win this easily so I had decided to go for Hiller.
Merchant was great but I have always associated Alfie with Caine. And Page, well... I have this curious infatuation with her... Loved her in Zhivago, in Chaplin and specially in Hable con Ella (her depiction of the dance she's conceiving is pure magic, love her voice). In YABBN she was nice but not award worthy...
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
OscarGuy wrote:An unnecessary and unwarranted attack on something that seemed to be an honest observation of your complaints. I didn't mean anything vicious or backbiting about it, but you seem to immediately assume that's the only way I will respond to you. So, if you can't admit you were wrong and that your response was utterly inappropriate, then I will either put you on permanent ignore or put you on a permanent ban from the board. I haven't quite decided at this point.
R u serious? Come on!!! it seems that u hardly know Italiano. You're biting such an easy bone that Marcos is throwing at u and you don't even notice! This board should be spontaneous and some members r quite deservingly, icons... A lot of people in here have created these big personas around them and Marcos is such a classic example that I can't believe that you are still playing the game after all these years. No offense OG but Italiano is the man in the viciously attacking responses and I love him for that. You're just being nahive or what? Do you give him that much of importance...?
A lot of people have left the board for minor attacks that have grown bigger than what might be considered logical. Everyone overreacts to somebody´s comment and hell is unleashed... I miss Penelope, Flipp and so many others... But if someone gets offended enough for them to leave... is the offender responsible on his own or has the offended one something to do with it? You can not be offended if you don't allow it!
Now be cool people, this is (or usually is) a fun site dedicated to movies... and as Italiano pointed out an interesting and well-informed one! I'd hate for it to grow thinner than it already is...
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
I don't want to take sides in this argument, but whether or not Italiano's response was inappropriate, I would have a real problem with him being banned from the board.
An unnecessary and unwarranted attack on something that seemed to be an honest observation of your complaints. I didn't mean anything vicious or backbiting about it, but you seem to immediately assume that's the only way I will respond to you. So, if you can't admit you were wrong and that your response was utterly inappropriate, then I will either put you on permanent ignore or put you on a permanent ban from the board. I haven't quite decided at this point.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
No, Oscar Guy, I'm much more objective than you could ever be, as we know even too well. And please stop with your frankly stupid attacks - they are unworthy of me, though unfortunately very worthy of you and your little mentality.
I find it interesting that Italiano would complain against polls that went against his own candidate, but say very little about the ones that go for his candidate.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Big Magilla wrote:This is getting wearisome. I'm beginning to think Italiano was right when he said too many people were voting in these polls for the only performance they have seen.
I've given up after Rita Moreno won the 1961 poll. Now I come to this thread for the comments, which are interesting and well-informed; the polls themselves don't mean much anymore.
This is getting wearisome. I'm beginning to think Italiano was right when he said too many people were voting in these polls for the only performance they have seen.
In the only two out of the last seven years in which the actual winner was not endorsed, our vote went to hugely popular stars in hugely popular films.
As for Sandy Dennis, yes she was a big star in the late 60s with Up the Down Staircase; The Fox; Sweet November and even That Cold Day in the Park largely successful films. Though her quirks were often annoying, the material and her class A co-stars generally compensated for them - the dreary Sweet November excepted. It all came apart, though, with the maddening, infuriating The Out-of-Towners in 1970 in which Jack Lemmon was also at his most annoying.
I find it puzzling that two of her worst films, Sweet November and The Out-of-Towners were remade as vehicles for Charlize Theron and Goldie Hawn which were even worse than the originals.
ITALIANO wrote:Sandy Dennis was very fashionable for a few years during that period. I've recently found the Italian review of a movie she made back then - a rare good one, Up the Down Staircase - and, if you didn't know that they were writing about Dennis, you'd think it was, say, about a star like Diane Keaton - the Diane Keaton of the late 70s, her moment of glory.
Some friends of mine had some social interaction with Sandy Dennis back in the 80s, and the husband was near-incredulous when I told him how famous Dennis had been in the 60s. She even had a cover story in Time Magazine, back when that actually meant something.
So...a number of people agree with me it's between Merchant and Dennis, yet I'm the only one to fall Merchant's way. Seems akin to flipping a coin multiple times and always getting the same result.
Jocelyn LaGarde was a case of stunt casting, and hers was a stunt nomination. Wendy Hiller was properly dignified, but little else, perfectly in keeping with this dignified, dull film.
Geraldine Page's infuriating tics were at full throttle in You're A Big Boy Now. She should have been sent to her room instead of being handed a nomination, and Karen Black was the one who deserved to be cited from that film.
Which brings us to the two deserving nominees. Vivien Merchant's sad face beautifully expressed the weary acceptance of a woman who knows her life is a nondescript mediocrity, and her acting in the abortion sequences also convey a memorable sense of stoicism. She's perhaps most moving when trying to cheer up husband Alfie Bass at the clinic by bringing him little things like a banana. I'm not sure, however, how much of her character's impact is due to her performance, and how much from Bill Naughton's writing.
Honey is a role that is often over looked and under-appreciated in productions of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (Melinda Dillon originated the role on Broadway), but Sandy Dennis's charisma, humor and, okay, mannerisms make the film's Honey unforgettable. She gets my vote.
My Own Top 5:
1. June Harding in The Trouble With Angels
2. Sandy Dennis in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
3. Vivien Merchant in Alfie
4. Shelley Winters in Harper and Alfie
5. Karen Black in You're A Big Boy Now
Edited By Damien on 1279754056
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
You're a Big Boy Now is probably - with The Pope of Greenwich Village - Geraldine Page's least deserved nomination.
Jocelyn La Garde was certainly impressive - for her screen presence if not purely for her acting talent. I'm not sure that what she does in Hawaii is of Oscar-nomination-caliber, but I can't deny that I find it nice that they DID nominate her (the movie would be totally forgettable if she weren't in it) - though I agree with Mister Tee, the casting director is the one who should get some kind of prize.
Wendy Hiller was a very good actress being unsurprisingly very good again - though in Man for All Seasons she doesn't do anything she hadn't done before already.
So it's between Vivien Merchant and Sandy Dennis. Merchant would be a deserving winner - and she's definitely the kind of actress (and hers the kind of performance) that today would be completely ignored by the Academy. Back then it was still possible for an unglamorous, respected but not popular British stage actress making her film debut with a subtle but not showy performance to get into the final five (of course, the fact that the film was a hit helped, as maybe did the fact that her husband was a famous playwright); she's really very good in Alfie.
But after taking some time to think I've finally decided to vote for Sandy Dennis. Sometimes, acting is like a fashion, and Sandy Dennis was very fashionable for a few years during that period. I've recently found the Italian review of a movie she made back then - a rare good one, Up the Down Staircase - and, if you didn't know that they were writing about Dennis, you'd think it was, say, about a star like Diane Keaton - the Diane Keaton of the late 70s, her moment of glory. Unlike Keaton, though, Dennis didn't last long, and I'd say unfairly so. The same mannerisms which had made her famous, "new", unique became soon the excuse to quickly dismiss her; it's true that they might have made her look kind of repetitive, and they weren't right for some of the roles she played - but unique she was and, in the context of the early-mid-sixties, new and original too. She was also talented, and Virginia Woolf is one of her best screen performances, one which could be shown (and probably WAS shown) to young would-be actors. It was also, of course, the perfect role for her - which unfortunately can't be said of some of the characters she played afterwards.
--Mister Tee wrote:Sandy Dennis, as her star rose in the mid/late 60s, was exposed as largely a bundle of mannerisms, but early on she seemed like something new and interesting. I think this is clearly her film zenith, and I can't argue too fiercely with the Academy choice.
For me, at the top of the list of Sandy Dennis' film triumphs (and her WAoVW? turn most certainly ranks as one of her best) is her one scene opposite Gena Rowlands in Another Woman (1988). She makes a striking cameo as Rowlands' former best friend who, over a late-night drink and a reunion after years of absence, confronts Rowlands with the accusation that Rowlands used her intellectual wiles to steal Dennis' one true love's affections when they were younger. It's a remarkable and powerful punch of a performance and always reminds me that she eventually did find her way out of this mannered style of acting.
I think her Honey is mostly successful because of the careful portrait she manages to create: an outwardly naïve woman who knows far more about what's going on around her than she's willing to let on or admit to herself. She has this perfect mousy quality that suits the role, too odd-looking when set up against the All-American good looks of George Segal (who got the film's "swept along" supporting nod), but it all melds into the fine ensemble work of Nichols' film.
Geraldine Page is a lot of fun in You're a Big Boy Now, a film which also happened to feature Elizabeth Hartman in one of her only follow-up lead roles after her critically-acclaimed turn in A Patch of Blue but prior to her suicide in the 80's. Page would be nominated for a similar frantic role some years later (Pete n' Tillie), but I think the nomination here was certainly award enough. It's just not a very good film. Some of her best work was in front of her.
Jocelyn LaGuarde, actress or not, commands this film adaptation of Michener's novel whenever she's on-screen, pretty much dwarfing out of existence--with sheer girth and presence--all other actors around her, including the film's hapless stars, Andrews and von Sydow. Great work for a non-actor.
Hiller's blind stoicism is used to no better effect than in A Man for All Seasons, but the performance, while entirely competent, never really lifts off the screen for me.
Vivien Merchant had several factors working in her favor in Alfie: her character is the most sympathetic of the film, she has an ABORTION, and her unwillingness to fall deliciously into tragedy when cast aside made her, in many way, an empowered female presence, not an archetype you'd find in droves at the local cineplex in those days. She grounds the film in a relatable, compelling way providing the necessary counterbalance to Michael Caine's fourth-wall breaks.
I have to give it to Sandy Dennis here for this performance and so many more. Merchant is nipping at her heels though.
Edited By flipp525 on 1279720478
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."
