Best Supporting Actress 1986

[Reza]

The race was clearly between Wiest and Dame Maggie. I loved Wiest in Hannah when I first saw the film...........clearly I don't know any neurotic New York women so she was a delightful character to watch. However, having watched the film numerous times over the years it is shocking that Barbara Hershey was overlooked. She plays a more complex character and brings a great deal of pathos, vulnerability and guilt to the part.

Dame Maggie does nothing new, I feel, although she is amusing. She gets by using her usual tics and manages to be lovable despite also being annoying.

Mastrantonio and Piper Laurie were both good but got swept in with their films nominations.

I absolutely hate Tess Harper in Crimes.........maybe it was the character? It was a tossup between who I hated the most in the film............Spacek or Harper, both playing extremely annoying women.

My top 5 of 1986:

Barbara Hershey, Hannah and Her Sisters
Dianne Wiest, Hannah and Her Sisters
Cathy Tyson, Mona Lisa
Maggie Smith, A Room With a View
Helen Mirren, The Mosquito Coast

[Reza]

Have you seen the Sistine Chapel before? It's the most extraordinary thing I'v ever seen -- photographs do it no justice.

[/I]I agree......a jaw dropper. One just stares in awe until a crick develops in the neck.

Magilla,

Have a great time. One of the most (if not the most) beautiful countries in the world. I hope to visit once again before I die. Missed out on Siena, Assisi and Milan the last time. And would love to do Rome and Florence again.

[Big Magilla]

If all goes well on this one, my cousin and one of my two sisters-in-law joining me on this one, want to do Globus' British Isles tour, probably in two years. Next year we have my aunt's 90th birthday, my father's 90th birthday and the usual smattering of weddings and graduations so things will be a bit tight.

My cousin and I want to explore on our own, but my sister-in-law insists that our mini-group of eight stick together. We'll see how it goes. All lunches and five of the dinners are on our own so we will get to explore.

I haven't been to Europe in more than forty years. I saw quite a bit of Germany when I was stationed there in 1966-1967, both on weekends and one day during the week (I think it was Wednesday). I was the training NCO
and part of my job was to pick up training films on the other side Frankfurt from where we were. My driver and I used the time to explore various towns and sample various local restaurants we might otherwise have not gotten to see.

I would love to take the German-Austrian tour some day to see how much things have changed. The base we were on was a converted German army base. You could still see where the swastikas were painted over.

[Damien]

Magilla, what cities are you going to in Italy? What an amazing beautiful country -- enjoy the art, the food and the people!

Rome, Pisa, Lucca, San Gimignano, Siena, Florence, Verona, Venice, Ravenna and Assisi.

Here's the complete itinerary:

http://www.affordabletours.com/search/tours/16712/#itindata

I did a Globus tour of England with my parents in the late 80s. It's an excellent company.

My biggest piece of advice is to, when you can, break away from the group and discover things on your own. I did a Perillo tour of Italy with my Mom and one of the great highlights was in Assisi. While everyone else on the your went to the tourist restaurant next to the Basillica, we strolled to the other side of town and stumbled upon a literal hole in the wall where a handful of locals was eating. The food was prepared on a couple of hot plates, and was one of the nest meals I ever had.

Also, by wandering around, you get a better sense of how people live in different areas, which is my favorite part of traveling.

Have you seen the Sistine Chapel before? It's the most extraordinary thing I'v ever seen -- photographs do it no justice.

[FilmFan720]

Magilla, I have done a Globus tour (through Germany and Austria), and they are very well done. A real nice mix of guided time and free time to roam, a great tour guide and good stops.

[Big Magilla]

Magilla, what cities are you going to in Italy? What an amazing beautiful country -- enjoy the art, the food and the people!

Rome, Pisa, Lucca, San Gimignano, Siena, Florence, Verona, Venice, Ravenna and Assisi.

Here's the complete itinerary:

http://www.affordabletours.com/search/tours/16712/#itindata

[Damien]

But once again, there is nothing like a Dame

Or, as I like to say (and have said since I was about 8 years old), there is nothing like a Damien.

[Damien]

Magilla, what cities are you going to in Italy? What an amazing beautiful country -- enjoy the art, the food and the people!

Marco, Tess Harper was not given much of a chance in 1986. The race was perceived as between Wiest and Smith I had predicted the latter.



Edited By Damien on 1285554009

[Damien]

Not nearly as dreary line-up as the previous three, but certainly not a stellar line up, either.

I have never understood the acclaim for Dianne Wiest's performance, which I find mannered and irritating. It may be that I just know too many neurotic New York women who are like her so I wasn't seeing anything I don't encounter on a regular basis. (I've also never gotten why Hannah and Her Sisters was so loved -- to me it's Woody Allen at his most obnoxiously pompous. The film is neither particularly insightful nor funny, although it does have some nice performances. The pedantic tour given by Sam Waterston of cherishable Mew York locations is especially noisome.)

Maggie Smith gets my vote. It's a very fine, measured, non-calculated performance, making a complex character likable and understandable without relying on sentimentality. This is simply expert acting.

The other three nominees did what was required of them -- but Oscar nominations were hardly necessary for any of them.

My Own Top 5:
1. Winona Ryder in Lucas
2. Mary Stuart Masterson in At Close Range
3. Kathy Kinney in Parting Glances
4. Joan Allen in Manhunter
5. Alexandra Paul in Eight Million Ways To Die



Edited By Damien on 1285566755

[Big Magilla]

Hope you will enjoy my country, Big Magilla - it's not yet cold but bring an umbrella. All'Uivo is one of those restaurants not many locals go to - the prices are certainly not-Italian - but the food is, I've been told, good and genuine.

Grazie, Marco.

No room for an umbrella, but I am bringing a waterproof jacket and hat (which I hate to have to wear). If need be, I'll buy an umbrella in Rome and leave it behind. I've got to travel light because my domestic carrier canceled my flight home from New York and moved me up three hours, which gives me just a two hour window between flights so everything I need has to be jammed into a carry-on. I won't have any time to mess around with checked luggage.

All'Uivo is out. Turns out our dinner in Lucca is one of the four that's included in the tour. No idea where we're going, but hopefully it will be someplace nice.

[Bruce_Lavigne]

This is the fourth consecutive year in which the Academy displayed some of the best taste in its history when it came to picking a winner in this category. Dianne Wiest won there, and she'll win here -- rightly so.

[ITALIANO]

It sounds incredible today, but back then - and with Maggie Smith having already won twice - Tess Harper was perceived as Dianne Wiest's main rival for the Oscar. Harper was a good actress who should have probably been nominated a few years before; her character in Crimes of the Heart wasn't anything more than a caricature, she played it the only way it could be played - which means not subtle nor deep.

Piper Laurie, our Best Supporting Actress winner from 1976 (!), played a less crazy mother role in Children of a Lesser God (in the 80s actors from film version of big, commercial plays still had good chances of being nominated); it's a small part, but Laurie played it with the quiet intensity it deserved. Like the movie itself, it's not a groundbreaking or an Oscar-caliber performance, but she obviously was an actress that the Academy liked.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was young and beautiful - which always helps when it's Best Supporting Actress; hers might have been a "stereotypical girlfriend role", but not a banal one, and there were interesting dynamics in the on-screen relationship between her and Tom Cruise. She played it with a certain intelligence which unfortunately didn't lead to a lasting career.

Maggie Smith is predictably delightful in Room at the Top.

But Dianne Wiest was (at least for me, as I had never heard of her) one of the most plesasant surprises of this year - a wonderful actress who had from Woody Allen that rare gift of a role truly worthy of her talent. This was still first-rate Woody Allen, the modern-day Moliere or Goldoni - Hannah is one of his best scripts ever. I'm slightly less enthusiastic about Wiest's second Oscar, but had she lost this time it would have been an embarassing mistake.

Hope you will enjoy my country, Big Magilla - it's not yet cold but bring an umbrella. All'Uivo is one of those restaurants not many locals go to - the prices are certainly not-Italian - but the food is, I've been told, good and genuine.

[Mister Tee]

Tess Harper was indeed shrill, and Piper Laurie's nomination was, for me, a big "huh?" on nominations morning -- not that she was bad in any way, but that the part wasn't much, and I'd heard no mention of her prior.

But there's not that much to replace either. Mona Lisa just didn't work for me -- I've liked much of Jordan's work, The Butcher Boy above all, but this film left me cold, so the Cathy Tyson campaign didn't sway me. I see in my old notebooks that I'd pencilled in two actresses I like -- Christine Lahti and Elizabeth Perkins -- for crappy movies, Just Between Friends and About Last Night. I can't justify that today.

In any case, the only slots that mattered were taken up by the other three nominees. I'm surprised so many have brushed away Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. I thought she was very good in The Color of Money, clearly deserving of citation. It's a shame her career stalled in second gear. She was talented and pretty, but, post-Color of Money, she failed to pick hot movies, and never achieved the level of stardom some of us expected.

This is certainly a solid Maggie Smith performance in a good, fun movie (the last thing many of us expected from Merchant Ivory at that point). Without a great competitor, she would likely have won yet again. But I'm glad she didn't this time...

...because, while Smith did a very good version of what she does best, Dianne Wiest gave us a character we hadn't seen before. She's a woman whose life is a mess, and she knows it and is angry about it, but only by fits and starts can she do anything to fix it. And watching her takes these steps is both heart-rending and wonderfully comic. Possibly the best of the many supporting actress nominees Woody Allen has brought about, and an easy choice for me.

[Sonic Youth]

Buon Viaggio, Magilla! It sounds like a fantastic trip. Have fun.

[Sabin]

I have not seen Tess Harper's performance in Crimes of the Heart. I doubt she could possibly contend with my renewed astonishment of Dianne Wiest's performance in Hannah and Her Sisters. After rewatching the film again, I'm amazed at how she underplays Holly's neuroses. I think her most poignant moment is attempting to rationalize Sam Waterson somehow dropping her off first rather than the on-the-way Carrie Fisher. There is a somewhat pleasing sparseness to how Woody Allen stages his vignettes. People turn up and months have passed. It's a warmly slight film that gives off a wonderful buzz. It feels like catching up with people, with whom you've just met. But a lot of dramatic insight goes unreturned.

Hershey would have been an outstanding nominee as well, but I do prefer Wiest.

I hate to reduce Maggie Smith to playing Maggie Smith, but this is a great Maggie Smith role. I haven't seen A Room with a View in ages though. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is quite good in The Color of Money. Deserving of a nomination? Not in a year where Cathy Tyson goes unnoticed, but certainly more so than Piper Laurie in Children of a Lesser-God.

Yes, have fun, Magilla! It sounds like it will be a fantastic time!



Edited By Sabin on 1285537311