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Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 5:17 pm
by Hustler
Oops! I made a mistake! What can I do? I meant 2004. I don´t know why. Maybe, because in that year Swank and Benning were also competitors.
Clearly, in 1999 the best performance belong to Swank
Magilla, help me. My vote is wrong.
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 5:01 pm
by mlrg
Julianne Moore - The End of the Affair
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:17 pm
by The Original BJ
I'd like to join in with the "slow down" crowd. I really like these threads, and enjoy the discussions that result from them, and think it makes it less interesting to rush them.
Besides, won't we have enough to discuss this weekend?
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:02 pm
by ITALIANO
The End of the Affair is that rare thing - a very good Graham Greene adaptation. Because he so often used what on surface seemed to be conventional narrative devices, many movies were based on his novels and novellas; most of them miserably failed (right now, I can think of only two which are better than this one; I'm probably forgetting some, but not many). One of the reasons why End of the Affair is so good is Julianne Moore's reserved, distant yet by the end emotionally powerful performance - the best among the nominees, by far.
The Academy (and, I am sure, this board) voted for the worst. Hilary Swank's reputation in the US is a mystery for me - in Europe, despite her two Oscars, nobody knows who she is; for once, I think we are right. A truly good actress should be, if not always memorable, at least interesting; in her non-nominated roles, Swank isn't exactly bad - just bland, inexpressive. And actually that's what she is in Boys Don't Cry, too, but of course she's so well cast, so physically right for the role, that most were led to think that the performance was good, too. It wasn't (she was better in Million Dollar Baby, though only slightly so).
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:49 pm
by FilmFan720
I second Mister Tee's comment...the more we rush these, the worse the discussion becomes. I don't care about the numbers in the polls, I care about the great, in-depth comments people who know much more than I post about these.
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:38 pm
by Mister Tee
Magilla, I humbly dissent from this notion we must push through these to anticipate Sunday. This is an exercise completely distinct from the annual contest, the whole point of which is to have time to savor the various opinions of our fellow board-ers on days gone by. Doing it all at once is like hopping frm one wine-tasting party to another; after a short while, it's a blur.
Furthermore, many of us (party-throwers) have a ton to do betwee now and Sunday.
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:19 pm
by rudeboy
The choice of Swank over Bening is surely one of the boldest choices the Academy ever made, particularly coming the year after they chose the lightweight performance in the popular best picture winner. Bening is good fun - so much more than the tiresomely smug Spacey - but it's such a cartoonish performance that it was a delight when Swank's name was called for her richly detailed, endlessly fascinating performance.
Among the rest Moore is terrific, although Ralph Fiennes was the realy stand-out in The End of the Affair; I have yet to see Streep's performance; and while Janet McTeer is a fine actress, her dreadful, drawling mugging through Tumbleweeds ranks for me as one of the worst nominated performances in years.
My choices would be:
1. Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry
2. Michelle Pfeiffer, The Deep End of the Ocean
3. Reese Witherspoon, Election
4. Cecilia Roth, All About My Mother
5. Diane Lane, A Walk on the Moon
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:51 pm
by Hustler
Benning gives IMO the strongest performance of this lineup.
Edited By Hustler on 1267642302
Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:49 pm
by Big Magilla
I think we need to ratchet up these polls so we can be through with Best Actress by Sunday and start on Supporting Actress after the Oscars.
Hopefully Jowy will be back by then. If not, I'll do them. In the meantime I'm posting 1999 and 2000 today and will post 2001-2003 tomorrow, 2004-2006 on Friday and 2007-2009 on Saturday.
If you're not able to vote in all the polls by Sunday, that's fine - the polls will stay open, but the opportunity will be there for whoever else wants to finish this before the 2010 winner is revealed.