Best Supporting Actress 1997

[nightwingnova]

I adore Joan Cusack. In & Out is hilarious. I just couldn't stop laughing. Dated? I don't think it is for small town America, where it is set. Joan was broad here and very well helped provide the comedic punches. Nevertheless, I do agree that more pathos and depth would have served the role immeasurably better.

Kim Basinger was just fine. But not noteworthy.

Gloria Stuart? I can't bring myself to see Titanic, which appears to be pure sop. I did catch a couple of her scenes on TV. Nice.

[bizarre]

1. Minnie Driver
2. Julianne Moore
3. Gloria Stuart
4. Joan Cusack
5. Kim Basinger

This is an incredibly weak lineup for me.

Minnie Driver wins for an acceptable performance that glows in comparison to the other contenders. She has a fairly typical 'girlfriend' role but she brings unexpected dimensions to it, making the most of fairly limited screentime to create as real a woman as anyone could in the circumstances. Her big crying scene is electric - spontaneous and real. She deserved the nomination but for me she'd only win by default.

I'm not really a fan of critics' pony Julianne Moore so it is no surprise that I was underwhelmed by this performance. Still, I think while she manages to exude a unique presence especially late in the film - that of a fleeting burst of peace and warmth amidst a bad trip - the reaction to this performance, as well as the reaction to the (gimmicky) film on the whole, seems based on what it tried to do rather than what it actually accomplished.

Gloria Stuart is likeable and manages to make staring into middle distance actually resemble bittersweet reminiscence. But her character is one of the most overused types of the 90s and of Hollywood dramas in general.

Joan Cusack's film is absurdly, offensively dated but I don't think it would have been that good to begin with. Her shrillness counterbalances the glib tentativeness of the rest of the film's 'humour' but it didn't do anything for me except grate. I'm surprised this performance is so widely liked - a more perceptive actress would bring out the real personal tragedy of the character's situation, but Cusack played it for broad farce.

Kim Basinger does nothing, becomes nothing, is nothing in this film. It is less a performance than the recorded awkward banter of a coked-out model and a photographer in between shots, and it is a strange anticipation of January Jones. Her bankability and name recognition won her this award, were a lesser-known actress to give the exact same performance she wouldn't have even entered the conversation.

I haven't seen too many contenders from this year, aside from the nominees, but Christina Ricci would probably take my personal award - she is superb in The Ice Storm - and Joan Allen and, to a lesser extent, Sigourney Weaver (who bafflingly took the lion's share of performance praise for that film) would make strong nominees. Sarah Polley is also atmospheric and evocative of deep emotion in The Sweet Hereafter although I am not as in love with her performance as some.

[Big Magilla]

If you look closely at the results you will find that we have disagreed with Oscar's choices in this category more frequently than we have agreed,

Did you actually mean to say this, Magilla? Or did you mean "compared to how often we disagreed under best actress"? Because my count is that we've endorsed the Academy selection by a 38-21 margin (assuming Moore's lead here is final), with 3 years in which the Oscar winner tied with a non-winner.

However, since 1987, we've only gone for 5 of 9 -- with one of the ties -- which is why I suggested greater first-hand familiarity was changing the gestalt.

I stand corrected on the overall numbers, but your basic premise is somewhat flawed. It was the fifth decade (1968-1977) with which we disagreed the most, 6 times out of 10. We retreated in the sixth decade (1978-1987) and endorsed Oscar's choices 9 times out of 10. We rebounded in the seventh decade (1988-1997), disagreeing four times, but still fell short of the record set two decades earlier.

Here's the breakdown by decade:

1st Decade (1936-1937)

Agreements - 0
Disagreements - 2

2nd Decade (1938-1947)

Agreements - 6
Disagreements - 2
Ties - 1

3rd Decade (1948-1957)

Agreements - 6
Disagreements - 4

4th Decade (1958-1967)

Agreements - 7
Disagreements - 3

5th Decade (1968-1977)

Agreements - 4
Disagreements - 6

6th Decade (1978-1987)

Agreements - 9
Disagreemetnt - 1

7th Decade (1988-1997)

Agreemetns - 5
Disagreements - 4
Ties - 1

[Mister Tee]

If you look closely at the results you will find that we have disagreed with Oscar's choices in this category more frequently than we have agreed,

Did you actually mean to say this, Magilla? Or did you mean "compared to how often we disagreed under best actress"? Because my count is that we've endorsed the Academy selection by a 38-21 margin (assuming Moore's lead here is final), with 3 years in which the Oscar winner tied with a non-winner.

However, since 1987, we've only gone for 5 of 9 -- with one of the ties -- which is why I suggested greater first-hand familiarity was changing the gestalt.

[Reza]

Voted for Joan Cusack in this lineup.

My picks for 1997:

Sigourney Weaver, The Ice Storm
Joan Cusack, In & Out
Julianne Moore, Boogie Nights
Christina Ricci, The Ice Storm
Hazelle Goodman, Deconstructing Harry

[Hustler]

Julianne Moore, portrays by far, the more interesting perfomance from this lineup

[rudeboy]

Julianne Moore, for me. A touching, gradually devastating performance and her big scene does not disappoint. That said, I thought everyone paled next to Christina Ricci that year... both she and Sigourney Weaver should have been nominated.

Cusack would be a contender, for me, had she been nominated for her sharper, funnier performance in Grosse Point Blank. Her telephone scene in that is a scream.

Driver is lively and fun in Good Will Hunting, but her role is so thin and adds so little to the narrative that I couldn't pick her. Basinger is completely forgettable and her win seems like a 'welcome back' to a comeback career that never really happened. Stuart's nod was a nice tribute, but there's nothing memorable in her work.

Other favourites: Allison Elliott in The Wings of the Dove and Sarah Polley in The Sweet Hereafter.



Edited By rudeboy on 1289765435

[FilmFan720]

I am really happy that Joan Cusack is doing as well in this poll as she is. I thought this would be a Basinger vs. Moore battle, but instead the underrated Cusack is a popular choice and Basinger is being left by the wayside.

[Uri]

Having Moore and Cusack head to head triggered some thoughts in me. In a way, they each represent a very different, almost opposite, school of, not exactly acting but actor personality. When evaluating Moore's filmography, beside the great highs, there are a very significant amount of disappointments, to put it kindly. As an actress, she's as good as the material she's given. When it's good she may shine like the best of them. When it's not she tend to be bland, boring and even unattractive. Since I do like her a lot, I'm willing to allow her that it's a result of an inability to fake it, of being a very frank actress. She can be called a translucent one. There is no façade of glitzy mannerisms for her to hide the shortcomings of bad material handed to her. She is certainly not one of those actors about whom it's said they'd be fascinating reading the phone book. In Moore's case it would be a very long, monotonous, boring list of names and numbers. On the other hand, Cusack doing it sounds quite intriguing. Like Maggie Smith, the High Priestess of this kind of screen presence, she has a very distinctive air about her. Her unmistakable vocal and facial maneuvers are an entertaining act on their own, regardless of the content they're used in. And in this particular race, both actresses were given very good opportunities to showcase their strengths – Moore's naked emotions vs. Cusack's comic over-the-top-ness. And yes, the common wisdom would favor Moore's obvious superior profoundness – her turn is certainly more "important", but the retrospect nature of this game, the knowledge of the "future" does allow us to go with this only chance to honor this very likeable and gifted comedienne, and I'm, for once, very happy about it.

[Big Magilla]

If you look closely at the results you will find that we have disagreed with Oscar's choices in this category more frequently than we have agreed, and we have chosen comedic performances fairly frequently, certainly more often than the Academy.

Our first champion in this category was Alice Brady's hilarious turn in My Man Godfrey.

I have nothing against Joan Cusack either. It's just that the two times she was nominated, there were in my opinion stronger candidates who were ignored. My favorite Joan Cusack performance was in Men Don't Leave in which she plays the friend of star Jessica Lange who seduces Lange's teenage son (Chris O'Donnell).

My own favorite this year, Kate Nelligan, gave a highly dramatic performance in Margaret's Museum, but she was also the film's comic relief, delivering at least two lines that were as funny, if not funnier, than Cusack's two quoted lines in In & Out, that were delivered at moments of great intensity. One was her response to why she wouldn't sleep in her daughter's house - the other was her comment about her daughter drinking on the toilet.

[ITALIANO]

Is this independence from history because we're now into the stretch more experienced in real time?

Yes. If those voting here had seen all the nominated performances from the past decades, instead of just blindly voting for the most famous, there'd be more (pleasant) surprises.

I don't have anything against Joan Cusack or, of course, against comic actors (as will be obvious when we do Best Actor, especially in a certain recent year). I would have voted for her too, if an actress of Julianne Moore's caliber hadn't been in this race and, to be honest, if her movie had been better. She's very good, very funny, but as far as I remember it's not like In and Out is Modern Times. Also, unlike what I usually hear on this board, the Academy does honor comedy - the problem is that it often picks the wrong one, in this category especially (Marisa Tomei, Mira Sorvino...).

[Mister Tee]

I could be wrong, but the number of times Joan Cusack's name would have been mentioned in this thread were she not actually nominated would be zero (I'd give Damien an outside shot at listing her in his five).

You'd lose that bet, Bog. Cusack making the list of five, after missing out on SAG, was one of the happiest parts of that nominations morning for me. Ricci, as I said, was my overall favorite, but Cusack and Moore ran about even in second, She did win the NY Critics' award, for Christ's sake; it's not like her candidacy dropped down from Mars.

It's odd. My whole life, I've been hearing people gripe that the Oscars don't appreciate comedy -- hence the lifelong omissions of Chaplin, Cary Grant, etc. Then, when someone doing comic work is proposed -- even when the work is widely admired, as here by even people not voting for Cusack -- you get this "How can you honor something so trivial?" attitude. I think Moore is great, but not so transcendent that any other choice is unthinkable. And I think Cusack is pretty wonderful as well.

I do note, here, a growing willingness of board folk to steer clear of the Oscar winner in these polls, after seeming to default that way in many previous contests. The perceived race that night was between Basinger and Stuart, who here have accumulated only a handful of votes out of nearly 30 cast. Is this independence from history because we're now into the stretch more experienced in real time?

[mlrg]

Julianne Moore - Boogie Nights

[Snick's Guy]

Easily, Julianne Moore. Biggest omission in the list of nominees is Sigourney Weaver.

Will Moore ever win an Oscar? My fear is that she is close to joining the non-winner circle with Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer and Sigourney Weaver.

[ITALIANO]

and it seems Catherine Keener, 50 last year

Exactly.