Your Favorite Performances from 1930 to the present

[CinemaInternational]

Thanks for giving a nod to Ann Reinking's touching work in All That Jazz.....

[CinemaInternational]

As it so happens, I made a personal lineup for 1982 recently......
Picture
Cannery Row
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
The Grey Fox
La Traviata
The Man from Snowy River
The Return of the Soldier
Starstruck
Tootsie
Victor/Victoria
White Dog

Actor
Richard Farnsworth/The Grey Fox
Dustin Hoffman/Tootsie
Ben Kingsley/Gandhi
Paul Newman/The Verdict
Peter O'Toole/My Favorite Year

Actress
Julie Andrews/Victor/Victoria
Sandy Dennis/Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean , Jimmy Dean
Jessica Lange/Frances
Meryl Streep/Sophie's Choice
Debra Winger/Cannery Row

Supporting Actor
Louis Gossett Jr./An Officer and a Gentleman
John Lithgow/The World According to Garp
Ricardo Montalban/Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Bill Murray/Tootsie
Robert Preston/Victor/Victoria

Supporting Actress
Carol Burnett/Annie
Karen Black/Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
Glenda Jackson/The Return of the Soldier
Geraldine Page/I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can
Lesley Ann Warren/Victor/Victoria

Director
Gillian Armstrong/Starstruck
Blake Edwards/Victor/Victoria
Sydney Pollack/Tootsie
Steven Spielberg/E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Franco Zefferelli/La Traviata

Original Screenplay
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Shoot the Moon
Tootsie
Wrong is Right

Adapted Screenplay
I Ought to Be in Pictures
The Return of the Soldier
Tex
Victor/Victoria
The Verdict

Cinematography
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
Five Days One Summer
The Grey Fox
The Man from Snowy River
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy

Production Design
Blade Runner
The Dark Crystal
Hammett
La Traviata
Victor/Victoria

Costume Design
Fanny and Alexander
La Traviata
The Draughtsman's Contract
The Return of the Soldier
Victor/Victoria

Score
Blade Runner
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Frances
Tootsie
The Year of Living Dangerously

Song
"Crazy World"/Victor/Victoria
"It Might Be You"/Tootsie
"Le Jazz Hot"/Victor/Victoria
"Putting Out Fire"/Cat People
"Up Where We Belong"/An Officer and a Gentleman

[Swithin]

Now it's 1981. Here are the Academy's choices:

ACTOR

Warren Beatty – Reds
Henry Fonda – On Golden Pond
Burt Lancaster – Atlantic City
Dudley Moore – Arthur
Paul Newman – Absence of Malice

ACTRESS

Katharine Hepburn – On Golden Pond
Diane Keaton – Reds
Marsha Mason – Only When I Laugh
Susan Sarandon – Atlantic City
Meryl Streep – The French Lieutenant’s Woman

SUPPORTING ACTOR

James Coco – Only When I Laugh
John Gielgud – Arthur
Ian Holm – Chariots of Fire
Jack Nicholson – Reds
Howard E. Rollins, Jr. – Ragtime

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Melinda Dillon – Absence of Malice
Jane Fonda – On Golden Pond
Joan Hackett – Only When I Laugh
Elizabeth McGovern – Ragtime
Maureen Stapleton – Reds

And the nominees for best picture are:

The Great Muppet Caper
My Dinner with Andre
The Raiders of the Lost Ark
Reds
Time Bandits

And here are my choices:

ACTOR

Warren Beatty, Reds
Burt Lancaster, Atlantic City
Harrison Ford, Raiders of the Lost Ark
Sam Neill, Possession
John Heard, Cutter's Way

ACTRESS

Isabelle Adjani, Possession
Karen Allen, Raiders of the Lost Ark
Diane Keaton, Reds
Susan Sarandon, Atlantic City
Bernadette Peters, Pennies from Heaven

SUPPORTING ACTOR

David Rappaport, Time Bandits
Jack Nicholson, Reds
John Gielgud, Arthur
Jerry Orbach, Prince of the City
Terence Stamp, Superman II

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Maureen Stapleton, Reds
Helen Mirren, Excalibur
Lisa Eichorn, Cutter's Way
Marilia Pera, Pixote
Diana Rigg, The Great Muppet Caper

So if the Academy had to choose from my choices, who would they select? I think the Actual Academy chose Chariots of Fire because they didn't want to chose something as controversial as Reds, as supposedly adolescent as Raiders of the Lost Ark and prettier than the other two nominees. But now they have no choice, since the three new nominees consist of two children's movies and one avant-garde drama. This heavily affects their choices. Gielgud and Stapleton win as they did in reality, with Gielgud not hurt by Arthur not getting a best actor nomination. Since Beatty wins best director regardless, I think Lancaster wins. Adjani obviously has no chance in hell of winning, and I think the better critical support helps Keaton over the other nominee Sarandon.

Some comments about your 1981 lists:

I think Reds is one of the great movies of all time. An epic love story set against a changing world; a biopic; and an exploration of film as history, and in fact a study the nature of history and memory. I agree that the "controversial" subject matter is what ruined the films chances with Academy voters, since in those days Hollywood was sensitive about its "lefty" image. (I think the same concern damaged Brokeback Mountain's chances, many years later, when Hollywood was sensitive about its "queer" reputation.)

I was working on a project recently related to theater in Greenwich Village. It went through the minute book of the Provicentown Players. Many of their meetings took place at John Reed's apartment on Patching Place, still one of the quaintest cut-de-sacs in Manhattan.



I am second to no one who posts here in my love for British movies and culture. I enjoyed Chariots of Fire. But if you look closely, it's not a very well structured film.